His abandonment left her with nothing to shield her. In spite of his vulnerabilities, she had counted on him in ways that were too profound for language. Yet he considered his ex-wife more important, or more urgent. It’s like Joan has me on a string. I can’t do anything else until I deal with her.

He had told Linden, You have other things to do, but she could not imagine what they might be.

Because Jeremiah was all that endured of the loves which had shaped her life, she dropped the Staff and went to him. With both arms, she hugged him hard, trying to anchor herself on the form that she had nurtured and tended for so many years. He was only a husk of the young man he should have been; an empty hull. But he had always been like this: his vacancy did not diminish his hold on her. And now she knew how he had concealed himself. She had stood in the graveyard of his mind. In some sense, she understood how he had resisted the croyel’s torments, and the Despiser’s.

But she did not understand why Anele’s gift of Earthpower had failed to rouse her son. That mystery surpassed her. The vigor of his new theurgies was clear to every dimension of her health-sense. It should have sufficed—yet it was not enough.

While Linden clung to her son, Rime Coldspray cleared her throat. “Linden Giantfriend.” Her voice was husky with weariness. A little food and a sufficiency of water could not replenish her spent strength. Nevertheless she sounded grimly determined. “The day flees from us. Soon the sun will near the rim of Landsdrop, and still we stand in this harm-ridden region. We must not delay longer. The Worm of the World’s End will not await our readiness to meet it.”

Linden tightened her grip on Jeremiah for a moment. Then she let him go. The Ironhand was right. The sunlight slanted from the west, casting shadows like omens after Covenant. The fact that the Worm seemed like an abstraction, a mere word rather than an imminent threat, did not lessen its significance. Turning away from her son, Linden faced the leader of the Swordmainnir.

As if for the first time, she saw how deeply exertion had chiseled Coldspray’s visage. The Ironhand bore the marks of strain and imponderable effort like galls on her forehead, around her eyes, along the sides of her mouth. Faint tremors shook her muscles whenever she moved.

Apart from his bandage, Manethrall Mahrtiir’s features reflected Coldspray’s. His posture slumped uncharacteristically: he carried himself like a man who had cut off his hands by sending his Cords away. Of the three who had labored to honor Anele and Galt, only Stave showed no sign that he had paid a price. His hurts were internal, masked by his Haruchai mien and his stoicism.