Page 146 of Requiem of Silence

There was no heat, it was very unlike a flame, but Kyara felt the truth of the statement all the same.

“The Flame is the Light,” Ahlini continued. “‘The one who walks in the Dark will embrace the Light.’”

A prophecy from another time—Kyara barely remembered it. Others emerged from the darkness, people she recognized. Her victims, only they were no longer angry or pleading. They no longer bore the signature mark of her power. Their eyes were bright and now they were at peace.

“Am I… am I dead? Did I fail?”

Ahlini shook her head. “No. You still have work to do. You must wield the death stone’s power.”

“But the Breath Father told me that the death stone was too much for me. That I shouldn’t use it.”

Ahlini’s serene face rippled and her body transformed into the wispy air-like image of the old man Kyara had known as the Breath Father.

“I told you its power was limited only by your imagination. You imagined the worst, and at the time it was what you needed to believe.” His voice was once again the whisper of wind on tree branches. He changed back to Ahlini’s small form.

“Wait! Has it been you this whole time? Was Ahlini never here?”

The childish voice spoke again. “I am one with the Flame. In the Flame, there are no individuals, only the collective. We are no one and everyone.”

Ahlini changed again. She was the merchant’s wife who had helped her after Kyara escaped the glass castle. Travelers she’d met along the road. Men and women who had been standing too close and been caught up in the release of her power. And then, once again, her friend.

Kyara was confused, but part of her also understood. “Why am I here? We’re about to be destroyed. The True Father is winning.”

“You are here, because you can control the dead. Use the power you have been given. You are stronger than he is, but you need help, warriors to fight. Here, you may find them.”

The people who had gathered around her multiplied in number swiftly. They were her victims, but more than just those. She recognized the wizened face of theullaof the harem’s cabal. Theul-nedrimguards who had been kind to her. A woman with a familiar face stood near the front of the growing crowd. One with a face so similar to Kyara’s that she gasped. Some internal knowledge told her this was her mother.

Next to her stood a tall Lagrimari man. Her father, her real father—she didn’t know either of their names, had never truly met them, but recognized them all the same. Not far away was a man who closely resembled Mooriah, one of her children? One of Kyara’s great-grandparents? There were many more coming forward who felt familiar. Both Lagrimar and Elsiran.

A red-haired woman with eyes like Varten’s and Roshon’s stepped forward, too. Their mother.

“I thought that everyone was consumed by the Flame and reborn to different lives?” Kyara asked.

“We are all and we are one,” Ahlini said. “We return here again and again. From death, life. We will be your army, we are ready to follow your command. Will you lead us?”

Kyara took a deep breath, staring at all the faces known and unknown. The Light around her extended on to infinity. There were more ancestors gathered here than she could fathom. What exactly were they? Beings? Spirits? Ghosts? She wasn’t sure. Warriors she’d called them, that seemed like as good a name as any.

“Warriors. Please help me. Come and fight for the living.”

She felt their acquiescence, their desire and their motivation. And then the archway appeared, visible in this field of Light just as it was in the darkness. The way back to the Living World was there.

Confident that her army was following, she walked through the archway.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Without sorrow, grief would be a passing

stain. An old scar with no power to cause

pain. But sorrow’s companion is

misery. Its company is damaging,

and woe is she who lets it settle and stay.

—THE HARMONY OF BEING

Darvyn wasn’t sure if he should touch Kyara or not. She lay crumpled on the ground, hands entwined with Tana’s. If they were somehow working Nethersong in this state, then he knew he couldn’t interfere—Kyara was one of the only people in this world who could do him real damage with her abilities. But seeing her motionless on the ground like that made him uneasy.

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