Page 60 of While the Dark Remains
“Have courage, Gaiana. I will come to see you again, to help you bear the long winter night. All right?”
She nods, chewing on her lip. She turns her head away so I can’t see her crying.
I go on this way around the room, telling every child I meet that they are not forgotten. That in a few short months, they will be free. I meet dark-haired Pór, a Skaandan cellist who has even more freckles than I do. He’s ten and so, so far from home. I speak with Finnur, who is shut fast in an iron cage, his deep-brown skin a sickly gray. It’s the iron, dampening his magic, making him ill. I tell him he’ll be free soon. Free to flourish and to grow and tobe, like the tree he made with his Prism magic that yet stands shimmering in the great hall.
I don’t rush around the room, though the treaty meeting must be over now, and there’s a chance someone might come into the great hall and find me here. I can’t bear to leave without speaking to everyone.
My old cage is one of the last that I visit, climbing up the chain and crouching outside the bars, the new acrobat looking out at me, her eyes hard.
“Who are you?” she demands.
Anger seethes out of her. Hatred and bitterness and despair.
The breath freezes in my lungs; words stick in my throat. I force them out anyway. “I’m you. You’re me. I was—” I fight to breathe, furiously blinking back tears. “I was Kallias’s acrobat, before he took you.”
Her jaw hardens. “You’re a fool, then. To come back.”
“I’m here to save you. To save all of you.”
“If that’s true, let me out of this cage.”
“I can’t. Not yet. Not till the end of Gods’ Fall. I just wanted you to know that there is an end in sight. I wanted to give you hope.”
She curses at me. “I don’t want hope or empty promises. Get the hell out of my face.”
I don’t move, staring her down. “What’s your name?”
She folds her arms across her chest. Her chin wobbles. “Rute.”
“I’m Brynja,” I tell her. “And I swear to you, I’m going to get you out of here. In the meantime—”
She raises her eyebrows.
“Don’t fall.”
She curses at me again, more vehemently than before. I shimmy back down the chain, my head wheeling.
I visit the last few children and come to another iron cage at the very back of the room. My heart seizes. Gulla’s inside.
She lifts her head at my approach, and her appearance rattles me. There are scars on her face that weren’t there two years ago; she looks impossibly weary.
Brynja,she says in her finger speech.
“You know me,” I reply quietly.
She smiles.The shape of your body has changed. You are older and healthier. You’ve covered your freckles; you’ve grown out your hair.She traces her fingers along her scalp.But yes. Of course I know you.
I press one palm against the bars of her cage. “What has he done to you?”
Made me again what I once was: part of his Collection. But do not worry, Brynja. I am well.
I grimace, touching my cheek where hers is scarred. “He hurt you.”
She averts her eyes.He was angry when my son did not come back. When I made a fruitless attempt to follow him.
Ballast’s image plays out behind my eyelids, his black-and-white hair painted orange in the light of the torch he holds, his shoulders strong against the dark of the caves. “I saw him,” I whisper, gripping the bars and leaning closer. “When I escaped, I saw him, and he was—he was well. He spoke of you. He missed you.”
Her forehead creases. She shakes her head.He has become too much like his father, desiring only power.
