I fall to my knees and try to grip the unforgiving ice and snow. Even the land refuses to let me grasp it once more.
And I scream.
My scream becomes a cry.
My cry becomes a song.
And, after a while, my song becomes the starlight.
I cradle my knees to my chest on the cold, hard ground, barely registering Heru flying above, checking in on me. Time becomes obsolete.
Eventually, something nudges me. For a moment, I hesitate to respond, but the brisk cold air and cheeks tight from frozen tears tell me that this is real. I open my eyes and see Heru’s golden-yellow ones staring back.
“This was my home,” I say. A part of me always believed there would be something to go back to. A place I could go if I didn’t make it past tasks and Elder Markus kept his word to expel me from the Watch.
Heru nuzzles her neck forward against me, and I lean into her warm feathers, unable to comprehend this fate.
Not believing that everything could be lost, I let myself hope. Just a sliver of light that not everything was taken from me. “We need to find shelter for the night, but I want to check one more thing first.”
Heru pecks her beak in approval.
Finally ready to see my home one last time, I carefully maneuver through the wreckage to the third street corner, where the remains of the Rose & Raven must be. Piles of wood and debris litter the area. I cautiously move a fallen door and push aside a heavy piece of burnt metal that was once a kitchen stove.
It’s still here. It’s still here. It’s still here.Familiar wooden stairs descend into a basement, preserved beneath the rubble.
I carefully walk downward, trying not to bump any of the fallen beams or pieces of debris around me for fear that the whole thing tumbles down.
At the bottom of the stairs is Marrow’s walking stick…fully intact!The air seems to push out of my lungs until I’m gasping, clutching onto my chest for the pain that now aches there.
I remember him rushing downstairs to comfort me after my panic attack. He must have thrown aside his walking stick the moment he was downstairs.
Fresh tears stream down my face and I cannot help but smile, then laugh. A euphoric sense of joy floods my system knowing that the Underlings did not ruin this last remaining piece of Marrow.
I reach toward the walking stick. The moment I touch it, something feels off. Like with my channeling rings, I can feel the Source magic around me swelling and charging with energy. It vibrates in my hands so intensely I almost drop it.
Suddenly, the top of the walking stick begins to glow as a powerful magic is released, and with it, an illusion. Layers of Source magic flicker down the stick in bright sparks until a golden staff remains. A purple jewel sits at the top, held in by a set of ornate claws.
I don’t know how to explain it, but this feels right. I can feel the magic pulsing from the staff, like a beating drum, thrumming faster and faster until the beats meld into a single vibration. It is the oddest sensation, like the staff is tuning to a particular note, except the frequency is me.
I don’t know how to explain it, but I know this is still Marrow’s walking stick and somehow also…this. Perhaps he collected this during his travels as a Master Teller before settling down in Goldenpine and found a Watcher or Elf to make the illusion?
I smile once more and turn the staff a few times in my hands. Its weight is perfect, like it was made for me.
“Even in death, you had to upstage me Marrow.” I chuckle and wipe another tear.
I tuck the golden staff under my arm and head carefully up the stairs. I pause and look upon the destruction of Goldenpine, and though I’m surrounded by wreckage, I know this was meant tobe. That I was meant to come back here and find this final gift from Marrow.
Pulling the white feather from my chest pocket once more, I call Heru to fly us to another place I pray wasn’t attacked: Nickel’s hunting cabin.
31
I Said, Enough
Atlys
The Watch is a chaotic fucking mess.
The Elder Council remained at the Academy, leaving Commander Hogsmith to lead the Watchers to Redrock, who are now returning as clusters of muddied, hungry-looking heathens. Shouts litter the halls as WatchGuards reunite with one another. Horses are fed, watered, and led back into the stables. Rocs fly back to their perch in the mountains. The kitchen clangs with preparations almost as loudly as the swords dueling outside the castle, where groups of first-years refresh their skills, knowing that they could be called to battle sooner than they anticipated.
