Kaiku shook her head. 'No, Tsata. That is what I came to tell you. This is anything but an ending.'
Tsata turned away from the vista, his full attention on her now. Though he had become used to her new appearance, he was still sometimes taken aback by the otherworldly quality it lent her. Those eyes, that hair, were the marks of a place she had been that nobody but her could ever know.
'I Weaved today,' she said. 'For the first time since I returned, I Weaved. And I know now something which the Sisters have not told us, which they have not told anyone. The Weave-whales have gone.'
Tsata's eyes showed his puzzlement. Kaiku had told him of the Weave-whales, but he did not understand the relevance.
'They have been there, in the Weave, since any of us can remember. They were always distant, unreachable, until we drew them. You and I, Tsata, when we destroyed the first of the witchstones in the Xarana Fault. But now they are not here.'
'What does it mean?'
'I do not know,' Kaiku said. 'But they left something behind them. Something in the Weave. A construct, a pattern, a…' She stalled. 'I cannot describe it. It is incomprehensible. But it is active.'
'Active?'
'Imagine a leaf that nods into the surface of a still pool, its tip touching the water. That pool is like the Weave, and this thing is sending ripples. The ripples spread, further and wider, far past where we dare go.'
Tsata frowned. He found always found it hard to follow Kaiku when she talked of the Weave, even when she simplified it with analogies.
'Then what is it?' he asked, feeling ignorant.
'It is a beacon, Tsata,' she said, animated. Then she calmed, and looked down to the bay. 'Perhaps it is a message also, though if that is true then I am sure we cannot understand it. But ripples in the pond draw the attention of the fish who swim there.'
'Kaiku, I still do not know what you are saying.'
'I am saying that this war will not be remembered as a fight for the Empire,' she said. 'It will be remembered as the time we came of age. Our conflict has attracted the notice of entities greater than we can imagine. The Xhiang Xhi told Lucia how Aricarat's influence changed us. We learned to meddle with forces beyond our understanding long before our due time. We tore the veil of ascendancy when we were but infants.' She met Tsata's gaze. 'And now our presence is being made known.'
'Made known to whom?'
'To those who dwell in places impenetrable to us. It may be a day, a year, a thousand years or longer; but sooner or later, something will come looking.' She dropped her eyes. 'What that may mean, whether that will be blessing or catastrophe, I cannot say.'
Tsata had no response to that. He did not believe in gods, but he knew enough to respect the world beyond the senses, and her words evoked a subtle dread in him that he could not define.
She laughed suddenly. 'But listen to me. I should be anything but maudlin. Forgive my foolishness. The future is brighter, at least for a time. I will enjoy that for now. Cailin can wait, the Sisters can wait, the Empire can wait. Maybe I will leave it all behind, and maybe I will rail against it; but not today.'
He caught her grin and was infected by it.
'I have something to ask,' she said. 'There is one more thing for me to do. I must travel east, to the Forest of Yuna, to a temple of Enyu that sits on the north bank of the Kerryn. Nearby there is a sacred glade, where once I made a promise to Ocha and to my family. I must return there, and offer thanks, and let my family know that they may rest now.' She touched his upper arm lightly, her eyes alive again. 'Come with me.'
'I will,' he said, without hesitation. Then, his expression faltered, and Kaiku became concerned.
'What is it?'
He steeled himself, and asked the question he had been putting off for some days now.
'After you have made your peace, Kaiku, what then?' he said. 'The war is over. The world goes on, and we go on with it. Where will you go?'
Her smile returned, and her fingers slid down his arm until her hand lay in his.
'I will go with you,' she said.