Page 128 of While the Dark Remains

This belongs to you,he says, the words resounding inside me solemn and sorrowful.You must hide it away yourself.

The room changes around me, taking the Bronze Lord with it, and I am alone in a stone cavern, the chest of magic heavy in my arms. The cavern is obviously ancient, filled with carved pillars and crumbling statues. It stretches on into infinity in every direction.

Dimly, I’m aware of the self that is outside of all this, screaming in my father’s office with his hands pressing against my temples. But here,in my mind, there is no pain. The chest grows so heavy I can barely hold it, and it burns my arms like it’s made of iron.

I shove it into a crack in the stone, near the statue of a young woman whose hands and feet, nose and ears, have all crumbled away in an eerie echo of the Bronze Lord.

I turn, shuddering, and find myself in my father’s office again, light streaming through the window, honeysuckle and saltwater wind tickling my nose.

My father draws his hands away, not meeting my eyes. I wonder if he feels guilty for lying to me. But I have nothing to say to him. Not now.

I slide from the chair, wiping tears from my eyes, realizing dimly that Brandr has been here this whole time, perched on a stool in the corner, watching us.

I run out onto the hills, away from the house, away from the sea. I run and run, until I find a little hollow where wildflowers lie thick as a carpet, and a shiny green snake winds its way through the grass. I sink down among the flowers and hug my knees to my chest, reaching and reaching for just an ounce of my magic.

But it isn’t there.

I am hollow.

Powerless.

I am not Iljaria anymore.

I am Brynja Sindri. A Skaandan acrobat.

I weep there bitterly, for hours. Because I didn’t know it would be like this. Didn’t know, didn’t know.

A week later, I leave for Skaanda.

My father doesn’t tell me goodbye.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Year4200, Month of the Ghost Lord

Daeros—Tenebris

Gulla is sleeping when I slip into her room in the guest wing, though it’s nearly the seventh hour. Two of the littlest children from the Collection are with her, curled up tight on either side of her. The rest are draped over chairs and the sofa, or sprawled about on the floor in mounded blankets.

It’s Rute who senses me first, unfolding herself from a fur blanket and blinking up at me with huge eyes.

“I didn’t believe you when you said you’d free us,” she tells me frankly. “But you did. Thank you.”

My heart wrenches. “I’m sorry it wasn’t sooner.”

She gives me a small smile, and some of the tension eases out of me. “Why are you all in here together?” I ask her then. “I left instructions for rooms to be found for each of you—”

“None of us wanted to be alone. We wanted to be with Gulla. She looked after us as best she could, you know, before she was shut in a cage, too. She’s all we have.”

I take a breath, blinking back tears. “I know.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” Rute asks quietly.

“Do you have a family to go back to?”

She shakes her head. “My parents passed when I was little. I grew up in a traveling troupe—that’s where I learned all of my tricks. But they were short on money, and they heard Kallias was looking for a new acrobat—”

Ice slides through my veins. “I’m sorry, Rute.”

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