How had she preserved the one rune from the Lake of Life that she had given, in the end, to Gilbert?
She had grabbed it. She had held it. She had placed it on the only easily exposed skin available: her forehead. The words she had forced herself to speak, with Tara as a crutch, had never been hers. The words that she had placed in the core of Helen were not words she’d spoken. They were not even words she had her own words to express.
She had a thing or two to say to the Ancients, none of it particularly polite. Why had they chosen someone to speak the remnants of their old stories when that person couldn’t speak the language?
Because, she thought, speaking it wasn’t necessary.
They were simultaneously her words, and yet not. She was part of their telling, but they were not, had never been, her story. She didn’t need to be anything other than what she was—whatever that was now. She fell silent, staring at the Arcanist. Loathing—and she really did hate Arcanists—fell silent, as well. She did not understand, and would probably never understand, the why of what he had attempted to do.
And it didn’t, at this moment, matter. She understood her own “why.” It was in this room: Teela. Tain. Bellusdeo. Maggaron. And yes, Annarion, Mandoran. The Arkon. Sanabalis. It was Severn and Kattea. Lirienne. The High Lord. Nightshade.
Even Ynpharion, although he despised her.
Beyond them, the Halls of Law. Marcus. His pridelea. Caitlin. Joey and the mother she felt she knew, although she’d never met the woman. The Hawklord. Marrin and her foundlings. Evanton. Helen.
The Emperor. Diarmat. She didn’t even grimace, thinking his name.
All the things she loved. All the things she hated. All of the people.
She reached out and caught the floating word at the heart of Gilbert’s eye in both of her unseen hands. If she understood what had happened, it was one of her words, anyway—one of the ones she carried as both responsibility and bane. She felt its edges as sharp, painful things; she felt the whole of its weight.
And then she turned toward the Arcanist, made hollow by his own action. Fractured by it, so that part of him was fighting Annarion, and possibly killing Dragons, while he somehow remained here. She whispered Severn’s name, over and over, listening for him. Listening for him as she’d listened for him for eight years of her childhood.
Hearing him in echoes, in fear, in hope. The other voices were there, but so muted, she could barely touch them.
It is different, the familiar said. You gave Severn your name.
She placed the word she carried against the forehead of the Arcanist. In the darkness of her closed eyes, the word seemed to melt into his forehead; its golden glow spread from there across the surface of his alabaster skin, changing white to something warmer, something that might actually be alive.
Kaylin! No!
She felt Severn’s panic—a sharp tug, an insistent, almost overwhelming pull.
Not yet. Not yet. It was gone before she had to fight it.
The Barrani Arcanist opened his eyes.
*
Barrani had beautiful eyes. She thought this without desire, without warmth. The length of his lashes, the color like a dusting of perfect snow; the width of his eyes and the shape of them; the placement across the bridge of an unbroken, perfect nose.
They were beautiful. They were nothing like her eyes.
And they were a shade of purple Kaylin seldom saw. Purple was the color of loss, of funereal grief; the Barrani offered it to very, very few.
Grief.
As his eyes widened, as his face took on lines of expression, they darkened as well, becoming a much, much more familiar midnight. She might have taken an involuntary step back—in part because it was the only smart thing she could do—but he began to fade from view almost before the color of his eyes had fully made the transition.
*
Kaylin. She felt the same visceral pull she’d felt the first time, but this time, she obeyed it. She had nothing left to fight with, and even if she did, she had no desire at all to fight.
*
She couldn’t see. She couldn’t see, and if she’d had the strength, she would have panicked. But Severn’s voice—no, all of the voices she’d gathered and touched—came rushing in, to fill the void left by darkness.
She could hear.
She felt heat above her upturned face; she felt stone—suspiciously warm stone—against her arms and chest, and remembered the stone bell. It was still now. It did not vibrate. Nor did she hear the oddly staccato voices of the three men.
She heard blades clashing, and then she remembered.