Fall of Angels

EPILOGUE

Nylan eased open the south door to Tower Black one-handed, carrying Dyliess in his right arm. He stepped out into the dampness. To the south, all but the base of Freyja was shrouded in the heavy clouds, but even the lower cliffs that Nylan could see were already sheathed in snow.

For a moment, the smith and mage rested his cheek against his daughter’s forehead, ignoring the questing fingers that pulled at his ears. He let his eyes fall on the small brick fort-now empty-that had held the laser, and the rows of cairns in the southeast corner of the Roof of the World, cairns from which bloodflowers had sprouted and half wilted.

Despite the fine mist that dropped from the dark clouds, mixed with the smallest of ice flakes, Nylan walked out across the causeway. There he turned and forced himself to look up to the ridge.

The paved section of the road nearly reached the ridge crest, and the darker hues of the newer stones showed the progress made since the battle. A pile of unused stones stood at the end of the paved section, waiting to be used to transform more mud and clay into an all-year road.

Nylan’s eyes slowly moved eastward across the hillside. In the damp late autumn air, after the rains, the black and white had faded into gray, and a few sprigs of fireweed had sprouted, along with some grass.

For a moment, he closed his eyes, then opened them. The expanse that had been seared by the laser remained gray, faded gray.

He supposed everything faded in time. And in time, new life filled in for the old. He disengaged Dyliess’s fingersfrom his earlobe and held them, his green eyes meeting his daughter’s green eyes.

Behind him, he heard the tower door open and close, but he continued to stand on the damp stones of the road, ignoring the small, sharp knives in his eyes, holding Dyliess and taking in the sodden gray ashes that had been flame and fire, man and mount, green and grass.

Then he turned to see who had followed him.

Ayrlyn, red hair as intense as the gray ashes were dull, crossed the causeway, carrying Weryl. She smiled. “He wanted to see where you had gone. So I brought him.”

Nylan smiled at the healer who had begun to heal him, and they turned back and looked once more at the gray hillside, framed by rock and tree, where life again had begun to sprout.