Korr takes a step closer and offers his hand. Surprised I stare at it for a heartbeat for clasping it in mine.
“Tajss provides,” Rverre says and the words echo around the chamber, being picked up and repeated by many of those assembled.
35
TALIA
The council doesn’t end with applause, but with movement. A feeling of acceptance tinged with inevitability.
Zmaj peel away in deliberate groups, wings brushing the fractured light as they shift from debate to action. Humans cluster closer together, voices low but threaded with something I think is new. Hope.
Korr remains beside me as the chamber slowly transforms from tribunal to staging ground. We hold hands, watching the movement, and I’m not sure what we should be doing next. For the moment at least I am content to wait. To have his hand in mine.
Illadon isn’t patient, though. He crosses the space to where Virn is talking with Syin and another of the Zmaj without hesitation. Illadon’s posture is straight, chin lifted to signal confidence without arrogance. I catch the words “load-bearing walls” and “reinforcement brackets” drifting back to us. He gestures upward toward the exposed ironwork near the ceiling.
Virn listens. Really listens. Syin stands with arms folded, but he doesn’t interrupt.
Rverre drifts toward a wide crack in the lobby floor where sunlight spills down like a blade. She kneels, pressing her palm flat to the stone, humming soft and steady. It strikes me that she’s not calling to something, but answering.
As if in response to her several Zmaj glance down at the ground beneath their feet. They don’t flinch, but their wings shuffle and their tails twitch in response. One after another they glance towards Rverre.
“They feel it,” I murmur.
“Yes,” Korr says.
His voice is quiet, but there’s something almost reverent in it.
“They sense she is not claiming,” he adds. “She is listening.”
A human steps into the center of the chamber carrying a small reinforced case. She sets it onto a table that is partially broken and carefully opens it. I shift close enough to see small vials that have an unmistakable, if subtle, purple glow. Epis.
A murmur ripples outward. The other humans form an orderly line, but not all of them. It takes me a moment to understand that only those who are hurting the most are stepping forward. No arguments or debating.
A gaunt woman with hollowed cheeks is first in line. The administrator carefully opens a vial then inserts a pair of tweezers. She breaks off a piece of the life-giving plant and places it in the gaunt woman’s mouth.
The woman inhales sharply, shoulders loosening by degrees. A Zmaj male stands close, ready if she stumbles. She doesn’t.
Watching the scene play out as others line up, but so few of the total, breaks my heart. The group of human survivors I crashed with have had it rough, but nothing we’ve been through compares to what I’m witnessing.
“They’ve been surviving in pieces,” I say softly. “Cutting themselves down to fit the shade.”
“And now?” Korr asks.
I watch as the woman lifts her face fully toward the light.
“Now we can help. Together, with all of us, we can do more than just survive.”
Across the chamber, a small human boy edges toward Illadon, curiosity outweighing caution. Illadon turns, crouching a little to meet him at eye level. He displays patience and compassion. A future leader.
The way he makes space for others is not only the sign of one with the charisma and power to lead, but with the wisdom to be a good one. My throat tightens.
For years, I thought my legacy was defined by the absence. My inability to have children of my own, but now I see it everywhere.
Rverre rises from her crouch, brushing dust from her palms. She meets my gaze across the chamber and smiles. There is knowing in her small body, not triumph, only certainty. This city and these survivors aren’t healed, but there is hope.
A young Zmaj—the same one who had accused Korr—approaches us stiffly. He stops at a respectful distance.
“We will clear the eastern district tomorrow,” he says, voice measured. “Your people… may reside there.”
