Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (65 page)

"Those who truly want change must be the first to make it."

– Panna Sul (235 PA)

Aes was bright and golden in the sky. Maeve stood with Xia and Gripper at the edge of the bright green grass. Without the dryads to tend it, the vast lawns of the royal court had become overgrown and wild over the last century. It was time the Arcadians learned to care for their own homeworld again. Wind rippled through the high grass and hissed gently like waves against the shore.

Broken glass towers rose up all around them, the shattered crystal ruins of the ancient White Kingdom that glittered in a thousand colors. Lorren and Hyra were training new glassingers every day, but it would take a long time to repair the damage. Even Arcadian glass was not impervious to the years and the tenacious march of life. Vines and creepers grew over the broken city in delicate nets of green leaves and pale pink flowers. Bright blue and purple veilwings darted between the blossoms, ignoring the larger creatures entirely. Arcadia had belonged to the animals and insects for a century, after all, and these survivors of the White Kingdom feared nothing.

Duaal limped through the grass. After two surgeries, a new cloned liver, kidney and about ten feet of replacement intestines, the young mage was finally walking again. He came to stand beside Maeve in the green shade of the old willow tree. Like Gripper and Xia, Duaal was barefoot and dressed only in a simple white robe. He looked at Maeve.

"You know," he said, "it's a good thing you were at that Waygate instead of me, Maeve. All of time at my fingertips… To have Tiberius back. I don't know if I could have withstood the temptation."

"I did not. Not alone."

"Are you ready for this?"

"Yes," she answered. "I am. Are you?"

Duaal laughed in reply. Maeve turned to Xia and Gripper. They nodded.

Together, the four made their way slowly down the path. It was nearly invisible in the wild grass, little more than a scattering of weathered white stones jutting up from the emerald green like old bones. Wynerian and Orindell were huge, gleaming silver crescents in Illisem's clear blue sky.

They passed silently under the glass ruins of the west gate. Only one of the pillars still stood, a swirling sculpture of Anslin saluting the brilliant golden sun. His spear was gone, but the guardian god faced outward, his remaining wing stretching out high even over Gripper's head. On the other side, Cavain's statue was gone. All that remained were a pair of melted, blackened lumps of glass. An aspen tree had sprouted between the pieces, pale roots wrapped around the misshapen glass and pulling them inexorably down into the dirt. In another ten years, they would vanish entirely.

Maeve, Xia, Gripper and Duaal stepped through the gate. They had rebuilt the birchwood thrones. The pale wood rose up from wild green grass, delicate and beautiful and scarred black in places where the Devourers had passed too close to the trees. Lorren had done her best to plane the burnt spots from the wood, but there was no place in Arcadia not scarred by the fall.

Maeve made her way toward the thrones. The glass gallery surrounding the royal court was long gone, but the overgrown field was full of Arcadians. Thousands of them. Some were from Kaellisem, others from Titania's army, but many more from neither side of the brief and terrible Arcadian civil war. Gripper walked close to Maeve and kept his eyes downcast. Everyone watched them.

Panna sat in the queen's throne, Ballad seated by her side. She wore an Arcadian gown of flowing pale green and her golden hair hung in burnished curls around her shoulders. The glass crown was as bright as a star on her brow.

There had been arguments about it, of course. "I'm not a Cavainna!" Panna had said.

"Cavain was a warlord," Maeve told her. "You know that. He wiped out the pyrads to build his empire. I killed even more dryads, nyads and aerads when I opened the Tamlin Waygate. Titania tried to unmake trillions more. The Cavainna line had its chance. It is time for someone else to rule."

Now Maeve swept her wing across her chest in salute to the queen and king. Even on the throne, Ballad refused to abandon his black leather jacket. Duke Ferris stood behind his new monarchs, managing to wear an expression of both astonishment and disapproval.

Ballad stood and returned Maeve's salute. "Who stands for these three?" he said loudly in his Prian-accented voice.

Maeve thought she actually saw Ferris flinch. She smirked to herself as she folded her wings back. "Queen Panna Sul and King Ballad Avadain, I am Vael Maeve Cavainna and I stand for my friends. They have fought through fire and darkness for life and light. They are brave and noble men and women."

Panna rose, too, and stood beside her king. "Have they stood vigil through a day and night?"

"They have, Your Majesty," Maeve said. "They have made themselves ready."

"Then stand forward, Duaal Sinnay, Anandrou Gripper and Xia," Ballad told them.

One by one, each sank to one knee. Duaal winked at the Arcadian rulers. Panna blushed but touched her hand to his shoulder. It was usually a wingtip, but Panna had her scars, too, and used what she had. She moved down the line, brushing slightly trembling fingertips to Xia and Gripper's bowed necks.

"In ten thousand years, we have knighted only our own people," Ballad said, his accented voice ringing out across the crowd. "It is long past due. These three have proven that one does not need wings to reach great heights! For all you have done, for all you have given, rise now as knights of Arcadia. It is our greatest and deepest honor to have you."

A musical cheer rose from the crowd. Grinning, Duaal was the first to stand and raise his hands to the assembled Arcadians. The fairies roared. Xia and Gripper more slowly followed suit, but there were shy smiles on both of their faces, too. Gripper hugged Maeve.

"I'm a knight," he said dumbly. "Just like you, Glass! I… I need a new name now!"

Maeve laughed and embraced her friend tightly, but Panna was not done. The beautiful young queen waited a moment and then spoke again.

"Will you please help Sir Anthem?" she asked.

Maeve nodded. She flew to where Anthem waited in the shifting shade of a rippling blue tent. Titania stood between Anthem and Logan. Both men held laser and spear ready. The criminal queen was dressed in simple, somber gray with illonium manacles around her wrists and ankles. Her violet eyes never left Anthem's face.

"It is time," Maeve said simply.

Anthem nodded. He took Titania by the arm and guided her to a spot before the thrones. Maeve and Logan walked behind the pair, watchful and cautious.

Titania stood before Ballad and Panna, her head bowed. The king's eyes were Prian-hard and he held his own spear tightly. "Kneel," he told Titania.

The once-queen did as Ballad commanded. Her chains clattered. Logan's Talon-9 remained trained on her. The point of Anthem's spear remained against the back of her neck.

"It was not easy to extradite you from the Alliance," Panna told Titania. "You have committed a great many crimes against the Central World Alliance. But I managed to convince the Lyceum that your transgressions against the White Kingdom predated their charges and we had the right to try and punish you."

"Yes," Titania agreed simply.

Ballad spoke in a voice full of tightly controlled violence. "I'm in favor of executing you for everything you've done, princess. It's the least you deserve for the lives you've taken and destroyed."

On her knees before the thrones, Titania closed her violet eyes. "All I have done, I did for love."

"I know," the king said. "In her last act as queen, Maeve interceded on your behalf. She did not want her last order or our first to be yet another death. Stand, Titania."

Maeve and Logan stepped back. The Prian holstered his gun. Titania rose slowly, finally looking up at Panna and Ballad with confusion in her twilight eyes. The crowd waited in hushed apprehension.

"You will spend the rest of your life in service to the galaxy you tried to destroy," Ballad pronounced. "You will begin by helping the Nnyth rebuild their Tower and, if possible, mending the Waygate they sundered to keep from you. And then you will return to the White Kingdom and serve in the rebuilding here. This is your sentence."

"I…" Titania's glorious violet eyes were full of tears.

"Sir Anthem," said Ballad.

The knight saluted. The sudden rise of his one-time subordinate did not seem to bother Anthem in the least. "Yes, my king?"

"Titania is powerful and dangerous. She will require a close eye. We charge you to watch over her. At all times and for the rest of her days, you will watch over her. If she strays from her sentence, if the princess ever brings harm instead of help, Sir Anthem, kill her."

"This is a difficult task, we know," Panna said. She held out the key to Titania's chains to Anthem. "But you have shown your strength, Sir Anthem, and Ballad assures me that you are equal to all we ask."

"I am, Your Majesties," Anthem said in a thick, choked voice. "Thank you."

He unlocked the chains and took Titania's hand, though he still held his spear close and ready. The knight and the princess took to the sky and soared toward the ruins of the imperial city. Maeve saw silver streaking both of their cheeks as they flew close enough that their wingtips brushed.

"Logan," said Ballad.

The Prian had been watching Anthem and Titania, too, but now he turned to face the Arcadian king and knelt. Ballad laughed and gestured for Logan to rise.

"Don't you dare," he said. "Without you and Maeve, none of us would be here. You have saved us all, my friend. The only reason we haven't knighted you, too, is that the Alliance doesn't want their bounty hunters to swear allegiance to some other government."

"So that will have to wait until the White Kingdom joins the CWA," Panna finished. "But I don't think that will take long. With the Waygates on Prianus and Axis, travel and trade between our worlds will be a lot easier… Once we train up some more people to use them."

"Until they unearth more Waygates on other coreworlds, Prianus will be second only to Axis in importance," Ballad added, smirking at Logan. "Our blacksky little planet is about to become a major player on the galactic stage. Who could ever have guessed?"

Logan nodded, but he still said nothing. Maeve stood silently beside him. Panna lifted her chin and smiled at them.

"Logan, you were born under the name Centra, but you've said yourself that man died years ago on Prianus with an Emberguard's sword through his heart," she said in a stately, measured voice. "And so you took the name Coldhand for the hunter you became. But that is no longer who you are. You have saved more lives than you ever hunted."

Maeve turned to Logan and took his hands in hers. Glass and warm, slightly sweat-damp skin. Her heart pounded inside her and she could barely speak. "Will you take one final name, enarri?" she asked. "Will you accept mine? Will you be my husband?"

Logan pulled her close. "Yes," he answered.

Ballad shouted a cheer and Panna raised her hands to address the throng of Arcadians.

"Then by the power given me by Maeve herself, I name you Logan Cavainna, and welcome you to the House of Cavain. The first human ever to join an Arcadian house!" she called triumphantly. "My teacher, Xen, always said that we were all of one people. We are all descended from the Devourers, those that the Nnyth call the First. But that is only blood that binds us. Here today, with this first marriage of Arcadian and human, we
choose
to be a single people. Maeve, Logan, seal the bond between your hearts and our people."

Maeve pulled Logan's face down and kissed him to the tidal roar of Arcadia's song.

________

Hours later, Aes had set and the glass city glowed with its own colorful light. The feasting and celebration would continue late into the night. Duke Ferris had arranged most of it, but Panna and Ballad had added their own touches and heavy Lyran hunt metal could be heard thumping loudly through the night.

Maeve and Logan Cavainna walked through the empty city streets. They stopped in the center of a cracked plaza. There were Waygates set all around the edge. Even now, they swirled with shifting, slumbering blue light. Logan's glass hand was cold against Maeve's skin.

"Xia offered to replace it," he said. "The hand and my heart. When she was redprinting Duaal's new liver. I could get them replaced easily."

"But you will not," Maeve answered with a smile. She knew better. "They are a part of you now. Like your new name."

"Gripper thinks it's silly. If I needed a new last name, he told me, I should have chosen something more descriptive. He's in favor of 'Hunter,' of course."

"Naturally," Maeve laughed. The sound echoed through the empty plaza. "I wonder what name he will take for himself."

Logan shrugged. "Gripper and Xia are working with his redprint. They're hoping to create more Arborans. Xia and Gripper may actually have children together after all."

Maeve laughed softly. She and Logan together stood in the center of the broken old tiles, holding one another and looking up into the darkened sky. The stars of the galactic core were a gossamer silver bridal train overhead. Beyond them, there was the endless darkness.