In the Ruins (Crown of Stars #6)

In the Ruins (Crown of Stars #6) Page 6

He saw what happened in the wake of that spell:

All down the western shoreline of the boot of Aosta, a ridge of volcanoes shakes into life. Lava streams out of the earth. Fields crack open, as the pit yawns beneath. An unstoppable tide of mud and ash slurry buries villages and the folk who live in them. There is no warning, no time to flee.

The waters of the Middle Sea that are displaced by the returning land speed outward in vast concentric rings. These waves deluge distant coastlines, drowning the shore.

All along the northern sea rivers run backward and ports are left dry as the land groans and shifts, rising no more than a finger’s span as the weight settling in the south tilts the entire continent.

Temblors shake the land. The gale that blasted across the earth dissipates in wilderness among the dumb beasts. Deep in the earth, goblins race through ancient labyrinths, seeking their lost halls. Under the sea, the merfolk dive deep to escape the maelstrom. Out in the distant grasslands, the Horse people shelter in hollows in the land. The magic of the Holy One shields them from the worst even as it drains the life out of her.

All this he sees as he struggles in the waters. He sees, and he understands:

Those who were most harmed in ancient days ride out the storm with the least damage. It is humankind who suffer most. Perhaps Li’at’dano hoped or planned that in the end the weaving would harm those who were the greatest threat to her people: both the Cursed Ones, and her own human allies.

Perhaps the WiseMothers suspected that humankind would take the brunt of the backlash. Perhaps they had no choice except to do what they did, knowing that the belt was already twisted and the path already laid clear before their feet. They speak to him through rock and through water, although the salt sea almost drowns their voice.

It. Is. Done. You. Have. Saved. Us.

He gasps for breath but swallows water. The link between them is broken so sharply that it is as if it had never existed.

Caught in the riptide, he came clear of the water suddenly and flailed and gasped and choked and coughed as the tide hauled him toward the sea. The chain jerked him back to the ground. The cart, trapped in the fallen stones, had saved him, which had all this time imprisoned him. He lay there, too dazed to move.

At length daylight filtered into the haze of ash and dust that clouded the heavens. After a long time he realized that he was alive and that, impossibly, the world had survived. The great weaving that Adica had made so long ago with her compatriots was at long last finished. The spell had come all the way around and returned to where it began. The Lost Ones had returned from their exile.

He had seen both beginning and end, only of course the end was now a beginning.

After all, he was not alone in the ruins, as he had thought. The hounds came and with them his foster father, Henri.

“Where are we going?” Alain asked him.

“Home, Son. We’re going home.”

2

BECAUSE the ridge had been obliterated by the dragon’s waking, their way proved rough and strenuous as they walked toward home through a jumble of boulders, fallen trees, and tide-wracked debris. In the end Alain’s legs failed him and his strength gave out. He could scarcely breathe. Once they reached a real path, Henri had to carry him, stopping at intervals to rest.

“You’re nothing but bones and skin,” Henri said one of those times. He sat, sweating, on a smooth beech tree, uprooted in last night’s storm. Alain wheezed, curled up on the ground because he hadn’t the strength to sit upright. The hounds nosed him fretfully. “You weigh no more than a child. I’ll never forgive Lord Geoffrey for doing this to you. It’s a sin to treat another human being so cruelly.”

He was too weak to answer. The world seemed dim, but perhaps that was only because of clouds covering the sky.

Henri sighed. “You do stink, though, Son. Whew!” The affection in his voice made Alain’s lips tremble, but he could not manage a smile. For so long he had endured. Now, safe, he thought he might at last die because he had been worn too thin. He wanted to go on, but he had nothing left.

“Here, now, you beasts, move aside.”

Henri hoisted him effortlessly, shifted him onto his own back so Alain’s head rested on Henri’s shoulder, and kept walking. It seemed likely that they should have passed through Osna village, but apparently Henri kept to those woodland paths that took them around the village and onto the broad southern road. Many trees were fallen. Branches littered the path. It was silent, not even bird call to serenade them, and not a soul out on the roads the morning after. Where the road forked, Henri veered to the right along a narrower side path that wound through oak and silvery birch, maple and beech. Long ago he had ridden down this path with Count Lavastine. The memory seemed as a dream to him now, no more real than his life with Adica. All gone, torn away by death.