“Forget it, Patrei,” Kazi whispered. “I know it’s tempting, but we don’t need anything to slow us down. You try running with that, and we’ll all be dead.”
Tell me about the stars, Nisa asks.
She does not mean the ones in the sky,
But the ones that fell.
Aaron Ballenger said only two came from the heavens.
The rest were flung by the anger of men.
How is that possible?
I do not remember the stars falling anyway.
I only remember the storms that followed.
The smoke in the air.
The shaking ground.
The burning skies.
The billowing mountains,
The churning seas.
The cries of people—and the screams of those who preyed upon them.
Instead I tell Nisa the story that was told to me.
Once upon a time, long long ago,
Before monsters roamed the earth,
All the stars hung quietly in the sky,
And great cities made of wonder and light,
Reached up to the heavens to meet them,
But then a star was flung to earth by the gods,
To destroy the wicked—
We hear the scavengers howl at the end of the tunnel.
They rattle the bars of the gate.
We will kill you, they call. They roar like animals.
Let’s go back inside the vault, I say.
I will tell you the rest of the story there.
—Miandre, 18
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE