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Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Suvi stared at the horizon. White sand had begun to appear in the distance, and beyond it, a shimmering tower soared into the sky, seeming to touch the very stars themselves. As she stood at the bow of the ship, she could feel her armor settling into place, her back straightening, her shoulders dropping, her chest rising into that painfully rigid posture she assumed whenever in public. "The bearing of a person who sees profoundly and is perpetually perceived," Hana had once told her in jest.
She had gotten what she wanted. She now knew more about the world outside the Tower, outside the Citadel she would someday help lead. She had touched the world and been touched by it in return. She had shed blood in defense of the Citadel and the Empire; she had done her duty. Now she would return home.
Home to her suite of apartments, for now. Steel had told her of the new timeline for her name-cloaking and movement into the Tower of the Glove, so much nearer to Steel and her family and her future. She would be returning to Cadilla, Yshra, little Ovi, and Sonder. To Silver—
Shaking her head, she cut off that thought with a blush and turned her attention to the present moment.
Below deck, Ame slept peacefully with Eursulon keeping watch. Soon she would show her friends the wonders of her home. She would prove that the Scepter's Chorus and Guild-mage Morrow were but pale imitations of the glory and triumph made manifest, that the carelessness of Guild-mages was an aberration. The Citadel was the true home of wizardry in Umora.
She would show them her home in Malacanth with its white stone and glass towers, show them what she lived for and others had died to achieve. She would show them that the light of the Tower would never dim. She would return to her Sanctum and begin the work to secure the future of her home.
Her fingers found her father's early composition work tucked safely next to her own spellbook. A Null Clef over the Reflexive Indicative, a shortened form of spellcasting that Soft had seemed to have discovered when he was but a student at banners, the Reflexive Indicative was essential to every piece of Wazardy ever cast, and yet it wasn’t. And then her thoughts darkened to Eoighorain, his presence seeming to taint everything that had gone wrong in her life. This man who appeared to be at the center of her life's greatest miseries. So much to understand, so much to make sense of when she returned.
But for now, she took another deep breath of the clean, dry Irulian air and smiled despite her churning thoughts. The light of the Erien shone on her face as she watched the Tower grow closer and closer.
She. Was. Home.
And somehow, despite everything, it would all be okay now.