There is one thing you must never forget. No matter how evil the times, no matter how dire the calamity, if there is but one person on earth who makes Covenant with Adonais, then the world will not fall. The dawn will come after the dark night, though it lasts for centuries.
-From “The Testament of Cassían, Dar of Vasyllia” (The Sayings: Book II, 21:30)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CovenantLebía stood, as she did every morning, on the banks of the sea, waiting for Mirnían to return. For more than a year, she had seen nothing. After the baby had been born, she came with the little bundle in her arms, that simultaneous source of pain and joy, terror and courage that taught her, for the first time in her life, that she had no idea what it meant to love.
The baby gurgled something profoundly wise,
