Given his expression, the word “safe” was obviously an overestimation. “You saw Sedarias?”
“I mostly heard her.” Before he could ask, she said, “I know what they look like. I know their voices—I brought them out of the green. It was Sedarias.”
Bellusdeo’s orange eyes were pointed in Kaylin’s direction. If they’d been a weapon, they’d be resting against her cheek. Or just below its surface. Kaylin wondered if Dragon names worked exactly the same way Barrani names did. Then again, Bellusdeo wasn’t subtle; having the name wouldn’t give her any more information than the orange-eyed glare was doing already.
“Lord of the West March—”
“No. I did not directly influence the destination of Sedarias and her friends.”
The Avatar of Orbaranne joined them, although she did not take a seat; at the moment, Kaylin privately thought if she bent, she was likely to break. Her eyes had become stone, although not the obsidian that Helen’s could default to if she wasn’t paying attention.
* * *
“You spoke with Sedarias and you detected no taint in her?”
He really had spoken with Alsanis. “No. I don’t think they’re in a good place, though.” Kaylin was done with dinner, and rose. “Thanks for feeding us. We’d like to examine the portal pathways now.”
“They did not approach by the path,” Orbaranne said. “I watched for them.”
“I don’t think we have any hope of finding them if we don’t at least start there, because they started on the path. Something either drove them off it, or the path changed unexpectedly.” Kaylin had experience with that, and it still gave her nightmares.
She began to walk, confident that the Avatar’s awareness—if not her physical form—would follow. Bellusdeo caught up immediately, falling in step easily given the differing lengths of their strides. The marks on Kaylin’s arm continued their dullish glow, but they weren’t painful, and she could mostly ignore them.
“I do not think that is wise,” Orbaranne observed. “I believe that the marks awaken for a reason.”
“When it’s an emergency, it’s impossible to ignore them—I feel like my skin is on fire.”
“Lord Kaylin.”
She blinked. The Lord of the West March lengthened his stride to catch up to them, although he kept Kaylin between himself and Bellusdeo.
“They did, as you surmise, set out from Alsanis on the portal path. Given prior difficulties, the pathways are somewhat delicate, but they have served us since your return to your city. There was some, ah, discussion about the wisdom of allowing them to use those paths en masse.”
“Discussion?”
“The Hallionne Alsanis was against it.”
Kaylin swore. In Leontine. Given the expression on the Lord of the West March’s face, he understood every word. This, she thought, was why she was never going to be a diplomat. That and the ulcer she’d get trying to be polite and proper according to every single cultural norm. It was hard to be polite when certainty of failure was so high.
“When you say against it, do you mean he tried to stop them?”
“Ah, no. He attempted to reason with them; he pointed out the possible dangers that they might face—dangers that I, for example, would not. Some of them agreed with Alsanis. Others did not. I believe they held a...vote?” He used the Elantran word with marked hesitance.
“Meaning they all gave their opinion and the majority opinion won?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a vote. And clearly, the majority wanted to take the paths.” She considered everything Mandoran and Annarion had said about Sedarias and privately decided it might be a majority of one.
“Vote.” He spoke the word with less hesitance. “It is not, you must understand, our custom.”
She didn’t slow, but the Lord of the West March was taller and could easily match her stride. “How would you normally decide?”
“My lord would decide. In the absence of a lord, I would decide.”
“But if your friends—”
“I am the Lord of the West March. My friends,” and here he also adopted the Elantran word, “would wait upon my decision, were I asked to make one. They would accept any decision I made.”
“But—the children brought here were friends. They weren’t liege and lord. Or lieges and lord.”
“It is not uncommon to have groups of the young clustered together.”
“Well, how would you expect them to decide? They can’t just appoint a ‘lord’ and obey them.”
“Why not?”
Bellusdeo snickered. “Don’t look at me,” she said, over Kaylin’s head. “I personally believe that nature abhors a vacuum, especially when it comes to command.”
“Meaning?” Kaylin said.
“I generally find it more efficient to take command if there is no commander. I would have imagined the Barrani to be the same.” She then said, “Don’t give me that look. You’re a Hawk. Your sergeant doesn’t exactly gather you all together in one room and ask you to take a vote on his latest orders.”
Much as she hated to admit it, this was true. “But that’s only at work. And there’s a reason we don’t work every waking minute of every day—we’d probably kill each other or go insane.”
“Given mortals and your criminal investigations, I’m not entirely sure how that would be different.”
* * *
“I find the Hallionne impressive,” Bellusdeo said, after a pause in which Kaylin heroically managed to say nothing. “Structures such as these were not home to many of our kin.”
“Tiamaris.”
“Yes, but he is young and his situation is unusal.” She glanced, once again, at the Lord of the West March. “These were built for your kin by the Ancients.”
He nodded. “The first of the Hallionne predate me, but not our kind.”
Since Helen and the Hallionne were entirely unlike the buildings that most mortals called home, Kaylin said nothing. But she thought, as she walked, that if mortals lived in the Hallionne, or in Helen, things would be better. She could imagine an entire city built under the great roof of a similar building; there would be little conflict, no starvation, and no reason for laws.
Which would put her out of a job. Having a job was the silver lining, but privately she wondered if not needing the Halls of Law would be a far better alternative. If she were an Ancient, if she were a genuine god, wouldn’t a city of that nature be desirable? A place where anyone, ever, could feel at home and safe?
“That is not, in the end, what the Ancients wanted,” Orbaranne surprised her by saying. “And buildings such as I, or Helen, require the occupants to submit to the governing will of the Ancient’s intentions and architecture. You think that we can create paradise.”
“You can,” Kaylin replied.
“No, Kaylin. We cannot. The Ancients themselves could not become the buildings they created, even had they desired to do so. Do you understand why?”
“No?”
Orbaranne chuckled. Her Avatar had remained in the dining hall, but Kaylin was used to conversing with essentially invisible Avatars. “Think carefully. What you desire in this moment is to open your figurative doors and encompass the homeless—people who are what you once were. And this desire is at the heart of the Hallionne. But it is the desire of a moment. When you arrived, you were confused and hungry. The hunger was the desire of that moment. When you are dressed down by your sergeant, you are frustrated and angry with yourself. You return to your home, but you do not shed that frustration or anger.
“All of these things are part of who you are. The anger. The hunger. The desire to help and protect. But they are very individual. There is some part of you that understands that there must be limits to their expression. Do you imagine that you could live for eternity with those limits? That your desires, your angers, your fears, would never exceed the boundaries that you choose to live within?” She waited for Kaylin’s reply, but Kaylin found she had nothing to say.
“Imagine, then, that those desires, those angers, those hungers, those hopes, move worlds. Imagine that they create worlds—and destroy them. Imagine that the boundaries which you set—boundaries which are mortal and confined to a handful of decades if you are lucky—are so small that they are all but invisible. An Ancient could not become a building such as the Hallionne, because there are no boundaries for the Ancients. No boundaries that cannot be crossed, no boundaries that can be enforced.
“If, in your momentary anger, you could destroy the entirety of your city between one breath and the next, what home, what protection, could you offer? The Ancients could not destroy each other so easily—that took effort, will, planning. Even luck. But their creations perished in their attempts to harm each other. Do not wish to be a god. It is not an existence that will bring you anything but misery, in the end.”
The Lord of the West March looked...surprised. And troubled. “Orbaranne,” he began.
“No,” she replied, before he could finish whatever he clearly meant to say. “I am fine. I chose this existence, and I understood what it entailed; in no other way could I have been recreated. Lord Kaylin does not. But I think it necessary that she understand as much of it as I can convey. Come, the stairs to the left.”
“Stairs?” The Lord of the West March asked.
“Given the difficulty Lord Kaylin had with a simple portal to the great hall, we are taking a modified approach to the interior.”
Kaylin was really, really grateful for it. Walking wasn’t a problem in comparison.
* * *
She was not surprised to see that the stairs led down. Although she understood that the portal paths existed in an alternate dimension, she thought of them as strictly basement entities. A cavern, even a well-lit one, seemed appropriate. Her arms, however, continued their dull glow, and given the muted lighting in the cavern, they seemed to have brightened.
Bellusdeo noticed, of course. Her eyes were orange, but hinted at gold. She did not feel threatened by either the Lord of the West March or the Hallionne. Or perhaps she’d become accustomed enough to living with Helen that she could almost relax.
She did smile when the stairs reached the floor. “This,” she said, “would make a magnificent aerie.”
“It might,” Orbaranne conceded. “But it is not open to sky.”
“A pity. Could that be changed?”
“Yes—but the sky it would open to here would not be conducive to the flight of the very young.”
Kaylin had been expecting forest, but said nothing. “When Alsanis counseled against the portal paths, did he—”
“He allowed them to leave. They are guests, now, not prisoners. He is fond of them; in the opinion of some of the Hallionne, too fond. Here,” the voice of Orbaranne added. The Lord of the West March understood that “here” was a specific location; to Kaylin, it all looked like slightly uneven rock. To her surprise, he knelt.
Sensing that surprise, he said, “I am not my sister, but it makes the opening of the pathways less onerous if one of our kin aids the Hallionne.”
“It is not necessary,” Orbaranne said, in a different tone of voice.
“If it were necessary, Hallionne, I would not offer. Do not,” he added, his voice warmer than his words, “argue against it. You know you will not win; it will merely waste time.”
“You need to conserve your power,” Orbaranne replied, clearly ignoring what Kaylin felt was probably accurate, if not good, advice. “It is not the first time—”
“My brother was not High Lord the last time an assassination attempt was made.”
“If you intend to support your sister—”
“My brother is High Lord, and it is clear what his decision would be.”
“He did not command you.”
“No. He is my brother; he knows me well. Come,” he said. He removed a dagger from a sheath that had been invisible to Kaylin’s eye, and ran it across the mount of his left palm. Kaylin sucked in air.
I am not the Consort, he said, his interior voice inflected with an odd, wry humor. She sings.
It’s better than bleeding.
She felt a wave of amusement, then. Is that what you think? Tell me, Lord Kaylin, when she sang to the Hallionne, did it appear effortless to your eye? No. This? This is nothing.
Orbaranne doesn’t like it.
I am her guest; of course she disapproves. Asking one’s guests to shed blood for you is not considered hospitality in any home of worth in any culture that I am aware of.
It’s her choice, isn’t it? I mean—this is essentially her body.
Yes, Lord Kaylin, it is. Do you think she is endless? You were here when things were at their most dire for her. Were it not for your intervention, there would be no Hallionne Orbaranne. We ask, we demand, we accept. But she is not a simple object, nor even a complex one; she is alive. Alive and encased, forever, in a small world of her own. I will not deprive her of purpose—but I will not demand more than I must.
Why is blood needed?
Ask the Ancients, Chosen. You have a far better chance of receiving an answer.
She thought, listening to him, that if he could free the Hallionne—if he could take her outside of herself without destroying her—he would do it.
“Yes,” Orbaranne said, voice soft. “He has always heard my voice, and he has listened no matter what it contained. It is for that reason that I hate to see him bleed.”
“I’d offer my blood—”
“Neither your blood nor the Dragon’s would serve.”
“And even would it,” the Lord of the West March said, rising, “it would never be accepted.”
“Oh?”
“The pathways you might open, in the end, are not the paths that were designed for our kin. I have often thought,” he added, “that Dragons, at their core, would make excellent Hallionne; they do not seem to suffer loneliness or isolation the way that others do.”
“Oh, we suffer it,” Bellusdeo replied. “But it is often a choice: isolation or war.”
“Ah. Then perhaps your kin and mine are not so different.”
* * *
Kaylin wanted to know why blood was required, or if not required, useful. She didn’t ask. Instead, she waited while the hairs on the back of her neck and arms began a slow, painful rise. As the discomfort grew, the rock in front of the Lord of the West March sprouted what looked like tentacles, which was very, very disturbing. It also appeared to be expected; neither Orbaranne nor Lirienne so much as blinked.
Those tentacles reached up, and up again, and when they were eight feet, ten feet, off the ground, they suddenly bunched and gathered, coiling as if they were springs. They leapt toward each other, stone fusing with stone, until, in the end, an arch stood in front of the three visitors.
Kaylin started toward the arch, moving slowly because she could still see the shapes of tentacles, when Orbaranne shouted a sudden warning. “Lirienne!”
He did not look in the direction of her voice, because there was no direction. It surrounded them all. Bellusdeo lifted both of her hands in a deliberate sweep of motion; she spoke three words, all harsh, resounding draconian. Or at least that’s what they sounded like, they were so damn loud.
A small barrier flared to life around her; it extended to cover both Kaylin and the Lord of the West March.
From the heart of the new arch, light flared; the stone that contained it began to melt. Kaylin had seen fire melt the stones in the expensive streets that surrounded the High Hall, and she locked her knees to prevent herself from leaping, automatically, out of the way. The shield that Bellusdeo had cast wouldn’t follow her.
But as it happened, the melting stones shed no heat; they did not become molten. Kaylin wasn’t certain if this was because they were in the Hallionne, or if this was like the effect her familiar sometimes had when he breathed. He could melt statues without heat, and remake the thick, almost liquid mess into something else entirely, which would have been more disturbing had he not spent most of his time on her shoulder, whining a lot.
“Bellusdeo, I think we should move back.”
“I don’t think it’s safe to move at all. Hallionne?” the Dragon asked.
Orbaranne was silent. After the first anguished word, she had said nothing. Kaylin turned to look over her shoulder. The Avatar was not present.
But someone else was.
In the darkness of a cavern alleviated by magical light that seemed to have no real source, stood a familiar young man. He was Barrani in appearance; only his eyes made clear he wasn’t Barrani in substance. They were a shade of obsidian; there were no whites. Kaylin thought of the ancestors, then—the ones who had almost singlehandedly destroyed the High Halls while simultaneously facing the entirety of the Dragon Court. This man was not, however, an ancestor.
He was one of Teela’s cohort, or he had been when he had first come to the West March.
He was the only one who had elected not to return from the green. He was also the only one who had attempted to either kidnap—or kill—the Consort.
“Terrano.”
* * *
The Lord of the West March turned the moment the name left Kaylin’s lips, his attention torn from the misshapen, falling archway.
Terrano offered a perfect, Barrani obeisance to the Lord of the West March, the movement fluid and controlled. “Lord of the West March.” His eyes remained obsidian, flecked with speckled colors; they were almost opalescent, which made Kaylin queasy.
She remembered Terrano’s attack in the forests of the West March. She remembered the Ferals that had come with him, and had appeared to obey his commands. And she understood all of Orbaranne’s hesitation about the rest of the cohort. But the rest of the cohort had chosen to stay. The rest of the cohort were learning—in as much as it was possible—to be Barrani again. To be what they had once been before the decision of powerful men had sundered them from everything they had once held dear.
“You are Terrano of Allasarre,” the Lord of the West March said.
“No. Not any more.”
The Lord of the West March stiffened, but it was slight in comparison to Kaylin’s physical reaction; had she not held Lirienne’s True Name, she would have missed it entirely. “Terrano—”
“Lord Kaylin.” He bowed to her as well, and to her consternation, the bow was slightly deeper than the one he’d offered the Lord of the West March.
“Please don’t call me that.”
“It is what you are, in this place.”
“Yes, but the only people who use that title use it for two reasons. The first: to mock me. And the second: as a warning to other Barrani.”
His answering smile was pure, delighted urchin. “Then yes, I am using it correctly. I feel as if I have been gone from this place for many, many lifetimes. But I remember you.” Since she’d been willing to kill him to preserve the Consort, this didn’t make her feel any better.
“Why are you here?”
“I heard them. I...cannot hear them as I once did.” He said this, his open expression turning pensive. She was surprised. He had seemed so jubilant at the prospect of freedom it had never occurred to her that he might miss what he’d left behind when he was finally unshackled.
But why wouldn’t he?
She did not miss the fief of Nightshade. She would never miss it. She would never return there to live. But there were days—fewer and fewer as she aged—where she would have turned back the clock completely for just five minutes of her mother’s warmth. The Barrani never exuded warmth, and frankly, were as likely to kill their parents as love them, if history were any guide. The cohort had therefore offered the rarity of absolute trust and acceptance. Who wouldn’t miss that?
The Lord of the West March, however, was not thinking of love or sentiment. His voice as hard as Terrano’s eyes, he said, “What have you done to Orbaranne?” And in the silence that followed the demand, Kaylin heard the sound of drawn sword.
* * *
Terrano did not draw a weapon in response, and the slightly confused glance he offered the Lord of the West March didn’t seem to register that that Lord was now armed.
“Orbaranne?”
“The Hallionne.”
Terrano turned to Kaylin, as if he expected her to be his personal interpreter. But the confusion in his expression seemed so genuine, she couldn’t resent it. Much. “You are currently standing inside the Hallionne Orbaranne. You were, until very recently from our perspective, living in the Hallionne Alsanis with your siblings.”
“Siblings?”
She shrugged. “At home, we call them the cohort.”
“What do they call themselves?”
“Depends. I only hear Mandoran and Annarion, because they live with me.”
“Cohort sounds almost military.”
Kaylin shrugged. “Whenever I use the word ‘family’ or ‘sibling,’ they react the way you just did.” Sensing Lirienne’s growing agitation, she exhaled. “The Hallionne Orbaranne has not spoken a word since you arrived. What did you do?” The sword to her right rose, and she extended an arm to block it—not exactly the smartest move, given that her arm was mortal flesh.
“I did not—” He frowned. “I did not hear your Hallionne. I did hear Sedarias. She was angry,” he added. “But then again—”
“Mandoran says she’s always angry.”
Terrano smiled.
“Annarion says she’s only angry at Mandoran.”
This widened, brightened, that smile. But his eyes remained the color of small pockets of shadow.
“Terrano—I don’t know how you entered the Hallionne—but you have to leave.”
“I’m looking for them.”
“Yes, I believe you. But the way that you’re looking is severely distressing the Lord of the West March.”
He said, as if the statement had no meaning, “Is that a Dragon beside you?”
She did not reply in Leontine, but it was close. “...Yes.”
“How can we possibly be in the Hallionne if a Dragon is here?”
“I promise I’ll explain it,” Kaylin said. “Please do not attempt to harm the Dragon, the Lord of the West March, or the Hallionne. If you didn’t notice the Hallionne, you must have noticed that it was difficult to reach this space.”
“It was,” he agreed. “But there are many areas that are nigh impassible if one isn’t clever.” Clearly, Terrano considered himself clever, and was pleased to be so. “And this area, at least, was safe.”
“It wasn’t safe for Sedarias.”
“She wasn’t here. There’s a...” Terrano struggled for words before finding them, as if he was struggling with a foreign language that he had studied years ago. “A storm? A storm outside. If we are standing inside the boundaries of a Hallionne, it appeared to be a...” He frowned again. “A cave? A shelter? I heard no Hallionne voice, and the cave itself was difficult to reach. But the storm made it highly desirable. I thought—if Sedarias were as smart as she thinks she is—she might have made her way here.”
“She’s not here. But Terrano—you need to go stand outside. I mean, outside of this space. I don’t think it’s good for the Hallionne—”
“No, no, wait. Just wait. I think I can figure out what went wrong. Wait.”
If Kaylin had ever wondered what Lirienne’s attachment to what was, essentially, a god-like building was, she had her answer now, and it was not an entirely comfortable answer. She could understand why Orbaranne might, in the end, be fond of, or attached to, him; Orbaranne did not have the freedom to leave, to seek company, to make her life less lonely and less isolated. She required visitors; she required people to come to her. And to stay.
The Lord of the West March didn’t suffer from the same restrictions. But if his visits to Orbaranne had once been an act of compassion, they were clearly more than that now.
The ground rumbled; the air flashed. Fire and ice passed through Kaylin like a series of very unpleasant blades.
Lirienne, she said, voice urgent. Tell her—ask her—not to attempt to harm Terrano. Please. Because she understood that Orbaranne was back, or that they were back within the confines of the Hallionne, and Terrano was still with them.
I cannot guarantee that. She has imperatives as Hallionne that she cannot ignore. If he is considered a threat—and I cannot see how he would not be—she will not have the choice.
If she tries to hurt him, he’ll respond defensively—please!
I will try, Chosen. But think: this is what you want in the High Halls. This is what we will have at the very heart of the most important, the most dangerous, of our duties.
The others are not—they’re not like him.
You hold my name, Kaylin; I do not hold yours. But even so, I advise you not to lie while speaking thus.
I’m not—
You do not even believe what you are telling me. Perhaps you are lying to yourself. I will return. While I bespeak the Hallionne, distract the intruder.
Before she could dredge up a reply, the Lord of the West March vanished.