Broken Veil (Harbinger #5)(100)

Thank you for sending Owen to save me, she thought with gratitude swelling inside.

You have always been precious to me, Cettie. Look at the change that has come to our family . . . because of you. You brought us together in ways Maren and I could not. Even Phinia has passed the Test now. Something I feared would never happen.

Cettie felt a jolt of love go through her. I miss you, Father. Can you see us always? Do you know what we’re feeling?

He shook his head slowly. You must understand, there is order in all things. I was granted a special dispensation to come here today, to be with you. Someday, we will be a family again, but in the meantime you must live your lives here.

I long for the day when we will all be together again, she thought, tears falling down her cheeks.

When the ceremonies are over, after I am gone, tell the others that you saw me. It is a special gift you have, Cettie. I understand that now. I felt it in you when we first met in the Fells. It enables you not only to see the malevolent spirits of the Unborn, but to see the rest of us as well. I love you all. Tell them, for me.

I promise, Cettie agreed.

“By the Medium’s will, make it thus so,” concluded the Aldermaston.

“Make it thus so,” murmured those assembled.

Her heart full to bursting, Cettie embraced her new family, holding each precious one as they clung to each other.

“I wish Father could have been here,” Anna whispered, sniffling.

Cettie gazed at his beaming smile. Her own throat was too thick to speak, to say what she knew. What she could see and they could not.

Sera spoke up, her voice bright and cheerful. “We also came to see a wedding, Aldermaston.” As she said it, she squeezed her husband’s hand. Both of them had a bright-eyed look of love. “I think that young man has been patient enough waiting for his bride,” Sera continued. “Please proceed.”

“As you command, Your Majesty,” the Aldermaston said, his eyes twinkling.

Cettie and Adam took up the position Stephen and Maren had vacated, standing across the pedestal from each other. Her knees sank into the plush cushions. They joined hands. She felt his strength, his firm grip. His eyes were narrowing, curious.

“Are you all right?” he whispered to her.

She wiped tears on the sleeve of her supplicant robe. “I am,” she breathed, feeling Father come closer. He put his hand on top of theirs, as if joining them himself.

The Aldermaston smiled at them. “It is time to begin.”

Cettie Fitzroy was a harbinger. The first in over a generation. She knew her life was far from over. Ereshkigal was free and would rally enemies to thwart them. She also knew that the Medium still had work for her to do. With Adam at her side, she could accomplish anything asked of her.

And they would start by ridding the world of a plague they at last understood.

I love you, Adam Creigh, Cettie thought to him.

Have you any doubts, my Cettie, of my love? She heard his thoughts as if they were whispers.

None at all, she thought in return, smiling.

And you never will.





AUTHOR’S NOTE

Some fans have already figured out that several aspects of this series were inspired by a favorite Dickens novel, Bleak House. But it’s more than just a retelling of that story. It was also inspired by elements of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, and Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope—the author, by the way, who was the inspiration for Aldermaston Thomas Abraham.

When I set out to write this story, I didn’t have the ending solid in my mind. Planning it in advance was difficult, knowing it would take five books to tell this particular tale. The closer I got to the end, the more nervous I was about how to tie the loose ends together and deliver a resolution that would be both satisfying and memorable. I also didn’t want the resolution of the major conflict to come from a fight scene as I’ve done in some of my other books.

Inspiration comes in different forms. The climax of the book, when Sera invokes the Medium to save Cruix Abbey and send it up to the stars, came during a concert I attended of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which was performed (and sung) in a concert hall near where I live. This is the famous “Ode to Joy” symphony, probably his most famous one and composed while he was totally deaf. Although the lyrics are sung in German, they had an English translation up on the screen. The majestic music kept building, louder and louder, with a refrain that Beethoven could not hear with his ears but that was repeated over and over, as if the composer was trying to help us, the audience, hear the music only he could hear. The refrain at the end of the symphony goes like this: Thus, brothers, you should run your race, Like a hero going to victory!

You millions, I embrace you.

This kiss is for all the world!

Brothers, above the starry canopy

There must dwell a loving father.

Do you fall in worship, you millions?

World, do you know your creator?

Seek Him in the heavens;

Above the stars must he dwell.

Over and over it was repeated, the words showing up on the screen as the performers sang. It was like Beethoven was giving us a message he’d learned through the experience of his own suffering, his trial of deafness. And still, hundreds of years later, that symphony is performed around the world. It was a deeply emotional experience for me, and the idea came of Cettie, injured and hurting, hearing a song that Sera could not hear, knowing that help was coming but not being able to explain how. I loved writing that scene.