“I just knew.”
“The spirits are gone,” said Tainir softly, kneeling on Eda’s other side. From somewhere she produced a blanket, and Eda wrapped it gratefully around her frigid toes. “And I know it’s because of you. We saw our parents. We bid them farewell, and then a woman with a star on her forehead came and took their hands. They faded away. I know they’ve gone to their rest.”
Eda couldn’t stop trembling. She stared at Morin’s hands, which were balled into fists, knuckles straining under tight skin. “You’re still in pain,” she whispered.
“I can bear it.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It will destroy you. When I touched you, I felt your sorrow. Every grief you’d ever endured in all your life, and it wasstrong,Morin. I didn’t mean to but I sent it back at you. I think—I think I almost killed you. And it’s still there, under your skin. It will eat at you and eat at you, until there’s nothing left.” She should know. Something had happened to her when she’d drawn all the sorrow inside, something that allowed her body to endure when she should be lying dead before the mirrors. But Morin had no such protection.
Tainir looked from her brother to Eda and back again. “Morin.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
But Tainir went to him, touched his shoulders, and tilted her forehead against his. She began to sing, glints of gold pouring from her lips and sinking into his skin. As she sang, Morin relaxed, his whole body sagging with relief, with release.
Eda wanted to claw her way into the mountain, let the rocks crush her, never come back out. She had never hated herself more.
At last Tainir finished singing, and sat back on her heels.
Morin gave Eda a wobbly smile. “Good as new, you see?”
But he made no move to come close to her again.
Tainir built a fire, and the three of them sat around it, sparks flying up into the new-fallen night.
Eda told them what had happened to her inside the mountain, piece by piece, as best as she could. But there were some things she didn’t know how to put into words: her vision of the One, drawing the sorrow into her heart. The power that even now surged through her.
Both Morin and Tainir listened intently, a crease in Morin’s forehead, faint gold sparks buzzing around Tainir’s fingers.
By the time Eda was finished talking, the night had deepened, the fire burned low. Neither Morin nor Tainir said anything, and anxiety formed a tight knot in Eda’s chest. She broke the silence, because her companions would not. “How long has it been since I left you outside the door?”
“A month,” said Tainir.
That was all? Eda couldn’t imagine the torment Tuer had endured, chained before those mirrors for untold centuries. The wind whipped through her hair, tangling it around her shoulders, biting icily down her spine. “What happened when I left you?”
“The spirits attacked,” said Morin. “We fought them before the door.”
Something haunted came into Tainir’s face. “The ghosts were screaming. The spirits were—”
“Eating them?” Eda shuddered.
“Yes.”
“And then?”
Morin fiddled with his knife, the blade glinting white in the embers of the dying fire. “The spirit who guarded the door leapt at the winged spirits, allowed itself to be eaten instead of the ghosts. We ran.”
“Out of the mountain,” Tainir continued, “back past the ice wall.”
Morin stared off into the distance. “There was a massive tear in the sky, splitting the world in two. The spirits came and came, until there were so many of them we couldn’t see the sun anymore. Tainir shifted into her leopard form and we huddled against the cliff. I’ll never forget the noise they made. But then the ground shook and we heard a sound like a great brass bell, and the crack sealed itself, the shadows dragged back into the void, screaming. The wind tasted sweet and there was a sense of—of—”
“Of release,” Tainir finished for him.
Morin nodded. “You did it, Eda.” His eyes met hers, and fixed there. “You saved us all.”
She shuddered and shuddered. “It wasn’t me. It was Tuer.”
“No.” Morin still didn’t look away. “I know it was you.”
