No matter.
The deed was done.
She cast herself onto a streaming river of fire and let it carry her to the surface, just in time, because already the flow abated as the WiseMothers withdrew the press of their minds. Already the salt water cooled and stiffened the outer layer of the flowing lava. Already the flood of aether out of the heavens diminished, and the strength of her wings weakened; they began to shred and fall apart as the Earth reasserted its pull.
She found herself, naked, clutching only her bow, on a stairway formed out of the crust of a lava flow, all swirls and coils in the hardening skin. Everything else had burned off her, even the Quman quiver, even Lucian’s friend—her sword. She ran up into the open air. A thin crust sizzled against her feet, cracking under her weight. Smoke hissed up from narrowing vents. Any other creature would have died in such heat and such fumes, but she was born half of fire, and this was her element.
A blessedly cool wind greeted her as she climbed to the rim of the crater made by the eruption and, reaching the top, wiped sweat from her brow. The wind that had blasted outward had left the air clean beneath a heavy layer of ashy cloud extending to all horizons. The sky turned a hideous red in the east, heralding sunrise.
She heard the shush and slap of a distant shoreline, which had once lain directly below the stone circle, and she wondered whether Gnat and Mosquito had survived. She wondered if anyone had survived, because standing on the crest of a ragged ridgeline with desolation on three sides, she felt she was alone in a vast new world.
Nothing is permanent except change.
There the shoreline had once gnawed at the base of cliffs, but no longer. She stared out over new land extending as far as she could discern to the south and east into the Middle Sea. Mist wreathed its heights and valleys in a silvery gleam. Far away, felt more than heard, a moaning call rose out of the mist, the cry of a horn summoning the lost.
The Ashioi had come home.
EPILOGUE
IN the distant haze where sky met sea, islands rose out of the sound like teeth marking the horizon. The water gleamed, as still and smooth as burnished metal; seen from the height of the ridge, the swells were lost under the glare of the sun. The carter and the guardsmen paused on the path to wipe their brows against the terrible heat.
He had no shelter and no water to slake his thirst, and anyway over the numberless days of his captivity he had grown accustomed to the sun’s hammer. Today was especially hot and humid although he had an idea that it ought to be cooler, but he couldn’t remember why, and there was no wind at all, only the expectation of wind and a pressure in his ears as though someone were squeezing the air all around them. The heavens to the west and north were hazy along the ocean but clear above, while thunderous clouds had piled up and up in a black mass to the east and south.
“Don’t like the look of that,” said Heric to his fellows, nodding to the east. “Must be a mighty tempest. Hsst! I’ve never seen clouds like those, not in all my life.”
“Let’s get on,” said Ulf the carter. “I don’t like being exposed up on this ridge.”
“Dragonback, the townsfolk call it!” snickered Heric. “No doubt some girl or other does creep up here on a dark night with her lover to make dragonback! I’d do it!”
Ulf sighed. “The folk in Osna village weren’t too friendly, neither. I didn’t see no girls making eyes at us. I wish we was going back to Lavas Holding and rid of this stinking creature.”
“Soon enough,” said Heric. “We’ve a few holdings and villages yet to ride through before we’re safe home.”
Ulf snorted, scratching his nose, then spat on the dirt. He was not an unkind man, but he clung to his superstitions. “If we get safe home! Those clouds look ugly to me. These locals aren’t any too happy to see us, neither. They’re too worried about bad weather and a poor harvest to mind that foul creature.”
“It’s him what ruined their harvests with untimely rain and cold snaps! Brought about by his sin!”
“Maybe so.” Ulf shrugged. The other three guardsmen yawned; they followed Heric’s orders and ate their food but otherwise hadn’t any enthusiasm for the job. “But enough’s enough, that’s what I say.”
“Get on!” said Heric irritably. He had a willow switch and with this he slapped his mount’s croup to get it moving.
Ulf had a softer hand on the oxen. The cart lurched forward and they creaked down the path at a steady clop. A scatter of buildings lay beyond the tail of the ridge, arranged around a roofless church and a stone tower, which was still intact. For a bit they lost sight of the ruins as the path reached the base of the ridge, wound through a tumble of boulders and then, turning to loam, struck through a quiet forest, but soon they emerged into overgrown fields and trudged up past broken gates to take shelter for the night in the tower. Ulf watered the oxen at a stream and set them to graze, and the horses were given their oats and let wander within what remained of the fence that had once kept livestock within the compound.
