“We’re going to the Shrouded City,” Ysira said. “They follow the old Zal ways. Because of my demon, I’m what they callvalak.I’ll have an honored place among them. Andyou—they will be willing to kill and even die for you.”
Ysira thought of Tharanoth’s map, of all those distant worlds. The empire he believed would be his to claim, with ultimate power at his disposal. All that possibility out there, for justice, vengeance, a future for them and all their people. Perhaps their destiny lay not down in this dirt beneath the shadow of the Church and the Harvest, but out among those endless stars.
“What do I do, then?” Neri asked. “What do I say to them? I don’t—I can’t?—”
“I’ll help you.” Ysira grasped Neri’s shoulders, because he’d begun to cry. She said, “Listen. You don’t have to say anything at all if you don’t want to. I can speak for you.”
“Is that why you’re telling me all this?” A note of desperation entered Neri’s voice. “Because if they know you’re my mother, they have to listen to you, too.”
“No!” Ysira spoke too quickly. It made him flinch. “No.That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you don’t have to do this alone.”
“I don’t know if I can do this at all,” Neri exclaimed. “I can’t control it.” His shoulders shook. “I killed them. I killed Casandra.I can’t.”
“You can,” Ysira insisted. She looked askance, hesitating. “I spent my whole life thinking I was worthless. When I was Harvested, I knew it. But my demon changed everything. I didn’t see it at first, but this is a gift. I have power now, and so do you. If you can only harness it . . . the very stars are yours to take.”
She knew the truth of it as she spoke, and it took her breath away.
But Neri began to sob.
Did he not believe her? What she wouldn’t give, to make him see as she did. They had a path forward. The future was, for the first time in both their miserable lives, full of limitless possibility.
“At the Shrouded City—listen. We’ll meet someone called the Gatekeeper. I can speak for you. You won’t face this alone.” Shetook Neri’s face between her hands and wiped away the tears. “My son. I will not leave you again.”
Something in Neri broke then. He sagged against her and buried his face in her shoulder. His frail body shook as he wept. Ysira embraced him in turn, and for the first time in eleven years, she held him tight. He was still so small. She breathed in his scent, freezing the moment in her mind.
They stayed there until the storm cleared and muted twilight broke through the lingering dust clouds, dancing like ghosts on the fading gusts.
Neri followed Ysira’s gaze up, to the star-speckled black beyond. “I can’t go home again,” he whispered at last. “Can I? Nothing is ever going to be the same.” He stared and stared at those stars, seeing them as he never had before. Then he asked, “Do you want me to do this?”
He seemed terrified of what she might say. He had asked for her opinion once before, in the caves below Zal Fel. She had told him,I want you to be safe.
That remained true. It would always be true. And so, Ysira said, “Yes.” “All right,” Neri said thickly. He met her eyes, as if begging her to believe him. “I understand.”
They spoke no more, though Neri clung to her. By the tension in his shoulders, Ysira suspected he did not sleep. Late into the night, all that broke the silence was the gentle, sibilant sound of grains of sand as they shifted with the wind.
23
HERALD
YSIRA
The Bleeding Sands had been named for the cracks in the hard-packed ground, down which one could see veins of red crystal. Beneath the burning sun, this land appeared to bleed. In the penumbra, the temperature climbed and movement became a struggle, like walking muffled in a hot, dry blanket. A loose upper layer of sand screamed with the wind across the plain, past twisted spires of stone and the odd lonely giant cactus. Ysira had to hunch and cage her hands around her eyes as Neri walked close behind her, and they made slow but steady progress toward the looming mass of Mount Otavok.
Ysira allowed herself only a few bites of food, saving the bulk of their supplies for Neri. When they ran out, they subsisted on desert roots, crickets, and cactus fruit. Ysira’s demon staved off the hallucinogenic effects, and with Neri, she was careful. She never let him have more than a few sips of the tainted water at a time, spaced out over hours—such a dosage that would not impair him.
Neri had barely spoken to her since that night among the stone pillars. At times, she had to wave a hand in front of his face to ensure he could hear her. It was as though a deeper, subtler voice—one Ysira could not hear—commanded his attention.
On the third day, among the rocky foothills where the sand shifted from red to black, Ysira killed a rattlesnake. She speared it through the head with a scalpel from the salvaged medical kit, and they gnawed on its tough, dry meat in the shadow of Otavok. It was the best meal they’d had since the crash, and Ysira hoped it might put Neri in better spirits. It seemed to have no effect whatsoever.
“You’re hearing your demon more now, aren’t you?” she finally asked. “What is it saying?”
Neri wouldn’t look at her. “I don’t think I can explain.”
Ysira tried again, soft as she could manage: “At the Shrouded City, it’s likely you’ll be asked to . . . demonstrate. Do you think you can do that?”
Neri drew himself inward, as if he knew she wouldn’t like his answer. “I don’t know. How do you tell yours to do anything?”
Ysira did, unfortunately, understand the problem. If Iyelekirin spoke to her, she didn’t know about it. She was deaf to the language of demons, and Neri, as a weak telepath, might not be fluent. Perhaps a stronger telepath could help him translate, and with time he might learn, but did theyhavetime? Immortal patience notwithstanding, Tharanoth had not struck Ysira as one to dawdle. He would be coming for them. Neri might have only weeks—days—to figure this out.
