Careful to keep Anele from touching dirt, Stormpast Galesend climbed to her feet. Unconscious, the old man dangled in her arms as if every possible meaning had been taken from him. But he still gripped Liand’s orcrest as though it might restore what he had lost.

—the hope of the Land.

Fresh wailing strained for release in Linden. Biting down on her lower lip, she held it back. Any cry that she permitted herself to utter now would be Elena’s screaming, and Emereau Vrai’s, and Diassomer Mininderain’s. It would be the compacted rage and ruin of Gallows Howe.

Dark in Jeremiah’s shadow, Pahni had taken Liand into her arms. She knelt on gypsum and shale, hugging her lover against her while his sundered skull oozed its last blood onto her shoulder. She seemed as motionless as the Stonedownor, as unable to draw breath. Nevertheless the young Cord emanated distress as loud as keening. Her pain struck blows at Linden’s heart.

Gently Galesend bore Anele to the spine of the ridge where Coldspray and Kindwind stood with their comrades. At Grueburn’s urging, Linden forced herself to step away from Stave’s support. With Stave and Bhapa ready to catch her if she stumbled, she trudged toward her gathered companions.

Her friends. Who had loved Liand as much as she did.

Mahrtiir had placed himself like a guardian in front of Kindwind and Covenant. Blindly he scrutinized Linden’s approach. In his stance, she saw a raptor’s acute ferocity.

Clyme and Branl now stood poised on either side of Kindwind. But their attention was fixed, not on Linden, but on Anele, and their hands were fists. The krill’s reflections in their eyes resembled threats. They had stood watch over the company to no purpose. And they had foreseen the peril in Anele from the first.

Instinctively Linden feared them. They were Haruchai, Masters, the Humbled—and they had failed. If they did not fault Galt for Liand’s death, they would accuse Anele.

Hoping to forestall them, Linden said in a hoarse rasp, “You can’t blame him. He didn’t choose this.”

Days ago, Anele had urged his companions to give him the Sunstone when he requested it.

“The Earthpower is his,” Branl replied without glancing at her. “It alone enabled him to endure such possession. Also the madness is his. The openness to Corruption is his. Such flaws conduce always to Desecration. Who will accept the burden of his deeds, if he does not?”

“I will,” Linden answered through the turmoil of remembered cries. “It’s my fault.” She deserved this. “I only cared about Jeremiah. I stopped paying attention to Anele.”

Together Clyme and Branl turned to regard her sternly.

You hold great powers. Yet if we determine that we must wrest them from you, do you truly doubt that we will prevail?