Page 36 of Mother of Death and Dawn

She did, defiantly, as if meeting a challenge.

“Is Brayan gone?” I asked.

“No. He isn’t happy about… your position, of course, but he agreed to stay and fight for his country. As I knew he would.”

It seemed about right. I could barely string my newly recovered memories together, but even the ones that were smashed into pieces had one thing in common: that Brayan was excellent at fighting wars, and he loved nothing more.

“Terrific,” I said. “A great boon for the Aran military.”

“It is.”

A long pause. We looked at each other.

“There was a boy in the attack earlier,” I said, at last. “Blond. A Solarie. Military. He was injured, but I got him to a healer. His name was Moth.”

She frowned. “Moth,” she repeated, an odd tone to her voice.

“Ridiculous name. I just…” I cleared my throat. “Do you know if he lived?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“He was too young to be out there.”

“I guarantee there are younger buttoning up their uniforms right now.”

“And does that feel right to you?”

She laughed, rough and ugly. “No, of course not, Max. None of this feels right. Thousands of Arans have died since this war began, Max.Thousands.And the damned Fey king hasn’t even shown his face here yet. He hasn’t even exhausted afractionof what he’s capable of. You think I don’t feel the weight of that?”

She curled her hand into a fist and then pressed it to her chest, over her heart, as if for emphasis.

Thousands. I had been able to paint the broad strokes of how bad it was based on the scenes I saw beyond the Tower in the rare times that Nura pulled me out of Ilyzath in daylight. I saw the devastation today. Those monsters tore our soldiers apart like paper. Hell, they had nearly done the same to me.

The truth was, I believed her. It justified nothing, but I believed her.

Finally, I said, “Why are you here?”

She drew in a long breath, then let it out slow.

“I am here,” she said, “because I need you to understand how much we need you.”

“Why me?”

This was the thing I never could understand.

Countless times now, Nura had pulled me out of Ilyzath to be the subject of Vardir’s machinations. Their escalating desperation was enough to tell me that they needed me. But I didn’t understand why. Why was I so important? What did I have that any other Wielder didn’t?

This was the puzzle piece I couldn’t snap into place.

Nura gave me a look that held many words she wouldn’t say. “Soon, Vardir will have a revised process to test on you,” she said. “I come here on my hands and knees, Max, asking you to help us.”

“What makes you think that I can?” I said. “It’s not as if I’m making Vardir’s experiments fail by choice.”

I refrained from adding that I definitely would if I could.

“You remembered Brayan.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

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