Cast in Sorrow

Chapter 17

The small dragon whiffled.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“You were, of course, talking to yourself again. What have I told you about that?” Teela came to stand by her side; she didn’t touch the stone. Her hands were loosely clasped behind her back.

“People will doubt my sanity.”

Teela nodded. “Unless you happen to be the Arkon.”

“In which case it’s irrelevant.”

Teela’s smile was stiff, but genuine. “Yes. What, specifically, don’t you understand?”

“This is the heart of the green. But—it’s not very green.”

“No.”

“Was it always like this?”

“It has been like this for a long time.”

“Which is a no.”

“Kitling, honestly, if I could pack you up and send you home—with any hope that you’d arrive in more or less one piece—I would. No. In my childhood, it was not.”

“What did it look like then?”

“The trees bore leaves. The fountain was active; it was similar to the fountain in the courtyard of the Lord’s hall—but it was, in all ways, more impressive.” Her lips curved in a strange smile as she lifted her face. “The water spoke. Not often, not reliably, and not always in a language that the pilgrims could understand—but its voice...”

Kaylin thought of the Tha’alaan.

“Sometimes, the water offered glimpses of past history—again, it was not reliable; one could not simply ask. But on quiet days, the waters in the basin grew still, no matter how strong the breeze in the greenheart, and images would form; they were like—and unlike—our Records in the Halls of Law. We could not ask.”

“Why is the water gone? If the fountain in the Lord’s hall—”

“A question you should never ask in Lord Avonelle’s hearing.”

“That is a question that An’Teela has asked before,” Lord Barian said. He joined them, his arm bent and lifted, the eagle upon it.

Neither Teela’s expression, nor her posture, changed—but she wasn’t happy to be standing so close to the Warden. “I was a child,” she replied.

“Yes. Too young to be tested, and yet, An’Teela, you were.”

“And did I pass the test?” Her smile was bitter.

“You are here. Your enemies are not. You survived the test of the High Halls. You are a Lord of the High Court, and a Lord of the Vale; you are the head of your line. In any way that success is defined by most of our kin, you are successful.”

Funny. To Kaylin, it sounded like a no.

“Will you answer your kyuthe’s question?”

“I have no doubt,” the Barrani Hawk said, in a familiar drawl, “that she will plague me until she gets her answers, one way or another. I am honestly surprised that I have not yet strangled her.”

Barian surprised Kaylin. He laughed. Given the slight lift of Teela’s brows, she wasn’t the only one. “And I am not kyuthe, although we are cousins. I will not depend upon your obvious affection to preserve my life.”

“My apologies, cousin.” Teela’s voice was soft. “You are your mother’s son.”

“Ah, yes. A plague upon ambitious parents, then?”

Teela closed her eyes. “And a plague, of a different kind, upon their children.” She shook herself. “You will bespeak the wards, Warden?”

Barian nodded, withdrawing—as Teela had done—while standing in place. “Will you remain with us?” He spoke, of course, to the eagle.

“We must,” he replied. “For now.”

Kaylin frowned. “You said two of the wards would hear us.”

“Yes.”

“And there are two of you. Is that a coincidence?”

“No, Chosen.”

“Why are the wards inactive?”

“The green is wounded,” the eagles replied.

“The green has been wounded since—” She bit her lip and managed to stop the rest of the words from falling out. She couldn’t stop the pit of her stomach from dropping to somewhere around her knees.

“The wound is bleeding now,” the eagles said. They didn’t mention how or why, for which Kaylin was grateful. “But wounds must bleed if they are to heal; they must be acknowledged.”

“The green isn’t a body.”

“Is it not?” The eagles conferred briefly, and then said, “It loves, Chosen, and it grieves; it breathes and it knows the passage of seasons; it sleeps and it dreams; it bleeds. In its fashion, it knows time, and you have invited time to return.”

“I didn’t—” So much for grateful. Every eye—every eye—was now turned toward her.

The eagles tilted their heads. “Is it not true that there is no change without time?”

“I don’t—”

“And there is no healing without time?”

“Yes, but—”

“Time is therefore essential.”

“Can I finish a sentence?”

“It is time,” they said, ignoring the question. “Time, at last. An’Teela has returned, Chosen, and the blood of the green flows.”

Kaylin turned to the Warden; the Warden was pale, even for a Barrani. He stared—at her. “What have you done?” His voice was a whisper.

Teela, however, laughed. It was a wild, low sound. “This is not the first time I have come to the heart of the green. I have come as harmoniste; I have worn the blood of the green. I have survived—and my presence changed nothing.”

“No, An’Teela. It is neither the first nor the second time. It is, at last, the third. Warden, we will hold the wards. You must ask Lord Kaylin to bespeak the water.”

Kaylin’s eyes widened; she was certain her brows had disappeared permanently into her hairline. “There’s no water here.”

The eagle said, “No. That is why you must bespeak it, Chosen.”

Teela lifted a hand to the bridge of her nose.

Kaylin exhaled and—as quietly as she could—said, “At least you’re not bored.”

“You have almost singlehandedly convinced me that boredom is not the worst of all possible fates.”

“Why is the water necessary? It wasn’t before. If I understand what’s happened here, you’ve held the recitations for, oh, centuries without water.”

They waited for her to make her point. As she felt she’d pretty much made it, she surrendered. “I have no idea how to, as you put it, bespeak the water.”

“You have spoken to the water.”

“I’ve spoken to the water in the courtyard because it happened to be there.” She dropped her hand into the curved, smooth stone basin. “You’ll notice the big difference?”

“If you wish to locate the Lady, you will not hear the answer if it is given. You must wake the water, Chosen.”

The Lord of the West March met Lord Barian’s gaze. When he turned to Kaylin, she saw no rescue from either quarter; she saw hope, and it was painful. “If the dreams of Alsanis believe you are capable of this, there must be a reason for it.”

“I’m only barely able to light a candle. I— If I could summon water, I might—might—be able to do as they ask, but I won’t be able to do that for years. If ever.” She exhaled. “If Evarrim summons water, I might be able to speak with the elemental. It happened with the fire he summoned.”

“Lord Evarrim is gravely injured.” Lirienne had quietly joined them. “Before you ask, there was only one other who could do what you require.“

“Iberrienne.”

“Indeed.”

For obvious reasons, that wasn’t going to cut it. Kaylin turned to the dreams of Alsanis, who were watching her with unflagging intensity. She wondered if they ever blinked. “Activate the wards.” She frowned, and added, “You can activate the wards without the waters, right?”

“Yes, Chosen.”

“Then activate them, and we’ll see where we go from there.”

Teela’s arms were tightly folded across her chest, a posture she almost never adopted, at least at work. Her eyes were—no surprise—blue. She stood at Kaylin’s side, although she watched as the eagles finally left their Barrani perches. They headed toward the two trees that Kaylin privately thought of as firewood. They landed on the dry, leafless branches and looked down at the gathered Barrani.

And then, of course, they began to sing.

The small dragon perked up, sat up, and opened his mouth as if to join them; he was far too close to Kaylin’s ear. “If you want to sing, do it in the sky. I apparently need my hearing. It’s a job requirement.”

He bit her ear, but surprised her by pushing off her shoulder; he took to the air above the empty basin, and hovered there. The basin was between the two trees. It was, she thought, exactly in the center.

She watched, glancing between the two eagles and their respective perches. She couldn’t see wards or runes, but none of the Barrani appeared too concerned with their absence. As she continued to wait, she discovered why: the trees themselves began to glow. The light was a faint gray—at least to start—and it spread from the eagles to the branches they inhabited. But as it spread from the first branch to the trunk, it grew in brilliance and in color, until the whole of the tree was glowing.

It was a golden glow that was familiar to Kaylin; it was one of the colors her marks took on at unpredictable times.

She glanced at Teela; Teela didn’t look even vaguely surprised; nor did she look worried. “Are all of the wards trees?”

“No, but many of them are. Would I be wasting breath if I counseled caution?”

Kaylin nodded absently as she walked toward a tree. The Barrani made way for her, which was unusual enough that she should have been surprised. But she was focused on the problem at hand. She saw no runes and no writing anywhere around the trunk of the tree; nor did they become visible when she craned her head up.

She examined the second tree in the same way, with the same results. The small dragon squawked at her from above, which was a small improvement over the ear-biting, if she ignored the large Barrani audience.

“Lord Barian, are these wards now considered active?”

“They are not wards in the modern sense of the word,” he replied.

“Meaning?”

“They allow the green to exist in a stable state. Without the wards, crossing the green is a difficult task; it is like—and unlike—the journey through the portal paths.”

“But we were here.”

“The dreams of Alsanis led us here.”

“So—they’re not like door wards in any way?”

“No.”

“Good.” Kaylin reached out her left arm and placed her left palm very firmly on the nearest section of trunk.

Nothing happened. Her palm felt warm—not hot, and not itchy—but warm. She looked up, peering into the crowd, and met Teela’s steady, blue gaze. It got bluer. In Aerian, Kaylin said, “I don’t think we’ll find the Consort in time, Teela. I don’t understand the green. I don’t understand the regalia. I don’t understand what happened the day you were brought here with eleven other children.

“But I get that they mean for you to be involved, even if you’re not the Teller or the harmoniste. We don’t figure this out, we don’t find her. I know you can survive a lot longer than I can without food—and without heat or air, as well—but a lot longer is not all that significant.”

In Aerian, Teela replied. “The green doesn’t react to me the way it reacts to anyone else here.”

“Join the club.”

Teela’s lips twitched. “If you have cause to regret this, you’re not blaming me.”

“Not for that, no.” Kaylin’s frown was a very familiar expression in the office. “But I have to ask you: Are you getting paid for this leave of absence?”

Teela headed toward the far tree without answering the question.

That was well-done, kyuthe.

What was?

Not one man here—or woman—could achieve what you have just achieved. Please tell me that it was not done in ignorance.

Kaylin said nothing. She felt Lord Lirienne’s amusement, but it was slight; beneath it, worry, anger, and very real fear made ready to swallow it whole. He didn’t attempt to hide these things from her; he hid them from his kin because he was Lord of the West March.

Kaylin placed her palm against the tree bark for a second time. She did so while facing the other tree. Teela approached it without obvious hesitation, and when she was standing in pretty much the same position that Kaylin was, she nodded. Lifting her arm—her right arm—she placed her palm firmly against the tree’s trunk, as well.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened until the small dragon suddenly shrieked, folded his wings, and dropped in a dead man’s dive toward the center of a solid stone basin. Kaylin froze, her eyes rounding, her jaw dropping; she forgot to breathe.

“Kitling!”

Kaylin looked up; she saw Teela’s eyes; the color unmistakable even at this distance: they were gold.

The small dragon didn’t strike the stone basin and splat against it. He passed through it. He passed through it as if it were liquid. She pulled her hand from the tree and ran for the basin, lifting the skirts of her dress, although the dress had never impeded movement.

She stopped herself by running into the basin’s lip.

“Kaylin.”

She looked up. She looked up to see Teela—and only Teela. Every other person in the clearing had disappeared. Teela casually detached herself from the tree and headed toward Kaylin.

“Can you see anyone else?” Kaylin asked her as she drew close.

“Besides you?” Teela spoke Elantran.

“Besides me.”

“No.”

“Well, at least we’re on the same page.”

“We probably won’t be if you aren’t more careful. Are you trying to bash your face in?”

“What? No. I’m trying to see where the dragon went.”

“I’m sure he’ll find us.”

“Oh? How?”

“He’s enough of a pain it might be convenient if he stayed away. It’s the way my luck has generally worked.”

Kaylin snorted. She looked at the clearing. The heart of the green hadn’t appreciably changed; it was still definitively not-green. The trees, however, were no longer glowing.

Lirienne? Nightshade?

Silence.

“I don’t suppose there are any convenient doors?”

“Not that I can see,” Teela replied. She stretched her arms and yawned; she looked incredibly feline. “But we might as well start looking. My guess is that this is as much of an invitation as we’re going to get. You are going to explain what the dreams said, right?”

“Which part?”

“The part about bleeding. Or rather, the ‘bleeding now.’”

“Oh, that part.” Kaylin winced. “When we hit the tunnels to escape the attackers, we came to a giant, underground trunk. I mean, tree trunk. With roots the size of a small building. Did you see that when you were there?”

Teela was dead silent. It was the wrong silence, but with Teela, it often was. “What makes you think that I’ve been in those tunnels?”

“Well, Serian said...something. I don’t know. I got the impression that everyone in the West March had seen them.”

“The inferences you draw from a few words would cause most people to shut up forever. Not every citizen of the West March has had cause to seek the judgment of the green. It is not a guarantee of survival, and only when they face certain death—or worse—will they surrender to it.”

“And you—”

“No. I have—I had—my own reasons. This is the first time since the end of my childhood that I have willingly surrendered anything to the green.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re an idiot,” she replied. “I should have known. The moment Nightshade attempted to make his deal, I should have known.”

“I don’t think Nightshade—”

“Don’t think he what? You don’t think he planned this? You don’t think he manipulated you into the position you now hold?”

“Teela—how could he? The green chooses. He couldn’t have known that the green would choose me. He couldn’t have known that you’d be here. He certainly couldn’t have guessed that the Consort would choose this bloody recitation to visit.”

“He knew some part of what Iberrienne intended.”

“I don’t think Iberrienne understood what Iberrienne intended.” Kaylin bit her lip. “But it’s all tied up in the past, isn’t it? Iberrienne lost someone here. I thought—I thought Iberrienne was younger. He’s not, is he? He lost someone. Nightshade lost someone. You lost—”

“Yes.” Teela started to pace. She disguised this by pacing in a straight line; Kaylin fell in beside her. Their stride and the even, slow fall of their steps were pure groundhawk.

“How long were you with them?”

“Pardon?”

“I thought—I thought you were all chosen and brought here together.”

“We were.”

“But you weren’t just thrown together before you came.”

“No.” Teela exhaled. “Kitling, you don’t like to talk about your past much. You spent years of your life not talking about it.”

Kaylin nodded.

“We knew that your mother had died, that you had grown up in Nightshade. We didn’t know every detail of your life between the time your mother died to the time you became our mascot.”

“No.”

“We don’t know it all now.”

“Teela—”

“And we don’t ask, because it doesn’t matter to us. Can you not do the same?”

They walked what would have been a city block before Kaylin replied. “I would—”

“That’s not a yes.”

“I would, Teela—but I think it does matter. It doesn’t matter to me. You’re Teela. You’re always going to be the person who broke my first chair—”

“It was a shoddy piece of furniture.”

“You broke my first lock, too.”

“I replaced that.”

“And the bed?”

“I only broke the slats.” Teela glanced at Kaylin, and added, “But I take your point.”

“I think the green is worried about you.”

Teela said nothing.

“The Hallionne, too. At least the ones who talked to me.” She hesitated. She thought, now, that part of the reason she’d been given the role of harmoniste—and the dress that went with it—was not her role as Chosen, but her friendship with Teela. “I don’t know what you understand. If you told me that you understood what the green intended—and why—I’d leave it alone. I would.”

Teela gave her a look that defined the word skeptical. “I’ll allow that you’d try.” She stopped walking. “And to be fair, I don’t understand it myself.”

“Do you want to?”

“You’re remarkably perceptive today.” Teela exhaled sharply. “I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the past—because for me, the minute I start, it’s not the past. It’s the disadvantage of immortal memory. None of the edges are dulled—and none of the pain. We hold long grudges,” she added. “Your kin can’t. What you think of as a grudge might last a year. Or six months. Or even a decade. That is not a long grudge for the Barrani.

“It takes effort to be here, kitling. It takes effort to see the West March as it is now, and not to walk it as it was then. Every memory of then leads to one place.” She smiled. It was not a happy expression. “We spent more than a decade together. We lived and trained together. We were young. Even the Barrani are young at one point—but youth is such a tiny fraction of our lives. We dreamed,” she added. “We dreamed of being heroes. Of saving our people. Of defeating the Dragon flights. We dreamed that we would one day be called upon to wield our people’s legendary weapons.

“And we knew that we had been chosen. Each and every one of us. We fancied ourselves the best and the brightest of our kind. We were meant to be powers, Kaylin.”

Kaylin understood what power meant to the Barrani. She said nothing.

“I could tell you their names. I can remember what they looked like, and when. We were...more open. Less cautious. Youth often is.” Her smile deepened. “My childhood was not like yours. I understand that in many ways, I lacked the fears that drove your mother, and you, in the fiefs. I had food. I had shelter. I had the relative safety of my lineage. We all did.

“Perhaps because of that, we could dream in ways you didn’t. I don’t know. But we promised that we would thrive, Kaylin. That we would survive. That we would hold true to our beginnings when the wars were at last ended—we would not fall upon each other. We would not war against each other, not even in the name of our kin.” She shook her head. “Such are the follies of childhood. I do not know if we would have held true to those vows.

“I was not the leader of our group. That was Sedarias. She was everything that neither I nor the Consort can be—even when young. She was cool, collected, perfect; her poise was terrifying. She could, with very little effort, pass for adult; of the twelve of us, she garnered the most praise. She understood politics, and the undercurrents of both power and weakness; she understood desire and how to manipulate it. She understood standing, status. I would say that compared to most of the mortals I’ve met, any Barrani child would be considered sophisticated—but even among our kin, there are standouts.

“But it was Sedarias who suggested the vow; Sedarias who first made it. Perhaps she meant to bind us to her; perhaps it would have worked over the centuries. I don’t know. But she made the vow, and then asked that we respond in kind. She told us that she believed holding true to that vow was simply a matter of will, of power, of intent.

“We were, of course, the children of the powerful. We understood what was intended for us. But Sedarias—and Eddorian—were suspicious.”

“Not you?”

Teela laughed. Or tried. “No. I told you—I wanted it. I wanted to be worthy of my father’s regard and respect. I wanted to be what he wanted. But—I was young. I liked the vow, kitling. I liked the idea of forging unbreakable bonds with the only peers, the only friends, I had.”

Kaylin missed a step. Given that the ground was totally flat, and mostly dirt, she had no excuse, and Teela noticed immediately.

“What connection have you just made?”

“It’s just...I can’t imagine even Barrani children thinking that promises could be unbreakable.”

“No.”

“Teela—”

There was so much pain beneath the surface of Teela’s oddly gentle smile. “No, kitling. Not even the children we were could believe in a simple, spoken vow.”

“Teela—what did you do?”

“Show me your hand.”

Kaylin lifted her left hand and opened it for Teela’s inspection.

Teela said, “Mandoran. We called him Manny; he mostly hated it.”

“You can...read...the name.”

“Yes, kitling.”

“But—but—”

“Yes. In theory, it means they could read mine.” She lifted her face to the skies, to the sunlight that fell from no sun. “But only if it had meaning to them. They are not what they were. I call them, Kaylin. I called them then. They did not hear me. They can’t speak the name I gave them.” She reached out and touched Kaylin’s open palm. “And now, I think I understand why.” She exhaled again and looked at the landscape. There was a lot of dirt, and very, very little in the way of foliage; even the dead, standing trees were absent. “This is not getting us anywhere.”

“What happened when you were chosen as harmoniste?”

Teela stared into the vast and empty nothing for a long moment. She turned back in the direction they’d come from—if it was the same direction. They’d walked some distance, but even so, the trees should have been visible. They weren’t, of course. At this particular moment, Kaylin didn’t care.

“I had avoided the West March; I had avoided the green. It was the locus of so many of my losses. I lost my childhood, my friends, and the mother whose love I had always trusted. I lost my father in a different way. We are not—any of us—adept at facing the first loss.

“My father did not trust me—but that is as it should be, in the end. Most of the Lords you will meet who are the heads of their lines became so only after the deaths of their parents. Many of those deaths occurred during the Dragon wars—but some were suspicious, regardless. And that, too, is an accepted part of succession.

“It is not accepted among your kind; when it is done, it is hidden, kitling. It is considered both shameful and a crime. But you have that luxury—your parents will die. They will age into their dotage. They will loosen their grip on the reins of power because they have no choice. Were you all to live forever? I do not believe that you would be so very different from my people.”

“Less beautiful, less strong, and less graceful.”

“Of course. I did not care that my father did not trust me,” she added. “I considered it wisdom. But I could not afford the suspicion of the other Lords. And so, in time, I took the risk of returning to the West March, to face the past and all its barbs and losses, and to prove that I was stronger than my pain.” She walked more quickly, and Kaylin had to work to keep up.

“And I did.”

“What was the story?”

“The story?”

“You were harmoniste.”

Teela nodded.

“You were—I’m—supposed to take the strands of story from the Teller.”

“Yes.”

“There was a Teller.”

“Yes. You don’t get a story, kitling. You get disparate parts of a thousand stories. You get fragments, you get names and places and small items—it’s like having a hail of rocks thrown in your direction. You have to survive the hits; you have to catch enough of the rocks that you can build something from them. While being hit. It’s not trivial. I was arrogant,” she added. “I was full of defiance, rage, loss. I don’t know if that affected what I could hear or see; I don’t know if that affected the pieces I chose, the direction I took.

“But I survived, kitling. I was not transformed; nor, to my eye, were any of the very few participants that year.” This was said with a much sharper smile.

“Teela—what did you do?”

“I listened. I listened, I watched. I wanted to hear their names again. Their names were lost here. Everything about them was. I wanted to hear them call mine again. Just that.”

“But Terrano recognized you.”

“Yes.”

“He was on the road. He was with the Ferals.”

“Yes, Kaylin. Yes. He was there, and he was everything I remembered. Everything—but I could not reach him. And he couldn’t reach me. He had memories. But not—not what we promised. Not what we gave each other.” She frowned. “I think,” she said softly, “that that’s where we need to go.” She pointed.

Kaylin’s eyes were not Barrani eyes. She squinted. But she couldn’t make out what Teela could. Not until they had walked at least another mile.

She did stop, then. It was, to her eye, a pit.