How could a Fhrey in Alysin know I exist? And why would she be waiting to meet me?

  “Gylindora is—” Raithe began.

  “An excellent basket weaver,” the Fhrey interrupted him and smiled.

  “So I see,” Brin replied. “Nice to meet you. My mother was a weaver, too—of wool, mostly.”

  Gylindora nodded. “And a fine raiser of daughters, apparently.” She grinned at the others, who laughed.

  “Is there . . .” Brin paused. “I feel like I’m missing something.”

  “Not at all, child,” Gylindora said.

  “We’re just so excited to see you,” mentioned one of the two remaining women, who stood up and grinned in amazement. The woman was small, delicate, and so young. Not much more than a girl. “Isn’t she something?”

  “Do I know you?” Brin asked. She was a stranger, but her smile, eyes, and the sound of her voice were familiar.

  “My name is Aria,” she said. “I believe you know my son, Gifford.”

  “You’re Aria?” Brin clapped her hands to her cheeks, then foolishly looked behind her down the path, as if Aria’s admission would somehow summon forth her son. But of course, he wasn’t there. Cruel sadness followed. “Oh, Grand Mother of All.” Tears filled her eyes. Light as Brin was, her legs gave out, and she fell to her knees. “I’m sorry. Oh, I’m so sorry. Gifford—your son—he was with me. He could have—”

  “I know.” Aria knelt down and took Brin’s hands. Her touch was . . . the only way Brin could describe it was magical. Instantly she felt better.

  While alive, Brin had never met Aria, but everyone in Dahl Rhen who had, spoke highly of Gifford’s mother. Although she died when not much older than a child, she was a hero to the clan. Her whole life had been lived fearlessly. She had been the last to take and the first to give, beautiful, gentle, understanding, forgiving, and wise beyond her years. Not a soul had ever had a bad thing to say about her. Despite the full-throated claims of people like Padera, Brin had suspected the stories were too good to be true. She assumed Aria’s faults had been sanitized and forgotten. No one could be so perfect. It wasn’t possible.

  Or was it?

  “He—he looked for you in Rel,” Brin told her. “Then we fell into the Abyss.”

  Aria nodded, and the woman’s expression was like seeing love looking back at her.

  “Gifford won the race. He went faster than any man ever, and he saved everyone.”

  Tears welled in Aria’s eyes. “I know, my dear. I’ve heard the tales and expected nothing less.”

  “Gifford stayed in the Abyss because he wouldn’t leave Roan. She’s his wife.”

  “Sounds like someone we know,” Gylindora said, smiling at Aria.

  Gifford’s mother sniffled as she wiped tears from her cheeks.

  “He wanted to meet you so very much,” Brin said. “He loved you even though he never met you.”

  “If he’s his mother’s son,” Raithe said, “he may yet do so.”

  Brin wiped her face again. “I feel so stupid. Here I am in this wonderful place, and I keep bawling my eyes out.” She sniffled and looked at the third woman. She appeared about the same age Brin was when her parents died.

  “Brin,” Raithe said. “This is my sister, Dedria. She’s been wanting to meet you for a long time now. She’s a storyteller.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Brin nodded to the girl.

  “I’ve never met a real Keeper,” Dedria said. “We didn’t have one in our village, and certainly not one as important as you.” The girl looked embarrassed, and gestured at everyone else. “I’m not like the rest of you. I didn’t do anything great to get in here, I didn’t earn my place. Raithe invited me.”

  “You can do that?” Brin asked.

  The girl nodded. “Of course. How can a person be truly happy if someone they love isn’t allowed to be by their side? Alysin wouldn’t be a paradise if that meant separation from loved ones.”

  Raithe nodded. “The hard part is getting people to accept that truth. Some people, like my father and brothers, don’t understand how it works, so they deny themselves entry. Others, like my mother, aren’t ready. Those who walk in here on their own are the ones who were always here—in a way. It’s hard to explain. And I was never as good with words as you.”

  After Brin’s visit to the Abyss, she felt she understood better than he thought. She never would have believed it, but people were their own worst enemies. Tesh could climb out if he could get past what was weighing him down. They all could. The problem was they felt they deserved to suffer. Guilt anchored them to the bottom.

  “We should get going,” Gylindora interrupted, putting a hand on Dedria’s shoulder. “She has a long way to go yet, remember?”

  “A shame you couldn’t be here on a better day,” Aria said as they began to stroll up the path leading toward the blue mountains.

  “Raithe said it was a bad day, too, but I don’t understand why,” Brin said.

  Aria looked at Raithe, who looked at the Fhrey.

  “Because it’s storming out,” Gylindora explained.

  Brin looked up at the clear sky.

  “Not in here, dear,” the Fhrey told her. “Not in here.”

  The trip across Alysin was lovely, and Brin lost her concern about storms and why everyone was acting so oddly around her. They weren’t telling her everything . . . or anything, for that matter, but watching the four of them laugh, sing, and at times dance had a way of making her feel like there was nothing to worry about. Aria danced the best, performing with fearless abandon. Raithe’s sister did cartwheels. Gylindora had a beautiful voice for song. Brin didn’t understand the words, but she didn’t need to. She couldn’t understand the messages in birdsongs, either. Brin hadn’t imagined Raithe to be a dancer, but he was wonderful. At one point, he took her hands and spun her around until her feet came free of the ground. Joy was air in Alysin, ecstasy the grass beneath their feet, and delight the brilliance that shone upon everything. But even surrounded by all of it, Brin couldn’t be carefree. The banquet they feasted on wasn’t for her. She was just passing through.

  And it isn’t a good day.

  By the time they had crossed the valley and entered the foothills, the reality of leaving started to weigh on her. Alysin was a warm home filled with the light of a crackling hearth, the smell of baking bread, and good friends laughing heartily, but outside that house, a thunderstorm raged. Brin knew she would soon be forced back into that dreadful tumult. And when she left, she would go alone.

  During their travels, Brin discovered that Alysin was more sparsely populated than either Rel or Nifrel. For a time, she wondered if it was just the five of them, but every now and then she spotted a distant figure walking on a far-off hill. Gylindora or Aria would wave, and the others would return the gesture. Brin should have asked who the strangers were. She was neglecting her Keeper duties, but her mind was on the storm. She grew quiet, and the others left her to her thoughts.

  Brin realized that each realm of the afterlife was imperfect. Rel was calm but stale and dull. Nifrel was exciting but also scary, violent, and cruel. While joyful and bright, Alysin suffered from the knowledge that the rest of the world remained in pain, a particular remorse tailored for the inhabitants it drew.

  The world is broken. Both Phyre and the face of Elan are shattered and in splinters.

  Brin thought she could glimpse how the parts might fit, and could guess at the final shape once it was made whole again. The equally obvious problem was the massive scale of the required restoration.

  Is it even possible to fix it all?

  A pretty house appeared along the path, perched on a rise that overlooked fields and, farther down, the sea. The home was small, made mostly of stone, and was topped with a thatched roof. Window boxes held red flowers, and a walkway of cleverly fitted stones serpentined from the road to the door, which was painted bright green and had a half-moon top. They stopped, and Aria knocked.

  “Who lives here?” Brin asked.

  Before Raithe could answer, the door opened, and a beautiful woman looked out at them. She had a luxuriant mane of golden hair that reached down to her waist, but her eyes were dark as rich soil.

  “So she’s arrived at last,” the lady said without a hint of surprise. “Please, come in.”

  Brin couldn’t make even a guess at her age. She had a youthful beauty, but the grace of her movements and the confidence in her voice suggested profound wisdom. And for no reason at all, or perhaps all of them at once, Brin loved her. The lady held the door open and smiled. The others went inside, but as Brin drew closer, tears filled her eyes once more. By the time she stood before the lady, Brin was sobbing without knowing why. There was no pain or sadness. The tears were the same as those she’d cried when she found her parents in Rel, but Brin didn’t know this woman. A moment later, she had fallen into the lady’s arms.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered, brushing the wet hair from Brin’s face. “You’ll be fine.”

  Brin continued to cry. The lady held her patiently as they stood in her doorway. Finally, Brin found enough voice to ask, “Who are you?”

  “I’m your mother.”

  Brin looked up, confused.

  “All right.” The lady smiled in a whimsical way. “I’m your very, very great-grandmother. My name is Mari. I’m the third daughter of Eton and Elan.”

  Brin gasped, shuddered, and felt completely lost. “Should I—I don’t know—should I kneel?”

  “I have chairs.” She smiled, and to see it was to look full-faced at love.

  She gestured at the interior of her house, which was what Brin imagined the perfect home to be. A wood floor, cushioned window seat, bright-green shutters that were thrown wide open, soft chairs, and a stone hearth with a steaming pot. Brin stared in amazement. The painted walls were covered in circles and curving lines of yellow and orange, celestial swirls with stars above them.

  The others took seats around the hearth. Mari waited for Brin to do the same. There were plenty of chairs, but she sat on the floor the way she used to at home. Brin half expected to see her mother at the loom and Moya working the spinning wheel. Sitting cross-legged, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this place felt more like her home than the one she’d grown up in. It seemed like the place that her parents—that everyone—had been trying to make.

  Mari sat beside her; the white gown she wore settled like mist.

  “I asked the others to bring you by so we could talk,” she said.

  Brin nodded, trying her best to look serious, but it was hard to concentrate.

  This place is just so perfect. This is where everyone should live.

  “Brin, you need to focus. I know it’s hard to do here, but up that path lies the exit from Phyre and the entrance to the Sacred Grove. When you go through, you’ll be returning to Elan.”

  “To the storm,” Brin whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “But . . .” Brin looked out the open window and saw a bird land on a berry bush. “Couldn’t I just—” She stopped before saying more. She wasn’t a child, yet she felt like one. “I want to stay here. I wish . . . but it’s more than that. I don’t think I can do it. I’m supposed to go to Estramnadon, but that’s the home of the Fhrey.” She glanced at Gylindora. “Tekchin was supposed to be our guide. He knows the city and the language. There were others with me, all of them heroes—real heroes. They would be able to see this thing through, but I can’t. I’m not even sure anymore why I came at all.” She brushed the hair from her face, feeling the residue of tears on her cheek. “At the time, I said it was because I wanted to help my friend, but I think that wasn’t true. I guess I just didn’t want to be left out. I didn’t want to be the only one who did nothing. But there’s a reason why I never did anything—because I can’t do anything. I’m not a hero. I only write about them.”

  “Brin.” Raithe caught her attention. “You climbed out of the Abyss.”

  Aria nodded. “No one has ever done that.”

  “So okay, that was hard, but only because I was dragging stuff with me. Once I let go of it, the climb wasn’t so difficult.”

  “But you were smart enough to figure that out,” Gylindora said. “And strong enough to do it.”

  Brin nodded. “Yeah, okay. Sure, I get that, but the rules are different in here, aren’t they? Out there, I’m nothing special. And this time I’ll be alone. I’m not like the others. All I’ve done is create a book that only two people can read, and both of them are lost to the Abyss. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do. We thought we came to save Suri, but Tressa told me that was a lie. Instead, I’m supposed to get some kind of horn and give it to Nyphron. But I don’t know where to find such a thing, or even what it looks like.”

  “It’s about this big,” the Fhrey said, holding her hands about a foot apart.

  Just then, the Keeper’s mind clicked a piece into place. “The real reason for this trip is to return with something called the Horn of Gylindora.”

  She stared at the Fhrey, stunned. “Your name is Gylindora! It’s your horn!”

  She nodded. “I’m the first fane of my people, and it was given to me, to all Fhrey, to keep us from destroying one another through infighting. It’s our most sacred relic. But it doesn’t look like anything special. To most, it looks like a battered ram’s horn. But it has markings on it.”

  “Writing?”

  The Fhrey nodded. “No one knows that—not yet. Right now, everyone thinks they’re just decorative markings. Some might even speculate they’re magic runes like the Orinfar. But in fact, they are words—words you can read.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Because you invented the language they’re written in.”

  Brin should have refuted the idea as being impossible. The horn was obviously ancient, and even if that weren’t the case, Brin had never been on the Fhrey side of the Nidwalden River. But there was no denying her ability to read the tablets in the Agave that were written by the Ancient One. Trilos had used her language as well, or maybe she had used his. The whole thing was confusing, and it was impossible to know how much came from her and what had come from him. She had no idea how any of this was possible, yet there was no denying it was.

  “What do the words say?” Brin asked the question with riveted anticipation. She guessed the writing must contain something wise, or magical, or profound. She was certain the fane would shake her head, dismiss the question and say, “It is beyond your understanding, child.” Instead, Gylindora began to chuckle.

  “They are instructions on how to use it.” She put a hand to her mouth and laughed in embarrassment. “Ironically, at some point in the future, reading will be common, but the nature of the horn will be forgotten. Strange how these things sometimes work out.”

  “Can all of you see the future?”

  “No,” Mari said. “But the person who wrote on the horn could. He can see everything quite clearly.”

  “Turin,” Brin said.

  They all nodded. Until that point, Brin hadn’t realized that a simple rocking of one’s head could communicate so much emotion. Each nod was incredibly sad.

  Brin looked down at the patch of light that entered the window and created an elongated, skewed rectangle on the floor. The color was golden, far richer and more vibrant than anything on Elan.

  Here, even light on the floor is a wonder. I could spend an eternity staring at it. What a wonderful place this is. I want to stay.

  “I’m not certain I should do anything that he wants.” Brin blurted out the words that she’d kept inside so long. Like the tears she’d shed on Raithe’s shoulder, the confession burst out. “Malcolm”—she looked at Raithe—“told you his name was Turin, but he’s also known as Uberlin. Did you know that?”

  “I didn’t then,” the Dureyan said, “but yes, I’ve heard the tales.”

  “Given that, I have to wonder whether completing any quest that he initiated makes me complicit with evil.” She looked at Mari. “Can you tell me?”

  Mari stood and walked to the window, where she drew the curtains. As she did, the room darkened.

  “That’s why you’re here—why I asked you to be brought to my home.” She crossed to the other window. “It’s important that you are well informed, but I should warn you, it’s not a pleasant tale, and I can’t tell you all of it because I wasn’t there for the end.” Mari closed the other set of drapes and darkness reigned.

  She resumed her seat near the hearth, where a small fire began to glow.

  The goddess of mankind sat up straighter than before, and as she did, the others shifted. Apparently, Brin wasn’t the only one interested in the story. Mari placed her hands on her thighs and leaned forward, assuming the posture that all storytellers reserved for their best tales.

  Perhaps the technique is inherited, passed down from parent to child for eons. Or have I somehow channeled Mari when reciting the old stories?

  Brin had always felt there was something mystical in the power that Keepers had to transport others to different times and places.

  Maybe it’s a kind of a spell.

  Brin was discovering that magic was far more common than she would have ever believed.

  It’s not that magic is so rare in everyday life, but perhaps it’s just ignored or overlooked.

  “Turin waged the First War upon us, his brothers and sisters,” Mari began in a soft but ominous voice that captured the attention of everyone in the room. Brin imagined that even the birds outside—those who could hear—had stopped to listen. “Our father, Eton, did not approve of what he saw. It confirmed that he had been right. He punished Alurya instead of my mother, or us, or Turin. In his finite wisdom, he determined that it was she who was at fault for giving Turin eternal life. She was the lawbreaker, so she was the one to face his wrath.”