“She’s alive,” Skitss hissed. “No thanks to you.” But from the floor there came a weak voice, and the fallen figure stirred.
“He did what he was meant to. As did I. Don’t be angry with him, dear one.” She lifted a hand. “Adam. Come to me.”
He did, without hesitation, and dropped into a crouch beside her, reaching down to help her up—but she shook her head, nudging his hands away. Behind him, he heard Kyle and Eva murmuring, Eva letting out a quiet sob. He felt Lochlan’s silence, and he felt Kae beside him.
Felt so clearly it was almost sight.
“Boy, you know now what you can do. It’s yours for a reason, as it belongs to everyone. Use it. Give it to the others.” She stroked her gnarled fingers through his hair, but he could tell that she wasn’t really perceiving him anymore—or that, rather, her perception was fading in and out between what was around her … and somewhere entirely other.
“Ama? Yes, love, I’m coming to you. Give me a moment. Just one.”
Adam covered her hand with his. He wasn’t going to say that Ama wasn’t there. For all he knew, she was.
“I still need …” She smiled, and she seemed to be seeing through him. “Aha. Here she is.”
Adam glanced back toward the doorway—and froze. There, standing on the threshold, was a small woman with skin such a dark brown that it was almost black, her hair hanging down her back in a complex series of braids. She was young, certainly no older than him and perhaps even a few years his junior, but her eyes were the ancient white eyes of an Aalim.
And still raw, healing. She was new. Newborn.
“You’re—” he murmured, and she nodded.
“You’ve seen me. You’ll see more of me.” She went to them and bent, and the instant her hand touched Adam’s he felt a jolt as though she were electrified, and gasped. It was like it was with Rachel … But stronger. Deeper. Lochlan stepped swiftly forward, but Adam held up his other hand, shaking his head.
“It’s all right.” He paused. “You’re … Nkiruka.” He knew the name as if he had always known it, and she nodded.
“You’re the prophet.”
“What? No, I’m—”
“Yes, you are.” She sighed. “Don’t argue. He is, isn’t he, Old Mother?”
“Yes.” Lakshmi laughed softly. “Old Mother. But that, young voel, no one has called me that in … I don’t even know how long. And you.” That strange sight-without-sight was directed past them again, and Kae started. “Child, here you are, all grown and as you should be. Come and let me look at you.”
Kae did so, glancing at Lochlan—who laid a hand on his arm, a touch that said more than even an embrace would. Kae nodded and turned to them again, kneeling opposite Adam. His face was relaxed, his eyes both distant and seeming sharply focused on something only he could see.
“It’s been a long time, Old Mother.”
“Yes, boy, it has. Boy. Yes, that was it. I couldn’t quite see it at the time, but that was it. It’s so good to see you whole.”
“We can help you.” Tears were shining in Kae’s eyes. “We can get you back to Ashwina—or just down to the valley. We have healers, Ying is the most—”
“Others are more in need of your healer’s skill than I am, child. My time is finally over. I am going to my Ama, who has been waiting for me for years upon years.” She let out a shuddering sigh and closed her eyes. “Carry me to my Halls. My Arched Halls, in the grove. Lay me inside, and tonight at dusk you will give it—and me—to the fire. Give me a little light to speed me on my way home.”
Kae only nodded, clasping her other hand in his. Adam watched. That second sight had not left him, the sense that everything around him was possessed of an additional dimension that he could almost see. Kae’s pain was like a light in itself, radiating from him, but it was a complicated pain, and loss was only part of it. Something more had happened here than merely a foolish child helped by the skill of an Aalim in exile. Something much, much deeper.
Perhaps someday Kae would tell him. Perhaps not.
“All right,” Nkiruka said, her voice quiet. “She’ll be sleeping soon. Let’s move her as gently as we can.”
It was late afternoon; sunset wasn’t going to be long in coming. The sun itself was warm on their backs as Kae, Nkiruka, Eva, and Adam carried Lakshmi from her house, Lochlan walking with them, Skitss following along behind and weeping in the way that Koticki wept, a soft hiss like the sighing of the wind in dry grass. Before them, leading the little procession, Kyle, looking somber and confused. She had meant a great deal to him and Eva as well, Adam knew. She had sheltered them when no one else would, given them comfort, hope, direction. Given them what she could. They would still have those things, now. But what was coming next would be hard.
Everything that was coming would be hard.
The grove seemed larger in the afternoon sun, with the shadows beginning to lengthen. Overhead, more Bideshi landing craft were descending, and in the valley Adam thought he could see Ying, organizing people to carry the injured toward the canvas shelter she had already erected for them to receive treatment—Protectorate and Bideshi alike. He would have to go to her, when this was done. She would want to see him, to embrace him. There were many more reunions still to be had, some happy and some less so. But now he turned his attention back to the trees gathering around him, how they wound themselves into an enclosed space ahead, barely higher than Lakshmi herself but enough like the Halls that she would have felt at home. Into this they carried her, and laid her down on soft moss and soil.
“Ama,” was all she whispered. “Ama, I am here.”
They left her. It was a slow leave-taking, bit by bit, but in the end only Adam and Lochlan remained seated in the grass beyond the edge of the grove, gazing out over the valley and watching the sun sink lower behind the hills. Beyond them, outside the enclosure, Skitss was sitting silent vigil, his head bowed. His and Lakshmi’s full history—probably complicated, certainly long—was something else he might never know.
“We made it,” he murmured. He paused and ducked his head. “Well. Most of us.”
“Somehow.” Lochlan took his hand and slid even closer, so that their shoulders and hips were pressed together and his arm was around Adam’s back, wincing only a little at the pressure on his much abused and bandaged side. Adam leaned gratefully into him. He could sleep. He could sleep for about ten thousand years. And at the end of it …
A kiss to wake him.
“There’s still one more thing to do.”
Lochlan laughed. “There’s a fuck of a lot to do, mitr, or did you nap all the way through our little adventure there?”
“You know what I was doing.”
“Yes,” Lochlan said, quieter now. “Yes, I do.”
They were silent for a moment. Then Adam butted his head against Lochlan’s shoulder. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“What do you think about it?” He wasn’t exasperated, but he was pressing. He felt the need to press. Nkiruka was below, helping Ying with whatever could be done, and Kae, Kyle, and Eva were doing the same. He wasn’t sure where Rachel and Aarons had gone, but he suspected that they shouldn’t be disturbed, and in any case, despite his bond with Rachel, he didn’t think she would really understand. He was alone, except for Lochlan, and what had happened was gnawing at him and wouldn’t leave him be.
“I think …” Lochlan laughed again. “I think you might be about the strangest man I’ve ever met, mitr raya.”
Adam rolled his eyes. It was good to know that, despite the weariness and the grief and the relief, he was still capable of being exasperated by Lochlan. “Thank you. Thanks, that’s very helpful.”
“I mean it. I think you’re strange. I think that this is pretty much normal for you. For us. Everything about you has always been strange, Adam. For all you insist that you’re not special …”
“But I’m not.” Adam pulled back enough to look into Lochlan’s eyes. “That’s the whole point of
this. Or one of them. What I did … anyone can do it. Anyone’s capable. Bideshi, Protectorate … We’ve all got that—that connection, that tether. That line. All we have to do is find it.”
“They said you were a prophet.”
“I’m only one of the first.” Adam shook his head, a small, tired smile pulling at his mouth. “Don’t you know what a prophet is? It’s only someone who reminds people of the obvious.”
“Oh,” Lochlan said, and didn’t argue anymore. They sat together, Adam sinking into Lochlan’s heat and solidity, letting himself briefly forget about everything else. Everything that had happened and that had yet to come. Down in the valley, people were setting light to little campfires, hanging lanterns.
“So what’s there left to do?”
Adam raised his head slightly. “Mm?”
“You said there was something left to do.” Lochlan gave Adam a shake. “C’mon, chusile, don’t fall asleep and leave me in suspense.”
“Oh, right.” Adam nodded to himself. It wasn’t as though there was a decision to be made. It had been made already. “We have to get married.”
The fire burned on the hill. At sunset, Kyle and Eva had returned with Kae and Nkiruka, and together with Skitss they put burning clumps of dry grass against the old, twisted wood and fanned it. The wood itself was also dry, though parts of it were living, and it caught quickly. They stood in silence, watching the smoke billow up toward the starry sky.
“I will return to the village,” Skitss said presently. “A woman there has agreed to take me in. An apothecary. I know something of herbs from what Lakshmi taught me, so even an old Koticki might be of use.”
“The village,” Adam said, remembering it with a start. “Are they all right? Was anyone down there hurt?”
“No one was there.” Kyle nodded toward the flames. “The evacuation Lakshmi advised went off without a hitch. They’re returning home now. If trouble comes back here, they’ll know how to hide themselves again.”
Adam let out a breath. Their luck—their amazing, unbelievable luck—had held. It had held where the luck of so many others had failed. Down in the valley, volunteers were digging graves. Not so many, but enough. Ying’s makeshift clinic had almost more patients than they were equipped to handle. But here they were, and but for minor hurts, they were whole and well.
It had the feeling of a good beginning.
Or a high place from which to fall.
“Leila is coming down with the next transport,” Kae said softly. “She’ll be here in about half an hour. She’ll want to see you, Adam. Lock.”
Lochlan had been standing with his head lowered, quiet, but now he looked up, almost grinning, though there was something a bit forced about it. “The love of my life? Here? Kae, it can’t be so, I can’t be so blessed that—”
Kae shook his head in wonder. “You can’t even shut it off at a funeral.”
“This isn’t just a funeral.” Adam stared into the fire and found a smile, let it come. “She wouldn’t want it to be only that.”
“No, she wouldn’t.” Nkiruka turned to them, pulling her scarves closer around her shoulders. The night was cool, though not yet really cold. “We see life braided with death, never to be separated. There’s much life here tonight amidst the death. They can’t be without each other. We mark the passing of both; celebrate each in its time.” She laid a hand on Lochlan’s arm, on Adam’s, and it felt like a blessing. Somehow her face was both joyful and grave, even sad. Knowing and profoundly experienced.
“Don’t hesitate to seize that life. All that you can. Don’t hesitate for a moment.”
There were witnesses, though there were no lights but the stars and the distant fires. Light felt unnecessary when there was already so much of it everywhere. They were some distance from both the little encampment in the valley and Lakshmi’s funeral pyre, nowhere particularly special. Adam knew that in the daylight he might not even be able to find this place again. But it wasn’t the ground that mattered. Everything was its own center, and they would carry theirs with them.
Adam could feel their friends, but they had no more real impact on him than the wind in his hair. He gazed at Lochlan, standing there with the starlight silvering his skin, and sensed two lines and two paths twining around each other, forming a knot. Time might undo it. But a lot of time would be needed.
There were no rings and there was no ritual, not even any words that meant much. There were his hands in Lochlan’s, his smile, their lips and the way they fit so perfectly, and the few words that they both held like treasures but didn’t need to say.
I’m yours. I promise. My dance, all my lines and my orbits. My heart.
He didn’t know what was coming next or where they were going. All he knew was who he would share the path with. Whatever happened, this moment would always exist, clear and perfect, woven into the fabric of the light, and the dance, and the night that went on forever.
Aalim—Bideshi scholar, teacher of laws and traditions, one possessing great wisdom
Chere—Stars, used as an exclamation
Fuguri—Balls, testicles, guts
Habibi—Beloved, as said to a male person
Habibti—Beloved, as said to a female person
Khara—Shit
Kutub—The ancient holy books of the Bideshi
Lovina—Strong, rich Bideshi liquor
Mitr—Friend
Raya—Landowner, with intensely negative connotations of being the possessed rather than the possessor
Shala—Hallucinogenic drug derived from the roots of the Bideshi’s ancient trees
Voel—Bird, with racier connotations in slang; a cocky person
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As always, thanks go first and foremost to Rob for remaining married to me through the literal years of trying to make this book—and the one that follows—happen. He’s an amazing man. Or he has a very high pain tolerance. Or both.
Thanks also to the rest of my family, especially Mom and Uncle Richard for the cheerleading and for not being quiet about how much they loved the first book. To Emma also, whose music recommendations continue to give me life.
As usual, more thanks are due to the entire crew at Darrow, for continuing to give me a writing outlet that makes this kind of writing easier and less stressful. Special thanks to Ashley and Leah for, well, everything. Including forbearance when I’m unmanageable.
Yet more thanks go to Elise Tobler for much-needed advice and counsel; to Izzy, Andrea, and Jason for making me feel like this really was worth doing; to Marco Palmieri for general encouragement; and to literally everyone who has ever hung out with me at a con and given me reason to believe I could actually do this job.
To everyone at Cyborgology, for everything.
To everyone at Riptide, especially Sarah, for being willing to look at this and then being willing to give it a home when it desperately needed one, and Caz, for working on it with me and really making
it something I’m proud of.
And finally to Megh. She is why this exists. These characters, this world … It would not be here at all without her.
Labyrinthian
Lineage (coming soon)
Root Code
Line and Orbit
Sword and Star (coming soon)
Casting the Bones
Crowflight
Ravenfall
Rookwar
Sunny Moraine’s short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Nightmare, Lightspeed, Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, and multiple Year’s Best anthologies, among other places. They are also responsible for the novels Line and Orbit (cowritten with Lisa Soem), Labyrinthian, and the Casting the Bones trilogy, as well as A Brief History of the Future: collected essays. In addition to time spent authoring, Sunny is a doctoral candidate in sociology and a sometime college instructor; that last may or may not have been a good move on the part of their department. They unfortunately live just outside Washington, DC, in a creepy house with two cats and a very long-suffering husband.
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