Alie sat cumbersomely on the lip of the Fount. “So,” she said. “when are you going to come back?”
Lore arched a brow.
“The Empire is dissolved,” Alie said. “The continent is at peace. The weather and the seasons are back in order. What else do you have to do?”
“Keep watch,” Lore said.
We would not make the same mistake twice, the Fount burbled grumpily.
“Just in case,” Lore added. “I need to serve my time.”
Because this was a prison sentence, as surely as her time on the Burnt Isles had been. All that death on her hands. Everything she’d done possessed by Apollius, yes, but the things she’d done on her own, too.
“Come on.” Alie tried to sound playful, but there was a note of desperation there. “You’ve more than atoned. It will be five hundred years before they come back; you just plan to sit here that long?”
“I have to guard the Fount,” she replied. “That was the deal.”
A deal that sat so heavy, most days. But those were the days that made her feel better, more human. The scary days were the ones she could barely feel passing. When her burden was light, as if this was a weight she’d always been meant to shoulder.
The Fount bubbled but said nothing.
Alie sighed, tossing a corkscrew curl up onto her forehead. “I know, but…” She stopped. Huffed a laugh. “It’s so odd, seeing your friend become a god. I mean, we’ve already done it once, but to see it happen again, like this…” She trailed off again, the sentence one that wound through weeds. “I just didn’t want this for you, is all. You deserved a life.”
“I’ll have one,” Lore said. “I just have to wait for them first.”
Alie took her hand.
After her daughter was born—one she named Loria, a combination of two names that made Lore want to cry, hers and her mother’s—Alie mostly just sent letters. Lore understood.
Her mothers came back at least once a year after taking theresearch positions, but when age made traveling difficult, they resigned and settled back on the island. It felt like a blink of an eye to Lore, and then they were dying.
She was with them when they did, holding their wrinkled hands in her still-young ones as they breathed their last, as the bright Spiritum in them turned to Mortem. Lore saw the threads, weaving in and through everything. Sometimes the world appeared more like a tapestry than something living, something real. It scared her a bit, to see it like that, to feel herself becoming less and less a part of it.
Val went first, forty years after Lore had become the guardian of the Fount. Mari went soon after. It was peaceful for them both.
“Will you be all right, mouse?” Mari asked. Her voice was thin with age but still warm.
Lore put her mother’s hand on her cheek. “Of course,” she lied.
Mari closed her eyes. “None of us wanted this for you. But I suppose the world had other plans.” Her eyes opened, already clouded at the edges, knowing the next time they closed would be the last. “Remember to live, Lore. I know you have to wait. But when the time comes, when you’re free, do everything you ever wanted. You saved this world; don’t let your years go by without seeing all of it.”
She buried them next to the cliff where Nyxara had once thrown her wedding ring. They’d liked the view. When she sat back, her hands caked in dirt, she allowed herself to cry.
Is it like this for everyone?the Fount asked softly.Such a deep wound?
“Usually,” Lore said, cleaning her palms on her trousers and wiping her eyes.
The Fount took a moment, considering this.We are… sorry.The word sounded strange, coming from It.We see now why there is so much to fear.
“That’s what makes life worth it, though.” Lore stood, stretchingout muscles that should have been sore from such labor, but weren’t. “You have to appreciate everything, because it ends.”
Raihan didn’t last much longer than her mothers. He came to the island once a month or so, meticulously interviewing her about her day-to-day—she never had much to tell him. He had far more to tell her about the world beyond, now that he’d returned to Kadmar and led the university there.
“Things are better,” he said the last time he came, his voice creaking with age. “More countries are trying a delegate system, letting the people rule themselves. They send aid when needed, food and supplies. People are kinder to one another.”
Lore smiled tremulously. “So people are better now.”
“And thus the world is,” he said.
