Swallowing it all down, she slowed as the crowds surrounded the three pyres. Peering through the gaps in bodies, Anna found Kywyn in the middle. Her wrecked heart lurched. He looked as if he was merely sleeping, though no emotion radiated from his body.
Maddy gasped. “Bless the Mother,” she whispered.
Anna fought the urge to cry. “I didn’t want to believe it.” She hadn’t known Kywyn well, but he’d always been kind.
Council Leader Nish stood on a small dais near the pyres. Beside him, a somber Sean stared at the pyre of his father. David stood next to him, but Anna refused to look that way.
Several minutes passed while the crush of people thickened in the trees. When the stragglers had finally arrived, Nish raised his hands to quiet the crowd. “Bless you all for lending your presence while we return the Light of these souls to the Great Mother.”
“Blessed be the Mother,” several around her chanted.
“Please join us in silence,” Nish said and stepped forward. A dryad woman handed him a torch, and he set the flame to the base of each pyre.
Anna hated this part. The slow growth of the flames, the sweet scent of burned wood, the smoke that climbedinto the sky to obscure the stars. Grief swelled around her, smothered her, and she sucked in a ragged breath of cold air. Tears spilled of their own accord, and then she was weeping, controlled by the emotions of all those around her.
Maddy set an arm around her shoulders, but it wasn’t enough. Anna clung to her, sobbing into her shoulders, being cut apart by the sadness and her own interminable heartbreak.
“I need to get out of here,” she whispered into her friend’s ear.
“Can you hang in there for a little longer?” Maddy asked, and for good reason. It would be disrespectful to leave so soon. “Why don’t you go into one of the temples?” She gestured toward the nearest one—a hexagonal stone structure with an arched doorway of stained glass in pinks and yellows. The mossy roof rose to a sharp point, adorned with six matching dormers, their windows in the same colored glass.
After kissing Maddy’s temple, Anna subtly moved that way. The temple stood at the top of a wide stairway, and crystals lighted the path upward. She took the stairs slowly, as if she only meant to convene with the Great Mother and not to escape the thousands of pinpricks of emotion around her. The door opened silently, and she slipped into the empty temple, closing it behind her.
She breathed a sigh of relief as the grief muted, leaving her with only her own pain. She sank onto the circular bench in the middle of the room, her gaze caught on the glowing blue crystal right in the center, the tangible sign of the Mother. Vines crawled up every wall, same as they did in the Tree, and Luster glimmered in flashes that disappeared as she glanced their way.
A sense of balance, of peace stole over her senses. Anna’s attention was drawn into the light of the Mother’s crystal. She could almost see the energy flowing from the earth in a primitive pulse, through the crystal, then into the air. An invisible network sparkled in and out of her awareness, linked by the points of Luster. The network connected Anna to her surroundings, and she could see theenergy flowing through it all, like a force was guiding and defending the surrounding life. A protective power seeking perpetual harmony.
“Mother,” she found herself whispering, “help me.”
The pulse in the air flared a tad brighter, then dimmed again.
“Did you give me this magic for a reason? It’s killing me.”
The air pulsed again, and she felt cocooned in the Light, sheltered. For a small moment, the pain in her heart receded.
“How do I control this?” she asked, looking up to the interconnected pricks of Luster. “How do I make the pain stop?”
Silence answered.
“I just want to forget.” Anna sat in the Mother’s aura, a child in need of comfort, wishing to reverse time so she could keep herself from handing her heart to a man who’d only planned to stab a jagged knife into it.
She lost track of how long she sat there. Time devolved into a meaningless construct. She was still praying when the door opened and a man walked in. Her perception of the energy network around her vanished.
The man paused when he saw her, his brows rising in a show of surprise, though his emotions lacked any flare of astonishment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Would you like privacy?”
Anna stood. “No. There’s room enough for two to pray.”
He smiled and glanced at the crystal behind her. His brown locks were dusted in snow, and he had that deva light that flashed at every edge. His eyes were dark and soulful, a kindness within them that didn’t match his angry emotional mosaic. He approached the crystal slowly. “It’s quite sad, is it not? The loss of our Sovereign?”
“Kywyn was a good man,” Anna said, turning back toward the crystal as well. “We’ll all feel his loss.”
The man hummed. “At least we have the Savior to take his place.”
“Yes. Sean will do well.”
“You know him?” the man asked, close behind her now. He asked as if he had no clue, but everyone knew she trained with theAshanta.
She turned to look at him, but he still gazed at the crystal as if mesmerized. “We share a Blademaster. We’re friends.”
