Выбрать главу

“You’re serious,” Travis said, finally managing to speak.

Vani nodded. “ T’goldo not customarily have children. So in Nim, I have known a joy I never believed I would know in my life. Nothing will ever change that. However, I belong in Morindu. It is my heritage, and my fate. I would . . . I would go with Hadrian Farr.”

She gave the former Seeker a glance that was suddenly tentative, almost shy. Farr gave her an astonished look in return. Then the hint of a smile touched his lips.

Beltan stepped forward. “Vani, you’ll never see Nim again.”

“I know.” The T’golmoved to the dais, standing next to Farr and Larad. “But it must be so. Perhaps someday Morindu will be a living city again, but that day is long off. Right now it is still dead. And a dead city, however full of wonders, is no place for a living child.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Love her, Beltan. Give her every joy you possibly can.”

Beltan nodded, laying his big hands on Nim’s small shoulders. She turned and buried her small face against his legs.

Bittersweet joy filled Travis. He would not have to say good‑bye to Nim. Only there was another farewell he dreaded, and there was no putting it off.

“Your Majesty,” Larad called out. “You must hurry.”

Travis moved to Grace. He opened his mouth, but how could he put into words what he was feeling? Beltan was his partner, his soul mate, but Grace was his best friend. More than that. She was part of him.

“I’m going to . . . I’m going to miss your voice,” he said, and didn’t even try not to weep.

Grace brushed a tear from his cheek. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “That’s what telephones are for.”

He could only stare at her.

“I’m staying on Earth,” she said.

Beltan let out a great laugh. Even Nim turned around and clapped her hands together.

“But what about . . . ?” He glanced at Hadrian Farr.

“I’m not his case subject to watch anymore. And I think Fate has something else in mind for him. For both of us.” She glanced at Vani, then she looked at Travis again and smiled. “By the way, you still haven’t said if it’s okay if I stay here.”

It was too much. Joy and sorrow and love all melded into a single, shining emotion inside Travis, igniting like a new sun.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “It’s okay.”

Grace turned and waved at the figures on the dais. “Give my love to Melia and Falken and everyone. And remember what I said about holding an election, Master Larad. Tell them it was my last order. And tell them I cast my vote for you!”

Larad held up his hand in a gesture of farewell. Vani’s gaze was locked on Nim. Farr opened his mouth to say something.

There was one final flicker, and the three of them disappeared. As if a door had been shut, the image of the throne room in Morindu vanished. The nexus was gone.

“Good‑bye,” Travis whispered.

He felt Grace’s hand slip inside his. He gripped it tight.

Beltan picked Nim up, holding her in his arms. “Are you going to be all right?” he said, his expression solemn.

The girl seemed to think about it, then nodded. “I’ll be sad some. A lot at first. But that’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, holding her tight. “It is.”

She rested her head on his shoulder.

Travis took a step forward, toward the place where Deirdre had vanished. He would never look into her smoky jade eyes again, would never hear the soft tones of her mandolin.

“I wish I’d gotten to say good‑bye to her,” he said. “I wish I could have told her how much I cared about her.”

“She knew,” Grace said behind him. “I was with her, in that final moment. She knew everything, Travis. She sent it to me over the last strands of the Weirding. I wish . . . I wish I could describe what it was she saw.”

Travis turned around. “Try.”

He could see Grace struggle for words. “She sensed . . . Deirdre sensed how happy they were–the Sleeping Ones and the Imsari. They wantedto come together. They wanted to balance one another out. It was their whole purpose. But the Seven had known they needed the right catalyst for the union to work. The Imsari and the morndarihad both been changed by their history on Eldh. Alcendifar the dwarf changed the Great Stones with his craft, and the thirteen morndariwere changed by their union with Orъ. Those imperfections would have kept their union from being complete without a catalyst.”

Travis looked back at Beltan and Nim. “Why Nim? Why was she the catalyst?”

“Vani was descended from Orъ,” Grace said. “And there was fairy blood in Beltan. Northern and southern magic were melded together in Nim. I think it was that blending that helped the Seven and the Imsari to come in contact, to unite despite the way they’d been changed.”

“What about Travis then?” Beltan said. “Couldn’t he have been a catalyst?”

Grace rubbed her chin. “Both rune magic and sorcery are in him– werein him. But he wasn’t born with them inside him. Nim was. I think that made her a more perfect catalyst.”

Beltan tossed Nim into the air. She let out a shriek of laughter, and he caught her. “She’s perfect, all right.”

“The Little People must have known,” Travis said, looking at Beltan and Nim.

The sound of distant sirens drifted through the door. The earthquakes brought on by perihelion would have caused some damage. Travis hoped it hadn’t been severe.

Grace touched his arm. “Are you all right?”

He looked down at his hands. Again he felt the hole inside him. But it was all right. He had spent most of his life not being magic. He didn’t think it would be too hard to get used to being normal again. Who knew? He might actually kind of like it.

“Nim really was the Last Rune,” he said. “There are no more runes. Magic’s gone.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Grace said. “Only . . .” She cocked her head, as if listening to a distant sound.

“What is it?” Beltan said, giving her a sharp look. “Do you feel something?”

Grace smiled and shook her head.

“Just hope,” she said.

49.

On another world, in a castle with seven towers, Aryn rested a hand on her full stomach and felt a strong kick deep within.

Teravian turned away from the window of their bedchamber, wonder on his face. “I can see stars, Aryn. All the stars.”

She tried to reach out with the Touch, to sense the small life inside her, but there was nothing to grasp, no trace of the Weirding. It was gone. Completely gone. But it didn’t matter. Aryn didn’t need magic to know the baby was whole and healthy; she knew it with her heart.

“Do you want to feel your daughter kick?” she asked.

Teravian grinned. “You mean my son.”

And the young king knelt before his queen, laying his hands atop hers as new life stirred beneath.

EPILOGUE

CASTLE CITY

The shiny green pickup truck blew into town with the first evening gale of October.

It pulled off the highway on a bare patch of gravel, not far from a peeling billboard, just down the road from the burnt ruin of a clapboard building. Doors opened, and four people got out. There was a man with red‑brown hair, and another man, tall and rangy, who walked with a lanky stride. After them came a woman who was beautiful and regal, even dressed in jeans and a baggy sweater. With her came a girl who looked to be five or six, with hair as dark as shadows dancing on the wind.