"Only to kill us," Madori said, voice stiff. She stared at Torin and Koyee, and she wanted so badly to speak to them, to rush to them. She wanted so badly to rush toward her friends too, to Neekeya and Jitomi who lay hurt, buried under stone, perhaps dying. But she forced herself to stare into Serin's eyes.
The emperor sighed. "I do confess, mongrel, that for two years now, that has been one of my goals. Yes, to kill you. To kill your parents. I often delighted in the daydream of slaying you. But I think I will delight more in letting you live. Letting you escape. Withdraw your armies, and you will reunite with your parents. I will arrange to transport the three of you to a distant island of my choosing; I know of several beyond the coasts of Daenor. You'll be allowed to live out your lives there—under guard, of course, but otherwise free to enjoy the warm weather, blue waves, and the delights of coconut cuisine. From time to time, you may be tormented with memories, with guilt, with pain for all those I slew, for your cowardly escape from war while so many died. And I, while I sit here in my a palace, a great emperor, will in turn enjoy thinking of you living under my rule, knowing that you lost, that you will grow older and linger under my dominion."
Madori growled. "So that's your deal? I withdraw the Alliance assault, let you keep your throne, and my family and I get to live out our lives in exile?"
Serin raised his eyebrows. "You may also choose the alternative, of course. Attack me with your sword or magic. Maybe you will even slay me. Maybe you will die assaulting me, but in a few moments, your fellow Alliance troops will barge into this hall and finish the job. I doubt I could withstand all those nightcrawlers you brought here, even with my magic. I do confess, mongrel, that you have brought an army to my doors that I cannot defeat. But . . ." He sighed and looked back toward the pit. "Choose my death, and you know your parents' fate. It will be too late to save them." He looked back at her. "Choose, Madori Billy Greenmoat. Your life and the life of your parents . . . or my death. You may only choose one."
Madori stood, swordless, powerless. She looked behind her at her friends. Neekeya and Jitomi moaned, trapped under the fallen stones. She could save them, see them retreat back to their lands. She looked back toward her parents. Torin and Koyee hung above the creatures, eyes pleading with her to keep fighting, even if she let them die. She knew that was the choice they wanted her to make.
I have to save them, Madori thought. I can use my magic. I can hold them up myself! I can . . .
She knew she could not. She had never excelled at levitation; even when rested and healthy, she still struggled to hold afloat even small figurines. Weary and wounded, she could not hope to keep her parents levitated. She could not save them. If she slew Serin, she would watch them fall.
"Yet how can I let you die?" she whispered. "I love you."
They stared at her, eyes damp. Her father, Torin, the man she had once thought so foolish, so embarrassing—the man Madori loved more than anything, the man she knew was a great hero, a noble soul, the wisest and strongest man in the world. Her mother, Koyee, the woman Madori would clash with so often, the woman she had fled to Teel—the woman Madori wanted to be like, the woman she admired more than any storybook heroine, the greatest woman she knew.
"Father," she whispered. "Mother. I cannot let you fall."
The creatures in the pit screeched, leaping up, trying to reach the floating pair.
How can I watch you fall? How can I watch you become the creatures in the pit? Her body shook. How can I lose you?
"Choose, sweetling," Serin said, voice soft. "You must choose now."
Madori lowered her head. She closed her eyes. She thought back to the iron mine in the darkness, her most forbidden, dark memory. She thought of how the overseers had reduced her people to skeletal, dying things, consumed with disease and starvation, their bodies broken. And she thought of summer childhoods before the pain of youth, of working in the spring gardens with her father, of reading picture books with her mother while snow fell outside, of joyous years, of home, of family, of love.
And Madori knew what she had to do.
She knew the only choice she could make.
"I cannot see you fall, Father and Mother," she whispered, looking back up at them, and she saw the tears in their eyes. Her own tears fell. "I love you both so much. And I'm so sorry." She inhaled slowly, filling her lungs with calming air, with the awareness she had learned under the stars. "I am torn between day and night. I am a daughter of both worlds. The people of sunlight and the children of darkness must hear me, must learn to live in peace, must learn to end our endless wars. I love you, Mother, more than the stars love the night. I love you, Father, more than gardens love the sun. And I must bring stars and sun together. I must become who I was meant to be."
She lifted her sword.
She raced forward, perfectly calm, perfectly aware, one with light and shadow, one with Moth.
Serin gasped, eyes wide, as Madori shoved her blade through his chest and into his heart.
As the emperor collapsed, as his breath died and his body slumped to the floor, Madori wept and reached out to her parents, trying to race forward, to still save them, to hold them aloft, knowing she could not, knowing they would fall, knowing she had decided their fate.
Above the pit of screeching creatures, Torin and Koyee remained suspended.
Madori gasped and blinked tears from her eyes. Serin was dead! Her sword had pierced his heart! And yet her parents still floated above the writhing creatures, held up with magic. Madori laughed and her breath shook. Was this all only an illusion, a bluff?
"Mother! Father!"
No. They were real. Oh, by the stars, they were real. The gags left their mouths, and they cried out to her, calling her name again and again.
"How can this be?" Madori whispered.
Soft footsteps padded up toward her. Madori spun around and her eyes widened. The young woman in Lari's armor stood staring at her, smiling tremulously.
"I was never very good at Offensive Magic or Healing," the young woman whispered. "But I was always one of Teel's best students of levitation. My grandmother, Headmistress Egeria, always said so. I'll bring them to you."
The Lari lookalike curled her fingers inwards, gently pulling Torin and Koyee away from the pit. When they hovered above the solid floor again, the young woman released the magic. The smoky tendrils left Madori's parents, and they rushed toward her.
Madori wanted to hug them, to cry, to tell them she loved them, but she turned away. She raced toward her friends.
"Help me!" Madori said. "Help me free them! Lari—or whoever you are—help me lift the rocks off them!"
The young mage nodded and levitated the bricks off Neekeya and the fallen statue off Jitomi. The two lay on the floor, moaning. Blood covered them.
Madori knelt by Neekeya, examining her injuries. The Daenorian's leg was broken, but she seemed otherwise unharmed, and she even managed to smile weakly. Madori forced herself to breathe, to focus, to bring the shattered bone into her awareness. She had always been a good healer. She claimed the broken bone, guided it back into place, and molded it back together. Neekeya gasped, and her eyes closed, and she slept.
"She's all right," Madori said, relief flooding her, and raced toward Jitomi.
When she reached him, her heart sank.
"Oh . . . Jitomi." Her eyes dampened anew. "My Jitomi."
His injuries were worse. She saw that at once. She brought his body into her awareness, exploring his wounds in her mind, and the terror flooded her. His ribs had snapped, piercing his organs. Blood filled his insides. These were injuries beyond what she could heal.
"Jitomi," she whispered, her voice so high, so soft, fragile as a bird.
He blinked at her. He smiled softly. He reached out a trembling hand, and she clutched it.
"We'll find a better healer than me," she whispered. Her tears splashed his face, trailing down his dragon tattoo. "Just stay with me a little longer. Just a little longer."
He
reached out his second hand and caressed her cheek. "You're beautiful, Madori, and strong and wise and good. You brought new light into my life. I loved you in the darkness and in the light, and I'll love you from whatever lands I travel."
She shook her head. "Don't you travel anywhere. Not without me. Don't you dare." She gently embraced him. "Please, Jitomi. Don't leave me." Through trembling lips, she spoke the secret inside her, the secret she had dared not reveal even to herself until now, the secret she knew was true, had known was true for moons now. "I carry your child with me. You must live. You must live to be a father."
His eyes widened. His lips curled into a smile, a smile of surprise, of awe, of joy. He breathed out shakily, and he did not breathe again.
Madori shook with sobs. She lowered her head, touched her forehead to his, and cradled him close and would not let go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
THE SOLDIERS OF AUTUMN
Upon Eldmark Fields the cyclamens grew, a carpet of lavender and blue. Upon Eldmark Fields, the gravestones rose, row by row, the soldiers of autumn, soldiers of stone.
Koyee stood on the hill, overlooking the field. She had come here to a field of death, of screams; a field of boys dying in the mud, crying to their mothers as they tried, in vain, to hold their wounds from spilling; a field of daughters, torn from their homes, spears in their hands, weeping for a womanhood that would never come, for a new spring they would never see. Here in Eldmark Fields, under a carpet of stones and cyclamens, lay the soldiers of autumn. Here in Eldmark Fields lay sleeping a generation.
We betrayed them, Koyee thought, gazing upon the rows and rows of gravestones. We promised our children a better world. We promised them winters of snowmen and hot chocolate by fireplaces, not winters shivering in hovels, afraid and alone. We promised them summers of sun, not fire. We promised them autumns of warm quilts, of jumping in dry leaves, of roasting chestnuts and pumpkin pies; not an autumn of dying.
"Here, in Eldmark Fields, we buried a generation," she whispered. "Here, in Eldmark Fields, the youth of Moth shattered and wept. Goodbye, soldiers of autumn. Goodbye, children of Moth."
A cold breeze blew, and the field of cyclamens rustled, spreading for miles, a blanket for those sleeping beneath it.
Koyee had never been a composer, only the player of other people's songs—the songs she had learned in the night. Yet this turn, standing outside of Markfir before the field, she pulled out her flute, and she played a new song, a song she had composed. Her notes flowed down the hill, and all the survivors of the war—the children of every nation—turned to listen. It was a song of cyclamens in the breeze. A song of pale stones between the flowers, rows on rows. It was a song for lost children. A song for the cold autumn of her betrayal. A song for hope, for a new spring, for a dream of peace. It was the song of Moth.
Later that turn, Koyee stood with her daughter on the walls of Markfir. Before them spread the fields. Behind them sprawled the city streets where Idarith priests walked, swinging bowls of incense and chanting out prayers; their temple had taken charge of the city until an heir to Mageria would rise.
"Mother," Madori said softly, the wind ruffling her short black hair. "Before I was born, you fought in another war."
Koyee nodded. "I did."
"And you . . . you fixed a clock." Madori turned to look at her, her eyes soft and damp. "On Cabera Mountain. You made the world turn again, made day and night cycle. But then you decided to break the clock. To freeze the world again between day and night. Do you think . . . do you think we should fix the clock again?"
Koyee sighed and placed her arm around her daughter. "Often I had thought this. For long years, I wore a gear around my neck, taken from Cabera. Many times, I was tempted to return to the mountain, to fix the clock like I did during the last war. When the Radians invaded the dusk, I almost wanted to flee south, to return the gear to the clock."
"So why didn't you?" Madori whispered.
"Serin's forces overwhelmed us at Oshy. He stole the locket from my neck. But I would not let him steal the gear; it's too precious." She smiled thinly. "The Cabera gear lies somewhere in the Inaro River. Perhaps by now, it has reached the southern sea and is lost forever."
Madori bit her lip and nodded. "So Mythimna will forever remain Moth, split in two." Suddenly tears filled her eyes, and she trembled. "Mother, I'm sorry."
"For what, sweetness?" Koyee whispered, embracing her daughter.
"I was going to let you fall. You and Father." She clung to Koyee. "In the castle, I . . . Serin said I could save you. That I could flee with you and Father to an island. But . . . I had to kill him. I had to save Moth. I had to let you fall."
Koyee kissed her daughter's forehead. "We didn't fall."
"I didn't know you wouldn't. I made a choice. A choice to sacrifice you. Can you forgive me?" Madori stared at her with huge, damp eyes. "I love you."
Something seemed to break inside Koyee, and her own tears fell, and she held her daughter so tightly she nearly crushed her. "I love you too, Madori. There is nothing to forgive. You make me proud."
They looked back toward the fields. The gravestones spread in rows, and the carpet of cyclamens rustled in the wind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
CHILDREN OF DUSK
Two and a half years after leaving Fairwool-by-Night to become a mage, Madori Greenmoat returned home.
She had left her home a young woman, only sixteen, wearing purple clothes she had sewn herself, sporting two black strands of hair that framed her face, the rest of her hair cropped short. She had left in a creaky old cart, heading into the unknown. She had left confused, angry, not knowing who she was. A youth, troubled and yet innocent.
She returned home a woman, a healer and a warrior. Instead of sitting in an old wooden cart, she rode upon Grayhem, a proud nightwolf. Instead of wearing old homemade clothes, she wore the polished scale armor of a Qaelish warrior, and a katana of legend hung across her back. Only one thing she kept from those old years; she was growing her two strands of hair again. After all, some things were not meant to change.
She looked to her right side. Ariana—Headmistress Egeria's granddaughter—rode there upon a black gelding. She no longer looked like Lari; she had removed her Radian armor, and instead she wore a gray tunic and dark leggings. Her little brother rode on the saddle before her, freed from the Radian dungeon.
"My grandmother often spoke of you, Madori," the young woman said with a smile. "The girl from the dusk, she called you. And here we are. At the dusk."
Ariana pointed ahead and smiled. A mile away, the sunlight of Timandra faded into shadow, and beyond lay the endless night.
A gasp sounded to her left, and Madori turned toward Neekeya. Her friend rode a white mare, her eyes wide, and a smile spread across her face.
"The night lies ahead," the Daenorian whispered. "A land of magic. I always dreamed of seeing the darkness. Well, at least since I met you, Madori. Do they have magical artifacts in the night?"
Madori smiled. "Maybe, Neekeya. If they do, I trust you to find them."
Madori gave Grayhem a soft tug on the reigns, and he slowed his pace, letting her two friends ride ahead. Two other travelers caught up with her, and soon Madori rode between her parents. The three stared together at the dusk, and sadness filled Madori.
"I miss Fairwool-by-Night," she said. "And I miss Oshy."
Torin leaned sideways in his saddle, reached out, and patted her arm. "We'll always miss all that we lost. We'll always mourn. And we'll build. A new home. A better home."
Madori looked behind her at the others. A hundred survivors of the war rode along the riverbank. Elorians. Timandrians. One people.
The river sang to their south, its surface glinting with sun beads, and grasslands rustled to their north, lush with wildflowers. They rode across where Fairwool-by-Night had once stood, a field of flowers and memories, only the old Watchtower still standing. The pain suddenly seemed too great to Madori, and she kept staring
forward, lips tight, as they crossed the wilderness that had been her old home.
A hundred souls, they rode into the dusk and traveled through the soft light. Duskmoths rose to fly around them, and Madori felt some of her pain ease. The little creatures seemed to favor her, perhaps acknowledging the duskmoth tattooed onto her wrist. When she reached out her palm, one moth landed on her fingertips, its one wing black, the other white. A moth shaped like the world. A moth shaped like her heart. The little animal seemed to look at her, seemed to comfort her, to tell her that her pain had ended, that her new journey began. It tilted its antennae, then flew off into the sky.
"This is the place," Madori said softly. She halted her nightwolf. "Here."
A hundred horses halted in the soft light. The sun glowed behind them, half-hidden behind the horizon, a semicircle of gold casting out white rays between the trees. To the east the moon glowed in a deep blue sky. The river flowed to the south, and hills rose in the north, covered with soft grass. A place of shadows and light. Of day and night. Of peace after fire.
They all dismounted, and Madori stood at the place where the duskmoth had landed upon her fingertips. The center of her life, a mixed child, had always lain in the dusk. Here was her anchor. From the dusk she had come; to here she returned.
The others gathered around her, and Madori spoke to them. "Thousands of years ago, our world fell still. For thousands of years, our world has been as a duskmoth, one wing in darkness, the other in light. For too long, we fought—children of sunlight and children of darkness. For too long, we hated, feared, burned, killed. But I'm a child of both daylight and darkness. For most of my life, my two halves fought their own war, and I didn't know who I am. But I know now." She looked west toward the sunlight, then east toward the moon. "I'm a child of Moth. We are all children of Moth. Here in the dusk, there are no sunlit demons, no nightcrawlers. No Timandrians or Elorians. We're all the same here. People in a torn world, a people united." She turned toward Torin, cleared her throat, and whispered, "Father, the seed!"
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