He would embrace them. These T'lan Imass, who had twisted all the powers of the Warren of Tellann into a ritual that devoured their souls. A ritual that had left them — in the eyes of all others — as little more than husks, animated by a purpose they had set outside themselves, yet were chained to — for eternity.
Husks, yet… anything but.
And that was a truth Itkovian had not expected, had no way to prepare for.
Insharak Ulan, who was born third to Inal Thoom and Sultha A'rad of the Nashar Clan that would come to be Kron's own, in the spring of the Year of Blighted Moss, below the Land of Raw Copper, and I remember -I remember-
A snow hare, trembling, no more than a dusk-shadow's length from my reach, my child's arm and hand stretching. Streaks in the white, the promise of summer. Trembling hand, trembling hare, born together in the snows just past. Reaching out. Lives touching — small-heart-patter, slow-drum-hunger my chest's answer to the world's hidden music — I remember -Kalas Agkor — my arms wrapped about little Jala, little sister, hot with fever but the fire grew too hot, and so, in my arms, her flesh cooled to dawn-stone, mother keening — Jala was the ember now lifeless, and from that day, in mother's eyes, I became naught but its bed of ash-Ulthan Arlad herd-tracks in the snow, tufts of moult, ay on the flanks, we were hungry in that year yet held to the trail, old as it was-Karas Av riding Bonecaster Thai's son in the Valley of Deep Moss, beneath the sun we were breaking the ancient law — I was breaking the ancient law, I, mate to Ibinahl Chode, made the boy a man before his circle was knotted- in the Year of the Broken Antler, we found wolf cubs -
— I dreamed I said no to the Ritual, I dreamed I strode to Onos T'oolan's side -
— a face streaming tears — my tears -
— Chode, who watched my mate lead the boy into the valley, and knew the child would be remade into a man — knew that he was in the gentlest of hands - the grasslands were burning -
— ranag in the Homed Circle -
— I loved her so -
Voices, a flood, memories — these warriors had not lost them. They had known them as living things — within their own dead bodies.
Known them.
For almost three hundred thousand years.
— friend to Onrack of the Logros, I last saw him kneeling amidst the corpses of his clan. All slain in the street, yet the Soletaken were finally broken. Ah, at such a cost - oh, heart laid at his feet, dear Legana Breed. So clever, sharpest of wit, oh how he made me laugh -
— our eyes met, Maenas Lot and I, even as the Ritual began its demand, and we saw the fear in each other's eyes — our love, our dreams of more children, to fill the spaces of those we had lost out on the ice, our lives of mingled shadows — our love, that must now be surrendered - I, Cannig Tol, watched as my hunters hurled their spears. She fell without making a sound, the last of her kind on this continent, and had I a heart, it would have burst, then. There was no justice in this war. We'd left our gods behind, and knelt only before an altar of brutality. Truth. And I, Cannig Tol, shall not turn away from truth -Itkovian's mind reeled back, sought to fend off the diluvial tide, to fight himself clear of his own soul's answering cry of sorrow, the torrent of truths shattering his heart, the secrets of the T'lan Imass — no, the Ritual — how — Fener's Tusks, how could you have done that to yourselves?
And she has denied you. She has denied you all -
He could not escape — he had embraced their pain, and the flood of memories was destroying him. Too many, too fiercely felt — relived, every moment relived by these lost creatures — he was drowning.
He had promised them release, yet he knew now he would fail. There was no end, no way he could encompass this yearning gift, this desperate, begging desire.
He was alone-
— am Pran Chole, you must hear me, mortal!
Alone. Fading …
Hear me, mortal! There is a place — I can lead you! You must carry all we give you — not far, not long — carry us, mortal! There is a place!
Fading…
Mortal! For the Grey Swords — you must do this! Hold on — succeed — and you will gift them. I can lead you!
For the Grey Swords.
Itkovian reached out-
— and a hand, solid, warm, clasped his forearm-
The ground crawled beneath her. Lichens — green-stalked and green-cupped, the cups filled with red; another kind, white as bone, intricate as coral; and beneath these, grey shark-skin on the mostly buried stones — an entire world, here, a hand's width from the ground.