Chapter 151

"What is your name?" curls through him, and he thinks it should be the Mother's voice, but it isn't. It's his father speaking to him from across time, drilling the lesson into his son so that even when he'd forgotten everything else, he always knew this one thing.

"Dallin Brayden," he answers back. "From the Valley," and "Brave," and he's always known what these things mean, even when he'd forgotten their purpose, but he's never truly understood the other, not 'til now. "Pride's people," he wheezes through the pain in his not-voice, thinks of Lind and its lineage of warriors, its centuries of secrets and unknowing, faithful defense of the Heart of the World.

And finally wonders what sort of power lies hidden in their belief. "If it is strong enough to bind, it is strong enough to free," She'd told Wil. Dallin thinks he knows what that means now.

He gathers himself inward, curls what he can around it, and cries out--