Secrets of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 3) (35 page)

Queen Linee of House
Solira—restored to her throne—beamed in a green gown, a crown upon
her head. She spent half her time entertaining her guests and half
watching the puppet shows with the children. Her new husband, Camlin
Shepherd, stood in a doublet, cloak, and leggings, looking as
uncomfortable as a sheep caught in a wolf's lair. Whenever he tried
to flee the gardens, Linee rushed toward him and dragged him back.

"Well, I'm a king now,"
Cam said to Torin. "Blimey."

The two had sneaked behind a
hedge of honeysuckle for a respite from the festivities. It was the
same place where, two years ago, King Ceranor had recruited Torin
into the war.

"King
consort
,"
Torin reminded his friend. "Linee is the true monarch. You're
just, well . . . sort of like one of her puppies."

"Good! I'd prefer to be a
dog than a monarch." He sighed. "I miss home. I wish I
could return to Fairwool-by-Night. But . . . dang it, it's just not
the same back home now, is it?" Cam lowered his head. "I
wish he could have been here today. That lumpy loaf. And I wish she
were here . . . even if she'd tug my ear, twist my arm, and call me a
woolhead."

Torin's throat tightened. He
watched a bumblebee travel from flower to flower. He missed his
friends too, so much that he didn't trust his voice to remain steady
if he spoke. It had been almost a year since Bailey had died; longer
since Hem. And still the pain felt fresh, especially on days like
today.

Perhaps
the world is healed,
he thought.
But
not for me. And not for Cam. Maybe not for anyone in this world. Not
after so many had fallen, not after so much hurt.
The
wound in Moth was healed; the scars remained.

Arden's second famous wedding
was a far humbler affair.

They gathered in
Fairwool-by-Night, standing in the shade of Old Maple, that tree
Bailey would climb so often. Cam and Linee were there, and so was
Mayor Kerof Berin, seated in a wicker chair, his eyes watery. Many
Fairwoolians felt too ashamed to stand here today; old followers of
Sailith, they now hid in their homes. But some had come as guests: a
few farmers, a potter, a brewer's boy, good souls and old friends.

Torin stood in the shade of the
tree, looking around him, and a deep sadness dwelled inside him, for
this was not his old home.

In many ways, the village of
Fairwool-by-Night was better than he'd ever known it. The plague no
longer raged here. The Sailith temple was gone; the old stone
building, its columns tall and wide, had become a library full of
books Linee had donated from the capital. Strangest of all was the
eastern side of the village; no more darkness lay there, no more of
that borderline they had called the dusk. The forest now stretched
toward distant green hills. The grass was spreading into the old
lands of Eloria, and sunlight now lit them.

A lump in his throat, Torin
turned to look at the marble statue that rose outside the library. It
depicted a tall, proud woman in armor, her chin raised, her two
braids falling across her chest.

I
miss you, Bailey,
he thought.
You
always got me into trouble, but you always looked after me too. I
hope you're happy for me.

Her
last words echoed in his mind:
I
want you to be with Koyee . . . to love her, to build a life with
her, to never let her go.

A pale figure, draped in white,
stepped from behind the maple tree. Torin turned toward her and
warmth and ice swirled through him.

Koyee approached him slowly,
clad in a cloak and hood of white silk, the marriage garment of her
people. Beneath the cloak, she wore a simple ivory dress with a blue
sash, and she held a silver lantern, a candle within. When she
reached Torin, she pulled back her hood and stared at him solemnly,
her eyes large and lavender, and in them he saw her love, her pain,
and the memories they would always share: of war, of blood, of fear
in the dark, and of the love they had found in these places.

She handed him the lantern, and
she spoke in Qaelish, her voice soft. "You are my light in the
darkness. You are the mate of my soul. We will walk the shadowed
paths together. Our lights will shine as one." She smiled shyly
and spoke her next words in Ardish, his tongue. "You are the sun
and I'm the moon. Together we are whole."

A loud sniffle sounded beside
them, and they turned to see Linee weeping and blowing her nose into
a handkerchief.

"Sorry," the queen
said, tears on her cheeks. "I'll . . . I'll wed you right after
I cry my eyes out." She glared at Cam, who stood at his side.
"Why can't you ever be so romantic?"

Cam only groaned.

That night—it still seemed
strange to Torin to think of nights in Fairwool-by-Night—he took
Koyee into his home, the old cottage he had shared with Bailey and
still shared with Mayor Kerof. They sat for a long time by the
fireplace, squeezed side by side in an armchair, as Kerof sat across
from them, and they told old stories of those they had lost, family
and friends.

"I lost a granddaughter,"
the elderly mayor said to Koyee, tears in his eyes. The old man's
hands shook when he held hers. "But I found you."

When the fire burned low, Torin
took Koyee into his old bedroom. A wooden bed stood by the window,
topped with quilts. A table laden with books, scrolls, and toy
soldiers stood beside a chest. Paintings of landscapes hung upon the
walls.

"I wish I could build us a
home of our own," Torin said, suddenly feeling awkward. "But
. . . I can't just leave Kerof here alone, and . . . well, I don't
have any money. And—"

"Hush." She placed a
finger against his lips . . . then kissed him.

They kissed for a long time,
then lay upon that old bed, huddled under those warm quilts, and made
love as the stars and moon shone outside.

The next evening, light and song
filled The Shadowed Firkin, the old tavern in Fairwool-by-Night.
Fires roared in the three hearths, and the smells of apple pies, waxy
candles, and oiled wood filled the room. The villagers drank, ate,
and sang. Two shepherds stood upon a table, waving tankards of ale,
while in a cozy corner, several women whispered and laughed. A group
of farmers sat at the scarred oak bar, arguing about who grew the
larger squashes.

The four companions sat at their
own table—the same place Torin and his friends would always sit, the
old table for four. Today two of their original gang were gone; Koyee
and Linee now filled the empty seats.

Torin looked at the second new
statue in town—a statue of Hemstad Baker, which stood by the
fireplace. The beefy, bronze baker held a loaf of bread and a rolling
pin. Some had wanted the statue to show Hem in armor, bearing sword
and shield, but Torin had refused those designs. Hem would want this,
want to just be a baker in a tavern.

You're
still with us here,
Torin thought and raised his mug of ale.

Cam, Linee, and Koyee raised
their own drinks. They slammed the mugs together, then drank.

When their thirst was quenched,
they stared at one another in silence for a long time.

It was Torin who spoke first,
voice low. "Things are not well in Arden, perhaps not across all
of Timandra." He reached under the table and clasped Koyee's
hand. "Our farms and gardens wilt in the night. When dawn rises,
our plants are weak, frail, struggling to bloom again. They've spent
too many years in endless daylight. And so have we." He looked
around the tavern. "Half the people here are covered in bruises.
They still stumble in the dark. Children cry whenever night falls,
even some adults."

Cam nodded. "It's the same
in the capital. When night falls, chaos reigns. Burglars stream
across the streets, and our guards cannot stop them. The Sailith
temples are gone from Kingswall, but many still miss the endless
day."

Koyee looked into the crackling
fireplace. Her voice was so soft the others had to lean in to hear.
"And in Eloria, my home, it is worse. Skin reddens in the sun.
Eyes are blind. I myself must wear this cloak and hood everywhere."
She caressed the garment. "Our mushroom farms wilt and die in
the sunlight, and our fish flee into the depths where we cannot catch
them. People cry that the stars have abandoned us. Some say the day
is a curse of Sailith, and they hide in cellars until darkness falls
again." Her eyes dampened. "I thought we fixed the world,
but maybe the world was never broken, only the hearts of men."

Her hand squeezed Torin's
tightly under the table. She looked at him with those large eyes;
eyes he had first seen so long ago in the darkness; eyes that had
peered, frightened, from around a boulder as he wheeled her father's
bones toward her; eyes he had followed into shadow and fire; eyes
that still drove into his soul, the twin beacons of his heart.

The dry leaves of fall covered
the land as Torin and Koyee returned to the mountain.

Clad in warm woolen cloaks, they
walked up that old, pebbly path. Red and yellow leaves covered the
trees, rustling in a great, fiery carpet upon the hills and valleys
below. Mist floated over grass, and geese swam in pools of gleaming
water. This mountain had once risen from the dusk, splitting the land
in two, but now both sides of the world bloomed with life. Sunlight
lit the mountainside, and the clock dial ticked above, its hand
moving again.

When they reached the grassy
plateau, Torin and Koyee approached the grave that lay between
wildflowers. Dry nettles lay like a blanket upon Bailey's grave, and
ivy grew around the boulder that served as her tombstone. Torin
knelt, dug a shallow hole, and planted the sapling there.

"It's a maple, Bails,"
he said, patting the soil down around the plant. "It's from Old
Maple, the same tree from home we used to climb. It'll grow tall and
strong, and it'll shade you, and people will see it for miles
around." He bought his fingers to his lips, then touched the
tombstone. "And I'm not climbing this one!"

He stepped back toward his wife,
took her hand, and kept climbing the mountain.

When they finally returned to
the valleys below, Koyee smiled softly, and they did not speak. They
walked over fallen leaves and under the shade of ash and birch trees,
geese honking above. Sunlight shone in the west, golden upon the
land. In the east, stars glowed upon the deep blue horizon.

As they walked through the
wilderness, Torin placed an arm around Koyee, pulled her close, and
kissed her cheek.

She smiled, eyes downcast, and
held the new amulet that hung around her neck—a small brass gear.

Spring's warmth flowed across
the land, gardens bloomed in Fairwool-by-Night, fresh leaves budded
upon Old Maple, and in the fields the farmers sang as they plowed and
planted new seeds. Laughter sounded again in homes, and children
filled the new library, reading books of ancient lore.

East of the dusk, spring rose
too. No plants bloomed in the darkness, but the ice melted in the
river, and across ancient cities workers bustled, rebuilding walls
and towers and homes, singing again to the stars. In the ruins of
Oshy, new life rose. The Sailith temple was smashed, and its bricks
formed new huts for the survivors of the war. Once more, boats swayed
in the Inaro River under the moon, lanterns shone upon the boardwalk,
and fishermen—refugees from the devastation in the east—trawled
nets through the water, collecting crayfish and bass. In old cities
and young villages alike, the prayers of Eloria rose into the starry
sky.

In this new spring, flowers
blooming in gardens and birds singing in Old Maple, a child was born
in Fairwool-by-Night.

She was a special child, though
she would not know it for several years. Her skin was pale as
moonlight, her hair dark as night. Her eyes, twice the size of any
other child's in the village, gleamed a deep purple, wide and
curious.

Not long after the birth, the
child's mother stepped out of her home, stood in a garden of
honeysuckles and sunflowers and lilacs, and let the babe see the
world for the first time. She then turned, cradling her daughter to
her chest, and walked down a pebbly path, across a rye field, and
into that place they called the dusk. The child's father joined them,
dirt beneath his fingernails and soil staining his knees. They walked
until they stood upon a hill between two worlds. The light of
Timandra shone to one side, casting orange mottles across the trees.
The shadows of Eloria rolled to the other side, leading to indigo
skies strewn with stars.

Koyee kissed her daughter's
forehead. The babe seemed to smile and reached out tiny fingers to
tug at Koyee's hair.

"What will we name her?"
Torin asked.

Koyee smiled softly. "Billy
. . . to remember a good friend." She kissed her daughter's
fingertips. "Billy Greenmoat."

Torin's eyes softened. "If
Bailey is watching, she is honored, but . . . Billy Greenmoat? You do
realize the other children would call her billy goat."

Koyee laughed and tickled the
babe. "My little billy goat. Let Billy be her middle name then.
For her first name . . . Madori."

Torin raised an eyebrow. "That
was your name in The Green Geode. Your yezyana name."

"It was also the name of
Xen Qae's wife. It's a blessed name in the night. And that name is a
part of me—like she is." Koyee caressed the girl's cheek.
"Madori Billy Greenmoat."

Torin smiled but soon his smile
faded, and he tightened his cloak around him. "A child half of
sunlight, half of night. Koyee, what if—" He choked on his
words and swallowed. "Is she good? Is she kind?"

Koyee looked up at her husband,
and sudden anger filled her. Was he comparing her sweet Madori to . .
. to him? To the demon Ferius? How dare he? She wanted to scold him,
but she saw that true fear filled his eyes. Koyee lowered her head
and rocked her daughter until the babe slept.