Gareth didn’t seem inclined to come out of his room any time soon, so Orenda left Bella to care for him and went to meet Mary Sue. She was standing in the back garden, looking out over the orchard. The trees there were nearly bare, and the chill in the air was even worse than it normally was. She seemed as if she was thinking quite hard about something, and Orenda wondered whether or not she should interrupt her, so she waited nearly a full minute before she spoke.

“Mary Sue?” Orenda asked.

“Oh,” Mary Sue seemed to snap out of a trance, “Sorry. My brothers,” she pointed and Orenda followed her gesture to see that Garon, Gareth and Abraham Brigaddon were digging a hole in the middle of the orchard, mostly obscured by the trees.

“Oh,” Orenda said, and struggled for something else to say.

“He loved these trees,” Mary Sue said, “And… it’ll be more difficult to get him in after the ground freezes. It’s supposed to frost tonight but… I don’t want to do it on your birthday. I don’t… don’t know what I should…”

Orenda moved closer and put a hand on her shoulder. She realized that she had never seen Mary Sue cry before, but she watched the tears seeping from her eyes as she wiped them on her sleeve.

“I wish I could have met him,” Orenda said.

“Daddy loved you,” Mary Sue told her, “He… he knew you were alive. He said if you were to ever show up we were to treat you as a sister. And… here you are, just as he predicted. He always knew you were alive. I wish… I wish Sharon would come back. They’ve been together for more than a decade, she deserves… she deserves to be here when we bury him… but if the ground freezes it’s so… it’s… we could do it but… we can’t leave him wrapped up down there, can we? Not next to the nursery like that…” She shook her head, “We can’t have the babies sleeping next to a corpse I can’t… I can’t imagine it’s good for them… I don’t… I don’t want to bury… not on someone’s birthday.”

“It must be all birthdays, around here,” Orenda said, trying to lighten the mood, but overly aware of how poorly the attempt worked.

“I can’t… shouldn’t,” Mary Sue took a deep breath to collect herself, “I shouldn’t cry in front of you. I’m the oldest now and I have to arrange things like this. There’s no use crying over things that have to be done. Because they must be done. We can’t just leave him down there. We have to bury him. I wish we had a priest.”

“Sarya said that we were going to have more celebration tonight,” Orenda said, “And a bonfire. I’ve already had a birthday party; I don’t need two in one day. Let’s bury Xaxac and celebrate his life. I’ll never know him, but I’m sure you all have stories. He seems so well loved. I’d love to hear all about him. He deserves a good farewell. A nice send-off. And… after all this is over and Xandra is dethroned, we’ll have a proper marker, a statue perhaps. He deserves it. He helped so many people. He was a hero.”

“He really was,” Mary Sue said. “And… on the marker… People only get one name on their grave, and I want it to be right. His name was Brigaddon- not OfLangil, not OfAgalon, Brigaddon. Xaxac Brigaddon, descendant of Quizlivan Brigaddon.”

“Who is Quizlivan Brigaddon?” Orenda asked, “Lapus said that to me, when he attacked me- that he was a descendant of Quizlivan Brigaddon.”

“Quizlivan was one of the humans in the Kabaal,” Mary Sue explained, and when she saw the blank look on Orenda’s face she continued, apparently happy to have something to talk about. “You’re not familiar with the Kabaal?”

“No,” Orenda said, “I know that Bella escaped from them. I read it in-” she stopped and considered that she had broken a pact of privacy to get that information. Xaxac had written it in a private letter to Gareth. She thought that perhaps she shouldn’t reveal where it came from, but as she looked at Mary Sue, she realized that there was no reason to lie to her, not to someone who had been so unconditionally kind to her. “I read it in a private letter, the day I met Gareth. I was snooping through his cabin and I found a letter Xaxac had written him. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have read it, but I didn’t know, at the time, if I could trust Gareth or not.”

“Daddy wouldn’t have cared,” Mary Sue said, “He would have trusted you.”

They stared out at the boys digging in the afternoon sun, bundled up against the cold.

“Quizlivan Brigaddon was a member of the Kabaal, the original Kabaal,” Mary Sue said. “Millions of years ago, when Xren was young and the world was frozen, after Morgani tried to rebel he went into hiding. He was trying to escape from Thesis until he could find a way to kill him for what he had done.”

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“What had he done?” Orenda asked.

“Many things,” Mary Sue said, “He had trapped Morgani and the other elves against their will in the Crystal City, because they were… unfinished. I’m not exactly sure. But Morgani escaped to freedom, and found out that there was a whole world beyond their prison. He learned that he was being held captive, and he would not be a pet to serve the whims of a liar. We don’t know much about what happened after that- but the Kabaal does. I think that’s where Lappy is going.”

“What we do know is that after the war, when Morgani was in hiding and the world was covered in snow and ice, he came upon a tribe of humans and begged them for help. He was cold and lost and looking for someone; he was in mourning and frightened; he was weakened from battle and emotionally unstable. So they kept him, and they helped him. He kept talking nonsense about a weapon that he had designed that could not kill, but could contain a god. He thought he could trap him until he could figure out how to kill him. My grandmother talks of it in her diary- the one Lappy stole.”

“He stole a diary?” Orenda asked, thinking of the bag Gareth had taken, and of how desperately Lapus had wanted it back.

“Yes,” Mary Sue said, “I know he’s going off with it, to find the Kabaal… that girl… we should have never taken her in. I know, now that she was with them. The human girl with the sandy blond hair-”

“The werecat?” Orenda asked, “The mountain lion?”

“Yes,” Mary Sue said, “She said her name was Sandy,” she scoffed, “Can you believe how stupid we were to believe her? But daddy was… he wanted to help everyone. She said she was a runaway and she had a brand to prove it, from a breeding center in Satra. We helped her. We trusted her. And she… started to spend more and more time alone with him. We thought that… he’s always acted out, always been a bit of… trouble. We thought that perhaps he had made a friend, maybe even a lover. Our parents were happy for him… he seemed to improve.”

Orenda thought that this conversation was veering, but it didn’t matter because Lapus was the more pressing issue.

“Back on the fire continent,” Orenda said, “The djinn, Lapus, told us that your brother Lapus had found his grandmother’s diary, he told me to hurry here. He knew it was going to happen. I tried to get here as fast as I could.”

“I don’t know no djinn,” Mary Sue said.

“He seemed to know Xaxac,” Orenda said.

“And his name was Lapus?” Mary Sue’s eyebrows knitted and her face contorted in thought, “That’s… interesting.” Orenda thought she was going to say something more, but she didn’t. She went on not saying anything until Orenda was sure that she knew something she was never going to tell.

“So your ancestor, Quizlivan,” Orenda said, “Was one of the original humans who helped Morgani Magnus?”

“Yes,” Mary Sue said, “And in the battle, when Thesis came looking for Morgani, he was already weakened, and Morgan had finished the device he spoke of to trap a god. But we… we think he used it. We think he won. We aren’t… sure. The Kabaal hadn’t talked to him, according to my grandmother’s diaries, in some time. Daddy met him, but he didn’t know enough to ask him anything important. They did become friends, though. It was at the Crystal City that daddy found the starfruit. He said that they had wandered through those frozen wastes for so long, that there had been nothing to eat, that he had to eat or die. He said he was hallucinating from it, dying from it, and when they walked into the Crystal Forest he pulled the first fruit he found, even though it looked strange. He didn’t know how it would affect him. He had to eat or die. Then Morgani took it from him and told him that it was a great poison, not of this world, that it didn’t come from Xren, it came from the heavens. He told him he couldn’t have it, so daddy pulled down another one and ate it in his face.” She laughed and wiped away a tear, “I believe him. That’s exactly what he would do. If you had known him, Rendy you would understand that’s… that’s just how he is. Was.”

“You’re eating the fruit of the gods,” Orenda said, in awe, “That’s why you’re immune to magic.”

“It really isn’t meant for mortals,” Mary Sue said, “It really is killing us. It… changes us. It comes out in our hair, in our nails,” She extended her hand and Orenda followed her eyeline. She had always noticed that the Brigaddons all had nails that shimmered in the light, but she assumed they did something to them as a form of vanity, as many elves did. But now, looking at them, she saw that they, too, were made of sterilite. She didn’t… know how to feel about that. They probably shouldn’t be eating it. But they were shifters, and shifters healed quickly. But it seemed to be in their very blood.

Wait.

Lapus Brigaddon’s nails were made of sterilite. His claws, that he had gouged Gareth open with were made of sterilite. Did that have something to do with why he wasn’t healing? Did a wound caused by sterlite prevent magic from healing it? Did that even make sense? It wasn’t like the sterilite was still in the wound. Unless it was. It wasn’t a weapon, not in the traditional sense; it was a set of claws. Did animals lose bits of their claws when they attacked someone in the same way that hair fell out? Were there tiny specks of sterilite inside Gareth? She didn’t know, and didn’t really know how to find out.

“I’m sorry, Rendy,” Mary Sue said, “I told you I would train you, and I will.”

She turned around to face her and said, “From now on, I think the best thing for it is to have you working in the mornings, and then we’ll meet for your training in the afternoon.”

“Alright,” Orenda said, “I suppose I do still need to work- not only because I need to build strength, but because, as you said, some things simply must be done.”

“There are really two things that are important to know for fighting,” Mary Sue said as she drew herself to her full height, “Yourself, and your environment.”