The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [196]
“That’s interesting,” Leoff said.
“You don’t want to?”
Leoff smiled. “I’ve already started on it.”
“I think we’re being followed, by the way,” Artwair said.
Leoff nodded. He had seen the flash of dress through the trees.
“She has a bit of a crush on you, I’m afraid.”
“And here I thought you were teaching her good taste.”
Leoff raised his voice. “Come on out, Mery, and say hello to the duke. And after that we have work to do, you and I.”
He heard her giggle, and then she appeared, skipping toward them.
When the law of death was mended, those creatures caught between fell one way or the other. He thanked the saints every day that she had fallen his way.
I see the last of the Faiths.
The boom swung and the sail caught wind, and the Swanmay cut through the rising waves. Neil leaned on the rail, staring out over the rough water at the rugged coastline.
“It’s beautiful,” Brinna said.
He nodded in agreement. “She’s a hard old rock, but I love her. I think you’ll like her, too.”
She made a single fist of both of their hands. He winced a bit, for the whole arm was still tender, but he treasured the touch.
“We’ll stay here, then?” she asked.
He laughed, and she only looked puzzled.
“Would you make a liar of me?” he asked.
“I don’t even know what you mean.”
“I said I would take you away to where neither of us has duties. Now, the queen gave me my freedom and Berimund gave you yours, but we are still very far from that place.”
“And where, husband, would that be?”
“We will have to hunt it,” he said. “It could take the rest of our lives. Who knows how much of the world we shall have to see?”
And she kissed him and seemed young for the first time since he had known her. Together they watched Skern grow before them.
I saw Zemlé grow old, never knowing what happened to me. When I walked the world again, healed as much as I could heal, she was years dead.
So I returned to the empty Witchhorn. I grieve and write. And I remember what I can.
There is one thing I won’t forget until the river finally takes me out into everything. That was the time I saw through his eyes.
I never imagined such a beautiful thing—to gaze with every eye of the forest, feel and hear through every leaf and fern. It was only once, years after the battle.
It happened where the tyrants once stood, the great ironoaks Aspar loved so well. They were all fallen, but acorns had sprouted, and for those first years things grew with unnatural speed. So many of the trees were already four or five kingsyards high, slender young things, but already starting to shadow out the underbrush, reconquering their territory.
A woman came there, still young, her face rosy from the winds, for that year was cooler. She was bundled in a wool coat, and she wore elkhide boots. I knew her, of course, for I once thought I loved her, and I did in a way.
Holding her hand was a girl of perhaps six or seven years. She had a bright, intelligent face that was full of wonder as she stared about the place.
“Here he is,” Winna told the girl. “Here is your father.”
And, through him, I felt every tree strain, and shudder, and yearn toward them, and all the birds sang at once.
It was the last truly human thing I ever felt from him, and not long after that he slept, as sleep he must.
When he slept, I awoke, and found the world changed.
—The Codex Tereminnam, Author anon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GREG KEYES was born in Meridian, Mississippi, to a large, diverse storytelling family. He received degrees in anthropology from Mississippi State and the University of Georgia before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of The Briar King, The Charnel Prince, The Blood Knight, and the Age of Unreason tetralogy, as well as The Waterborn, The Blackgod, and the Star Wars® New Jedi Order novels Edge of Victory I: Conquest, Edge of Victory II: Rebirth, and The Final Prophecy. He lives in Savannah, Georgia with his wife, Nell, and son, Archer.
By Greg