Ni'Srilan: The Desert: who would give anything to put this out;

It all happens so quickly.

Holden is at his side, sent along for the journey by their petrified mother, and Anatole keeps him close. If ever there was a moment that Anatole felt like a father, this was it. “So, where we goin’?” the lanky black yearling asked, looking so unlike his half-brother that the resemblance between them was invisible. Anatole’s gray eyes glittered with the promise of finally – finally – meeting his father, and he said, “To see my Choke.” Holden understood that. “Your dad,” he translated, his smile fading for a moment when he thought of his own father – and missed him.

Still, they were brothers and Anatole could not forsake his blood.

“So, where we goin’ now? Why are we here?” Holden asked, his feet slipping and sliding over the red earth. Anatole grinned. “To the prettiest flower you’ve ever seen.”

When they find her – as he’d already been searching – her voice is music and he smiles and catches her in his embrace. Her words stumble, and he stiffens for only a moment as his eyes slip over the gold and black – her children, children that are not his. And he wants to hate them – he wants to hate them because they’re Betrayal’s and they’re not his and he’s jealous. But Holden, fearless, ambles up to the twins and starts chattering to them like nothing is wrong and he softens again. “It’s okay,” he promises, running his nose through her dark mane where the flowers still grow. “Don’t be sorry.” I always love you, desert-flower.

And all at once, Holden is screaming and she is asking him what’s going on and it makes sense. Nyota urging them way, sending Holden with him – it all makes sense. Damn, he swears inside his thick skull, wondering how he could have been so blind. He wanted to go back for Her, to drag her along with them, but the Earth was splintering beneath them and she would be too. She had to have known.

So instead of retracing his steps, he looks to Holden and says, “Quit screaming.” The boy falls silent and then as Ilium spins away with her children, beginning him to come, he turns on his heels and darts after her, “Come, Holden!” he calls over his shoulder, as the light spreads over the desert and they flee – all five of them. They catch up to Ilium and run, and he watches the smaller ones – even though they are not his, he watches them. And when his eyes catch sight of the horizon, he gasps and realizes the finality of this all.

There are funeral pyres all around them and he wants to weep but instead, he runs.