Page 152 of Requiem of Silence

Mooriah nodded slowly. Darvyn’s hand was stone, still clutching the back of her clothing. She dared not look at him and flinched at the devastation in his voice when he spoke. “Is there any way I can go with her?”

“Darvyn, no!” She spun around to face him, but this timeheignoredher.

“Fenix?” he pleaded. He was still as a statue, but cracks were already forming.

“The World After is for the dead,” Fenix replied. Then he squinted and tilted his head to the side, peering at Darvyn. “But perhaps…”

“Perhaps what?”

“Perhaps if I unbind you…”

Darvyn’s eyes widened. “I’m bound?”

“The powers you inherited from your father are buried within you. They would have been difficult for you to manage as a young child without training and so they retreated. Once they are unearthed, I see no reason for you not to be able to survive between worlds. You could go with her if you chose to.”

Darvyn stopped breathing. Kyara was afraid he might have had a stroke. This was a lot of information to absorb all at once. A look was shared between the two men. Darvyn’s lips moved, mouthing the word, “Please.”

Kyara had no time to object to his giving up his life as well. Before she could form the words to protest, there was a flash oflight, almost imperceptible it went by so quickly. In its wake, Fenix observed Darvyn expectantly.

“It’s done?” he asked.

“It’s done,” Fenix said.

Darvyn stretched out his arms and turned his hands palm up, then down. “I don’t really feel any different.”

Fenix chuckled. “Give it time, give it time.”

He truly didn’t seem any different to her eyes, however, sinking into her other sight made things clearer. Instead of the barely visible speck of Nethersong he usually manifested as, Darvyn was present. Not quite the substantial form Fenix displayed, more like a ghostly apparition of himself.

Kyara shuttered her vision, focusing back in on the real world. “Darvyn, I—I’m not asking you to do this with me.”

“You don’t have to. There’s no place for me here,” he echoed her words from a few moments ago. “Not without you.”

She grabbed Darvyn’s hand and pulled him closer. “Are you sure you want this? It won’t be life the way you know it. I’m not sure it will really be life at all.”

He palmed her cheek with a hand. “But it will be with you. And that’s all that matters.”

Loss and pain, that was almost all she’d ever known. But she knew love now, too. Her Song had brought nothing but misery for so long, now it gave her a purpose beyond just taking life, she could help to protect it.

Tears filled her eyes as Darvyn wrapped his arms around her. Though she couldn’t imagine what her existence in the World After would be like, at least she would not be alone.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Loneliness and heartache tend to swell

when the clamor of the solo drowns out the

polyphony. You would do well to bid them both

farewell.

And lift your voice.

—THE HARMONY OF BEING

Mooriah was not good with good-byes. As Kyara and Darvyn explained to the others where they planned to go and why, she had no desire for a drawn-out farewell. King Jaqros had arrived with all the desperation of a man separated from his wife during a calamity. He was also a longtime friend of Darvyn’s and was having trouble understanding where his friend was headed and why he had to leave at all. Mooriah left it to the others to fill himin; she wandered to the side of the plaza out of earshot of the rest of them.

One wing of the hospital was discharging funnels of smoke. Someone—a wraith no doubt—had thrown a truck into the side of the building and while the fire had been put out, the wreckage smoldered on. The rest of the building was usable, though without electricity. However, it would be empty soon as Earthsingers were still filing in, volunteering to heal the injured.

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