“No boats remain from the time before the Ruining,” said Inyaan. “But I have spoken with the High Priestess. We do not have so many to feed now. If we adjust the water gardens to grow trees as fast as possible, we could start building boats in five years.”
It had only been a few months ago that Runajo had last climbed the central tower of the Cloister to inspect the wall, and had gazed across the water at the dead city of Zucra on the mainland. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“We need our best to make it happen,” said Inyaan. “You are one of our best. So you will do it.”
It was absurd to feel this thrill of pride, being told she was best by a girl she had always despised. And yet Runajo felt her spine straightening, her shoulders squaring.
Five years. A fleet of boats. And then—
All the world.
“I won’t help sacrifice anyone,” she said, “ever again. Will you let me back in the Cloister, on those terms?”
“If a sacrifice is needful,” said Inyaan, “I won’t give you a choice. Will you take that risk?”
Runajo remembered Sunjai’s blood spilling across the sacred stone at the heart of the Cloister. She remembered Juliet returning to her, splattered in Catresou blood.
She would regret those shames forever. But she already knew her answer.
She said, “Yes.”
All four high houses were required to help with cleaning out the Lower City and rebuilding it. But it was the Catresou who worked hardest, who walked into the depths of the Lower City first. Because they needed to retrieve their dead.
And then they needed to bury them.
Romeo walked in the funeral procession beside Paris. This was nothing like Emera’s funeral, when the Catresou were fugitive. The Ruining was only five days ended, the Catresou had barely been granted their status again, and yet the procession and the veiled mourners were stately and sumptuous.
Meros was one of the first bodies they had recovered from the ruins of the Lower City. Romeo had found him, huddled by the walls under a pile of other bodies, fingers ruined from crawling at the gates. He had been cruel and worthless, and then he had died in fear, and he had become a revenant, who desired nothing but the flesh of the living.
Now he was being buried with honor, and Paris carried the jar that contained his pickled heart.
Juliet walked in the procession too, carrying Justiran’s heart—Juliet, who had so much cause to hate everyone in her clan but Paris, and yet loved them—and now that Paris was her bodyguard, he would be walking at her side except for his place as Meros’s brother.
Romeo was honestly surprised that he was allowed to participate. He would never be a devout Catresou. And yet Ilurio and Gavarin had demanded that he join the funeral. Paris had asked him. Juliet had asked him, and now Romeo carried the jar that held Meros’s pickled brain.
The corridors of the sepulcher were just as Romeo remembered: pale stone walls carved into filigree, flickering lamps that cast dancing shadows. But this time he was not being dragged as a prisoner, about to be offered as a sacrifice.
This time, he was here to honor the dead.
Most of them were dead he did not love, did not regret. But the Mahyanai sat vigil even for the dead they did not love. Romeo supposed he could assist the Catresou in this.
He had to. They were his clan now.
After the funeral was finished, Paris lingered awhile before the coffins. Romeo stayed by his side—and he wished, suddenly, that the bond between them was not broken. That he could feel Paris’s heart, and guess a little of what he was thinking.
“Amando isn’t buried here,” said Paris.
Romeo’s first impulse was to say, Who? But then he remembered: Paris’s other brother, who had died as a sacrifice for the Great Offering. When Romeo had failed to save him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“He wasn’t as bad as Meros,” said Paris. “He deserved a Catresou burial more.”
Romeo had nothing to say to that. They both knew how little a Catresou burial guaranteed—how little the land of the dead was like what the Catresou promised—but Romeo had no right to tell Paris that.
He wished again that he could feel what Paris was feeling—but slowly, carefully, he put his hand on Paris’s shoulder, and he felt Paris lean into the touch.
“I still believe in the Paths of Light,” said Paris, his voice low. “I don’t know if they’re exactly the same as I was taught. But I talked to Juliet. We both still believe.”
Romeo had not yet asked Juliet to tell him all that had happened to her in the land of the dead. He had been afraid to trespass on something that she thought sacred. He had no right to comfort her, if she grieved the loss of her faith.
Now he said, “I am still under oath. I will follow you there, whatever it takes.”
And Paris looked up at him, with a smile that was heartbreakingly beautiful. “Thank you,” he said.
“There is something that I have to make clear to you,” said Vai. “You can only be my consort.”
“What?” said Paris.
It was midafternoon; the sunlight drenched the courtyard where they sat, burning through the fabric of Paris’s shirt, and after he had spent the morning in the chill of the sepulcher, it was the most welcome thing he’d ever felt in his life.
His blood was red again. (He had checked. He had to, though Romeo was furious.) He no longer felt that horrible, restless tug of death. He was alive.
But sometimes—at night, in the still, dark hours, but also in broad daylight—sometimes Paris still felt the memory of that chill. Sometimes the whole world felt numb and cold, a foreign thing not meant for him.
He couldn’t feel that way now, when the sunlight was so warm it felt heavy on his skin, and Vai was sitting beside him and smiling. Her head was shaved now, and it was a strange sight to him, but he loved the way the sunlight fell around her temples, and how clearly he could see the line of her jaw.
“It was the only way I could become a woman,” said Vai. “I told my mother and grandmother that, as head of the family, I was using my power to decree that a woman could lead the family and produce heirs. As I was the man of the house, they had to obey me. But that means my children must be my children. They won’t inherit anything from you.” She paused. “Perhaps your eyes. I like those.”
“I’ve been alive for five days,” said Paris, “and you’re making plans for our children?”
“Yes,” said Vai. “What sort of girl did you think I would turn into? I created a fourth high house just to sign the Accords; of course I have to plan for the future.”
And he couldn’t help laughing, because of course she did. This was the girl he had fallen in love with.
“It’s only,” she went on, “I know what your people mean to you. If you can’t accept that your children won’t be Catresou . . . well.”
Paris sighed. Before his death, he would have said no. He would have thought he had no choice. But since then . . . he had walked the land of the dead. He knew it was more than the Catresou said, if not less. And while he was determined that his children would know zoura, he was no longer sure what that meant.
“Juliet made me her bodyguard,” he said. “I’m not leaving her. Can you accept that?”
“Well, I’m planning to get my people out of this city as fast as possible and I know she is too. So yes.”
Paris took Vai’s hands. He tried to imagine the future they had been discussing, and he couldn’t. He had been living dead for less than two months, but it was hard to remember the time before, when he could look forward to anything but death.
Even before that, he had been an outcast from his clan, with little hope of returning. And before that, he had been the useless son, expected to fail.
So he couldn’t comprehend the days and months and years that were waiting for him. But he could understand this: Vai’s fingers wrapped around his, warm and strong. He could remember this: Romeo waking him from nightmares, Juliet swearing to him that she would have no other bodyguard.
He could believe in this: his friends, willing to save him, against all odds.