The Black Star (Book 3) (84 page)

"How are you so good at not being bad?" he said.

"Because I'll be happy with or without you."

"Hmm," he said. "I think that sounds much ruder than it actually is."

"What's the point of this? You know you can't be happy here."

He rested his forearms on his knees. "Quit knowing me so well."

He refused to get frustrated—or to lose hope. He had seen too much of what else was out there to believe that, as much as he wanted this, his entire future depended on making it work. Day by day, Minn refined his skill with the nether. They shadowalked further and further until one day he started at the north end of the bay and made it all the way to the southern tip before he had to step back out into the real world.

One day early in this process, a warm wind blew in from the south, chasing winter away for good. For a few days, it was warm enough to lie on the sand with their skin exposed to the sun. This was beyond nice, and if he'd been able to see the rest of what was hidden beneath her underclothes, it would've been indisputably perfect.

Yet he knew that, sooner or later, he would no longer be happy to be enclosed in such a small closet of the world.

An unsolvable problem. He knew his nature and she knew hers. Natures could change, nature itself was proof of that, but if he left without her, he doubted that he'd be back, or that she'd want him to come back. Now was the time, the only time they'd have, and maybe that was why he didn't admit it was futile and walk away: this was it. And if "it" was nothing more than a couple more weeks spent walking together through the nether, then at least he would have that to remember in later years.

He gave himself a deadline. End of summer. If nothing changed by then, he'd leave before he wore out his welcome.

One late spring day, he woke from a nap beside the tide pools to see that one of the smaller rocks was moving, sliding over the others. He glanced around, expecting to see one of the People of the Pocket manipulating the stone (something Minn still hadn't decided to teach him—possibly, that was too secret to reveal to him until he became a permanent resident). But he was alone. And then he felt quite dumb, because the fist-sized rock had a bunch of little spines on it and was leaving a slimy trail behind it. It was a kellevurt.

He moved in for a better look. He hadn't known they could live outside the water. If he had, when he and Minn had gone to the island of Ko-o, he might have spent a little less time paddling around the furious ocean and a little more time climbing around the sturdy arm of rock embracing the bay. As he watched, the snail finished traversing the rock and slid into one of the pools, where it promptly enveloped a smaller conical snail that had been minding its own business.

Blays bolted to his feet and ran to the tunnels to see Ro. He was informed that she was out for a swim, so he ran back outside and up the beach until he spotted her floating on her back watching the gulls gliding overhead. Blays stripped off his clothes and dived into the waves, paddling out to her.

"What are you doing in the water?" he panted.

"Napping. What does it look like?"

"But the water is full of sharks and tides and cold," he said. "You'd be much safer up here on dry land. In fact, it might be best if you never left the caves at all."

She swung up to give him a look. "I'm touched that you're so concerned for my safety. Is this going somewhere?"

"I saw a kellevurt at the tide pools. It's probably still there, but I'd prefer that no one kill it, because it reminded me of something very important: it's possible to belong to more than one world at once."

She slicked water from her hair. "Now I see where this is going. Let me cut to the chase: No."

Blays laughed. The water was cool, but after his run to find her, it felt good. "I'm not asking to come and go as we please. Though I think she's more interested in seeing the world than she lets on. But if you really love this place as much as you claim, you'd do more to watch over it than posting a lookout in the Fingers."

"Do you think you can belittle me into agreement?"

"Your long-lost cousins in Narashtovik were almost destroyed because you couldn't be bothered to tell them their own history. Maybe you don't care about that. But if things had gone differently, maybe Cellen winds up in the hands of Moddegan instead. It's not out of the question he might have turned it on Pocket Cove."

"Cellen is gone," Ro said. "It won't be back for a thousand years."

"Is that all the longer you want the Cove to last?" Blays flung his hand toward the east. "You've turned your back on it, but the world is still out there. Let us be your eyes. Narashtovik is connected to places in ways you can't imagine—and I'm connected to its leader."

"It's true. We haven't had scouts for years. But this is pointless talk. She'll never leave for your city."

"I won't ask her to. Not for always. Just for half the year. The rest we'll spend here. Where I'll still be in contact with Narashtovik all the while."

"How will you manage that?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Well, that one's
my
secret."

Ro let her mouth sink below the waves, hiding her smile. "Have you asked her if this is what she wants?"

"She would just send me straight here anyway."

She smiled more. "Then here is my answer: go find her, and ask her if this is what she wants."

Blays couldn't have stopped his grin if he'd wanted to. He turned and swam back to shore. Minn was down at the tide pool with a small crowd; they'd discovered the kellevurt and were discussing whether to harvest it, or leave it be in the hopes it would reproduce.

He grabbed Minn's hand. She gave him a warning look, but her expression softened. "What is it?"

"What if we could stay a part of Pocket Cove while not always having to stay
in
Pocket Cove?"

Before she could tell him he was being a fool, he explained. It didn't take long. She drew her chin to one side, blinking. "Ro
agreed
?"

"I think she got a sense of the size of things beyond your cliff walls, and that it might be best to make sure none of those things want what's in here. And I think that, if you want this, we should tell her so before she changes her mind."

"Yes," Minn said. "Of course."

He leaned in and kissed her, and she kissed him back.

It was a few months before they went anywhere. Blays didn't mind. He had all the time in the world, and was content to spend it with her. But he was glad when Ro finally approached him about putting his proposal into action. He'd never been one for staying in any one place too long. Maybe that was part of why he'd left Narashtovik.

They had no horses, so he and Minn set off on foot toward Gallador. The plains were hot and abuzz with insects of all kinds. At night, they slept in the open, faces to the stars.

Across the heights of Gallador Rift, they gazed down on Wending in shock. The whole city appeared to be on fire, shrouded in a haze of smoke. Blays stopped a man on the road. "What's happening? Has the king invaded the city?"

The man laughed and shook his head. "Far from it, my friend. Those are the fires of celebration. We've won our independence!"

"Independence?" Minn said. "From Gask? How?"

"Shouldn't be telling you this." The man glanced behind him to ensure there was no one else in earshot. "But the way they're feeding those bonfires, in a few days, there won't be any city left, so who cares?" He chuckled and leaned in. "Word is the king ran out of money. Had to sell his claim on Gallador to Narashtovik. They turned around and set the entire lakelands free."

Blays doubled over with laughter.

In Wending, he paid a brief visit to Lolligan, who confirmed the rumors of the man on the road. The old man smirked and smoothed his silvery goatee. "You're the one who pulled this off, and you're asking
me
how it happened?"

"I was out of pocket for a while," Blays said. "And to be honest, I'd forgotten all about that. Was preoccupied with saving everyone, you know."

"Believe you me, after this, you'll always have a home in Wending. Take your pick."

"How's Taya doing?"

"Fine," he said. "I sent her on a vacation to the Golden Isles. She deserved it."

He was glad to hear that, and especially glad when Lolligan volunteered to buy them a second horse. They rode east, then cut overland across the Norren Territories. He saw a few hunters and scouts, but he was suddenly itchy to get where he was going and didn't approach them.

They came to the city. To his surprise, more than a few people recognized him on the street.

"Is that why you wanted to come back?" Minn said, following a lengthy hug from a female admirer.

"You can't blame them," Blays said, getting back into the saddle. "I've saved this damn place about three times now."

She nodded vaguely, gazing across the pitched roofs. "It's your home, isn't it?"

"I think it might be."

"Then I'm glad you're back."

At the Citadel, he had to repeat his name twice before being allowed inside. There was a question of whether Minn would be allowed in at all; then Gant appeared and cleared things up with a few sharp words. He escorted them upstairs and offered Minn the opportunity to change out of her travel clothes. While she was behind closed doors, Gant took Blays to the Council chambers, where Dante was sitting on the balcony reading and trying to catch a breeze.

Dante closed his book with a thump. "You're back?"

"For a bit. Did you doubt me?"

"No more than usual."

Blays wiped sweat from his brow. "Well, you shouldn't. While I was out, I engineered a pretty snazzy way to ensure the safety of Pocket Cove
and
your little city here." He smirked. "Although I hear you pulled a maneuver of your own on Gallador."

"Thanks to the wild bossen-dealing of a certain Lord Pendelles, that one fell right in our laps," Dante laughed. "At this rate, in a few more years Gask's borders will stop and start with Setteven."

"Any word out of Corl?"

"I think they killed my diplomats. But maybe they're involved in a lengthy discussion."

Blays nodded. "Have any regrets?"

"About killing thousands of innocents?" Dante laughed hollowly. "Every night."

"And I'm sure you tell yourself—rightly so—that the Minister's to blame for that, not you." Blays sat on the cool stone. "But I didn't mean about that. I meant about Cellen."

Dante looked across the sky. "I've got a lot of years ahead of me. No need to be greedy, is there?"

"Good. Because we can still do it."

"Do what?"

"What you meant to do with Cellen: leave this place better than we found it."

Dante looked over, eyes bright with surprise. "I thought you'd only be staying a few days."

"I'm afraid," Blays said, adopting the most dolorous expression he could muster, "you're going to be seeing a whole lot more of me than that."

The sun reddened, heading into the western turn of the bay, reminding him of a thousand sunsets just like it—and then, quite suddenly, of a singular one: the sink of the sun on a pond outside Bressel. He hadn't thought of that day in a long time and its details were slow to return. Trout breaking the surface. The smell of the water on muddy shores. The blackbirds chirring from the reeds. He had known Dante for some weeks before that, hired to watch his back while the then-boy sought to unravel the secrets of the
Cycle of Arawn
, but their stop at the pond was when Blays had made the choice to move beyond his role as a bodyguard. He had always considered that to be when their adventures truly began.

That memory gleamed in his mind more intensely than the sun's hard light on the sea, yet he could hardly remember the person he had been then, let alone the specific events of the days surrounding those at the pond. It was sad to think how quickly things became lost. It was no wonder things were the way they were. Memories, people, your own self. You thought you'd always have them, that you'd be able to draw on them in times of need, but they slipped away like the days, gone before you knew it.

But there was a flip side to that, wasn't there? So much became lost to time because there was so much time to lose it in. Blays had seen four thousand sunsets since the one by the pond. Unless disease or a sword got in the way, he expected to be there for thousands and thousands more.

One at a time, a day didn't sound like much. Especially when so much of each one was devoted to eating, sleeping, and so on. But when you thought of them together, stacked up like the coins at a mint? Your wealth was immense. If you spent wisely, there seemed no limit to what you could achieve. By the time he reached into his pocket and learned he'd spent his last, he intended for all they had done so far to be just the beginning.

"What?" Dante said.

"Are you going to sit on this balcony the rest of your life? Or can we get out there and show Minn the city?"

"I suppose." Dante moved to the door. "She did help save it, after all."

By the time they tracked her down and got outside, the sun was long gone. But the night air tasted sweet, cool and familiar, like the hilt of a sword or the sheets of a bed before you get up. For the moment, he was home.

FROM THE AUTHOR

Hello everyone! That concludes the
Cycle of Arawn
. It's a strange feeling: I first wrote
The White Tree
seven years ago. Back then, if you couldn't sell a book to a New York house, that was it; you set the book aside and moved on. For a while, I thought I'd never get to tell the rest of the story. It has been very special to return to these characters. Thank you for following them to the end.

I write a lot of other stuff, too. If you'd like to know when my next book is out, the best way is to
sign up for my mailing list
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