Page 144 of While the Dark Remains

Young one. What do you seek?

I turn to find the Bronze Lord, there beside me, his mutilated face shimmering in the dim light. He kneels on the stone, the stumps of his arms resting on his thighs.

“My power,” I say. “But my father has reduced it to dust.”

You did that yourself.His voice echoes strong inside me, resonant as a bell.

I gaze at the ruins of my magic in utter despair. “How can dust become a stone again?” I whisper.

How indeed,says the Bronze Lord.But must it become a stone?

I remember the hooks in my hands. I take them, dip them into the gleaming remains of my power. I twist. The dust winds onto the hooks, becoming gossamer threads as thin as spider silk. When the hook is full, I turn it on myself, plunging it deep into my temple. Agony bursts in my very soul. But I don’t stop. I can’t stop.

Outside, I am falling.

Over and over I wind my magic onto the hooks and drive them into my head. The pain burns and burns, eating me from the inside.But with each new strand, I sense power returning to me, a trickle at first, then strong as a flood rushing over the plain.

Then there are only a few more specks of dust in the chest. I wind them into silk, lift it to my head. I pause, blinking over at the Bronze Lord. “What have you become, My Lord?” I ask him.

He smiles, raising his truncated wrists.A story. And one day, I will learn how to rewrite myself. But hurry, young one. You are almost at the bottom.

I drive the hook into my temple. Iburnwith magic. I know I am whole.

But then I blink and I’m hurtling into the Sea of Bones, and not even my magic can save me.

It’s cruel, I think, in the last few heartbeats before I smash against the ice, cruel to have found myself again just to die like I always feared I would. Falling. Into oblivion.

There is a rush of air, a whir of wings, and I collide with something soft and strong. I am buoyed up, up, back toward the top of the cliff.

I curl my fingers around broad feathers and find I am carried by a trio of massive white owls, all of them sharing my weight, beating their wings as one. My heart wrenches. Ballast.

The owls deposit me in a heap at the top of the cliff, and I watch, shaken, as Ballast bows to the magnificent birds. They bow back and take wing, flying west, Asvaldr keeping pace below them.

He turns to me, stricken. “Are you all right?” he says quietly.

I stare at him, my power searing in every part of me. I have been rewritten, from the inside out, but he can’t see it. He doesn’t know. Then I’m sobbing in the snow and I can’tbreatheand I think that my grief will rip me apart and I don’t know don’t know don’t know why I’m crying but I can’tstop.

He wraps his arms around me, pulls me tight against his chest, tucks his chin against my shoulder. He holds me, holds me, and it takes a while to realize he’s crying with me, his tears damp in my hair.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry, Brynja. It was the only thing I could think of that might restore your magic. I would never have let you die.”

I’m not sure how long we’re like that, locked together on the edge of the Sea of Bones, but at last my tears stop, at last I come into myself again and lift my head.

I look at Ballast in the light of the stars, and he looks back. He smooths his thumbs across my cheeks, wiping away the remnants of my tears. I’m stricken again by his scarred eye socket. I lift one hand, touch his scars with gentle fingers. My gut wrenches, and it’s all I can do to keep from crying again. It hurts, that someone I care about so deeply has endured so much pain.

“Do you hate me?” I ask quietly.

His forehead creases. “Why would I hate you, Brynja Eldingar?”

“I deceived you. Betrayed you.” My throat tightens. “I killed your father.”

My skin buzzes where Ballast touches me, his hands warm on my skin. There is pain in his glance, in the set of his jaw.

“Are you sorry that he’s dead?” I whisper. I feel the blood on my hand, see the life gutter out of Kallias’s eyes. It makes me sick.

“I am not sorry he’s gone,” says Ballast. “But I would have spared you if I could have. You shouldn’t have been the one to kill him.”

I can’t tell my grief from my anger. “Didn’t I have the right? Didn’t I? He murdered my sister and hetormentedme for years and he—”

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