Secrets of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 3) (34 page)

She nodded and pulled a blanket
over her head. "The light stings a bit, but I'm fine." She
smiled. "I'm more than fine. I'm happy. We did it, Torin. We
fixed it."

"And yet our quest does not
end." He rose to his feet. "Sailith still spreads across
the land. War might still be raging in the east. We must return to
Ilar."

Koyee nodded and stood up too.
"The sun rises here. It has rises in Eloria too." She
shivered to think that blood might still be flowing. "One
journey has ended. Another begins."

 
 
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:
SUNLIGHT

The enemy was streaming through
the streets of Asharo, breaking down doors and smashing walls, when
dawn broke across the night.

The battle—the last stand of
Eloria—had been raging for turns now. Jin still sat upon the tower
top, the devastation rolling around him. The city walls lay smashed
upon the sand, fallen to the catapults, cannons, and black magic of
the sunlit demons. Through the streets and squares they swarmed—the
soldiers of Timandra, clad in bright steel, waving the banners of the
sun. The monks of Sailith, that twisted faith, led their soldiers
into homes, shops, and barracks. They smashed, looted, and
slaughtered both the city defenders and civilians. Blood and
shattered glass covered the streets, gleaming under the light of
torches and lanterns.

Some soldiers of Eloria still
stood—the remnants of the night's old empires, now fighting as one
army—but they were falling fast, overwhelmed by a sunlit swarm that
seemed to never end. The soldiers flowed deeper and deeper into the
city, capturing street by street, ever driving up toward Ilar's
palace—the heart of this island, the last fortress of darkness.

"By the bard's stars,"
Little Maniko whispered, standing beside Jin on the tower. The
bearded busker stared eastward and lowered his flute. "Light.
The light of the sun."

Jin looked to the east and his
eyes watered. Pink, orange, and yellow smudges rose across the sky,
and soon beams of light broke through the clouds, flaring out like
heavenly blades. The sun itself—it had to be the fabled sun, a great
disk of fire too bright to stare at directly—rose across the
distant, lifeless hills.

"It's true," Jin said,
tears falling. "The legends are true—the world turns. Koyee did
it." He laughed as he cried, even as blood and death sprawled
below him. "Koyee fixed the world."

Below in the city streets, the
battle died. Soldiers stared to the east, gasped, and shielded their
eyes with their palms. For a few long moments, silence fell upon
Asharo. Jin could hear only dust in the wind, a distant cry from a
wounded child, and the clinking of armor. He could have heard a
pebble dropped across the city, he thought. The people of Moth stared
into the light, too awed for battle. In the golden dawn, Jin could
barely distinguish between the Timandrians and Elorians. For one
moment, awash with shadows and light, they looked like one people.

Finally it was a monk of Sailith
who broke the silence. The burly, bearded man cried from atop his
horse, "The sun rises in the night! Sailith is blessed. Our
faith lights the darkness!"

Jin's heart wrenched in horror.
Across the streets, the enemy soldiers waved their swords and cheered
the sun. They chanted together, voices shaking the city.

"The sun rises! For the
light!"

With renewed vigor, the enemy
attacked, surging along the streets.

"Fight them!" Jin
cried atop the tower. "Children of Eloria—fight the enemy! Look
away from sunlight and fight!"

Yet his soldiers were losing
heart. They winced in the sunlight, covered their eyes, and cried in
fear. Panthers hissed and fled into shadows. Warriors fell to their
knees, praying to stars that no longer shone. Jin shook. Koyee had
fixed Moth, but had she only given vigor to Timandra?

"Tianlong!" Jin
shouted. "Tianlong, I need you!"

As the Timandrians shouted and
slew his people below, Tianlong, the last dragon in Eloria, roared
above and flew toward him. The beast's black scales clanked. His red
beard fluttered like a banner, its tip crackling with fire. His fangs
and claws gleamed in the rising sun. Upon his back sat Empress
Hikari, blood staining her spear. The dragon circled around the tower
top where Jin perched.

"The city cannot survive
much longer!" Hikari shouted from the saddle. "Jin, into
the saddle—we must flee."

He shook his head. "No. I
cannot abandon our city. Tianlong! Fly to Cabera Mountain. It rises
where dusk once glimmered. You must find Koyee and Torin. You must
bring them here."

Tianlong panted, tongue lolling,
blood on his teeth. "I will not leave you, little emperor."

"You must! The world must
see Koyee and Torin, a daughter of night and a son of daylight. They
must speak to the children of Moth. Fly, brave dragon. Fly and do not
rest until they're here. We don't have much time."

Upon the saddle, Hikari fired
her last arrow; it sailed across several streets to slam into an
enemy. She nodded, leaped off the dragon, and landed on the tower
beside Jin.

"Fly, my friend!"
Hikari said to Tianlong and slapped his scales. "Bring them
back."

With a roar, Tianlong soared.
Beams of light blazed around him. He coiled across the sky, soon
becoming a distant strand, then a speck, then finally vanished over
the horizon.

The battle raged on.

More streets fell.

The enemy reached the base of
the tower, and Hikari hissed and hugged Jin close. A battering ram
swung below, slamming into the door. Soon the Timandrians would climb
the coiling stairway within. When they reached the tower top, when
they reached Jin . . .

"We will die with blood on
our blades," said Hikari.

Little Maniko nodded, tossed his
beard across his shoulder, and grinned. "My blade is ready."
He raised his knife.

Jin stared at the swarm of
Timandrians that covered the city—a sea of steel and fire—and shook
his head.

"Night falls," he
whispered.

The sun sank below the western
horizon, darkness cloaked the city, and the stars emerged. The
Elorian warriors below—the last survivors—cried with new vigor. The
Timandrians cried in fear.

"The sunlight abandons us!"
one soldier shouted.

The Elorians charged against
their foes, their blades sinking into flesh.

The sun was rising again when
Tianlong returned, shimmering in the light, bearing two riders.

Torin looked down upon the city.
Countless soldiers covered the beaches, the streets, and the hills
beyond, all the might of Timandra and Eloria clashing together.

"We're too late," he
said. "The city has fallen. Day has conquered night."

Sitting in the saddle before
him, Koyee shook her head. "No. There is no more day and night.
And there is hope."

Tianlong had carried them here,
flying faster then an arrow. Meanwhile, Cam and Linee were making
their way north, back home . . . back to Fairwool-by-Night. Torin had
ached to go there too, but here was his most important task. Here
below him throbbed the diseased wound of the world.

They flew above the city of
Asharo, moving between pocked towers, crumbling walls, and burning
pagodas. Arrows flew around them and cannons still blasted below.
Half the city lay in ruin, soldiers racing across hills of bricks and
bodies. Smoke rose in plumes, and ruined ships lay upon the beach
like the skeletons of whales.

Torin rose in the saddle—the
way he had stood with Bailey. He would be brave like her this day.

"People of Timandra!"
he shouted to the armies below. "Soldiers of sunlight, hear me!"

They looked up, swords bloody.

Koyee stood in the saddle behind
him, clinging to Torin. "Children of Eloria!" Her voice was
higher than his but no less powerful. "I am Koyee, the Girl in
the Black Dress, a daughter of darkness. Hear me!"

Torin held up a charred helmet
shaped as a sunburst. "The world turns again. We all share day
and night. Ferius the False is dead!"

The helmet—a last remnant from
the inferno in the orrery—caught the sunlight. Torin tossed it down.
It tumbled into the army of Timandra. The soldiers stared up at him.
No more arrows flew. No more swords swung.

Torin shouted out, flying over
the city, moving over street by street. "The Sailith Order told
you that day is righteous, that night is evil, that the sunlight must
crush the shadows. Yet Moth turns again! No more are we torn between
day and night. There is no more Dayside and Nightside; we are one."
His voice was hoarse and the wind whipped him, scented of fire. "I
was born in sunlight. I was sent into darkness. I fight with a woman
of Eloria, a woman I love."

They stared up at him, and he
saw fear in their eyes. In some eyes he saw tears. Most of these
Timandrian soldiers were youths, Torin realized, younger than him. He
had left home two years ago, eighteen and frightened, a boy entering
a war too big for him. Many of the soldiers below were no older,
simple boys from farms and workshops, fed lies and hatred. When he
looked down at them, he saw himself two years ago, a young man
drafted into an army, given a sword and shield, and sent to kill.

"I too fought for
sunlight!" he shouted. "I too shed the blood of the night.
No more. I reject the lies of Sailith. You see these lies as the sun
rises in Eloria; darkness now cloaks Timandra. What has this war
brought you, my brothers? How many of your friends have died in
shadow? How many of you bear wounds—on your bodies, in your souls?
Don't die and kill far from home. Your homes, your families—they
need you. They await you in the west. Turn against the lies! Turn
against the monks of Sailith who poisoned your minds. I am one of
you. Come home with me."

For long moments, it seemed
nobody in the city moved, only stared up at him. The sunlight lit
armor and swords, and in the glow, it seemed like the forces of
Timandra and Eloria were one, a great sheet of metal draped across
the city like scale armor over a wounded warrior.

It was a young soldier in Ardish
armor—a boy barely old enough to shave, blood on his arms—who spoke
first.

"My brother died at the
walls of Yintao's palace!" Standing upon a hill of rubble, he
tossed down his sword. "He died alone in darkness. Ferius told
him to give his life for the sun, but now darkness covers our home."
The young man tore off his breastplate and tossed it down. "Let
the monks fight their war. I'm going home."

Another soldier—this one a
young woman in Mageria's dark robes, her face smeared with
ash—tossed down her sword and shield. "I once worshiped Idar! I
joined Sailith for the glory of sunlight, but our ship sank upon
these very shores. My father burned and my friends drowned. Praise
Idar! I return home."

More voices rose. More soldiers
tossed down weapons and turned to leave. Men and women spat and
cursed Sailith, clutching wounds, crying of dead friends and family,
of farms lying fallow, of children and wives waiting at home. As the
sun rose higher, they walked toward the city gates, calling for their
comrades to follow.

"The monks won't let them
leave without a fight," Koyee said, settling back down in the
saddle.

Torin sat too, and beneath them
the dragon glided upon the wind, circling the city. "Watch."

Below, a Sailith monk moved to
block the gates. The man sneered and swung his mace, holding back the
crowd of deserters. He shouted and cursed the soldiers, calling them
sinners and cowards, urging them back to war.

A few of the deserters
hesitated. One—a Verilish woman clad in fur and iron—kept riding
her bear forward. The monk swung his mace. The bear growled and
clawed; the monk fell and the Verilish warrior rode on. The other
soldiers of Timandra shouted in approval. When more monks rushed
toward them, swinging their maces, the soldiers fought back. A young
man with red hair thrust a spear, impaling one monk. Another soldier
cut down a monk with his axe. Soon the forces of Timandra were no
longer fighting the Elorians but their own cruel leaders.

"Idar!" one man cried
from a tower top. "Praise Idar! Cast out the false faith."

Torin wrapped his arms around
Koyee in the saddle. "For every Sailith monk, there are a
hundred soldiers: boys and girls, mothers and fathers, peasants and
artisans, all far from home. They sun rises . . . and they are waking
up."

As smoke rose and as dust still
flew, the soldiers of Timandra marched out of the city like poison
seeping from a wound.

Koyee turned in the saddle to
sit backwards. Facing Torin, she embraced him and laid her head
against his chest. "Is it over now?" she whispered.

He kissed her forehead as the
dragon flew, as the wind whistled, and as the city smoldered below.
"For many years, we will have to rebuild. For many years, these
wounds will hurt. The scars might always remain. But the war is
ending. The world is healed. Now mankind can heal too."

She held him close and cried
against him. He stroked her hair and thought of all those he had
lost. He thought of Hem, of Okado and Suntai, of Shenlai, of Bailey .
. . and of the thousands who had died around him.

For
your memory, we will rebuild,
Torin vowed.
For
your memory, we bring new life to a shattered world.

 
 
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:
CHILD OF DUSK

As the flames of war faded, two
famous weddings gave Arden—that old kingdom in a place once called
Timandra—a little light, song, and comfort.

The first, in the capital city
of Kingswall, was a lavish affair. Jugglers, jesters, puppeteers, and
bards ambled through the palace gardens, performing for a crowd of
thousands. Knights stood with ribbons on their armor, wine flowed,
and jewels sparkled. Across the entire city, flowers bloomed in
vases, minstrels sang, and the smells of baking cakes and pies filled
the air; even the poorest folk were invited to feast.