The priests and Arkoniel were there, too, and the cloak had to be opened, an inspection made. Tobin kept her eyes on the sky above their heads, too numb to care.
“It’s all right, Tob,” Ki murmured.
“Not—Tobin,” she whispered. Her lips were sore, and her throat was raw.
“Yes, she must take a woman’s name now,” Kaliya said.
Arkoniel let out a soft groan. “We never discussed that!”
“I know,” Tobin whispered. The ghostly queens were with her again. “Tamír, the queen who was murdered and denied. She came to me—offered me the Sword. Her name—” The grey fog rolled away and tears stung her eyes. “And Ariani, for my mother who should have ruled. And Ghërilain, for Illior and Skala.”
The ghostly queens bowed to her, then sheathed their swords and faded away.
The priestess nodded. “Tamír Ariani Ghërilain. May the name bring you strength and fortune.” Turning to the crowd, which had fallen silent again, she cried out, “I bear sacred witness! She is a woman, and bears the same marks and scars.”
“I bear witness,” the priestess of Astellus echoed, and the others with her.
“I call on you all to bear witness,” Arkoniel shouted to the crowd. “The true queen has returned to you! By the wisdom mark on her arm and this scar on her chin I verify that this is the same person standing before you now, but in her true form. Behold Tamír the Second!”
Won over at last, the people began to cheer, but even that could not drown out the rending crack that rang out behind Tobin. The ornate wooden panel over the castle door—the one carved with the sword of Sakor—split and fell away, revealing the original stonework below.
The Eye of Illior once more guarded Atyion.
Tobin raised her hand to make reverence. But the roar of the crowd caught her, swept her up into the air as the world went black around her.
In that same moment the Afran Oracle laughed aloud in the darkness of her cavern.
Biding with half a dozen other wizards in the ruins of an Ero tavern, Iya staggered and covered her face as a brilliant burst of white light blinded her. Behind her closed lids the light slowly faded to reveal the face of a black-haired, blue-eyed young woman. “Thank the Lightbearer,” she whispered, and her companions echoed the words with the same reverence and wonder. Then with one voice they shouted it aloud. “Thank the Lightbearer! The queen returns!”
In the mountains north of Alestun the wizards of Arkoniel’s exiled Third Orëska saw that same vision and hurried to find one another, crying out the news.
All across Skala, wizards who’d accepted Iya’s small tokens, and many who had been deemed unworthy, shared the vision and wept for joy or shame.
The vision struck Niryn a twofold blow as he paced the ramparts. He recognized that face despite the transformation and raised his fists at the sky, raging at the Lightbearer’s betrayal and Solari’s, and the failure of his own assassins to remove the Scion of Atyion from his path.
“Necromancy!” he cried, swelling like an adder in his rage. “A false face and a false skin! But the strands are not yet woven.”
A Harrier guard unwise enough to approach his master just then was struck blind and died a day later.
Lhel woke in her lonely oak tree house and cast the window spell. Looking through, she saw Tharin bearing the girl down some passageway. Lhel gazed into that still, sleeping face. “Keesa,” she whispered, and was certain she saw Tobin’s eyelids flutter a little. “Keesa, remember me.” She watched a moment longer, making certain that Ki was with them, then closed the portal.
It was winter yet in the mountains. Crusted snow crunched under her feet as she limped to the spring, and ice still ringed the dark pool.
But the center was clear. Leaning over the water, she saw her face in the gently rippling surface, saw how old she looked. She’d had no moonflow since the winter solstice and her hair was more white than black. Left to a normal life among her own people, she would have a husband, children, and honor. Yet her only regret as she crouched over the water was that she left no daughter to tend this sacred place—the mother oak and its sacred spring—lost for so long to her people.
She turned her palms up to the unseen moon and spread the seeing spell over the water. A single image rose in the dark water. She studied it for a moment, then walked slowly back to the hollow oak and lay down on her bed, palms upturned at her sides again—empty, accepting—and listened to the wind in the branches.
He came silently. The weathered deerskin flap over the door did not stir as he entered. She felt him stretch out beside her, cold as a snowbank, and wrap his arms around her neck.
I’ve come back to you at last.
“Welcome, child!” she whispered.
Icy lips found hers and she opened her mouth willingly, letting this demon they’d called Brother steal her last breath as she had stolen his first. The balance was restored.
They were both free.
53
Erius sat at the window of the gatehouse tower, watching his city burn. Despite the healers’ best efforts, gangrene had set in and was spreading. His shoulder and chest were already black, his sword arm swollen and useless. Unable to ride or fight, he must lay here on a couch like an invalid, surrounded by long-faced courtiers and whispering servants. There were few officers left to bring him reports. Still gripping the Sword of Ghërilain, he presided helplessly over the loss of his capital.
The Plenimarans had broken through again just after dawn the day before. By nightfall most of the lower city was lost. From here, he must watch as cartloads of plunder trundled toward the black ships in the harbor, and crowds of captives—his people—driven like cattle among them.
Korin had proven worthless in the field. Rheynaris had remained at his side, feeding him commands until an arrow felled him just after midday. With fewer than a thousand defenders left, Korin had retreated to the Palatine and was endeavoring to hold the gates. A few other regiments were still fighting somewhere below, but not enough to stem the tide. Enemy soldiers by the thousands hemmed the Palatine in, battering at the gates and hurling flaming sacks of oil-soaked hay over the walls with their catapults. Soldiers and refugees streamed back and forth from the springs and cisterns with buckets, trying to save what they could, but the fires were spreading. Erius could see smoke billowing up from the roof of his New Palace.
Niryn’s Harriers had fought bravely, but even they were no match for the enemy. Decimated by necromancers, felled in the streets by sword or shaft, the survivors broke and scattered. There were also reports of rebel Skalan wizards, who had appeared mysteriously the day before. These were confusing; according to Niryn, the wizards attacked his own, rather than the enemy. Other witnesses insisted that these same traitors had fought for Skala. They were said to command fire, water, even great packs of rats. Niryn gave no credence to such tales. No Skalan wizard had such powers.
Erius had watched the northern roads all day. It was too soon to hope, even if Tobin had reached Atyion alive, but he couldn’t help looking, all the same.
He couldn’t help missing Rhius; his old friend seemed to haunt him now, mocking him. If his old Companion still lived, the might of Atyion would already be with Ero now, strong enough to turn the tide. But Rhius had failed him, turned traitor, and only a stripling boy was left to fetch Solari.
Dusk came, and darkness, and still there was no sign, no word by rider or pigeon. Refusing the drysian’s draughts, Erius sent everyone away and kept his vigil alone.
He was dozing by the window when he heard the door open. The lamps had guttered out, but the fires below cast enough light for him to make out the slight figure standing just inside the door.