“I cannot leave Vasyllia, Pilgrim,” said Sabíana. “I cannot leave my father.”

The Pilgrim smiled, and his face brightened and he became young, his wrinkles smoothing into the face of a beautiful youth, a face that shone white. His robes were gold like the sun.

“You are indomitable, Sabíana. Perhaps I am wrong. Vasyllia may yet survive, with the Black Sun at her head.”

He was gone.

“Sabíana?” said the Dar, waking up. “Oh, thank Adonais! I was so worried for you.”

“Father, my poor father.” She had not seen him this wasted away. He looked like an old man playing the part of the Dar on one of the market-day spectacles. She wanted with all her heart to cry, to comfort and to be comforted, but she had made the choice. She must be iron and stone.

“Yes, my love.” He laughed softly and coughed. “I am at the doorstep, so to speak. I’ve always wondered if Death was a man or a woman. I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.”

“Father.” Her voice sounded harsh to her ears. “The Pilgrim has gone. He asked to be remembered to you. He leaves us with hope.”

“Did he say anything about Voran? About Mirnían?”

Sabíana shook her head.

“I suppose we must continue to hope, even when darkness falls. My dear, you must prepare yourself. Soon you will wear the crown. I do not think I will live out the week. I am so tired.”

“Sleep, my dear,” she said, feeling strangely motherly toward him. “I am ready. Sleep now. Rest.” She did not, could not cry, though it seemed a violation of her nature to prevent it.

Sabíana remained by his bedside all night. She left when the sky was still dark, but a certain tense watchfulness in the air predicted the coming of dawn. Feeling already burdened beyond what was humanly possible, she went outside, hoping against hope that today the fog would lift—though it had choked Vasyllia for weeks—and the sun would rise.

As she left the palace, she stood before the Covenant Tree. It looked cold and pitiful. To think that this had once been a symbol of Vasyllia’s dominance over the Other Lands! She recoiled from the view and turned away.

Sabíana closed her eyes and let the mist of the falls soak into her hot cheeks and burning eyelids. She saw, even through closed eyes, two red dots approaching her. She opened her eyes to see two firebirds flying toward one of the basins left especially for them to bathe in. Sabíana always loved to see them wash, rare as that sight was. They alighted on the lip of the basin, but as soon as they touched it, they disappeared in a white light, blinding Sabíana. The light didn’t abate, and Sabíana’s eyes adjusted slowly. Something many-colored fluttered and cavorted in the basin. The blur resolved, and Sabíana recognized her. She was one of the Sirin at Dubían’s bier. The one with the feathers dark as twilight.

The Sirin bathed as a bird would, splashing light around her in defiance of the surrounding murk. The effect was like looking through the window of a dark room at the rising of the sun. Sabíana felt a thin filament weaving between her and the Sirin. The Sirin looked at her with eyes like lightning, opened her mouth, and sang.

The weight of the song crushed Sabíana, as though she were pinned down by the full force of both twin waterfalls. But as it washed over her, it lightened her. The heaviness of her father’s sickness, the doubt over Vasyllia’s fate, the fear about her own place as future Darina, the pain of losing Voran—all of it fell away from her. She felt re-forged from within, the impurities burned away by the force of the song. The Sirin stopped, and Sabíana felt light enough to fly to the Heights. Barely evident inside her chest was a soft patter, like another heart, and the faint sense of warmth, like a candle flame.

“My name is Feína, my swan. We are now joined until the Undoing.”

Sabíana remained silent for utter wonder.

“Sabíana, you chose a difficult path, but I will bear it with you. May it be a lessening of the burden on your heart.”

“Feína,” she whispered, feeling no bigger than a child. “It is going to be terrible, is it not?”

The Sirin spread out her wings and looked to the horizon. At that moment, the sun came up for the first time in weeks.

Sabíana rushed to the first reach. It had been walled off for quarantine, its only entrance a black iron gate manned by several armed guards. Sabíana stopped for a moment, wondering if what she planned to do was as mad as her rational mind insisted. But reason had no place here, she told herself, and swallowed her revulsion.

“Open the gates,” she said.

The guards at the gate hesitated. For a moment, Sabíana was sure they would challenge her. She was in the middle of preparing a withering response when they simply turned, opened the gates, and bowed to her. Sabíana walked in. Immediately, the stench beat her back.

The people were teeming, like rats in a gutter. Dogs and children lay together on the road, covered in sores. Mothers rocked babies that cried for milk from withered breasts. Eyes with no hope looked at her, then looked away again. Flies swarmed. Burial mounds poked up everywhere, like cysts on dry skin. Garbage lay interspersed with the half-rotting carcasses of horses and goats. Some children played near the dead animals, apparently unsupervised.

Many, especially the aged, fell at Sabíana’s feet and kissed the hem of her robe. They chattered at her in their own dialect, words interrupted by sobs.

Sabíana’s tears gushed, and it took a good deal of self-control to prevent the sobs from shaking her visibly.

What has happened to Vasyllia? How could we have allowed this to happen in our own house?

Just down the lane, a doctor in the pantaloons of the merchant class applied some sort of creamy poultice to the sores of a pregnant woman. His hands were caked with the white cream, and his goat-beard was smeared with all manner of dirt and blood. But he didn’t seem to notice. In fact, the dirt only made his hazel eyes shine brighter. They looked like little suns. Sabíana, mesmerized, came to watch what he did. He looked up at her, recognized her, but looked back down at his work without acknowledging her presence. Her momentary wounded pride faded when she saw how pockmarked the young woman was. She was probably no more than twenty, but she looked over fifty.

“What does the poultice do?” Sabíana asked, feeling foolish for having nothing more erudite to say.

“It heals the sores,” said the doctor nonchalantly.

“Heals them?” That surprised her. From what she heard of the plague, it had no cure. “But what about the plague?”

“Plague?” He snapped his head at her, his eyes furious. “There is no plague. It is only lack of food, lack of water, and dirt. That is all.”

Sabíana’s head began to spin. She should have known. The Dumar hadn’t quarantined anyone. They had caused “the plague” in the first place.

“Guard!” she called, and four immediately appeared at her side. “You, inform the elders of the warrior seminary that every cohort is to be called to the marketplace this moment. Every merchant table and booth is to be disassembled, and tents for the refugees are to be built from them. You, go to the healers and tell them that the refugees are to be relocated to the second reach, and that they will need care immediately. You, go find the Marshall of the Dumar. He is to be told that there will be a collection of food, living necessities, and medicine from the houses of the third reach, beginning tomorrow morning. You, go to the palace and tell the scribes to await my coming. Warn the criers of city-wide circuits tonight and tomorrow. Why do you still stand here? Go!”

They went, bowing hastily. “Dear Feína,” she said silently. “The Pilgrim may have said that remaking the Covenant is beyond our hope, yet I will restore Vasyllia to its honor in spite of it all.”

“Highness!” The voice was behind her. She turned to see Rogdai in full armor, save for an uncovered head. “You are summoned to the palace, my lady.”

She understood.

“I come,” she said, and her voice cracked. As she passed, the soldiers inclined their heads. The whispers accompanied her out of the first reach: “The Black Sun. Our Black Sun.”

Dar Antomír’s eyes blazed with unearthly light as he lay on his deathbed. Sabíana understood it to be the last surge of life before the final dimming. He saw her and smiled, extending a bony hand. She took it—he was still so strong for a dying man—and fought to contain the tears. The light in his eyes was almost blinding.

“Sabíana,” he whispered frantically. “Listen to me, listen. I have seen a vision, a final gift. I knew I had few hours left to live, and I begged Adonais as I have never begged before, to tell me something of my sons. For I had no hope left.

“As I lay on my bed in gloom, I was in my chamber no longer. I stood at the edge of a stream fed by a cascade of falls. The river wove into a deep emerald pool, fringed with a dense assortment of birches, osiers, and hollies. Beyond the trees, jagged hills sheltered the pool from all wind. On three sides was the pool thus sheltered, but the fourth was a great tumbling waterfall.

“I walked to the ledge and there was no bottom in sight. I looked once more and saw a different sight—a dry marshlands with many rivers snaking through it. Two men ran across it, pursued by a shapeless darkness. Still a third time I looked, and I saw the Great Sea, interminable to the horizon, and in it lay an island from which grew a white sapling covered in golden leaves.

“Then I stood on the top of the tallest mountain in the world, and the earth was riven at my feet, riven and bleeding. A voice thundered at my right, coming from a pillar of a thousand eyes and a thousand wings, all of fire and light. It spoke these words to me:

“‘Behold, this is the place of death and the place of healing. Tell me, Dar of men. Will the water flow?’

“I said to him, ‘It will, for without it the world will wither and die.’