“We’ll go back to Maila,” Nisong said. Her breath felt like a solid thing in her throat; her chest ached with the weight of it. “I’ll tell the remaining constructs to spread the word that the island is our home. We’ll tell them how to get past the reefs. We’ll all build a life there, together.”

Coral’s fingers grasped weakly at the hem of Nisong’s shirt. “You don’t have to gather mangoes, you know. You can do something else.”

Nisong choked out a laugh in spite of herself. “I know.”

It was the last thing Coral said.

The sky was light by the time Nisong let the woman slide from her lap. She covered Coral with branches from nearby trees, wishing that at least one was a juniper. Did constructs’ souls ascend to heaven? Did they have souls?

Coral had a soul.

Nisong did not. She rose to her feet and picked her way down the slope, keeping out of sight of the soldiers on the switchbacks. Her tears dried on her cheeks as she walked. She was alone, but she didn’t have to be. If there was anything this battle had taught her, it was that she was not the only one who opposed Lin.

She remembered watching the cloudtree monk flee the battlefield. He’d had the same sort of powers that Lin and Jovis had. He’d almost beat them. She made a mental map of the surrounding area, trying to extrapolate where he might have gone, where he might have ended up.

And then she set her feet in that direction.

There was always a way to fix things. There was always a way to come back.

56

Lin

Gaelung Island

When he turned to leave with his swords, I tried to stop him. We fought. Ylan was a scholar, not a warrior, but I’ve never felt such pain as when one of those blades parted my skin. He left me there in the dark, half-blinded.

And then he went to destroy my kin.

He found six others to bear the swords, and together they swept across the islands, hunting the Alanga, wreaking their own disasters. How can anyone ever forgive me for what I’ve done? How can I ever forgive myself? The younger ones with families – he’s killed the children too. He won’t leave anyone alive to seek vengeance.

Someday he will be back for me.

—Notes from Lin’s translation of the last pages in Dione’s journal

Jovis had forgotten to take the Alanga journal again when he left. Or perhaps it just wasn’t that important to him, given everything else. Books and mysteries seemed to be my purview anyway. Even in the aftermath, in the cleaning and the envoys and the promises I had to make, there was time, late at night, for reading.