And suddenly I am on the warfront again, the memories hazy around me. I am a young Striker, newly anointed, and Corian and I are returning from an exhausting day patrolling the border. I am sitting around a fire, laughing with Adena and Jeran until tears stream down my cheeks. I am practicing with Aramin, who is showing me a complicated maneuver with my daggers. I am pointing at the stars with the others, all of us lying in a row, picking out constellations and wondering if the Early Ones had left to live there.
I am younger, full of anger and hope, and surrounded by friends. I am with the first true friends of my life. I am home.
I yearn now toward their voices hovering above me. It doesn’t matter where I am. They are all here. We are all together. This is home.
“Talin? Talin!”
And now I can see Adena’s worried face, the way her eyes light up at the sight of me. The world blurs, sharpens. Jeran has the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, one that highlights every last bit of his beauty, and nearby, Aramin lets out a long breath of relief.
They are here.
I look at Adena and want to move my fingers, tell her how sorry I am for being unable to save them from the train and the arena. My limbs feel like they’re dragging through mud. But it doesn’t matter, because Adena throws her arms around me in an embrace. All her warmth hits me at once, and I’m fully awake, I’m laughing through my tears, I’m pulling my groggy arms around her in a hug.
“Damn it all to hell, Talin,” she exclaims, “but you sure like to take your time.”
“Leave her alone,” Jeran says. He’s holding one of my hands. “She’s just coming to.”
There’s a scuffle and more squabbling, and I want to laugh at the music of it.
“All of you, give her some space,” Aramin says in his gruff voice, even though I can see his smile too.
And Red. Red is here, his smile shyer, his eyes locked on mine. He is holding my other hand, I realize, and I squeeze my fingers tight around his.
Hey, he says through our bond.
Hey, I answer, relishing this bridge of ours.
“Oh!” Jeran suddenly straightens and steps back. “Step back. Let her in.”
It is the last voice that I hear the clearest, that pulls me completely out of this strange fog of my mind. It is a voice that I’ve talked to over many a simple meal of fragrant rice and chicken, of steaming buns andhot tea. It is a voice that has come home humming, a deer slung over her back. It is a voice that I followed out of a burning homeland and across a dark plain, over a bridge that led us to safety. It’s a voice that once told me,It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.
It is my mother, and she is right here, hovering somewhere over me, her warm, familiar hand encasing mine.
I turn my head and find myself looking up into her eyes. Her white hair. The smile that breaks across her face at the sight of me.
The mayor had told the truth. My mother is here. Alive and well.
The tide in my chest crests and everything in my heart breaks wide open. The anguish that has held me tight since we were first captured loosens in a single go. I am a little girl again. I manage to lift my arms to her as she bends down to embrace me with her good arm. My tears come in a rush.
Mama.My lips form the word silently, and a hoarse whisper of a sob emerges from my throat.Mama, mama.
And she wraps me in her warm embrace.
“It’s okay, baby,” she whispers in my ear as I weep. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
35
RED
I don’t even realize how many injuries Ihave until I start getting them treated in the mayor’s courtyard. They pour stinging liquid down my back and somehow I stay stoic through it all, my fingers clawing against the ground in agony. They wrap me in tight bandages.
I don’t care. It doesn’t matter, because Talin has woken up. She’s survived.
Hours later, I see her picking through the people scattered across the steps leading out from the estate’s back door, her arm still looped through her mother’s, the two of them inseparable. Beside them, the mayor speaks to her in low voices. Some color has returned to Talin’s cheeks, although she looks paler than she should.
For a while, I say nothing. I just admire her as she goes. Even after everything, she moves with that grace trained into her by the Striker forces, as if she is gliding through a forest floor without a sound. Her dark hair is pulled back up into a messy version of her warrior knot. A few strands fall around her face, framing it.
I can’t look away from her. I never want to look away again.
