One of the pale-clad people was near a familiar shape on the beach near the tree line, binding someone’s shoulder. Raihan. Helping Val, who looked to be missing an arm. Lore shuffled over to them, moving on instinct. She wouldn’t allow real thoughts in her head, not yet. They hurt too much.
Malcolm saw her first. His expression cycled through shock, then fear, landed on concern. “Oh, Lore.”
At her name, the others turned. Alie, Val, Mari. Mari rushed for her, Alie not far behind. Val tried, but she moved slowly.
Mari enveloped her in a crushing embrace; Lore wanted to return it, but her limbs felt full of stones.
“Mouse,” her mother breathed into her hair. “Oh, gods, I thought you were gone.”
She had been, for a time. But Lore didn’t say that, just rested her head in the crook of her mother’s shoulder. As she did, her eyes connected with Alie’s. A knowing look passed between them. Alie pulled in a sharp breath.
Lore went to Val, gingerly touching her gore-caked shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Ma.”
“Wasn’t you.” Her smile was a strained thing, but it was there. “One of those pesky corpses.”
“More than one,” Mari said softly.
“But it was me.” She wanted to cry, but she didn’t. Her emotions felt too far away to affect her, like she’d fallen down a dark hole. “I told them to keep everyone away.”
“I forgive you,” Val said simply, bringing up her remaining arm to pull her close. “You weren’t yourself. And I suppose I could have taken the hint. At least it wasn’t my shooting arm.”
Lore closed her eyes.
Alie waited until her mothers had released her before she stepped any closer. She approached slowly, as if Lore might startle away, placed a hand on her arm. “Are they…”
The words wouldn’t come. So Lore just nodded.
Alie’s breath caught. She pressed the back of her wrist against her mouth, sobbed once. Closed her eyes. When she opened them, they shone with purpose. “Well,” she said. “I guess that means I’m the Queen of Auverraine. Dammit.”
Her voice broke on the last word. Lore bundled Alie up in her arms, the smaller woman’s sobs racking her entire frame. Lore held her until it was through, damp-eyed but keeping it together. Her grief was too deep to show anyone, a feral animal that hid from the light. It would only emerge when she was alone, and Lore wasn’t entirely sure if she’d survive when it did.
Malcolm approached with the same cautious air Alie had. He didn’t ask questions, just enclosed both of them in strong arms. Michal followed him but hung back. He raised a hand and placed it between Lore’s shoulder blades, one comforting touch.
When their holds on one another relaxed, the worst of it past, Malcolm tried to crack a smile. “I’ll make sure there are books about them,” he said, with a quiet, strong conviction. “Gabe would hate that, probably, but Bastian would love it.”
“As long as everything in them is true,” Lore said softly. Thinking. She looked at Raihan, then back up at the Mount.
Raihan walked over cautiously. Curiosity shone in his eyes, anda little bit of shame at that curiosity, though not enough to blunt it. “We saw the fog break, and then we saw the ships,” he said, answering the question on Lore’s face. “And when all my instruments started spinning as if to break apart, Sersha said we should come investigate. Wasn’t as comfortable as sailing my boat, but the skiffs we made were serviceable.”
“I’m sorry about the boat,” Lore said. “It’s here somewhere.”
He nodded. “If the dead didn’t tear it apart. Seems we just missed them; they all slipped back into the sea while we were sailing.”
“I must’ve let them go when Gabe made it to the Mount,” she murmured, piecing it together. “Right before I killed him.”
She hadn’t meant to say that. A flinch shuddered through every person in their small group, but none of them moved away from her. Alie reached out and grabbed her hand. Malcolm put a shaking palm on her shoulder.
Raihan’s eyes widened. He nodded but said nothing.
Alie sniffed again, once, then dashed her hand across her face. “So it’s over, then,” she said. “The Fount has all the power. The world will right itself.”
“Some of it,” Lore said quietly, still feeling her gaze drawn upward, toward the Golden Mount. “Some things are on us. A higher power can’t fix everything.” She snorted, lightly. “It doesn’twantto. It isn’t human. It can just make another world, reuse the bits of this one to create something else. But this is the only world we have, and we’re the only ones who can make it good. Who can prove it’s worth something.”
Val sighed. “I’m about past believing in the goodness of humanity, frankly.”
Lore pressed her lips together.
“It could happen again,” Malcolm murmured. “Someone coming here. Taking part of the Fount. It wouldn’t be exactly the same cycle, but close enough.”
