“Janik, what happened?” Mathas asked quietly, putting his hand on Janik’s shoulder.
Kneeling beside Dania, he told them. “Do you remember, Mathas, on the boat on our way here, when Dania punched me? She was talking about sacrifice, making sacrifices in order to fight the evil in the world?”
“I remember,” Mathas said.
“I think she knew, even then, that something like this was going to happen. Do you remember the last thing she said that night? ‘You will understand, before this is over.’ She knew.”
He sighed, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.
“In the pinnacle, when Dania was surrounded by the fire, she allowed a couatl, like the one we saw flying—maybe the same one, I don’t know, or maybe the ancient one that binds Dhavibashta here—anyway, I think she let a couatl possess her, just like Maija was possessed.” His eyes fell on the torc around her neck. “Except that she was still mostly in control. But the couatl gave her power, and she used that power to force the Fleshrender out of Maija’s body.”
His eyes were glued to the silver torc, but he no longer saw it. The scene replayed itself in his memory, every detail etched there like a scar. The shadow emerging from Maija and entering Dania. …
“The Fleshrender left Maija just like that”—he gestured vaguely toward Maija’s body—“and entered Dania’s body instead. I don’t know, maybe Dania forced the fiend into her body, but I think she just used herself as bait. Once it possessed her, she was able—or, I guess, the couatl in her was able to bind it to her just like the couatl binds Dhavibashta in the earth beneath our feet. Just as our own spirits are bound to our bodies. The Fleshrender’s life was bound to Dania’s life.”
Janik fell silent for several moments.
“I couldn’t do it, Mathas,” he said at last. “I couldn’t fulfill her oath for her, I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t kill her.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” Mathas said. “Of course you couldn’t.”
Janik took a steadying breath and went on. “Krael reappeared,” he said, “and picked up Dania’s sword. He did it. Krael killed her and destroyed the Fleshrender.”
Janik fell again into silence, and his friends were lost in their own reflections on what had happened. Suddenly, Maija gasped loudly and sat upright, a look of terror on her face as she stared wildly around the room.
Janik was beside her in an instant. “I’m here, my love,” he murmured. He put one hand on her shoulder and fumbled with the other, trying to grasp her hand. But she pulled her hands up to her chest, turned her shoulder away from him, and winced as though his touch hurt her.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Maija, it’s me. Janik.”
She began to curl in on herself, turning away from him. “I’m so dirty—don’t touch me,” she whimpered.
Janik reached out again and gently stroked her brown hair. It was tightly braided and coiled close to her head, though she used to wear it long and free. She flinched at his touch but did not pull away.
“Dirty?” he said. “Oh, Mai, no.” Tears sprang to his eyes, joy and relief and sorrow all mingling together.
“I did so many terrible things!” She looked at him for the first time, and he saw the tears streaming down her face.
“You didn’t do anything,” he said, his voice soft but firm. “The fiend did them, not you. You don’t need to feel any guilt or shame about what happened. You didn’t do anything wrong. The fiend was using you, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Her voice grew louder. “Do you have any idea what it felt like to be the tool in her hand? Like—like the shovel used to lift manure?”
“Shh, I didn’t mean that.” Janik kept his voice low and continued gently stroking her hair. “It must have been terrible for you.”
“Oh, Janik,” she sobbed. “I felt so helpless. I couldn’t do anything to stop—” She choked on her words and turned away from Janik again.
“It’s not your fault,” Janik said. He lay his hand between her shoulder blades and felt her take a deep breath, trying to steady herself.
“But I saw it all, I remember it all as if I had done it. My hands and my voice cast those vile spells, said those terrible things to you. I let Havoc kill Mudren Fain and turn Krael into a vampire. My hands killed … I killed so many people. So many innocent people.”
Janik drew her into his arms. She pushed away at first, but soon melted and curled up against him, sobbing into his shoulder.
“That’s it,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “Mourn for them, for all those people.” His eyes fell again on Dania’s body. “But their deaths are not meaningless, not in vain.”
“How can you say that?”
Tears sprang to Janik’s eyes again. “Because Dania gave them meaning.”
Maija pulled her head away from his chest and looked up at him, then followed his gaze to Dania’s body.
“Oh, Dania, no!” she cried. She broke out of Janik’s arms and crawled over beside her fallen friend, wailing her grief.
Janik followed her on his knees. “She gave her life to destroy the Fleshrender, Maija. And somehow I think she took the death of everyone the Fleshrender killed and—and made it part of her own death, her sacrifice. She … she sanctified them, Maija.”
Maija’s crying did not abate, but she nodded as she wept, understanding what Janik could barely put into words. He wrapped his arms around her again and they mourned and celebrated Dania together.
Janik stood and helped Maija to her feet. She began fumbling with her hair, picking at the braids to let it flow freely over her shoulders again. It was wavy and wild after being tightly bound for so long, but Maija reveled in it, shaking her head to make it fall in a tangle down her shoulders and over her face. Then she looked up at Janik, the first hint of a smile barely visible on her face under the cascade of hair. Janik laughed, and Mathas came to join them.
“I am very glad to see you again, Maija,” Mathas said, smiling broadly.
Maija threw her arms around Mathas, clutching the old elf to her chest. “Oh, Mathas. I’m so sorry for everything.”
Mathas returned her embrace and clasped her arms as she pulled away. “Dear friend, you have nothing to be sorry about. You were a victim, a prisoner. You carry no responsibility for the evil that spirit did through you.”
Tears sprang again to Maija’s eyes and she pulled Mathas to her again.
“Thank you, Mathas,” she murmured. When she finally released him, her cheeks were streaked with tears, and she wiped awkwardly at them. “Now where is the dwarf?” she said. “I’d like to meet him and thank him as well.”
Mathas gestured vaguely. “He’s—” He looked around the chamber. “I don’t know where he is. I’m afraid my attention has been elsewhere.”
“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Janik said with a small laugh. “And what was so demanding of your attention?”
“Well, I’ve been studying the floor in here—I know, it sounds fascinating. As near as I can tell, the bonds that hold the rakshasa rajah below this place remain intact. But I believe I understand the erection of the towers around the city.”
“Oh, yes,” Maija said. “She hoped to use them to break the couatl’s grip on the rajah.”
“Well, I’m pleased with myself for deducing it before you told me,” Mathas said. “We should probably take steps to topple them again.”
“Yes, we should,” Maija said.
“And one other thing concerns me,” Mathas said. “Janik, I assume that Krael has not been decisively destroyed. Should we be worrying about completing that task?”
“No,” Janik said. Mathas arched an eyebrow. “I let Krael go.”
“I beg your pardon,” Mathas said carefully, “but was that wise?”
“I believe so.” Janik sighed. “I realized something important here, something I’m not sure I can explain. I realized that Dania was wrong. Back on the ship, as we crossed the Phoenix Basin, she said that vampires were the scourge of the earth, that Krael had to be purged from the world. But she was wrong, and I think she realized that before she died.”