The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [193]
“I knew better,” the little girl said. “I knew better than to hope for anything for myself.”
“Stop whining,” Anne said. “You had a better life than you could have ever hoped for, born as you were.”
“You’re right,” Austra said. “And I wouldn’t trade it. You were always going to be the end of me, Anne. I knew that. You’ll bury me here, and the circle goes on.”
“You didn’t know,” Anne accused.
“Of course I did. I didn’t know how it would happen. It nearly happened a dozen times when we were little.”
“That’s nonsense. I loved you.”
“It’s how you love,” she replied. “It’s how you love, Anne.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You probably don’t,” Austra replied, closing her eyes. “I love you anyway.”
“He’ll kill us both, Austra, if he gets you.”
She nodded tiredly. “I know you won’t, but please let Cazio go. Can you do that for me?”
Anne started to agree, but why should she? She didn’t have to do anything Austra said or for that matter listen to anything she said. She was the only one who could make her feel like this, feel like…
Feel like what? she suddenly wondered.
But she knew that, too. When her mother—or Fastia, or anyone—disapproved of something she did, she knew she might be in trouble, but deep down she never actually felt bad.
When Austra disapproved of her, she knew in her heart she was wrong.
She didn’t need that, did she?
She felt the Briar King, his power swelling, reaching for what remained of Austra, tearing through the illusory tomb.
Time was up. She had a heartbeat left to act, but it was all she needed.
No.
With a soft, chagrined laugh, Anne released her hold. The Briar King took Austra and loomed up to the sky. The Kept screamed once as he was ripped from her and hurled into the oblivion he craved, and then she felt as if all her veins had been opened, and the scent of black roses filled her lungs until there was nothing else.
EPILOGUE
THE DAY the last Skasloi stronghold fell began the age known as Eberon Vhasris Slanon in the language of the elder Cavarum. When the language itself was forgotten by all but a few cloistered scholars in the Church, the name for the age persisted in the tongues of men as Everon, just as Slanon remained attached to the place of victory in the Lierish form Eslen.
Everon was an age of human beings in all their glories and failings. The children of the Rebellion multiplied and covered the land with their kingdoms.
In the year 2223 E, the age of Everon came to an abrupt and terrible end.
It may be that I am the last to remember it.
I was dying when the Briar King came. When the battle was done, he lifted me in his hand of living vines and opened those eyes of his upon me.
I knew my friend, and he knew me, and I wept at what he had given up, but more at what he had gained. He took me away, and in his long, slow way he mended me. He meant well.
Of all that died and lived that night, only I was left with the sight, and it was a faint reflection of what I once had. Like Aspar’s Grim, my one eye can look beyond the horizons of days and leagues—but never again at my command.
The hour of treasured shadows had just struck in Vitellio, and in the little town of Avella, that meant everyone from the carpenter to a shopkeeper—or anyone who had sense—had found shade and a light snack. This was true even now, when the days were shorter and the shadows longer. Fewer duels were fought over the prime spots, and thus it was that this deep in the month Utavamenza, Alo was able to rest in the shade of the fountain of the Lady Fiussa without much fear of molestation, even given the current climate in town and the well-known fact that his skills with the sword were far from perfect.
He enjoyed the wine as best he could, knowing it would be his last for a while. He could wish for some bread to go with it, but he might as well ask Fiussa to weep sapphires.
He dozed on and off in the