“It is done,” the Root declared with finality. “No force can alter this course. Only an Axis has the knowledge to deactivate me and stop the inevitable, but that threat has been eliminated.”
Nyx glanced to Shiya.
And we let her walk straight into that trap.
Despairing, Nyx turned again to the Root. His eyes remained fixed on the crystal orb of the turubya, no longer evaluating, simply waiting. This sense was firmed as the ends of his legs spread tendrils of bronze across the copper, as if becoming his namesake, rooting himself in place until the world’s end.
She backed away, and Jace drew alongside her.
“If the end is inevitable,” Jace said, “then maybe you should wield your bridle-song against him. You thwarted him before, back in the Mouth. Maybe you’ll discover … I don’t know, something.”
All eyes turned to her.
She glanced at the shaking sphere, felt the trembling underfoot.
Jace is right.
She swallowed down her trepidation and nodded. She backed from the group and signaled for Daal to come down. By now, he had somewhat calmed the raash’ke—though they kept a wary distance from the molten spider, circling near the edge of the dome.
Daal acknowledged her signal and swept in a low arc. She followed his trajectory. He was going to land Nyfka near Metyl. He likely wanted to keep the two raash’ke close, to support each other during this storm.
She crossed to meet him.
As she did, she glanced back to the molten bronze of the Root. She was nagged by one detail. The creature could have stayed hidden. He did not have to reveal himself. His actions made no sense.
Did he come out to gloat? To exact revenge? To watch us struggle at the end?
She frowned, knowing she had sensed no such pettiness.
She glanced over to Shiya, who—while often cold and distant—had shown moments of tenderness, compassion, even humor.
If this Root was of the same ilk, then somewhere down deep, no matter how much he tried to melt it, a core of humanity must still exist. She had witnessed inklings of it when they spoke—not that those traces were enough to sway him away from his exalted plan.
He’s too far gone for that.
Still, this insight might explain why he had come out of hiding. She looked across at their group, bonded to a cause, supportive of one another. She stared at the sweep of wings overhead. She remembered what she had shared with the horde-mind. She had shown them what they had lost, that nearly indescribable, wordless sense of connection, of a wholeness that could only be found in another heart, that commonality that went beyond love to something even deeper and more meaningful.
We all seek that, she thought. From those around us, from the bonds we form, from the lives we share. It’s the core of our humanity.
She returned to looking at the Root.
You can’t melt that away completely.
Perhaps it was this need that drove the Root—alone for millennia—to maintain his stubborn enslavement of the raash’ke. It wasn’t just for the protection of his lair. Deep down, he must have desired some measure of connection to another, corrupted though it may be.
She stared back at him with narrowed eyes. After she had severed his connection to the raash’ke, he had been left isolated again. And now, knowing the finality of death was coming, maybe he didn’t want to be alone, not at the end.
She felt a flare of sorrow for this lonely sentinel, abandoned for ages to guard this spot. Still, such pity would not stop her from seeking a way to stop him.
Ahead, Daal landed with a sweep of wings. She hurried to him, knowing she would need his font of power. The two of them dared not hold back.
For any chance of success, it was all or nothing.
* * *
DAAL CROSSED ALONGSIDE Nyx toward the melted figure of a bronze man. The glassy eyes remained eerily open, unblinking, yet shining with awareness. Nyx had briefly told him what had happened and the doom that threatened.
“This Root,” he whispered as they reached the bronze figure, fearful it was listening even though it had no ears. “He says only Shiya can stop him. Even with bridle-song, how will we get him to obey us? He’s surely too strong to bend to your bridling, even with my power.”
