Starside novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Court Turns

The hands let go of me one at a time.

The woman from the bridge stepped back with her fist still half closed on a few strands of my hair.

"I didn't know," she said. "Nobody told us."

"Nobody told any of you," I said. "She wanted it that way."

The roll of Emberfold went on, soft and endless, and nobody moved.

Then it went further.

When the sixty-fourth voice finished, the Pool kept speaking, and these were names I didn't know.

They came from every side of the basin at once, hundreds and then thousands, in voices old and young.

"Those are the stars," said a man near me, his face gone slack.

"Those are the ones that fell. Every Gate. Every fifty years."

Maelis lifted one hand.

"Enough."

The water didn't stop.

"I said enough!"

Her voice cracked across the basin, and the silver on every Warden's chest lit white at once.

They cried out together.

Nine men and women in silver coats bent double with their hands at their hearts.

Their challengers dropped their weapons and ran to them.

The woman from the bridge was the first.

She caught her Warden before he hit the rock and held him against her shoulder.

"Don't," she told the sky. Her voice shook, and she said it again, louder. "Don't you touch him."

Beside the shining air where Dain hung, one of the veiled figures was standing very still.

It lifted a pale hand to its own face and pushed the veil back.

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