The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) (72 page)

Prove that you’re a better person than him
, her conscience taunted.
Prove it, you foolish girl
.

But she was Adam’s daughter. And she could try.

Her hand brushed over the ropy scar on her temple. The hair had grown over it completely, and no one could see the ugliness.

She thought about Gerald, about all her friends she had spurned and ignored. She thought about Agatha raising her child in this grim world. She thought briefly about Ewan and how he had been willing to die to save everyone. She even thought about Princess Sasha, marching toward certain death. Selfless sacrifice, every one of them, except her.

“I will uphold it, Your Highness,” she croaked and had to cough. “Yes.”

Sergei’s face twitched, and he almost lost his calm composure. “Good.” He rose from the throne. “Good.” In slow, measured steps, he walked past her. “Then you will know what to do. Please consult with Theodore about the management of the city. I will expect monthly reports.”

Amalia spun after him. “Your Highness.”

Sergei stopped walking, tensed, then slowly turned toward her. “Yes?”

Amalia clenched her fists hard. “I am sorry.”

He nodded once. “I am sorry, too. Now, you will excuse me. I am going home.”

Amalia watched him depart. Some of the guards stepped in beside him, flanking him. Others remained in the chilly hall, still as statues. Heart beating rapidly, her emotions a bruised storm of panic, joy, and regret, she looked back at her old adviser, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.

“Theo.”

“Amalia,” he said in his familiar tone. “Welcome back.”

EPILOGUE

E
wan stepped toward the Womb.

It was early spring. Flowers were waking up shyly across the little clearing. Patches of snow clung to the shadows beneath the trees, but the rest of the turf was shining soft green, basking in sunlight.

He had spent the last several weeks leading the Naum people to the Safe Territories, helping them settle in the abandoned places, picking up life where it had stopped two decades earlier with the Feoran invasion. With as much wonder and dismay as he had felt a lifetime ago watching those intruders come and torch his monastery, the northerners filed into the ghost places, overgrown with weeds and shrubbery, teeming with wildlife. Humans had come and disturbed the peace of nature, scattering the animals. There was always someone usurping and someone fleeing, it seemed. Finite land, infinite greed, infinite need for survival.

He had helped them populate the big places, then left them on their own. They would figure out where to send their folk. They would know not to go past the flag markers laid down around the border of the holy land. That was his one rule for this lost nation.

Their life would be harsh, Ewan knew: learning everything in this alien, warm world where snow fell for only a fraction of the year, identifying the strange new trees that withered with the first storms, herding sheep, sowing seeds, establishing law and order.

In the realms, a different slew of tragedies would unveil, but unveil it would.

All the while, people would continue their lives, convinced there were gods and goddesses watching over them.

The Naum people had their unshakable belief in their master with the bloodstaff. For them, belief was in seeing power, feeling power. For the Parusites, Caytoreans, Eracians, and maybe some Athesians, hope was all about faith in divine creatures that had long forgotten about humans.

Finally, a meaning to his life. To become the guardian of the people of the realms, to become their protector, their chaperone, to help them overcome their doubts and grief and fear. A life of solitude, a life of burden.

He was ready.

He stepped toward the pile of pebbles. Dark, opaque, dead like the gods and goddesses.

He picked up one at random, cupped it hard in his palm, and willed life into the little stone. The rock started to glow, becoming translucent. Strangely greenish in color, like the growth underneath piers in a harbor.

The world around him started to change. He noticed the touch of the chilly breeze on his skin.

Ewan gasped with wonder. He saw goose bumps on his forearm. For so many years as a child, he had taken the caress of a cool wind for granted, never wondered what it would be like to be bereft of all smells, taste, hunger, heat, and cold.

It was coming back to him, all of it. Never had the experience been so sweet.

As his body attuned to the early spring morning, his consciousness began to expand. He thought he heard chatter behind him, so he spun, but there was no one there. More voices, barely audible, everywhere, all around him. A silly grin exploded on his lips. He was feeling human life, everywhere, across the realms. Invisible lines of life’s energy merged with his soul, and he could sense the realms, like a bird hovering many hundreds of miles above the terrain, seeing everything.

He dropped the shining pebble onto the heap. Oh, he was hungry now and feeling weak. Human once again, vulnerable. A wildcat could kill him now; a stray arrow would drop him dead. He would have to eat to survive; he would have to cover himself with a blanket to ward off the night’s chill. The price of divinity.

Of being human.

I’m a god now
, he figured stupidly.

Ewan promised himself he would never abandon the people of this land. Not them, not the Naum folk. They all deserved guidance. And unlike their old leaders, he would not hide away. He would embrace their passion and fears and work toward making their lives better. He would pay them back for their prayer and love for him so they would know their god listened to their plight.

He glanced at the graves of Elia and Damian, now overgrown with grass, barely there. In time, he hoped, he might find a girl who might like him for who he was. Break the bonds of his solitude. One day. Now, his task was restoring hope to the realms.

Gripping the bloodstaff, he went back into the surrounding forest.

After all, he had to hunt himself a dinner.

Mali looked at the curly haired northerner with pain in her chest. “We might meet again.”

Bjaras did not speak that much Continental, but he figured the gist of her words. “Meet.”

She nodded, pointing her chin behind him at the convoy of northerners waiting for the carpenter. Among the last of the invaders and their families to depart the realms. A small, frightened group, mostly the folk she had taken under her custody several months back. Despite all the killing and confusion, they had been spared.

Bjaras hesitated, but then he turned and walked out of her life.

Alexa stepped close and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Well done, I’m proud of you.”

Mali pursed her lips, trying to ignore her sadness. “Time to stop being a coward.”

Yes, not being a coward. The hardest part was ahead of her. Or rather just behind her. As if some nightmare monstrosity lurked there, she pivoted on wooden legs and glanced at Captain Gordon, sitting in the back of an old army cart, peeling bark from a tree branch. Mostly to keep his hands busy, it seemed.

“I’m right here,” Alexa goaded her.

Mali inhaled deeply through her nostrils. “That’s not what worries me.”

Alexa turned the friendly shoulder touch to a brusque pat. “And what does?”

What does?
Mali mused.
A thousand things
. The new monarch frightened her. His campaign against the nomad tribes was turning into the bloodiest feud in known history. He was
going to make Vergil’s Conquest into a jolly stroll through the wilderness, by comparison.

Surprisingly, Monarch Bart had spared her troops from the march west. He had thanked the girls for their sacrifice and given them six months of leave from combat so they could visit their families, rest for a while, as well as heal their old wounds and prepare for the next phase of his glorified revenge spree. That suited her well enough. It meant she did not need to fake her death again, flee the army, and become a renegade, a traitor, and a plain woman once more. She could retain some of her status until she figured out what she wanted to do with her life.

The future frightened her, the uncertainty of war. She feared being alone at night, crying softly, thinking about her dead son. She feared living in a world that held no illusions for her. Most of all, she feared walking over to Gordon and committing herself to him.

He had waited for her, dutifully, patiently.

She could walk away, like she had done in the past. She could go away from this madness, this war, become nobody and nothing once more. If she were lucky, she had two more decades ahead of her. Long enough not to see war ever again, she hoped. That would take no courage whatsoever. All she had to do was walk away. Ride past Paroth’s gate and head somewhere. Maybe the Safe Territories, where no one knew her name, and no one could speak her language. Or maybe Parus, and she didn’t mind the religion if it gave her the peace she needed from everything else. One of the ruined places in Caytor or Athesia. Anything.

A simple, straightforward choice. She had done it before. She knew what to expect.

Fuck it
, she thought.

Bracing herself for the thing some might call love, she walked toward a very much grinning Captain Gordon.

Jarman enjoyed the pitch of the ship under his feet. He loved the sight of the gray-blue water, the roll of froth on the waves, the caw of birds following the cutter on the swift currents above. Somewhere ahead, just behind the gentle curve of the Velvet Sea, was Tuba Tuba.

Sanity. Home.

He had avenged his third mother, Inessa, after all. He may not have killed Calemore himself, but it did not matter. He had died in the war, and that was good enough. His work in the realms was complete.

True, he was going home with many questions unanswered. He had never learned about Rob, and if he told his father about it, Armin would surely have a few witty remarks emphasizing his ineptitude as an investigator. It did not matter. He had done pretty well in the war, he felt. Not bad for an uninitiated wizard.

Lucas was no longer his life slave. He was now a terrible senior Anada, and it was as if the last decade had not really happened. Nothing had changed, Jarman knew, and yet, it had. In one stroke of luck, he was just a rookie, and Lucas was a dreaded, powerful teacher.

The wind ruffled his hair, made his cheeks stiff as if someone had caked them with mud and let it dry. His fingers were numb on the salt-crusted rail of the front deck. Around him, sailors went about their tasks, not minding the robed men. They were Sirtai, and the sight of Anada was quite common for them. His life was going back to being how it should, clean and logical. Although, he might miss the taste of ugly freedom
that the realms had offered him. At least he had learned a valuable lesson.

“Lucas,” he said, his voice carrying strangely on the wind.

“What’s on your mind?”

Jarman pushed himself upright. “I was wondering if I have earned my first tattoo yet?”

The blue-faced man’s expression never changed. “No.”

Not the answer I had in mind
, he thought with some disappointment. “Why? Did I not perform well in the war? I think I did master the subtlety of their culture and communication, and I assisted in the fight against the White Witch.”

Lucas blinked once. “You did all that. But that’s not the reason.”

Jarman rubbed his hands together. “So what is the reason?”

“You keep asking about the tattoo,” Lucas preached in a flat tone. “That means you’re not ready for one.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jarman said after a while. Should he feel frustrated? Perhaps. But he knew that would not get him anywhere near earning his promotion at the temple. The Anada did not reward sulkiness. So he kept his mouth shut and stared at the offing, waiting for the contour of his homeland to appear. Lucas remained at his side, senior, severe, as grim as the first day he had met him.

War changed some men, he knew. It had shaped him, he was certain.

And some men never changed. For Jarman, that was a relief, knowing that no matter what happened, he could always rely on Lucas. That was his sanity away from home.

He really missed Tuba Tuba, so he stared harder, willing the land to show itself sooner.

Nigella stared at the two wizards with a mix of fear and curiosity. She knew who they were, and that worried her a little. Then she remembered murdering Calemore, and her courage spiked up. Behind her, leaning against one of the masts, Sheldon was playing with a pair of lead figurines, leading an elaborate deck fight against pirates. He had such a vivid imagination, and she was proud of him.

Cradled in her son’s lap was that crystal egg, the gift from Calemore. At first, she had considered throwing it away, but she saw no harm in the thing, so she’d let Sheldon keep it. She believed the book would have warned her if there had been any danger.

The book…

It rested in a pouch in her oiled coat, the weight dragging the garment at a funny angle. She had many other useful items in her pockets, all kinds of spices, recipes, gold. Even after paying the hefty price for the travel to Sirtai, she still had enough to see Sheldon and her well through a couple of years in life, long enough until she figured out what she wanted to do.