Obsyra Rises

The man who stood up out of the ash had Kieran's face, and nobody behind it.

She knew it the instant she turned. She had lived beside the Hollow for a year and a half. She had held it down in a banquet hall, fought it in a study, drawn it out of him inch by inch with her palms against his heart. She knew its cold, its patience, the dull sullen pressure of its attention. She had thought she knew all its faces. This was a new one.

It stood in the falling ash with its hands hanging at its sides. Its eyes were black from rim to rim, and perfectly empty. The veins on its throat and wrists and temples stood out like cracks in glass. And it was looking at her, steadily, patiently, with the unhurried hunger of a creature that has been kept in a cage for a long time and has just been told that the door is open.

"Kieran," said Solaia.

He is not here, said the Hollow.

It did not speak with his voice. It spoke with the shape of his mouth, but the sound that came out was low and layered and strange: a chord of voices, an old man's, a woman's, a child's, all speaking at once. It rolled over the ruined summit like fog.

He is sleeping. He is very tired. He has been fighting me for a long time, and he has lost.

"Let him go."

I cannot.

"You can."

I could. The head tilted. But I do not wish to.

She felt a cold finger run down her spine.

It was not fear. She had been afraid so many times in the last hour that the sensation had worn itself out. It was something calmer and colder, the clear sharp awareness that comes just before a fight. She stood in the ash with her bare feet planted and her white fire guttering low about her shoulders, and she looked at the thing wearing the man she loved, and she thought: I can't hurt him.

That is what it is counting on.

…

"The debt is paid," she said.

Yes.

"The Veil is broken. The Pontiff is dead. You're free of him. You don't need to do this."

I am not free.

"What do you want?"

What I have always wanted. The black eyes slid down, slowly, from her face. They traveled over her torn white gown, her bare arms, the faint gold glow that still pulsed beneath the silk at her belly. The Gift was made to be given. The Night was made to be fed. I have waited five thousand years in the blood of one house after another, and I have been used, and starved, and put to work, and kept. I am so very tired of being kept.

"Please."

There is a creature in you. It has both of us. It took a step toward her. The Night, and the Fire. Together. It is the first of its kind. It is the only thing in the world that can hold me without breaking. I have been a hunger for ten thousand years. In it, I could be a home.

"No."

I would not hurt it.

"You'd take it."

I would keep it. The voice softened, horribly. I would keep it as the old man would have, in a warm place, with a little white dog. It would never be cold. It would never be afraid. It would grow up in the dark, and be loved, and never know there was a sky.

"You're not him."

I am his father's father's father. The head tilted. I am the thing he is made of. There is no difference.

"There is," said Solaia fiercely. "There's every difference in the world."

She held out her hand.

She did not know what she meant to do. She only knew that she could not leave it standing there with his face, with his shoulders, with the tiny scar at the corner of his eye. The white fire flickered in her palm, small and bright. "Kieran," she said, "I know you can hear me. I know you're in there. I'm not going to let it have you. I'm going to get you out."

Futile.

"Kieran. Look at me."

He cannot—

"Look at me."

The black eyes flickered.

It was nothing. A tremor, a ripple, as of a stone dropped in a still pond. But for an instant the face above her changed. The empty mask cracked, and through the crack she saw him: the old Kieran, the real one, young and tired and horrified. His lips moved. They shaped a single word. It came out in his own voice, hoarse and desperate, from far down in the dark.

"Run."

…

The Hollow lunged.

It came faster than she had thought anything could move. One moment it stood ten paces away; the next, it was upon her, a blur of black and white and gray, and its hand had closed around her throat. It was cold. It was colder than the grave. She felt the fingers lock about her windpipe and the black lines race up her neck and into her jaw like ink poured into water.

Give it to me.

She could not breathe.

Give it to me. Give it.

"Kieran," she choked.

The other hand came down on her belly.

She screamed.

It was not pain. It was horror, pure and white and absolute. She felt the cold fingers spread across her stomach like a hand over a candle, felt the Night reach through the cloth and the skin and the muscle toward the small bright spark beneath, and the spark flinched. It drew in on itself, tight as a fist. She felt the fear of it. The sudden bewildered terror of a thing that has never known fear, and has just been taught.

"Stop!"

She struck him.

It was not a blow. It was fire. It burst out of her in a white sheet and hit him in the chest, and he went flying. He crashed across the ash and slid thirty feet and lay still. She fell to her knees, clutching her middle, gasping.

"Baby," she whispered. "Baby. It's all right. It's all right."

Mother, said the child, in a tiny scared voice. Cold.

"I know. I know. I've got you. I've got you."

Cold. Cold. Cold.

She was crying.

Across the ash, the dark figure was already rising. It moved stiffly, with the jerky patience of a puppet. It brushed the dust from its coat. Its face was calm. The singed place on its breast steamed gently, and she saw that the fire had not even marked it.

You cannot kill me, said the Hollow. I am in the blood.

"Then I'll burn the blood out of him."

It would kill him.

"I know."

You would not.

"I would." Her voice shook. "I'd do anything. I'd do it to keep my baby safe."

Would you?

The black eyes rested on her.

Would you burn the man you love? Would you hold a flame to his heart and watch him die? Would you do that, little queen, with your hands that heal?

She said nothing.

No, said the Hollow, gently. You would not. You are not made for it. You are made for mercy. It is your gravest fault.

"Don't," she whispered.

Come. I will not harm you. I will carry you both. You will sleep, and wake, and be well. It held out its hand. Come.

She looked at the hand.

It was Kieran's. It had the long fingers, the square nails, the tiny pale scar on the knuckle where he had cut himself on a dragon's scale when he was fourteen. She had kissed that knuckle. She had slept with that hand on her waist. It was open, and waiting, and it was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen.

Mother, said the child. Cold.

She closed her eyes.

Obsyra, she thought. Obsyra. Please.

…

The mountain answered.

It came as a roll of thunder from the north. At first she thought it was the storm. She felt it in the ground, a long slow shudder that ran under the Ridge and out across the plain. The ash trembled. A rattle of loose stones fell from the broken ramps. Somewhere far away, a hundred thousand people cried out.

And then the sky split.

It split from the north, from the horizon, in a long jagged seam of white. She turned her head and saw it: the dark line of the Ice Range, hundreds of miles away, burst open along its whole length. The snow flew up in a wall. The glacier cracked. A vast shape rose out of the white, huge as a cloud, black as the space between stars, and it spread two wings that darkened the world.

Little one, said a voice that shook the earth.

It was coming. It was coming faster than a falling star. It came over the plain in a rush of wind, and the grass lay flat, and the rivers rippled, and behind it the sky was full of pale wings, the spirits of the freed, streaming in its wake like a banner of smoke. She saw the great horned head. She saw the silver rings. She saw the eyes, violet and gold and endlessly kind.

I am here, said Obsyra, and her voice was the sound of the morning.

The Hollow turned.

It looked at the dragon. And for the first time, she saw it falter. The black eyes widened. The calm mask slid, and under it she saw the shadow of an ancient fear, the primal dread of the thing that is made to be hunted, in the presence of the thing that hunts.

You, it hissed.

Yes, said Obsyra. Me.

The great jaws opened.

…

She had expected fire.

It was what she knew of dragons. She had seen Gron pour it over a city. She had read of the Sky Throne wars. She braced for it, ducking, with her arms over her belly, for the roar of flame. It never came.

Instead the vast black head came down out of the sky, as soft as snow, and rested against the ash. The golden eye, as big as a cart, regarded the man in the black coat. A breath of warm air swept the ruin. And in the silence, the old dragon spoke, in the slow deep voice of the mountain.

Child of the Night, she said. I know you.

The Hollow said nothing.

I knew you when you were a coin in a priest's pocket. I knew you when you were a secret in a Marshal's heart. I know the thing you are, and I know why you were made. A huge pause. I am sorry for it. I am sorry that you were used. But you will not have her.

I will have the child.

No.

It is mine. It is made of me.

It is made of love, said Obsyra. You do not know the taste of it. That is the whole of your tragedy.

The black eyes flickered.

It was very small. But in that instant, Solaia saw it. She saw the cold regard falter. She saw the old shape shift, the way a shadow shifts when a lamp is lifted. And she saw, behind it, the other: the human one, the frightened one, the one who was Kieran. His mouth opened. His throat worked.

"Sol," he whispered.

It was the only word he could get out.

"Kieran!"

"Go." His eyes were wet and wild. "Go. Go. I cannot hold it. It is too strong. Take her. Take the—"

The black swept back across his face like a tide.

Enough, said the Hollow, in the chord of voices. It lifted its hand. Gron. Come to me.

She felt it across the Ridge: a pull, vast and cold. A command, issued in the old iron voice of the Imperial bond. It was the voice of a master. It was the voice of the man whose collar had hung on a scarlet throat for six years.

Gron. To me.

She turned.

He was at the foot of the stair, where the priests had left him. The silver cords still hung from his neck, smoldering. His great scarlet body trembled. He had been struggling against them since the pillars fell, and now they snapped, one by one, with small bright cracks, and he stood up. Slowly. The golden eyes were fixed on the man in the ash.

She held her breath.

Gron, said the Hollow. Obey.

The dragon took a step.

Toward him.

Her heart seemed to stop. She saw it all in a single frozen instant: the huge red shape, the black coat, the outstretched hand. She saw Gron's head lower. She saw the wings twitch. She thought, with a pang of bottomless despair, he's bonded. He can't help it. It's the only thing he knows.

Gron took another step.

And another.

Then he turned.

He turned with a shuddering heave of his enormous body, past the man in the ash, past the black outstretched hand. He walked across the ruin, slowly, his claws ringing on the stone, to the place where she knelt. He stopped. He lowered his great scarlet head until his brow touched her shoulder, and she felt the warmth of him, and the tremor in his throat, and the low rumble of a sound that was almost a sob.

Mother, said Gron. I choose you.

The Hollow made a sound.

It was not a word. It was a shriek, high and thin and ragged, the cry of a thing that has just discovered that the world is not obedient. The black shape lunged. But Obsyra's great head swung down, and the wind of her wing-beat struck the Ridge like a hand, and the dark figure was flung back into the ash.

Go, said the old dragon. Quickly. The door will not hold.

"The door?"

Look up.

She looked.

High above the ruined Ridge, in the dark roof of the sky, a line had appeared. It was a line of pale gold, thin as a hair, running from east to west. She had seen it once before, on the night of the Roar. She had thought it a dream. It was widening. A seam in the world, soft and glowing, and through it she could see a sky of honey and a sun she knew.

It is the Veil, said Obsyra. You tore it. It is the only way out. It will close in a breath.

"Kieran—"

He cannot come. The vast voice was grave and gentle. It would kill him. Or it would kill you. And the child. A pause. Climb, little one. Now.

She stood.

She turned back, once, to look.

He was on his hands and knees in the ash, his head bowed, his shoulders shaking. The black was at his throat. He lifted his face, and the eyes that met hers were gray. Just for a moment. They were gray, and wet, and entirely sane, and they held every word he had ever not said.

Go, they said.

She climbed onto Gron's back, and he rose.