Tris found the courage to ask the question that lay between them. How is it that your eyes are so like my own?
I can answer that. Another spirit joined them, and Tris knew his grandmother's presence. He was surprised to see her, not as the old woman he had always known, but much younger, still in her second decade, determination and character in her features.
Bava K'aa's spirit stood beside Lemuel on the Plains of Spirit, and Tris could sense the bond between the two. In the last days of the Great War, I was captured by the Obsidian King. 'The armies of three kingdoms and the Sisterhood laid siege to his castle. The Obsidian King wanted to knoiv hoiv to make the elixir that would extend his life. He wanted to be immortal.
Why didn't he become vayash moru? Tris asked.
Because vayash moru are beholden to their makers for many lifetimes, until the fledgling gains the strength to survive the destruction of its maker. The Obsidian King didn't want to answer to anyone— not even to the Lady Herself.
During my imprisonment, the Obsidian King did everything he could to force the secret from me. He thought that if he broke my spirit, and my body, that I would tell him. And he used every weakness that he could exploit. Including rape.
Can you even imagine what it was like, Lemuel said, his expression pained, to have your body used, against your will, to inflict pain on the woman you love? I had no choice but to witness everything, knowing that it was my body used as his instrument. It made the act that much worse because of it.
I believe the Obsidian King also hoped to break Lemuel, and destroy him, if from grief alone, Bava K'aa said gravely. Yet all the while, even during the worst, I knew that it was not Lemuel.
Lord Grayson rescued me—we three had been friends all our lives. I knew that Grayson loved me and stepped aside for Lemuel. But he would not let me die. When Elam healed me and he knew that I bore a child—your mother, Serae—Grayson swore to wed me and raise the child as his own. He told no one, until the day he died and I made his passage to the Lady. Tor a lifetime, we kept that secret.
Now do you understand? I couldn't free Lemuel's soul, but I couldn't destroy him, knowing how greatly he had suffered.
Bava K'aa met Tris's eyes. I knew that magic often skipped a generation. When Serae showed no power, I knew you would be my mage heir—you, whose blood descended from the two strongest Summoners of their age.
You haven't answered my question, said Lemuel. Do you want to live?
In the distance, on the Plains of Spirit, Tris could already hear the soulsong of the Lady, the sweetest thing he had ever heard, pulling him toward his rest. Here in the realm of the dead the pain of his wounds was gone, and he knew the freedom of pure spirit. Below, as if in a distant dream, he saw Carina rush toward his body, felt her power stretch out, struggling to heal him. Holding his spirit to his body was a thin blue thread, sustained not by his own life force, but by Lemuel.
Do you wish to live?
Tris looked to his grandmother, and reluctantly toward the song of the Lady, then back to Lemuel. Yes, Tris replied. I want to live.
Lemuel nodded, and raised a hand in farewell. Then this is my gift to you, Lemuel said. I will sustain you, until the healer's work is through.
Tris felt himself return to his body, and darkness.
"How is he?" It was Soterius's voice Tris heard, though he lacked the energy to open his eyes. Every muscle ached. His head throbbed as if it might explode. His side, where Jared stabbed him, felt like it had been filled with hot coals. Lemuel's presence was gone.
"He's resting," Tris heard Carina answer, the strain of the healing evident in her voice. "Alyzza helped me make two more healings. I don't know how long it will be until he comes around. We almost lost him, Ban. I thought we had—and then, I can't explain it. It was like the time Tris helped me hang onto Jonmarc, when he almost died in the slaver's camp. There was something—someone— there with us, holding on to Tris while I healed."
Tris wanted to reply, wanted to open his eyes, but his strength was gone. He surrendered to the blackness that engulfed him in its nurturing folds, content to be alive.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
IT took two days and several more healings for Tris to awaken. He found himself stretched out on a bed, Carina asleep in a chair beside him.
"Welcome back," Gabriel said, moving from the shadows near the wall. "We weren't sure you'd be joining us."
Tris managed a weak smile. Carina awoke and moved to bring him water. "I wasn't too sure myself," he managed. "Thank you."
Carina shook her head. "Someday, you'll have to explain what happened," she said, taking his hand. "But right now, I'm glad to have you back."
"Kiara—and Jonmarc?" Tris asked, closing his eyes.
Gabriel chuckled. "Neither one would let anyone touch them until they knew whether you would live. Ban's battle healers took care of them. Kiara is exhausted, but unhurt. Jonmarc is going to take a little longer—I fear you'll have a house guest for the rest of the summer. It will be a while before he can think of using a sword, longer until he can ride."
Tris smiled. "Tell him he can stay as long as he wants."
"Soterius and Mikhail are out rounding up Jared's troops and freeing the prisoners in the dungeons. They've had the help of the palace ghosts. Seems that when your power was out of control, you managed to summon every spirit within a league of the palace—not few of whom were Jared's victims. Between the victim's relatives and the angry ghosts, Jared's soldiers are turning up dead faster than Soterius can hunt them down." Tris looked at Gabriel. "Will the truce hold?" "Between my people and yours?" Gabriel asked. "It should. Nothing will be won by breaking the peace, now that those who hunted us have been punished."
Carina cleared her throat. "There's someone waiting to see you." She stepped aside, revealing Kiara in the doorway.
Gabriel made a courteous bow. "Until later," he said, addressing both Tris and Kiara. Gabriel and Carina left the room.
Kiara took a step toward where Tris lay. "Good to see you awake," she said, with a tired smile. Tris held out his hand to her, and she moved closer to sit on the edge of his bed. "You gave us a real scare. Carina and I took shifts. We didn't want to leave you alone."
Although his memory of the battle was blurred by the wormroot, the image of destroying the Obsidian King in Kiara's body was searingly clear.
Tris wondered whether the battle had changed things between them.
"I was afraid you might not forgive me, for what happened," Tris said quietly.
The pain of those memories flickered in Kiara's eyes. "When the Obsidian King pushed his way through my shielding, I wanted to die. I was afraid that you wouldn't—wouldn't be able to stop him, or wouldn't free me. I didn't want to exist like that." She paused. "Thank you."
Tris thought of Lemuel, and of his grandmother's story. "I knew I was dying," Tris said. "If the separation spell and the elixir didn't work, I knew we would be together in the arms of the Lady. But I couldn't let the Obsidian King take you."
Kiara blinked back tears. "I'm just so glad to see you—we were afraid we'd lost you. You took an awful chance."