Persephone hesitated and looked out at the bear still lying in the open doorway. Slowly she nodded. “Yes…yes, I think so. And you’re all right, too.” Her eyes brightened, then she hugged him. Arms tight around his neck, she squeezed, but only briefly. “Konniger said—but I guess he lied.” Spotting Suri, she pulled back and exclaimed, “You’re alive!”
“You have black hair,” the mystic replied, then looked at the dead bear. “But I’m not in the mood for games just now.”
“I wasn’t playing. I—” Persephone stopped and looked around the rol. “What about Maeve? Where is she?”
Faces darkened, Suri’s most of all. “Maeve died…Grin…” Suri continued to stare at the body of the bear lying outside the open door. “I don’t think Grin was a demon; she was just a bear. Maeve fought The Brown—fought the bear for me, I think.”
“Maeve fought The Brown?” Persephone asked, stunned.
“With Tura’s staff.” Suri held up the stick. “She was fierce.” Suri petted the wolf. “So was Minna.”
“How long have you known of this place?” Nyphron asked as the other Galantians filed into the rol and walked around the stone pillars, looking at the walls in fascination.
“We just learned of it,” Persephone said. “Suri showed us.”
The Galantian leader turned to eye the mystic. “The tattooed one?” he asked.
“Is this it?” Sebek asked him, pointing at the runes that circled the walls.
“Stryker,” Nyphron called, and the goblin entered from where he had waited in the crevice. “Vok on hess?” Nyphron asked, in an unpleasant language that sounded as if he were coughing up something to spit.
Stryker drew back his hood, revealing a monstrous face and head. He gazed up at the writing. The creature, which was how Raithe thought of Stryker for he was too repulsive to be thought of as a person, shambled slowly around the room. The goblin raised a hand at the runes and pointed with its claws.
“Et om ha,” the goblin replied to Nyphron, and nodded. The Fhrey smiled.
Raithe extended his hand to Persephone. “It’s nearly morning. I think it’s time we took you home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When Gods Collide
I could not move, not my arms, my legs, or even my head. I was forced to watch, and I was not even allowed to scream.
—THE BOOK OF BRIN
They exited the forest in a solemn procession by the first light of dawn. Persephone, Raithe, Malcolm, and Suri followed behind the Fhrey, who carried the shattered bones of Maeve.
Hours before, Persephone had found the Black Spear of Math right where she’d dropped it, within sight of the glade battlefield. The weapon lay among the men’s bodies. She was grateful Raithe and Malcolm were safe but couldn’t find any cheer in her heart for the victory. Many of the dead had lived in Rhen all their lives. She knew their parents, families, and friends, and not even her own safety could lighten that weight.
Persephone’s feet and skirt were soaked with morning dew as she struggled to march through the tall grass. An overwhelming exhaustion extended beyond muscle and bone, even beyond the aftermath of the battle with a giant bear. She felt empty, truly empty, to the point of being erased. With the death of Konniger and the bear, a portion of her life had reached a conclusion. Her memory of Reglan remained mortally wounded. Discovering that he’d had a child with Maeve was a shock, but his order to kill a baby and hide the affair for years was beyond her ability to forgive. Persephone had drawn strength from Reglan when he was alive and from his memory after his death. That morning she could no longer lean on him, and she wasn’t certain where she found the strength to keep walking.
Suri matched her in expression as she stared out at the rising sun. She held something tightly in her hand and repeatedly looked at it with increasing concern.
“What’s that you’ve got?” Persephone asked.
“A bone,” Suri said.
A month ago such a reply might have surprised Persephone, but that morning Suri could have admitted to holding the beating heart of the Tetlin Witch and Persephone wouldn’t have blinked.
“Grin was coming to kill everyone.”
“That’s why you went after the bear? Because you thought it was coming to attack the dahl?”
Suri nodded. “The bone told me Grin would attack this morning.”
“Looks like Magda was right. We did what she said, and Grin has been killed.”
Suri didn’t look convinced.
“What?”
“The signs I saw indicated something that—something bigger. Grin was a bear with a hunger for human flesh but still just a bear.”
“Maybe you just read them wrong. Saw more danger than there really was.”
“What do you think, Minna?” Suri asked the wolf.
The wolf panted alongside her with saliva dripping off her tongue.
“Minna is not so sure,” Suri said. “And Minna is a very smart wolf, maybe the wisest in the world.”
The light rising from behind the jagged teeth of the forest turned the sky purple and orange and shone on the walls of Dahl Rhen. Persephone made out the banners flapping above the lodge roof. She slowed, then stopped altogether. She glanced at Suri, and her eyes narrowed.
What if Suri didn’t read the signs wrong? What if the wolf is right?
“What’s wrong?” Raithe asked after noticing she was several steps behind the rest.
“No horn,” she replied.
“Is that unusual?” Malcolm asked. “It’s just us, after all, and it’s early.”
“No men on the ramparts, either.”
—
Circling, they found the gate open, both doors flung wide—too wide. Usually only Delwin and Gelston left early, and they had a habit of opening only the left side because the doors were heavy and the right one always stuck. Also, the gate doors had been thrown inward rather than pushed out. No one pulled the massive doors open from the inside; they were easier to push.
Nerves and exhaustion, that’s all it is, she assured herself. It would be strange if I didn’t have a sense of dread creeping with me after what I’ve been through.
Still, she couldn’t shake the fear. She imagined walking through the roundhouses and finding everyone slain, just as she had found Konniger’s men lying among the trees. What she actually saw when she stepped through the open gate was far less macabre, but far more disturbing.
Everyone on the dahl was awake and standing in perfect rows in front of the lodge, facing the gates. Persephone was startled at the size of the crowd. Even on meeting nights, when everyone was supposed to show up, not everyone did. The sick and injured didn’t come, and there were always sick and injured. Usually, those caring for them stayed home, too. A dahl the size of Rhen required a lot of food, and there was always a hunting party or two that would be out, sometimes for weeks. And then there were those who didn’t want to come. Padera had stopped bothering to show up years ago.
More disturbing than the number of people assembled was the way in which they were grouped. Sarah was nowhere near Delwin or Brin. Roan was in the front row even though Gifford was in the back, and Moya was shoulder-to-shoulder with Tressa.