Epilogue

The dream felt real. Corec walked in the endless mists, trying to peer through them and wondering why he knew it was a dream.

Finally, the mists cleared. A man stood in front of him, nearly as tall as Corec himself. He had brown skin and long black hair tied back behind his head, and a jagged scar on one cheek. He carried a spear in one hand and wore a vest. There were four runes along each of his upper arms. One of the runes on his right arm and three on his left glowed with a white light. The other four looked like dull gray scars burned into the skin.

“Well?” the man said with a heavy accent as he came toward Corec. “What do you have to say for yourself?” He looked young, but he moved and spoke as if he was elderly.

“What do you mean? Who are you? Where are we?”

The man harrumphed. “Six told me there was a new one. There shouldn’t be. Not this soon.”

He waved his hand between them, and Corec found himself suddenly garbed in the same type of clothing the man wore, leaving his arms bare.

“Who’s Six? What are you talking about?”

“Four bonds?” the man said in a disapproving tone as he stared at Corec’s runes. “How long ago were you chosen? How old are you?”

Corec glanced down at his left arm. Ellerie’s rune hadn’t appeared yet in the real world, but in this place, it shone brightly, three quarter-circle arcs of different sizes, facing different directions, none of them teaching each other.

He shook his head to clear it, hoping to bring some semblance of normality. When nothing changed, he said, “I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine. Who are you?”

The man glared at him. “I’m the First. Not the first First, of course. She’s dead. So’s the second. The second First, I mean. I suppose he was the Second before that, but I didn’t meet him until he was First. Now you. How old are you? When were you chosen?”

“I’m twenty-two. I don’t know what you mean by chosen, and I want your next answer to make some sort of sense. Where are we?”

“We all have our own gifts, don’t we? This is mine. You’re too young. Why did you bond four so quickly? You must take time and choose carefully, or you’ll regret it.” The man rubbed one of the scars on his right arm.

“You know what the runes are?”

“You didn’t answer my questions,” the First said.

“I don’t know the answers! I don’t know what’s going on!”

The man leaned back and squinted at Corec. “We always know. We have to know, or we can’t form the bond. When did you learn how?”

“I’m telling you, I have no idea what you’re talking about! The runes just appeared. I thought I felt something last time, but I don’t know what it is. I never learned how to do it ... or not to do it.”

“You must have. You created them!”

Even after feeling the spell in his mind when it happened with Ellerie, Corec had held out hope that he somehow wasn’t responsible for it. If the crazy man was right, that hope was gone now.

“I didn’t do anything,” he insisted. “Sometimes I meet someone and my arm starts itching, and then later, the rune appears. Like I said, I think I noticed something last time, but I didn’t know what it was until it was done.”

“Itching? Why...” The man shook his head and changed the subject. “You’re just bonding random people? Without asking first? You’re worse than Seven.”

“Who’s Seven?”

“He was chosen before you. Too soon before you. You, Seven, and Six, all too soon. She’s not even three hundred yet. And Seven was only chosen a few years ago. It’s not supposed to happen that way. Someone’s messing with things.”

“What’s not supposed to happen? What do the runes do?”

“The runes? They link you. But it’s the bond that matters. It enhances magic, yours and theirs.”

“Why?”

The man pursed his lips. “That knowledge doesn’t come with the choosing. The last First said we were chosen to protect the people, but the people we were meant to protect no longer exist. They scattered after the burning.”