Page 151 of While the Dark Remains
“You cannot take and take for eternity,” says the Ghost Lord. “You cannot hold it all. It will destroy you. And when it does, there will be someone there to take your place, and all you fought for will come to naught. You will be an outcast to your own people. You will be what you always feared to be: nothing. No one.”
Brandr curses and lunges at the Ghost Lord, but he wisps out of the way like smoke, reappearing beside me. A coldness emanates from him, seeping down, down under my skin.
“Let Me Out of Here!” Brandr cries, balling his hands into fists.
“No,” I say. “Not unless you swear to me you’ll call it all off. The Yellow Lord. Your army. Not unless you promise to go home.”
He throws back his head and laughs. “You’re out of yourmind, Brynja, if you think I’d promise you that.”
I take a breath, eyes flicking sideways at the Ghost Lord. “Iamout of my mind, in fact. I’m in yours. Thanks for reminding me.” From mycoat I draw a chest that shimmers in my hands, all colors, and yet no color at all: a prison for Brandr’s magic.
“My Lord?” I say to the First One beside me.
He nods, grim and sightless, and two gleaming silver hooks appear in his hands. He takes a step toward Brandr.
My brother’s eyes go wild. “Brynja. Brynja, what are you doing? What is this? Stop. You have to stop. You can’t do anything to me. You can’t—”
I turn. I wrench myself sideways, out of Brandr’s mind and back onto the tundra, where the sun is just lipping above the Sea of Bones.
I kneel with my brother in the snow, pressing my hands against his temples, tears coursing down my cheeks, because I remember exactly how this felt when our father did it to me. When it’s done, I withdraw my hands, watch him open his eyes in a world where he once more holds no power.
He shoves me away from him with a hopelessness that guts me. “When I learn how to unbind myself,” he says, very low, “I will kill you, Brynja. And for all your cleverness, you still can’t stop what I have put in motion. I still command my army. I still command the Yellow Lord.” He glances at the sun, eyes tearing at the light. “And there isn’t much time left.” He sneers at me. Turns his back to me. He runs to rejoin the Iljaria.
I let him go.
Mere moments have passed while we were in my brother’s mind, and the battle rages on. The air reeks of blood and bile, and the Iljaria are closer to the mountain and the gargoyles’ protection than before. They climb over the bodies of Daerosians and Skaandans as if they were mere mounds of earth, jewels flashing from their brows, magic clearing their path in swaths of red.
The remaining Daerosians and Skaandans fight doggedly, grimly, hacking at writhing vines and earth monsters, hurling spears and loosing arrows into the midst of the Iljaria forces, to little effect. I glimpse Saga, fighting side by side with Vil, her helmet off and her face smeared with blood. Gulla and Finnur are still fighting, too, though Gulla’s song has grown fainter and Finnur’s magic weaker, having spent so much of it already.
Ballast on Asvaldr comes swift across the tundra with his animal army behind him, a rush of hooves and paws, wings and horns. Owls dive screeching at the Iljaria forces while wolves and leopards and foxes leap for throats and arctic bears slash with knife-edged claws. For a moment the Iljaria falter, and the joined Skaandan and Daerosian armies press them back.
But then the Iljaria blessed by the Blue Lady give a great shout, the jewels flashing cerulean on their foreheads. As one, they shift into beasts with dark leathery wings, and rising out of the army, they dive at the animals head-on. I stare, horrified, because they are very like the cave demons in the tunnels, and I can’t help but wonder if the monsters that drove the Iljaria out were in fact the Iljaria themselves.
The Iljaria-beasts ram into the animals in a wheel of wings and claws and teeth, halting their advance and allowing the remainder of the Iljaria forces to redouble their efforts against the human armies. Ballast slays one of the beasts that dives at him on Asvaldr, blood spraying all up his arm. Asvaldr roars and swipes at another of them.
I glance behind me. The sun is half above the ridge now. The Yellow Lord stands on the edge of the Sea of Bones, contemplating its coming.
For a moment I shut my eyes, reach out to every mind I can sense.Stand down!I cry.All of you, stand down! Get into the mountain! The sun is rising!
But though I feel a pulse of uncertainty and confusion, I am not powerful enough to halt three armies with my will alone. They battle on.
I have to stop this. Or at least I have to try. And I can’t do it alone.
Ballast!I shout into his mind.Ballast!
He turns toward me, ducking the attack of another Iljaria-beast. Then he’s leaping from Asvaldr’s back and hurtling toward me over the snow. He reaches me, and his hand finds mine.
Then we’re running together toward the Yellow Lord, toward the Sea of Bones.
Toward the rising sun.
Chapter Thirty-One
Year4201, Month of the Yellow Lord
Daeros—the Sea of Bones
Already the heat and light of the Yellow Lord are too much to bear. My eyes tear and my skin burns and still he grows brighter, brighter. I can’t see Ballast anymore, but his hand is yet caught in mine, our feet pounding in unison over fast-melting snow.
