Bones of Faerie03 - Faerie After (26 page)

After that, and after a day’s rest, we went home, Karin and Allie to their town, Matthew and me to ours, with promises to visit each other once the crops were planted. Matthew and I took as much care with the journey back as the journey there, because spring still had its dangers, and the trees were already awake enough to seek our blood. But some things had changed: last winter, no human shadows had walked among the sleeping trees, and in all seasons the dead now found rest without my help.

Karin hopes their shadows might find something after all, beyond the gray, something more than a simple ending, but there is no way to know. She says we will all just have to face that when our time comes. She smiles when she says it, and the smile brings out the faintest hint of wrinkles at the corners of her mouth, as sure a
sign as any that Rhianne’s gifts are gone. Yet if Karin fears the dark that now lies ahead of us all, she gives no sign. She is still Karinna the Fierce, after all.

For I have seen that far-off day, and I know she will face it with grace. I see so much more, now that the world is going to endure. I see Allie grown up, still walking among our three towns but traveling farther, too, finding other healers and training them. I see Kyle, nearly grown as well, a hunting cat at his side. I see Elin and Tolven and Nys, struggling to help their people, sometimes together, sometimes at odds with one another. I see my mother, crying when she thinks I can’t hear, but I see her older, too, with gray in her hair, taking up the flute she hasn’t played since the War and smiling more readily than she does now. I see my sister, growing older as well, laughing, always laughing, even as she gains better control over her shadow. I see Matthew—but I’ll share all I’ve seen of Matthew with none but him, save to say that it brings me far more joy than sorrow.

Matthew and I visited the quia tree on our way home from Clayburn, to share the ceremony with Caleb. Mom talked to his tree sometimes, too, and Allie and Karin when they visited, and it was all we could do to keep Rinda and Kyle from playing there endlessly.

As Matthew and I climbed the hillside, I felt the tree’s familiar green presence, and Caleb’s presence, and
an echo of something more that I hadn’t felt since a long-ago day when we feared the world might be crumbling away.

I nodded at Caleb as I stepped beneath his tree, as even those who couldn’t see or sense him had begun to do, and I looked up into the tree’s branches. They were heavy with green seeds. Ordinary seeds that pulled on me with the same faint green all seeds held, nothing stronger. I reached for one, and it came free in my hand. There was no magic in it, and it would not protect me from anything. That was all right. Protection was not all seeds were for. From within the tree, Caleb nodded back at me, as if he knew it, too.

I found a flat clear spot, near the tree but not too near. Matthew helped me dig, and I buried the seed beneath the soil. When we were done, I took Matthew’s face in my hands, stone and flesh shaping themselves to his skin. I brushed my lips against his, just for a moment. His lips strayed to my hair, and the moment went on longer than either of us intended, but at last I turned back to where the seed lay buried.

My voice was hoarse and battered, but it was yet strong. I put my magic into it, and I reached for the green that came from a place none of us fully understood.

And I called to it,
“Grow.”

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to: C. S. Adler, Barbara Bloom, Dawn Dixon, Kathleen Duey, Larry Hammer, Jill Knowles, Vicky Loebel, Patricia McCord, and Jennifer J. Stewart for reading all or part of the manuscript. Jo Walton for giving me Nysraneth’s name. Larry and Jennifer again, for rereading as often as needed, usually on short notice. My editor, Jim Thomas, who’s done so much to help shape Liza’s character from the start. Chelsea Eberly, Courtney Carbone, Heather Palisi, Ellice Lee, Dominique Cimina, Emily Meyer, and everyone else at Random House who’s helped see
Faerie After
out into the world. My agent, Nancy Gallt, her assistant, Marietta Zacker, and foreign rights agent Ellen Greenberg. All the booksellers, librarians, bloggers, and especially readers who’ve become a part of Liza’s journey. I feel like I’ve never found
the right words to say how very much I appreciate you, but I truly do. Liza’s been a part of my own writing journey, one way or another, for most of my career, and it’s an honor and a delight to share that journey with you all.

lives in the Arizona desert, where the plants know how to bite and even the dandelions have thorns. In spite of these things—or perhaps because of them—she’s convinced she lives in one of the most stunning places on Earth. Janni has written the three books of the Bones of Faerie Trilogy—
Bones of Faerie
,
Faerie Winter
, and
Faerie After
—as well as a contemporary Icelandic fantasy,
Thief Eyes
. She’s also published four books for younger readers and more than thirty short stories, including one in the
Welcome to Bordertown
anthology.