Lily made a small circuit around the ruins. She had spent far too long here, and wished that she could ignore it, and could ignore what this might mean, but she couldn’t shake the possibility that this was somehow significant.

  A hegen settlement.

  From everything she’d been able to identify, it was much larger than they had known. It was at least a town, but it had been long ago destroyed, or perhaps it had crumbled. Though in Lily’s mind, it seemed far more likely that it had been destroyed.

  Esmerelda stood at the edge of what Lily now called the hegen town, and had her hands clasped together. She was working her fingers in a small circle, rolling a tiny stone that was clutched in her palm, as if trying to use that to understand what was here.

  Finally, Esmerelda looked over to Lily. “Most of the writing is faded enough that there is little here to understand,” she said.

  Lily straightened and then climbed over a pile of rubble to make her way over to Esmerelda. She had spent the better part of an hour exploring while Isabel went back to the city to get Esmerelda. They had returned on top of one of Lily’s bone berahn. She smiled at that. She had considered riding one herself, but had never thought the berahn would permit it. In fact, there was a part of her that worried that the talisman would not be pleased with her doing so. Yet Esmerelda had done it easily.

  Was it because it reacted to her, as she had been the one to activate it, or was it because of something intrinsic to the fact that Lily had made it, and the berahn was willing to bring Esmerelda to her?

  There was still quite a bit about these talismans that Lily did not know. There were things she speculated about, and she questioned whether there would be anything for her to find and understand. But so far, her time with the berahn and working with those talismans had made it so that there was too much she still didn’t know.

  “You can read the writing already?” Lily asked.

  “I used a method of detection.” Esmerelda held up the stone, which wasn’t just a stone, Lily realized. Somehow, Esmerelda had worked flecks of metal into it. And had she even used flower petals? It seemed as if they were all mixed together, but not in any way that Lily understood.

  “It allows you to read everything?”

  “It’s fairly straightforward,” Esmerelda said. “We’re testing for remains here, correct? We’re looking for something that allows us to track what’s here, and what could be.”

  Lily frowned at that. She supposed that was one way to describe it. That didn’t seem to be what they were doing, though it also seemed to be something more than that.

  “I can’t read all of it,” she said. “I recognize the patterns, and I recognize that there’s still something here that seems to be carrying a message within it, but I haven’t been able to catch more than a few familiar words.”

  Esmerelda nodded. “It’s too bad we don’t have any way of reading it because I do think it would be valuable to us. And for us. There should be something here that we can use, and follow, to make sense of this.” She sighed. “But unfortunately, it is lost to time.”

  “Is there any way we could dig through here and find anything?” Lily asked.

  “Possibly.” Esmerelda turned to her, still holding the stone and twisting it in her fingertips. “But do you really think we have time for such dalliances?”

  “Dalliances? We’re talking about proof of hegen settlements.”

  “Do we need proof?”

  Lily stood stunned for a moment, not sure how to answer, not even sure what she could say to that.

  Did they?

  She had certainly wanted proof, but maybe that was because there was a part of her that had always wanted to know if her people had a home. Perhaps that was tied to the part of Lily that had always felt like she wanted more of a home.

  But did they really need it? Did they need such proof?

  No. They didn’t. She knew that nothing they had, and nothing they learned here, would change anything for her. It wouldn’t change anything for the hegen either. They had long told stories about what it was like before their people setting out on the road.

  And because of that, there was no reason to feel anything different.

  Lily inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I just wish that it made sense.”

  Esmerelda smiled. “What meaning are you really looking for here?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I’m looking for meaning in everything we’re doing. Everything we’ve done. And I guess I’m looking for an explanation as to why this city was targeted.” Lily looked over to the ruins. “There’s a part of me that wonders if maybe it was tied to this. But then, it was already destroyed, so maybe not.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “So you think it’s not at all related.”

  “I don’t have that answer.”

  Esmerelda strode forward, pulled out something from her satchel that she had already woven together, and tossed it on the ground. The grasses around where she had dropped her piece of art began to twist and writhe, growing outward, almost as if she spun them to life in some manner. Lily wished that she had that control over the art, though regardless of what she did, and regardless of how she did it, the technique and control she had was not at all like what Esmerelda possessed.

  “Our people were last here long enough ago that the land reclaimed it,” Esmerelda said. “We can’t find anything. Perhaps we shouldn’t find anything.” She looked up and breathed out slowly. “There might be answers, at least to your other question.”

  “Back in the city.”

  “Well, that’s not in the city. Perhaps the answers will be found elsewhere. With others.”

  “If we can find someone knowledgeable to question,” Lily said.

  “If. Now, I do think it would be a better use of your time to keep making additional talismans. I don’t want to presume to tell you what you need to be doing, but with the evacuation underway…” She squeezed something that Lily suspected gave her an ability to glimpse what was going on with the evacuation, the same way Lily used an item that allowed her to detect what was going on with it. “We must expedite everything else that we’re doing. If there are ways we can protect others, then we need to be doing it.”

  Lily smiled, mostly to herself, but she also realized that what she needed to be doing was exactly what Esmerelda had implied.

  Maybe she had to stop searching for meaning and explanations, because there may not be any. At this point, what if the only explanation was that these Alainsith had come looking for power? Maybe they wanted to reclaim these lands, assuming that they had been here before. Or perhaps it had nothing to do with anything other than the Alainsith. Jal had certainly not been forthcoming about it, but Lily also had a feeling that Jal had not known anything more than what he’d let on. The Alainsith barely knew what was going on.

  “And there’s something more that you need to be working on,” Esmerelda said. “Because if you do intend to fortify your art”—she used her term for how Lily was supposed to develop her art more effectively—“you need to take some time to experiment. I would rather do that in a more controlled setting so we can ensure that we know what has worked, and what has not.”

  “Fine,” Lily said, and she knew she sounded as if she were pouting. “Anyway. Let’s get back to the city.”

  Esmerelda looked outward. “You know, I do not blame you for all of this. I understand why you want to understand our people better. And perhaps I should be the one listening to you rather than you listening to me. I’m a little more set in my ways about the people than you are, and to some, I’m considered quite progressive.”

  Lily glanced over at her and realized that Esmerelda was making a joke.

  “Our people have long been content with our place in the world,” Esmerelda said. “Whether it’s wandering, as we have long done, or whether it’s moving beyond the borders of certain cities, or whether it’s the fact that we have always deferred to the Alainsith and viewed ourselves as somehow less than them, I suppose we have never questioned.”

  Hearing Esmerelda phrase it in that way was odd, but also a stark reminder of what their people had gone through over the years. Even when Lily was younger, she remembered how her mother and other hegen had viewed the Alainsith. It was something she had struggled with when she had first learned that Jal was Alainsith.

  But it shouldn’t. They were just people. Magically connected people, but people nonetheless.

  My art is magically connected, as well.

  She smiled at that thought. Her art was not less than anything that the Alainsith could do. It was different, but not less.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t be questioning it,” she said. “I haven’t really been part of the people for a long time now, and it just feels like I don’t deserve to question anything more.”

  There seemed to be a look of real irritation in Esmerelda’s eyes. “Do you really feel that way?”

  “I suppose I don’t know.”

  “I need to know. Do you feel like you really aren’t a part of the people?”

  “When I was younger, when I had a different use of art, and when I couldn’t learn from my mother the way I wanted to,” she started, thinking that she needed to choose her words carefully, as she didn’t know whether she was going to anger Esmerelda, “there were times when I felt like I was different.” She shrugged. “I suppose I’ve gotten used to it.”

  “Is that why you went where you went?”

  “You can say it,” Lily said. “You can say that I went to the citadel, and that I learned… well, whatever I learned.”

  “You don’t even say it.”

  Lily reached into her pouch, and she pulled out one of the pieces of bone that she’d carved using techniques she had learned at the citadel. “I don’t hide from it. There’s no point in it. I’m not necessarily proud of what I did, or where it brought me, but I guess I’m also not not proud of it?” She wrinkled her brow. “It’s strange to think of it that way.”

  “You never leave the people,” Esmerelda said.

  “We both know that’s not true. There are those who are Lost, and the people are willing to take them back, but that doesn’t change that they view them as Lost.”

  Esmerelda was quiet. “Perhaps you’re right. And perhaps it’s my mistake in thinking otherwise.” She let out a heavy sigh. “Maybe it takes somebody like yourself, somebody who has been Lost, and returned, to understand how to truly lead the people.”

  “Do you think the Alainsith feel that way?”

  Esmerelda’s brow furrowed. “Gods, but I hope not,” she said.

  She turned, strode back toward the waiting bone berahn, and climbed onto it. After she leaned forward and whispered something to it, it carried her back toward the city.

  Lily waited for a moment. Maybe that was what the Alainsith felt. It was weird to think about, but at the same time, they had been looking for answers to what the Alainsith were after, why they thought they might be able to do what they had done, and what they hoped to accomplish. Lily had thought it was about revenge, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was about something else? What if it was about feeling as if they understood what the people needed more than those who were currently leading them? What if the Lost had decided that it was time for them to lead?

  She stood, dusted her hands on her pants, and then she made her way over to the berahn that was sitting and waiting. “Well? I know you aren’t quite as big as Boney, but do you think you would be able to carry me back to town?”

  It might have been her imagination, but it looked to Lily as if the berahn turned and considered her for a moment, like it was trying to decide whether it should answer in any meaningful way. But then it didn’t. It said nothing, yet it waited. It was almost as though the berahn was trying to consider what Lily needed from it.

  She climbed on the berahn’s back, and it took off, moving quickly as it streaked through the grasslands. Lily was back to the city in no time.

  Everything was quiet. Not empty, just quiet. There were still stragglers who were working to evacuate, fewer and fewer remaining with every passing hour. Eventually, she had to believe that they were going to succeed in fully evacuating the city. And then the challenge would be ensuring the safety of the people so they didn’t have to worry about the Alainsith or their allies catching and harming them.

  Which meant that Lily needed to do what she had promised Esmerelda. It was time that she get back to making more talismans, which was probably the best use of her time, anyway.

  She stopped in the small warehouse where Honaaz had piled up the bones she could use, ones that had been harvested for her purpose. She gathered a few pieces of dry bone, then walked to the shoreline and took a seat, settling down with the bone in her lap.

  The berahn that she’d ridden back to the city waited behind her. It remained alert, as if keeping guard over her. And maybe it was. She appreciated that about the berahn, and she appreciated the fact that it was just watching and waiting and giving her a moment.

  She needed more than a moment. She needed an opportunity. She needed to know.

  Lily began to carve. As she did, she found her thoughts troubled, as they had been of late. Some of it came from everything she had been dealing with, and some of it came from thoughts about the Alainsith. She needed Jal to return so they could talk about what the Alainsith might be after, as Lily had her own theories, but she wanted to speak to somebody who was actually Alainsith about that. And for that matter, she had not had much time with Jal ever since he had returned. He had been so much more focused on the berahn, on Kanar, and on this song that he believed was important, that Lily had not had an opportunity to spend time with him the way she had hoped she would. She missed her friend.

  And it wasn’t just Jal who was gone. Wular was as well. Where were they?

  There was something she could do about that, she realized. She hadn’t bothered to try searching for them, but she could.

  She grabbed for one of the hawk-owl talismans, before changing her mind. Instead, she picked up a fresh length of bone and began to carve. She wanted something functional. Something swift. Something that could also be a weapon, if necessary. And selfishly, she wanted something that might even serve her much like Boney served Honaaz. Lily didn’t know if she would be able to do anything like that, or convince any of the talismans to treat her like that, but she had to believe that there was at least the potential.

  The carving took shape quickly. Lily wasn’t surprised by that, as she had learned to just pour herself into the carving and no longer worry about perfection. In her mind, though, she had never truly been worried about perfection. Odell had tried to get her to learn to carve with a much greater exactness than she wanted, but it had not been useful for her. There were aspects of carving that way that could be useful, but there were books she had found not so useful. Primarily it was helpful in trying to draw on the connection that she shared with the bone, in pouring herself out into it, in gifting it a specific intention. But this time, Lily found herself pushing even more. She wanted to have a way of searching for her friends. She wanted a way of searching for her people. Of protecting them.

  All of those thoughts went into what she was working on.

  By the time she was done, she looked down at the bone. Lily hadn’t even been paying much attention to what she was carving, nor the shape that was emerging, and she wasn’t terribly surprised that it turned out to be a falcon.

  The question that she had, however, was how large it would get.

  The owl talisman would only elongate to a certain size. Maybe if Honaaz were here, he could add a little bit of himself to it and make the falcon into something much more substantial, but Lily didn’t even know if that was safe to do. So she pricked her finger and smeared the blood along the surface of the bone, then watched as it began to absorb into it. A wave of cool energy washed through Lily as it quickly formed a connection.

  That sense of cold was familiar to her.

  That was what she had always warned Honaaz about, but for Honaaz, it seemed to take quite a bit of activations for him to be affected by them. Either he had more magic inside him—something that Lily supposed was possible—or she placed more of herself into her talismans when she made them. Maybe that was what it was. She had never activated anybody else’s talismans, so she didn’t know what it would be like if she were to try to draw on the power in them separately.

  The falcon in her hand gradually stretched, and more than that, it began to move its wings. Its head twisted, and it looked up at Lily with dark eyes that seemed to be where the blood had concentrated. The falcon continued to elongate, getting larger than any of the others Lily had made.

  She looked down at it. “Well, you look like something,” she muttered.

  The falcon spread its wings. Could they have really gotten that large? They had to be a foot on either side, and it wasn’t even done growing.

  “I need to know what you see. I need you to hunt, protect, and show me.”

  The bird let out a strange sound. The fact that it made any sound whatsoever was enough to surprise Lily, and she tried not to be scared by it, but she couldn’t shake the unnerving feeling she had.

  The falcon took off. This was different than what she experienced with some of her other talismans. When she had made birds before, they had simply launched and didn’t look lifelike, as if the magic stored inside the bone, within the power that gifted them, was what gave them the ability to fly. But the falcon was different. It took off like it was an actual bird, flapping its wings, stretching, and then circling.

  Lily watched it, and then gradually became aware of herself watching from its point of view.

  The falcon turned. She had thought that maybe it would head out over the water, but instead it circled above the city and then began to make its way toward the line of evacuees.

  Wasn’t that what she had said to it, though? To watch over her people. To protect them. More than that, she had wanted it to defend them if necessary.

  And hopefully it would work.

  It wasn’t a wasted talisman. It would actually do something.

 

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