“However, it is not all bad news,” Manifred continued. “At it happens, the Nox Aves have been using these caves for storage for some time. We have supplies, tools, materials and food. We have been investigating the plants and animals that live within these caves, and we managed to bring many things down with us as we fled.” Secretly, the Nox Aves had been working to discover what kinds of animals – from dogs to goats to chickens – would survive in the caves, and whether plants that usually flourished on the surface could grow in the dark, moist depths.
“We are well prepared for our new life,” Manifred said. “We will survive.”
“What of the Arbor?” someone called out. “Is it… Is it dead?”
Manifred’s face remained impassive. “We cannot know. We need to have hope that the Pectoris is safe – that the tree will regrow. My friends, I know many of you have lost people close to you. Tonight, we will sing songs and shed tears to mourn them.”
Catena wiped a tear from her cheek, and Demitto knew she must be thinking about Tahir. He swallowed down the lump in his throat that appeared as he thought of the young lad and how bravely he had offered himself to the Arbor. How different would things have been if he, Demitto, had joined Catena and spirited Tahir away instead of delivering him to his fate? Surely he would still have died? Manifred had assured him that the world above their heads was now destroyed – that they were indeed all that remained. Tahir’s sacrifice to the Arbor had enabled the tree to keep them safe in the mountains, and the Apex had ensured that, in the future, a new Arbor would grow. He had to hope that was the case, and the boy hadn’t died in vain.
“So tonight we will mourn,” Manifred said. “But tomorrow, we will rise from the ashes and our life will begin anew.” He glanced across at the two volumes of the Quercetum that Demitto knew lay in a wooden box. Manifred had rescued them, determined that their history would not be forgotten, that the Nox Aves could continue to exist to guide their people.
Someone started singing, and voices gradually rose around them, even as tears flowed down everyone’s cheeks as they remembered loved ones they had lost in the great fire.
Catena sang with them, but Demitto stayed silent, too overwhelmed with emotion. He leaned his head back on the cave wall and let the tears come. Sorrow for Tahir, for Atavus who had lain at Tahir’s feet and refused to move, for the Arbor, for all those who had fallen around him and who he hadn’t been able to get to the Cavus in time.
The wave of grief swept over him, and then it passed by, leaving in its wake a lightness of heart he had not expected. He thought of the visions he had been shown of the future – of the baby being born, the new tree taking roots and the green grass growing through the blackened earth.
Catena took Demitto’s hands and rested them on her stomach, and he understood what she was trying to say. One day, their children’s children would rise again and banish fire back to the mountain. The Arbor lay dormant for now, silent as The Sleep, but one day The Stirring would come and their people would climb out of the caves and find their true place in the world. This was a temporary state of affairs, and no matter how long it took, they would reclaim what was rightfully theirs. The part they had all played in the Apex had ensured their future, even as it doomed them to darkness. But it would come to an end.
One day.
III
Sarra walked down the grassy bank and sat on a flattened boulder by the water’s edge.
It was nighttime. The sun had set, flooding the horizon with red, which had sent them all into a panic for a while, thinking that the firebird was returning, but the red had faded to purple, then to dark blue, and at the same time the Light Moon had risen in the sky to shine its pale light down across the new world.
She looked up at the white sphere, remembering the way everyone in the Embers had been awestruck to see it appear in the Caelum. What would they think if they could see it now? And the stars – she tried to count the twinkling forms but there were too many of them, scattered across the blackness and glittering the way minerals had glittered in the rockface deep in the caverns.
Would they ever cease to compare everything on the Surface to what they had known below ground? It must be natural to find comfort in what was familiar. And this was their first experience of night-time, after all. Oddly, she felt more at ease now than she had felt in the daytime. The bright sun had hurt her eyes and the whole dramatic events of the day had been overwhelming.
But now she felt at peace, tired and ready for sleep, but wanting to spend just a few more moments enjoying the view before she returned the small distance to the makeshift camp they had created beneath the new tree.
Thinking of the Arbor brought tears to her eyes as she thought about the fact that Geve would never get a chance to stand beneath its branches. She felt a huge sense of loss at his death and the knowledge that she would never again see his bright smile. She couldn’t help feel a swathe of guilt too because he had loved her, and she had never been able to return his love in the way he had wanted. And he had known that – she had seen that resignation on his face when he had surrendered to the Arbor and given up his life. He had accepted his fate because he had known that even though she had promised herself to him, she had not felt in her heart the same way he had felt about her.
The grief washed over her, and she closed her eyes. The night air brushed across her lids, cooling her skin. By her feet, the new stream tinkled away merrily, sounding strangely like singing. No, in fact it was someone singing, she could hear them.
Sarra held her breath as she listened. She had heard the same melody at the moment that the Apex had broken and the connection with the past had severed – they had all heard it, and had been certain it was the Arbor itself breaking into song. Now, she could hear lots of voices joined in harmony. Gradually, one grew louder than the rest. She recognised the voice, had listened to him sing to her many times in the common rooms. It was Geve.
A tear ran down her cheek, but it was a tear of joy, not sorrow. He was letting her know that he was all right. Though his physical form had perished, his soul had gone on to live within the Arbor, and at that moment she knew she would carry a little piece of him forever in her heart.
A hand touched her shoulder, and the singing voices grew quieter until the only sound was the bubbling stream.
She turned to look up at the person and saw it was Comminor, and he held her baby in his arms, wrapped tightly in a blanket.
“He is hungry,” Comminor said with a smile.
She smiled back, took the baby and put him to the breast. He suckled hungrily, and she stroked his thatch of dark hair, thinking of the way it would grow into brown curls like Rauf’s. The man who had led her out of the darkness and into the light had looked healthy, affluent and happy, and it gave her hope that the future was going to be bright.
Comminor lowered himself down next to her, sitting close, his arm brushing hers. They sat contentedly and listened to the bubbling brook, bathed in the silver moonlight.
“I never knew the Light Moon would be so beautiful,” he said, looking up at it.
“It is all beautiful,” she said, glancing up from the baby’s face to see the small plants and flowers growing at the water’s edge, at the trees that were now waist-high in the fields. Their growth was slowing, but they could still see leaves unfurling, almost joyful in the cool light.
She lifted her head to look at him. “What will we do about all the people still in the Embers? We cannot leave them there.”
“Of course not. I do not know how, yet. But we will find a way to get a message to them. Every single one of them deserves to see the sun.”
Sarra opened her mouth to reply, but beneath her the boulder shifted and she stood, startled, the babe in her arms still sucking at her breast. “What was that?”
Comminor stood too and turned to look at the rock. A crack had appeared in the top, and as he pushed down on the front half, it gave way and broke into pieces, falling into the river. His eye
s widened with surprise. “Look!”
Sarra walked forward and bent down. The middle of the rock was hollow, and it formed the distinct shape of a dog, lying curled up.
They stared at it in wonder. “Do you think this was once a real dog?” Sarra whispered. “From the past?”
“Who knows?” Comminor dropped to his haunches and brushed his fingers on the inside of the rock, following the shape. “Perhaps he guarded the old Arbor. He might have been here at the end.”
They studied it for a few moments, and then Comminor pushed himself to his feet. They turned to look at the new tree.
It arched up into the night sky, way above their heads, its branches stretching across the grassy slope, its thousands of glossy leaves shimmering.
Beneath it, Nele, Josse, Viel, Paronel, Amabil and Betune sat curled up around the sunstones, which still held a remnant of their fiery glow.
“I am sorry about Geve,” Comminor said, surprising her.
She dropped her gaze back to the baby and stroked his cheek. “I will miss him. But his sacrifice will enable us all to live again.”
She took a deep breath and looked back at the man beside her, whose grey hair seemed to reflect the silvery moonlight above them. “I did not love him, you know.”
Comminor went still, and then he looked down at her.
“I mean, I did love him, but not in the way…” She swallowed. “Not in the way I love you.”
His eyes searched her face. Hope blossomed within them like the flowers that bloomed by the water’s edge. And he lowered his head and touched his lips to hers.
The Arbor rustled, and Comminor lifted his head and laughed. Sarra smiled, hoping that Geve could be happy for them. One day she would join him in the tree’s embrace. Until then, she would give Comminor her heart.
Life leads to death, and from death springs life…
Cinereo watched Comminor bring Sarra beneath the branches and settle around the sunstones, the baby safe and secure in her arms. A thousand different emotions moved through him, but the greatest of all was joy.
The world was at peace, and the element of earth was in the ascendant.
For now.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to acknowledge those people who matter most to me.
My parents – my lovely mum, Jan, who first interested me in historical fiction and who can still remember that story I wrote about King Arthur; and my dad, Barry, who reads all my books, and who got me hooked on sci-fi and fantasy. Thank you for following me to the other side of the world – I love you both.
My parents-in-law – Ann, who made me feel so welcome from the first time we spoke on the phone and who is still so encouraging; and John, a real old-fashioned gentleman whose love for science and inventions gives me so many ideas. I love you and your chickens.
Mark and Jo, Lucy and Ben – our best friends. We’ve known you for so long and we’ve had such fun together. Long may it continue.
This book is for all of you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Freya is a lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy, as well as a dedicated gamer. She has a deep and abiding fascination for the history and archaeology of the middle ages and spent many hours as a teenager writing out notecards detailing the battles of the Wars of the Roses, or moping around museums looking at ancient skeletons, bits of rusted iron and broken pots. She also has an impressive track record, having published over twenty romance novels under her pseudonym, Serenity Woods.
She lives in the glorious country of New Zealand Aotearoa, where the countryside was made to inspire fantasy writers and filmmakers, and where they brew the best coffee in the world.
freyarobertson.com
twitter.com/EpicFreya
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ARC: Sunstone Page 48