Page 98 of Still the Sun

Understanding dawns on me slowly. A coward, he’d called himself. No longer.

“The light won’t hold forever,” he says to me, Amlynn. Through the doorway half-blocked by amaranthine, I see Salki standing on Machine Four. Others congregate below her. “We must keep the room lit at all times, even during the day.”

“Day?” Salki repeats, more to herself than anyone else.

After ensuring I’m mostly silver-free, Heartwood gets me down to the lift on the fourth floor. He’s injured, too, and without his godhood, he’ll heal slowly. How slowly, only time will tell.

The earth quakes as we step out of the tower; Heartwood grabs the door hard enough to splinter it. The tremor passes quickly. When I step out of the tower, I catch a writhing shadow against the night sky, winding away from our world. The Serpent, finally free.

I sob. Body-shaking, throat-wrenching sobs. It isn’t over—those lights, this prison, will hold for a month at best. But it’s finished for now. For now.

I drop to the cooling earth, mourning everything lost and celebrating everything saved, watering the feet of my creations, my tower, with tears. Heartwood stands sentinel, allowing me to grieve. Salki drops beside me, a steady and reassuring presence.

A minute passes before she asks, “Pell, what are they?”

Lifting my head and wiping my nose, I find her raised eyes and peer upward. A laugh wheedles its way past my lips.

“Oh, Salki. Those are stars.”

The gods had been many.

The Well of Creation brewed deity of all kinds, and they, in turn, created. Sometimes they formed other gods, like Heartwood and Cas’raneah, sometimes telluric creatures, like us. Many of these beings partook in the war to imprison Ruin. Several survived. And so, were we to call out to them, they should answer, or so Heartwood believes. He cannot do it himself. The divinity that once flowed through his veins, the strength stolen by Moseus—Ruin—was destroyed imprisoning it. Heartwood will never again be who he was. None of us will.

He accepts the sad fact too easily as we sit outside the tower, watching the first sunrise in many years. I never counted the years. Never thought to, thanks to the stupor that Ruin trapped us in. But Heartwood says it’s been nearly thirty since the first imprisonment. I was eighty-six when Cas’raneah brought the war to Tampere. It’s strange to think I passed my centennial mark and never realized it.

I am tired. We are all tired. The recapture of Ruin resulted in only one death, but it’s a death felt heavily by all of us. Heavier, I dare say, than Ramdinee’s, Entisa’s, and Hagthor’s, though only I remain to remember the last. Maglon was a gatherer, a friend of all, a connector of neighbors and balm to the mourning. Ruin consumed him so completely ... we have nothing left to bury except a gray streak on the red-tinted earth, but I will dig a grave for him regardless. It’s the very least I can do to honor him, for without his efforts, I don’t think Salki or I would have reached Moseus in time.

Heartwood is a casualty, but he will live. He is burnt and sick and bandaged, but he’s alive, and he will heal. We watch the stars crawlacross the heavens, and the rebirth of the sun chases them away with blue, pink, and orange light.

I drift off at some point, leaning back against the tower. When I open my eyes again, the sun beams full and yellow, the sky an easy cerulean. “A beacon, then. To call them.”

Heartwood picks up the threads of our previous conversation. “It will have to be large. Powerful. Tampere resides on the outskirts of our universe.”

It will have to be built quickly, too. We cannot risk Ruin freeing himself. But we built great machines before, with little time to spare. We can do it again. I wonder if any of the gods remember us.

I reach for Heartwood’s hand and knit my fingers with his. A bandage pokes out from his sleeve. He squeezes, then murmurs, “Nophe.”

“Hm?”

“Take me to my sister.”

Rising, I pull him up. Our height difference makes me an awkward crutch. We shuffle our way into Emgarden, but we make it, and once within its unassuming, incomplete walls, others step up to help me.

Salki should be resting, but when we arrive at her door, she sits beside Cas’raneah’s cot, caressing her hair like a mother over a child. I will tell her stories of the goddess who saved us. I will share everything I know. I will remember what others cannot.

Cas’raneah has yet to awaken. I don’t know if she will. She diminished herself so much already, making the amaranthine wall that still stands, locking us away from the rest of the world. She, too, lost much that she will never be able to reclaim, and I realize our casualties are far higher than I originally counted. Our war never truly ended.

Salki vacates her chair, and we help Heartwood into it, the others excusing themselves in a gift of privacy. Salki moves to the far side of the room, busying herself, her movements awkward and weary.

Bracing himself against the cot with one arm, Heartwood leans forward and traces a thumb across his sister’s brow. “It is her,” he says, “but it is not.”

“She tied her spirit to Tampere. To the amaranthine wall.” I grasp his shoulder, offering what little comfort I can give. “She is here, Heartwood. She is wired through every millimeter of this world. She is everywhere.”

He sits silently, watching Cas’raneah’s still face. Her breaths are deep and even, but weak. I don’t speak. After a minute, Salki finds a reason to leave and does so without a sound.

“I didn’t realize,” he says at last, “how much destruction I had caused.”

“Heartwood—”

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