Page 292 of Mother of Death and Dawn

Tisaanah and I, certainly, had no interest in living there. But it was a gorgeous house. A large estate. More space than anyone knew what to do with. Even as a child, my mother—who was no pauper herself—had thought the size of it was just excessive. “I don’t know what your father’s ancestors did to make them think they needed all of thisroom,” she would sigh.

Do something great.

What could possibly be great, after all of this?

I had lost faith in so much over the years. The Orders, the military, my brother, my father. Even the things that I loved, I had complicated feelings towards. So much of what I had taken as a given when I was younger had turned out to be flat out untrue.

I had joined the military because I had thought it was my only route to prominence. I wanted to learn how to be a powerful Wielder, and joining the military was what talented young men and women did when they wanted to fulfill their potential.

Now, I looked back on that path with disgust. How did we ever think that was normal? To teach people—teachchildren—that the only route to greatness was to learn how to kill?

Do something great,Brayan had written.

I swung my legs down and leaned across the table.

“If one wanted to open a school,” I said, “how would one, theoretically, go about doing that?”

CHAPTERONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX

TISAANAH

The time came, eventually, that I had been dreading. The final Alliance ships were leaving for Threll, and Serel, of course, would need to be on them.

We had spent a lot of time together over this last month. In the wake of the battle, we’d held each other in sheer euphoric delight that we had both managed to make it out alive. I’d treasured our time together in the days since—early morning teas before the work began, late night drinks of wine when the hard days were done.

I was a bit surprised when he stayed after the first wave of ships left, and then the second. I knew it was because of me, though I didn’t want to question it. These were hard days, and I liked having my friend with me through them.

I knew, even though we left it unspoken, that he was giving me as much time as possible to make my own decisions. And I knew he would support me in whatever they turned out to be.

But I still felt like a traitor when I told him that I was going to stay in Ara.

“Only for now,” I said. “Until we finish sorting all of this out. Sesri hasn’t even arrived, and the senate hasn’t finished being installed, and we haven’t yet gotten the school ready, and the guild—”

Serel laughed and jokingly rubbed his temples. “Gods, Tisaanah, you’re making my head hurt. I know, you are busy. I get the point.” Then his smile softened. “I’m not surprised. I knew you were going to stay.”

He meant this as a comfort, but instead it made guilt slide between my ribs.

“Nothing is more important to me than the Alliance,” I said. “You know that. Don’t you?”

“Youcreatedthe Alliance. You have paid your debt to us, Tisaanah. There isn’t a soul in the senate that would disagree.” He smirked. “Though I suppose I’ll have to let them know that you won’t be accepting the Nyzrenese seat. They’ll be gutted.”

The truth was, even if Max and I had decided to return to Threll, I wouldn’t have accepted the Nyzrenese leadership seat. I understood, now, how Max had felt when he took the crown of Ara, even knowing it would be temporary. Their admiration for me was built on so many legends. But I couldn’t rule them as a figurehead—and I didn’t want to speak for only Nyzerene, a country that I barely remembered.

No, I didn’t want to work in service to a country. I wanted to work in service to the entire world.

The things that Max and I talked about in the few spare moments we had during the day, though—the school, the guild that I was building with Iya…

These were things that set my soul on fire. The potential seemed limitless.

Still, now I looked into Serel’s blue eyes and doubt clenched in my chest.

“You can stay here,” I blurted out. “With us. Everyone here loves you. You could build a life here.”

He could have laughed at me, and I wouldn’t have blamed him. It was an absurd proposition. This was not his home. He was key to the day-to-day leadership of the Alliance, and he was breathtakingly good at it. It was selfish on every level for me to ask him to stay.

But he didn’t laugh. Instead he put his hand behind my neck and leaned his forehead against mine.

“Your heart is a part of my heart,” he said. “Even with an ocean between us.”

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