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“How?” Bone gasped. “How can I—”

Deadfall leapt upon him. It surrounded Bone, and he knew his life would be crushed. He saw Gaunt’s face and ached with the feeling he’d missed ten thousand chances to caress it.

And yet he was not smothered. Instead the rolled-up carpet, levitating with Bone inside it, whacked one Karvak soldier and then the other. He heard them
whoof
as they fell over.

Now Deadfall rushed into the sky, opening up a little to allow Bone air.

“You must let me know,” said the carpet, “if you are strong enough to clutch me. Babying you like this makes me less agile, and I have more people to catch.”

“Not yet . . . you overheard him? And you chose to help?”

“Fool. It was you who overheard. He wasn’t talking to you. It is I who must prove myself today.”

In one moment Innocence exulted in his power. In the next moment an arrow struck him in the shoulder. Pain and outrage exploded through his mind. He lost control of the Chain.

Huginn Sharpspear crouched beside him. “Hold still, boy. I know a little about arrows. . . .”

“Leave it in!” Innocence said. “No time for healing.”

“Keep him there, Huginn,” said Jewelwolf, and her face glowed with the light of the Chain. “This is the moment. The Runethane commands the Chain. The chosen wielder of one of the swords is nearing. And my sister approaches. I may not have another chance.”

“Chance for what?”

Jewelwolf only laughed as she raised the swords. Innocence desperately tried to rise.

The Chain flared with light once more, and the energies of the Runethane faded.

“What?” Jewelwolf said. “No . . . I need the power. . . .”

But Innocence saw it all. His sense of his old friend still persisted, and he winced as he perceived two figures stabbing A-Girl-Is-A-Joy. And he heard her voice calling for help.

“Joy,” he gasped, and everything, his hopes for power, his defiant scheming, collapsed like a melting ice cave. In its place was rage. The Kantening barbarian and her accomplice had dared betray a daughter of the greatest civilization on Earthe . . . and his friend.

He would destroy them all. He would blast the Svardmark highlands apart.

He lurched up, shoved Huginn aside, and toppled over the nearest link of the Chain.

Power blazed forth, and it was not the yin that he expressed this time, not the disciplined cold of his supernatural winter, but the yang aspect of the Heavenwalls, tapping the energies of fiery dragons, rushing up the Chain.

“No!” said Jewelwolf. “Not now!”

He ignored her. But there came another voice he could not dismiss.

Innocence
, came the voice of Persimmon Gaunt.
Son. There is so much I wish to say to you, and I may not have another chance. But it must all boil down to one word. Love. I love you, my beautiful child. I am so sorry your father and I were away for so long. Do not hate us, and the world, for that. You are in a moment when hate can wreck everything that is. I know it is the hardest thing I can ask of you, but I ask you to act in love. You have too much power to indulge hate now. Remember the boy you were. Remember what still could be
.

For an instant he was no longer Lord Gaunt hurling power at hated savages who’d felled the Runethane but Innocence Gaunt leaping about a boulder garden with A-Girl-Is-A-Joy, whacking sticks with her, ferocity giving way to anguish whenever one or the other thought they’d truly given a bruise or poked an eye.

Joy.

I’m . . . here . . . I’m alive . . . help!

He checked his power as it sped.

He did not destroy the far side of the Chain. In his mind’s eye he saw another reality, where the promontory exploded, killing Joy and her would-be slayers, making him the slayer. He even imagined he saw more, a great earthquake ravaging Svardmark and Spydbanen.

But that was not this life. In this life, his mind reached Joy’s.
I can’t strike them without hurting you! I’m sorry!

Despite the helplessness, time seemed to crawl in his vision. He saw Corinna’s dagger taking forever to fall, as he beheld it in Joy’s sight.

She answered him,
I’m sorry too. But I am glad you care.

I always cared. I have been a fool. If only there was a way.

Kantenings talk about fate a lot. Maybe this is fate, Innocence. I’m just glad you’re here, really here again, at the end.

Joy . . .

His thoughts raced, like a desert whirlwind, like a maelstrom.
Act in love
, his mother had said.
Leave it
, his father had said. He saw images flash by like shapes glimpsed by torchlight in a shadowy cathedral—the Swan sacrificing herself, Torden facing giants at the end of time, the Undetermined renouncing the world, the sage of the Garden seeking right relationships, the sage of the Forest seeking spontaneity and the dance of opposites. All these teachings, seemingly so incompatible as to rupture his brain. Yet here in the heart of the whirlwind they suddenly, impossibly, seemed like the same message.

I can’t stop them without killing you
, he realized.
But there’s another way. A-Girl-Is-A-Joy, I name you the bearer of the power of the Heavenwalls
.

What?

But he had made his choice, and instinctively he knew how to act upon it.

He screamed as the power rushed out of him, all along the Chain, glowing blue and red, dance of contrasts, yin and yang, everything and nothing.

The dragons faded from his forehead and his mind.

He fell over, Innocence, merely that, at last.

The power of the Heavenwalls rushed into Joy, and the power of the Chain quickened in response.

They were not opposites, not amenable to balance. The Heavenwalls had tapped the desperate energies of generations of mating dragons, Eastern and Western, and combined these chaotic forces in a monumental, delicately synchronized storm of chi.

The Great Chain of Unbeing had instead tapped the energies of ancient Western dragons beyond the age of mating, solemn fiery power drawn forth to empower the Runethane, and to keep these elders sleeping.

Harnessing these two powers was akin to wielding a sword and a lasso at the same time. The thought processes involved were very different. But Innocence had given her a chance at life, and she would use it.

Corinna’s dagger fell. Before it could strike, Joy raised her left hand and with it shaped a blast of chi.

Backed by the power of the Heavenwalls she knocked the ruler of Soderland head over heels.

Joy rose to her feet, teetering. She saw that Alfhild had felled Malin Jorgensdatter and was preparing a death-blow. With her right hand Joy blasted a gout of fire at the changeling, and Alfhild screamed and fell, rolling on the stony ground.

Malin got up and rushed to Joy’s side. She said, “Thank you” and stared at Joy’s forehead.

“What’s wrong?” Joy said.

“You have dragons on your head.”

“In my head too. Malin, you were ready to ride on Inga’s shoulders. I’m not as strong as her, but would you link arms with me? I have to get down there, to that island. I think I can survive the trip down the Chain. I think I can protect you too.”

“I will do it,” Malin said. “But what about the battle here?”

Joy saw Kantening soldiers rushing to their position. Corinna was groaning and trying to rise.

“It may take too long to explain things,” Joy said. “There’s a limit to the harm these two can do, for now. . . .”

There came a roar from the cliffside. A troll-woman hauled herself up, ignoring the sunlight.

“Changeling sister!” she called out. “Let me embrace you!”

Alfhild, who had just extinguished herself and risen, screeched, “Rubblewrack!”

She ran through the Kantening troops, and the troll pounded after her.

Joy turned to stare at Corinna. Corinna said nothing.

“I go now to save your country, murderer,” Joy said.

If Corinna replied, Joy spent no time on it. She and Malin leapt upon the Chain and descended it as fast as Joy dared, riding its power like an icy slope. She hoped they could retain their balance, in every sense.

Snow Pine watched the sky darken overhead as their balloon descended. Peik endlessly paced out a rune. “I cannot lie,” he said, “though I may embellish. Every Karvak shaman in the world is now working against me.”

Flint frowned. “And yet they are spending considerable energy on blackening the sky with thunderheads. Why is that, I wonder?”

“Don’t wonder,” Snow Pine said. “Just look.”

Troll after troll reared from the waters, no longer fearing the day. They climbed the cliffs toward the army of free Kantenjord.

There were thousands.

“My people will be slaughtered,” Yngvarr said. “The ultimate battle is there, and I am missing it.”

“There’ll be plenty of targets to go around,” Snow Pine said. A shadow flitted across the sky. “What? It’s Deadfall—”

As if Deadfall had expected it to happen, Inga and Steelfox were blasted from the Chain by a burst of fiery power. Deadfall caught them, nearly losing Bone in the process.

Deadfall’s next destination was their balloon. Without ceremony it dumped its three passengers into the gondola.

“Excuse me, O exalted transportation method!” Haboob said. “But this gondola has its limits.”

“It takes one to know one, efrit,” Deadfall replied. “Are you not trying to land? I am merely offering ballast.”

“The astonishing nerve of some supernatural entities . . .”

“You have my full agreement. But only for a moment. I have places to go.”

Bone managed to say, “Did . . . he . . . give you more instructions?”

“No, these instructions came earlier. Eshe of the Fallen Swan spoke to me briefly when I carried Jewelwolf aboard
Anansi
, to claim you. Eshe made me an offer. I initially thought I would decline, but I have reconsidered. You are not now the only agent of Kpalamaa in this fight, Imago Bone.”

“I’m not an agent of Kpalamaa,” Bone objected. “Well, not yet . . .”

“What are you going to do?” Snow Pine said.

“Little enough,” said Deadfall. “I am going to end a war.”

And with that, the flying carpet shot off toward the East.