The Barrani woman let go of the sword she’d been so keen on protecting; had she not, she would have lost her head; Sedarias didn’t open with either discussion or negotiation. Or words. Kaylin had seen Barrani attempt to kill each other, and had always been surprised by the amount of talk that could happen before they got down to business. Sedarias didn’t bother, and Kaylin both admired this and found it disturbing.
The cohort ringed the two; although other blades existed, no other blade was lifted, by which Kaylin understood that this was somehow personal; Sedarias recognized the woman, which made her very old, in Barrani terms. Well, as old as Teela, at any rate.
Given that the woman’s sword was still buried in stone, this seemed unfair—but fairness of a certain kind had never been the Barrani way. And in truth, Kaylin’s experience of life in the fiefs stopped her from being outraged. When faced with probable death herself, she’d never been one to stand on honor, either.
She shifted her opinion, however, when the woman spoke a lightning crack of a word. Purple fire rose beneath Sedarias, lapping at the material of her skirts, and probably at the feet beneath them. Sedarias leapt instantly out of the circle in which they burned, but some of the fire clung to her clothing. Someone—Eddorian?—shouted a warning; there was no way to know if Sedarias heard it.
And, come to think, it was unlikely that the warning had been shouted to Sedarias, which meant the incoming danger was aimed at someone whose True Name Eddorian didn’t know.
She jumped up, her hand cocooned with strands of darkness, to see Terrano. Beneath his feet, as Sedarias’s, purple fire blossomed. He lowered one hand, and kept one raised as rain of the same color fell. He was pale, his clothing was singed, and the fire seemed to struggle to entrap him, to cling to him. “Don’t worry about me,” he told her, although his gaze was drawn to the fire at his feet. It was a larger circle than the one that had opened at Sedarias’s feet, and the color was subtly different.
As it spread, Kaylin realized why it was wider: it was also meant to encompass her.
Whatever she was doing was obviously having some effect—and if the Barrani woman considered it dangerous, it was positive, at least for Alsanis. Kaylin started to wind faster, and finally spared a frigid glare at her familiar.
Her familiar sighed. Loudly. He smacked her face with his extended wing, as if to drive a point home: he couldn’t leave her shoulder to do anything else if she wanted to be able to do what she was doing, because she couldn’t see the threads without his intervention. “It doesn’t matter if I can see them or not,” she snapped. “I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing.”
Terrano said, through clenched teeth, “You are an extremely unintelligent person. Do you honestly think that all he’s doing is letting you see?”
Since the answer was more or less yes, Kaylin failed to give it. But she didn’t glare at her familiar again, didn’t demand to know why he wasn’t helping Terrano shield them, and didn’t send him buzzing off after the golden Dragon whose injury would probably end her career.
Bellusdeo was roaring between breaths, which meant she was still alive. She was conversant with magic and at least rudimentary magical protections, and she fought like the warrior queen she had once been, before the Shadows had finally devoured her world. If there was anyone deserving of worry here, it was not the Dragon.
She heard someone call her name again, and this time, her hand almost cramping because she hadn’t stopped once, she recognized the voice. At any other time, she would have frozen; now, she worked faster, which shouldn’t have been possible.
It was the Consort. It was the Consort’s voice.
The thought that the Consort was here, that she was in the West March, or worse, in the embattled Hallionne, was almost terrifying. This was not the place for the only woman who could bring life to an entire race. And the cohort were here. Terrano was here.
Seething with fear and frustration, Kaylin turned to the familiar, but as she opened her mouth, the landscape suddenly changed. As if it had been shattered, the whole of the visual look of this enormous, open space broke, shards falling away to reveal something entirely different. The stones beneath her feet gave way, in an instant, to more earth-like dirt, and the giant, bladed words disappeared, to be replaced at random intervals by the trunks of looming trees. Above her head was sunlight, and beneath her feet, the greens and browns of the forests in the West March.
Voices—besides the voice of the Consort, which became distinct and much louder—filled her thoughts in a clamor of sound and emotion. She turned to look at Sedarias, who was carrying a sword that was, even at this distant, red with new blood.
“Terrano,” Sedarias said, the word both a question and command.
“I’m fine.” His voice was muffled.
Kaylin turned to look at him, and so did the more distant Sedarias. Terrano was not fine. His skin was livid with what appeared to be bruises, given their color; Kaylin, however, knew better. Looking down at her hand, she saw the frayed ends of what had been a web at the heart of Alsanis, and even as she did, her familiar finally withdrew his wing. He then shifted his head so his nose was pointed at Terrano.
“I know,” Kaylin replied. As the wing left her face, the shadow left her palm; her hands were once again normal hands.
“You are not fine,” Sedarias said. She returned the sword to Allaron, without pausing to make certain he was in place to take it, and stalked across the forest floor toward Terrano.
Terrano took a step back as she reached for his arm; Kaylin could only see Sedarias’s back. But as Terrano could see her face—which was, by Barrani standards, as expressive as the faces of most of the cohort—he stopped moving and allowed her to touch his wrist.
“We did not teach them this,” she said. She turned to Kaylin, her hand still wrapped around Terrano’s right wrist.
“I think you taught them that words have power,” Kaylin offered.
Sedarias did not looked pleased. She did not, however, look guilty, either. “You understand why.”
Kaylin did. She approached Terrano as well. “Yes. But my understanding—or not—doesn’t change the consequences. It never has.” She held out her palm, and Terrano examined it as if she were holding a live cockroach up for his inspection.
“Just let her examine you,” Sedarias told him; she released his wrist and folded her arms. “We’re about to have company. Significant company.”
He deflated. “I don’t want the Lady to see me.”
“I understand. I am not looking forward to this meeting with any great anticipation, either. She’s going to have questions.”
“Are you two talking about the Consort? Hand, Terrano.”
He grimaced and laid his palm against her own. It felt like a hand—a Barrani hand. “I don’t want you to change anything.”
“That’s not how healing works.”
“I saw what you did to the other Barrani. The Ferals.”
“No you didn’t—you were too busy talking to Teela.”
“Yes,” Sedarias said, “we were speaking of the Consort.”
“There’s no way she could reach us here—not in so little time.”
The two exchanged a glance.
“Not entirely safely, no.”
“Can you reach Mandoran, now?”
Sedarias nodded. “He is not the problem. Annarion is.”