“I came here because I was lost—because those silkin things were trying to kill me…”
“You came here because you were born,” said Hikat, impatient again. The extended hands still waited on either side for Barrick to take them. “Perhaps it began even before that. But you are here and that proves you belong. Nobody comes to the Hill of Two Gods without a reason.”
“There is a page for you in the Book of the Fire in the Void, said Hau. Let us read from it.”
“Wait! There is another soul reaching out for you,” said Hoorooen. “A twinned soul that seeks you.”
Briony. That finally decided Barrick—by the gods, how he had missed her! He moved a little closer to the fire so he could reach the two proffered gray hands. The room was not cold but the fire didn’t seem to give off any heat, even when he leaned so close, and its flickering light revealed little more than where the deepest shadows lay. Despite a sudden terror far beyond what the situation seemed to offer, he let his hands close on the dry, slippery fingers of Hikat and Hoorooen. A moment later his eyes slid shut without his willing it, and suddenly he was falling—falling! Plunging downward helplessly into darkness, limbs f lailing…
But where were his limbs? Why did he seem to be only a single heavy thought, falling into the void?
He fell. At last, something other than darkness glimmered in the depths below him. For a moment he thought it was some vast, circular sea; a moment later it seemed an ornamental pond of silvery water, with sides of pale stone. Then he saw it for what it was—the mirror he carried for Gyir, but grown to great size. He had only a moment to marvel at this inversion, at the idea that he could fall into something that was even now in his own pocket, and then he plunged through its cold surface and out the other side.
He stopped moving. The mirror, though, still remained, but now it hung before him against a field of utter black, like a picture in the Portrait Hall back in Southmarch, and he could see his own face in it.
No, not his face: the features of the person there had changed somehow without him noticing, sliding like quicksilver into new positions, shifting color like the towers of Southmarch as the morning sun appeared and climbed into the sky. The face that looked back at him was black-haired and dark-skinned, very young but also very worried and pinched with weariness. Despite it all he thought her beautiful. It was her, truly her—he had never seen her so clearly! The face in the mirror was that of the dark-haired girl who had long haunted his dreams.
“You,” she said wonderingly—so she could see him, too. “I feared you were gone forever.”
“Truly, I nearly was.” He could see and understand her better than ever before but their conversation was still much like a dream, with some things not even spoken but still understood and some things incomprehensible even after they had been said. “Who are you? And why… why can I see you now?”
“Does it make you unhappy?” she asked with a touch of amusement. She was younger than he’d thought she would be, still with a hint of childhood in her face, but although her gaze was clever and kind, something in her eyes seemed veiled, the effect of wounds survived but not forgotten. She seemed to be standing only inches away, but at the same time she shimmered and almost vanished as his eye moved, like something seen through thick mist, like something seen in a dream.
It’s all a dream. He was suddenly terrified he wouldn’t remember this dear, now-familiar face when he was awake again.
Awake? But he could not even remember where he was, let alone whether he could be dreaming. If he was asleep, where did his body lie? How had he come here?
“Tell me your name, spirit-friend?” she asked him. “I should know it, but I don’t! Are you nafaz—a ghost? You are so pale. Oh, I hope if you are a ghost, you died happily.”
“I’m not dead. I’m… I’m certain I’m not!”
“Then that is even better.” She smiled; her teeth gleamed against the darkness of her skin. “And look—all your hair is fiery like my witch streak! How odd dreams are!”
She was right—the streak in her hair was as red as his. It felt like something more than mere kinship. “I don’t think I’m a dream, either. Are you asleep?”
She thought about it. “I don’t know. I think so. And you?”
“I’m not sure.” But as soon as his thoughts began to slide away from the mirror hanging in blackness he began to fear he would never be able to find it again. “Why can we see each other? Why should we?”
“I don’t know.” Her look turned serious. “But it must mean something. The gods do not give out such gifts for no reason.”
That seemed like something he had just heard or thought himself. “What’s your name?” But he knew it, didn’t he? How could she feel so close, so real, so… important, but still be nameless?
She laughed and he could feel it like a cool breeze across overheated skin. “What’s yours?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Nor can I. It’s hard to remember names in dreams. You’re… you’re just him to me. That pale-skinned boy with red hair. And I’m… well, I’m me.”
“The black-haired girl.” But it made him sad. “I want to know your name. I need to know it. I need to know that you’re real, that you live. I lost the only other person I care about…”
“Your sister,” she said, her face suddenly sad; then: “How did I know that?”
“Perhaps I told you. But I don’t want to lose you, too. What’s your name?”
She stared at him, her lips parted, about to say something, but instead she remained silent for a long moment. The mirror seemed to shrink against the darkness, although he could still see her soft thick eyelashes, her long, narrow nose, even the tiny mole on her upper lip. He was afraid that if he waited in silence too long the mirror would shrink and fall away from him. He almost spoke, but understood suddenly that if she did not think of her name now, if she did not tell him, she never would. He had to trust her.
“I used to be a Hive Priestess,” she said at last—slowly, like someone reading from an old, damaged book. “Then I went to live with the other grown women. There were so many women! All together, all scheming and plotting. But worst of all was that we all belonged to… to him. The terrible one. Then I ran away. Oh, gods save me, I do not want to go back to him!”
Again he ached to speak but he knew somehow he should not. She had to find it herself.
“And I will not go back. I will stay free. I will do what I want. I’ll die before I let him use me, either as a toy or as a weapon.” She paused. “Qinnitan. My name is Qinnitan.”
And in that moment he found a sudden strength, something that rooted him despite all the darkness through which he had come, rooted him in his own blood and history and name. “And I am Barrick. Barrick Eddon.”
“Then come to me, Barrick Eddon, or I will come to you,” Qinnitan said. “Because I am so afraid to be alone… !”
And then the mirror did fall away, spinning into darkness like a silver coin dropped down a well, like a bright shell tumbled back into the ocean, a shooting star vanishing into the endless field of night…
“Qinnitan!” But he was alone now in emptiness. He tried to feel again the strength and certainty that had given him his name, the knowledge of his own living blood, rushing through his veins hot as molten metal…