“No!” Brant burst up and drove his shoulder into Tylar’s hip.
The regent went flying. His sword tumbled from his fingers and clattered on the black rock. He landed hard and rolled to a dazed stop.
Brant sat up, horrified at what he’d just done. In that long blink, he’d had no time for doubt. He did now.
Still, he knew what he had seen in her eyes. It was a match to the expression on the rogue’s face as the fires had consumed his flesh.
Hope.
Before him, the Huntress slowly sank to her knees, oblivious to Tylar’s attack and Brant’s defense. Around her, the other hunters fell back as if strings holding them had suddenly snapped. In a widening circle, they collapsed, limbless and dazed, to rock and loam.
Tylar, his face flushed with fury, crawled to his feet, one cheek deeply abraded and bleeding. But as he saw the hunters collapse all around, fury changed to confusion. He moved over to Brant, collecting his sword. But he refrained from continuing his attack.
On her knees, the Huntress cradled the stone to her heart, rocking slightly, shoulders shaking in silent sobs.
Neither dared speak.
Though the Huntress never raised her face, she slowly whispered, as if she knew they waited. “Such a small stone. A piece of our old home. Just large enough for one god to balance atop. And make whole what was sundered.”
There was no raving in her voice.
She finally lifted her face. Tears streamed down her dark skin. Her eyes shone with them, but nothing more. No Grace. Not in her eyes, nor in her tears, nor in the sheen on her sweated skin. It had blown out. But filling the void was a warmth, a softening of countenance that Brant had never seen in her before.
In that moment, she seemed so much younger and so much older.
“I remember,” she said, smiling with a sadness that ached the heart. “What was lost in ravings and passing centuries. What the Sundering stole, this small stone returned.”
“What?” Tylar asked softly.
Her eyes did not seem to see him, but she answered. “My name…it was Miyana.”
With the utterance, the ground shook. Loose rock rattled like broken teeth. Leaves shuttered with the noise of a thousand birds taking wing. And deep under their feet, a low roar moaned with grief and sorrow.
Behind the Huntress, the black river split to reveal its fiery heart.
Brant felt the heat as a breath of regret.
The Huntress- Miyana -turned her face to the mountain as the ground shook. It reminded Brant of Miyana’s shoulders a moment before. A silent sobbing.
She whispered toward the distant mountain. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be heard. But Brant heard it.
“Mother…forgive me…”
Miyana stood. She seemed to finally note the boy kneeling on the rock in front of her. Her words were hollow and haunted.
“Brant, son of Rylland…we’ve both been fate’s bone, gnawed and left with nothing.” She glanced over her shoulder to the greater forest. “But there is one mistress even more cruel. Memory. She makes no distinction between horror and beauty, joy and sorrow. She makes us swallow it all, bitter and sweet. Until it’s all too much.”
She sank again into herself. She took one step back, then another.
“Mistress…” Brant said, knowing what she intended. “Don’t.”
Her eyes flicked to him as she took another step back. “One last kindness, then. So you might hate me more fully.”
“I don’t-”
“I killed your father. I sent the she-panther that killed him.”
Brant sought some way to understand what she was saying. “Wh-why?” he stammered through his shock.
“I was already sliding into madness. But perhaps deep down I knew and lashed out.”
“Knew what?” Tylar asked for him.
“Rylland brought me the wrong gift. A curse, instead of hope. Corruption, instead of my name.”
Brant understood.
His father had brought her Keorn’s skull, instead of the stone. Without knowing the power in either, the choice had been pure misfortune. Her first words returned to him. We’ve both been fate’s bone, gnawed and left with nothing.
Her eyes returned to the distant forest.
They had been left with worse than nothing.
She whispered to the forest. “Until it’s all too much.”
She took one last stride and stepped into the open crack behind her. Molten rock consumed her bone and flesh. She gasped but didn’t scream. The agony in her heart was far worse than any flame. Her face turned to the mountain, to the source of the fire that swallowed her.
Instead of pain, Brant read the love in her face.
“Thank you for protecting these last few…” she whispered, her words rising like steam toward the distant mountain. “I want to go home.”
Spreading her arms, she fell forward into the molten rock, as if into a welcoming embrace. The stone flew from her fingertips, no longer needed.
The piece of black rock bounced and rolled, coming to rest at Brant’s knee. He reached down and took the gift. For the second time in his life, a god burning with fire had passed this stone into his fingers.
But now he knew the truth.
It wasn’t just a rock.
It was the hope of a lost world.
As the sun sank toward the horizon, Tylar climbed with the others toward the Divide. The twin peaks of the Forge burnt with the last rays of the sun. No one had spoken for the past full league. And the silence wasn’t just the steepness of their climb, nor even grief.
It was an emotion that transcended numbness. An attempt to reconcile all that had happened, while still placing one foot in front of the other. If they stopped, they might never move again. The day had held too much horror, framed by the rising and setting of a single sun. It was a day they had to push past.
Yet some still tried to make sense of it.
Rogger mumbled through his beard. “The stone-it explains much.”
Tylar glanced to him. He didn’t ask for an elaboration, but Rogger gave it anyway.
“The Huntress-”
“Miyana,” Tylar corrected. She had paid a heavy price for that name. Tylar refused to let it be lost again. “Her name was Miyana.”
Rogger nodded. “She claimed that the stone allowed those parts of her that were sundered to return to her.”
He nodded. Miyana’s words echoed inside him. A piece of our old home. Just large enough for one god to balance atop.
“Here in Myrillia, the gods are split into three,” Rogger continued, ticking them off on his fingers. “An undergod in the naether, the god of flesh here, and that higher self that flew off into the aether. But with a piece of their original home in hand, it must be like returning home, becoming whole again. When Miyana held the stone, her naethryn and aethryn parts must have gathered back to her. Like moths to a flickering flame.”
“So it would seem,” Tylar said.
“Then that goes a long way toward explaining what transpired here.”
Drawn by the conversation, Brant and Dart drew closer. Perhaps there was another way of moving past all this. Through some manner of understanding.
The thief nodded toward Dart. “Do you remember Master Gerrod’s explanation for why Dart’s humours don’t flow with Grace?”
Tylar silenced Rogger with a glare. Not all here were aware of Dart’s nature. “I remember,” he said tersely.
Though birthed of gods, Dart was born in Myrillia. Born unsundered. Gerrod had come to believe that the Grace of the gods arose because they were sundered. It was the stretch of their essences between the three realms, flowing across them, that sustained their flesh and imbued their humours with power. Back in their original kingdoms, whole and intact, the gods had borne no Grace.
Rogger changed the tack of the conversation. “After Miyana took the stone, did you notice any change in her? Any lessening of her powers?”
Brant answered. “It did seem the Grace in her eyes dimmed.”
“Exactly! As the stone made her whole again, her Grace died away. And since seersong only works on those Graced…”