“No,” Amero said, gawking along with everyone else. “He usually draws lightning from the clouds. I don’t know where this new yellow flame comes from.”
The dragon reached the underbelly of the scurrying clouds and hovered. Silent orange fire rippled up and down his wings, flying off the tips in streams of bright fiery balls. Abruptly Duranix tipped to one side and plunged down, his jaw dropped open, and golden fire burst forth.
The mound trembled, then erupted into flame. Duranix held his mouth agape for some time, playing a stream of fire to and fro across the heap of logs and kindling. When he finally snapped his jaws shut, the pyre was blazing from end to end.
No one cheered, wept, or made any sound at all. A thousand pairs of eyes—villager, nomad, raider, and elf—stared at the mountain of fire billowing up from the flat valley floor. Even after Duranix landed on the west side of the pyre, brilliant orange lightning continued to flicker down from the Ember Wind clouds, striking the funeral pyre time and again.
Against the low roar of the flames, a lone voice could be heard singing.
Amero strode to the edge of the parapet and tried to spot who was singing the tune his mother had used to soothe him to sleep as a child. Ringed around the pyre were hundreds of people, mostly from Karada’s band. He hurried down the ramp. Lyopi called after him, “Where are you going?”
He clambered down the broken wall, slipping and teetering over slabs of shattered stone. The voice was still singing, but the words were indistinct this close to the crackling, popping bonfire. Amero pushed among the nomads. He spotted Karada some distance away, seated on her tall, wheat-colored horse. They exchanged a look, then his sister quickly glanced away.
More voices joined in the song. All were former raiders. Hearing the slow, soothing melody issuing from the throats of the hardened men moved him deeply, and he wondered how they could know his mother’s song.
Amero broke through a line of nomads still gazing at the fire and reached Karada. On the ground at her horse’s feet was Zannian, his head still swathed in bandages.
His was the clear, strong voice leading the singing of “The Endless Plain.”
A sharp pang touched Amero’s heart. He knelt beside Zannian. His nearness caused the sightless man to flinch and stop. The song went on among his former followers.
“Who is it?” said Zannian hoarsely.
“Amero.”
“Ah, with Karada, then we are all together.” Using her horse’s leg as a guide, Zannian got to his feet. “Strange custom you have, burning the dead.”
“Necessity taught it to us. Graves are hard to dig in the mountains, and when there are so many to bury, fire is an honorable solution.”
“What do nomads do with their dead?” Zannian asked, raising his voice and face to Karada.
“Bury them,” she said tersely. “The plains are wide, and all can sleep within.”
Amero looked from her to their newly found brother. “We must talk. The three of us.”
Karada was silent for a long moment, then said, “Let us go to my tent.” She guided her horse away, back to camp. Amero took his brother’s arm and followed.
Though it seemed every person in the valley was at the pyre, at least one was not. When Karada entered her tent, she found Mara waiting by the campfire.
“I am making food, Karada,” the girl said.
A silent nod. “Go now. I want to be alone.”
Mara slunk out. She’d just entered the shadows when she saw the Arkuden arrive. He was leading an injured man in raider’s clothes. They went into Karada’s tent without calling for permission.
Mara had never trusted the Arkuden. Since the age of eight, when her family had given her over to the Sensarku, she had been steeped in the philosophy of Tiphan, “Tosen,” First Servant, of the Sensarku. The Arkuden always opposed the Tosen’s plans to improve Yala-tene and bring glory to the dragon and the Servers of the Dragon. The Arkuden, the Tosen said, acted as if he alone had the right to determine the destiny of Yala-tene. Her later disillusionment with Tiphan had not altered her feelings against Amero for blocking the Tosen’s wonderful dreams for a better world.
Brother of Karada or not, the Arkuden was no friend. If not for him, Tiphan would never have left Yala-tene, her fellow Sensarku Penzar wouldn’t have been swallowed by the spirit stones on the plain, Elu the centaur wouldn’t have been murdered by elves, and she would never have been captured.
Mara’s green eyes widened as the terrible truth crystallized in her mind: The Arkuden was to blame. He was to blame for all of it.
A muffled voice came to her from the tent. Mara stretched out flat on the ground and put her ear to the hide wall.
As usual, the Arkuden was doing the talking.
“I know this is hard, but we must face it. We can’t ignore it any longer.”
“It’s not hard,” Karada said sharply. “Ask him what he wants.”
Zannian tilted his head toward his sister. “I want to see Nacris.”
“No. She’s fated to die, so consider her dead and go on.”
The former raider chief brought his hands to his head and pushed the bandages back until his face was fully exposed. A single horizontal slash crossed both eyes and the bridge of his nose. The skin around the wound was swollen and mottled by red and purple bruises. He turned his head this way and that, obviously trying to see something, anything, and obviously failing.
He snapped, “If you really wanted her dead, you would’ve slain her the day she was captured.”
Karada found a gourd bottle and pulled the wooden plug out with her teeth. The spicy aroma of cider wafted through the tent.
“She made a good hostage,” the nomad chieftain said, and took a long drink.
“And now? How many days has it been since the battle ended?”
“Eight,” said Amero.
“So many? It’s hard to tell when you see neither sun nor stars.” Zannian sniffed the air and held out his hand. “Give me some cider.”
She gave him the gourd. He drank deeply from it.
“Let’s not talk about Nacris,” Amero said. “She is doomed. But you may yet be saved.”
Zannian wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I tried to destroy you. Why would you want to save me?”
Astonished, Amero said, “Because you’re my brother!”
“The only brothers I knew are burning now on that pyre.”
Karada made a disgusted noise. “This is useless. Are you sure you want to let this yevi-child live?” she asked Amero.
“Yes.”
“Kill me and be done with it,” Zannian said bitterly. “All the promises made to me turned out to be lies—the Master’s, that woman’s—” He couldn’t call Nacris “mother” any more.
Amero insisted, “You’re young. Can you see no other way to live?”
“Think you’ll make a villager out of me? I’ll fall on a knife first!”
Amero crossed behind Zannian and plucked the cider gourd from his hand. He knelt on one knee beside him.
“A good healer might have been able to save your eyes,” he said. “But our best healer’s dead. We sent him to talk terms with you, and you cut off his head. Does that mean anything to you, Menni?”
“My name is Zannian!”
Looking up at Karada, Amero said, “Our sister is Nianki. Do you remember that name at all?”
Zannian was breathing hard, clearly distressed, but his voice was loud as he denied it. “I don’t remember either one of you! You’re nothing to me!”
“You remember ‘The Endless Plain.’”
“It’s just a song.”
“A song our mother sang to us!” Amero put a hand on Zannian’s shoulder, his face pale and strained. “If you don’t remember, it’s my fault. You were just a baby, Menni, two summers old. I put you in a tree to keep you safe from the yevi, but that wasn’t enough. I should’ve kept you with me. I should’ve found a place for us both—”