And he did. When the truck finally lurched to a stop, Mali was sitting upright on the closed crate, draped in a concealing robe from Tua’s baskets, supported by Moussa’s solid bulk. His eyes were crazed with pain and determination, but when the double doors flew open, he stood up. His eyes cleared. He walked to the tailgate and surveyed the busy, torchlit clearing, people cooking and sewing and debating around fire pits, people coming and going with children and food and stacks of paper. He smiled at Moussa and arced his free arm at the soft glow spreading behind a sawtoothed horizon of trees, a pinkish glow, the color of orchids or the inside of shells. It touched the crisp dark leaves of the shrubbery, warmed the ragged bark of the pines, and softened the sudden twist of Mali’s jaw as he forgot himself and laughed for joy.
Ule shrieked with mad release and leaped off the truck. Lucienne and Tuli followed and were immediately surrounded with greetings and hugs, with demands for news. TeCu handed Omea down from the tailgate. A dark-haired boy hurried up. One arm was shorter than the other and terribly scarred. “Can you make a debriefing by nine or do you want to rest up first?”
Omea smiled. “Rest first. How about three?”
“I’ll spread the word.” The boy charged off.
Mali stood free of Moussa’s arm. He greeted the red-turbaned woman as she gaped at him in astonishment, then crouched and vaulted to the hard-packed dirt into the embrace of a tall woman with braided hair whose brilliant smile was the mirror of his own.
My jewelry peddler, from the day I’d arrived in Harmony. I clutched at my necklace and stared.
Sam said, “Ideela, Mali’s sister. She runs this training center. I believe you’ve met before.”
“Yes,” I murmured, astonished to learn just how long I’d been manipulated, “we have.”
He grasped the back of my neck and shook me gently, possessively. You think you’re here just to keep me company?”
“The Eye has a training center?”
“Open Sky does. Several of them. You want to work where there’s meaning to it?” He gestured proudly. “Your new home, Rhys, and welcome to it.”
The Outsider woman was muttering with her bearded companions, nodding at Mali with awe-muted glances. Sam grinned. “Don’t look so surprised, Red Momma. I told you he’d be joining us.”
I moved to jump down from the truck.
“Hey, Rhys,” Sam called softly. His hand flicked, came up presenting a perfect white rose. “I’m glad you came.”
I stared at it, at him, said nothing.
“Almost as hard to keep this alive as it was Mali.” He waited for a smile, then tossed the rose aside abruptly. “Why do I get the feeling I’m gonna have to start all over with you?”
“Something about the issue of trust,” I mumbled.
“No.” He caught my head in his hands and kissed me until it only made sense to put this anger away for another day. “That’s better,” he said, when he felt me let go of it. You asked me once if I believed the world would end if the Clans couldn’t walk the Stations. Look out there! That’s what would end: unshielded dawns and winds and weather, wildlife that’s actually wild, thirty-mile hikes without running into a force field! Is it worth it? Worth the risk, worth nearly killing Mali, worth what I put you through? Worth the lies we tell and the charades we play, every day, even the lives we take, the lives I’ve taken when I’ve had to, with my own hands, to keep our lives long enough to tell that truth, out there: Father Rock, Mother Wind, Laukulelemelea the Water, Wurimutonutonu the Sun. The noblest Art, the most awe-inspiring magic: the living world. Undiminished, uncaptive, undomed.” He swept his good arm at the flush brightening into orange behind the trees. With the abrupt movement, fresh red stained his bandages. “Nothing else in life is worth it!”
Past the glistening bloody profile of his shoulder, orange slid into yellow into pale green into blue. The deep blue bowl of the sky that Mali had shown me long before I knew it was what I wanted.
“No,” I said faintly, “nothing is.” And I lifted my eyes hungrily to the gilded warmth of the sun as it edged above the dark tree line.
Sam laughed. “Don’t stare at it, Rhys, you’ll go blind. Don’t you domers know anything?”
ALSO BY MARJORIE B. KELLOGG
THE DRAGON QUARTET
The Book of Earth
The Book of Water
The Book of Fire
The Book of Air
LEAR'S DAUGHTERS
The Wave and the Flame
Reign of Fire
Lear's Daughters (omnibus reissue)
STANDALONE NOVELS
A Rumor of Angels*
Harmony*
*available as a Jabberwocky ebook
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