"Kaylin." Pause. "Elianne."
She could not look away. Her eyes seemed to lend shape and substance to the rune; to give it dimension that it hadn't possessed when it traveled the currents beneath the surface. It was waiting, she realized.
And she had no idea what it was waiting for.
Or rather, no idea she liked.
Two hands. One rune. A choice. But she'd made more than one damn choice on the path that led to this one. And she wanted to be around to make a lot more of them.
Severn's hands left her shoulder; the cold in the air could be felt as his absence. As the absence of all things that meant life to Kaylin. She wanted to cry out again, but the single scream was all she was afforded; her mouth would not open in anything that resembled speech.
She heard the tearing of cloth as if from a great distance and wondered dully if he'd finally given up and cut off the damn sleeves that were such a horrendous pain. If she ever daydreamed about finery again, she'd make a beeline for the bridge across the Ablayne and throw herself over it. It would be wet, it would hurt, and it would be far, far more practical.
He came back. He had never really left her. Even during the seven years after she'd fled the fief of Nightshade, he had never left; she'd just never felt his shadow, the comfort of his presence. Guilt had done that. Hers. His.
He caught her right wrist and she almost cried out a warning—but she was mute. She saw, however, that he held a strip of green silk in his hands. Mute satisfaction was better than none, and it was all she was going to get; he meant to bind the wound.
And the rune was in the way. She had thought the words attracted to blood, but this wasn't a great, fancy leech; it didn't absorb blood. It sat above it. She saw Kaylin in the rune, as if it had changed shape, had granted her a moment of familiarity. She saw, as well, Elianne, and heard the distant sound of Steffi's voice, felt the discomforting presence of Jade's silent suspicion. She felt Catti there, and saw her, red-haired and mutinous; saw Dock as well; saw a gleam of golden fur, and claws that were red with blood. Greater claws than that appeared next, appeared on top of the Leontine ones; she saw the jaws of a Dragon open so wide it could swallow the rune whole.
Without thinking, she pulled the rune up—and pulled her hand away from Severn before he could bind the wound he could see. She wasn't certain that the silk would pass through the rune; wasn't certain what would happen if the rune no longer touched her skin, her blood.
She heard screams of anger, of pain, of joy and of pure irritation; she felt the flight feathers of Clint's gray wings, and then, on those wings, the feel of the wind high above the city, near the southern stretch Clint called home.
She heard the Leontine vows she had been taught, and she almost said them; this was the closest she could come to speech. Some of it must have forced itself out because Severn touched her again.
But her eyes were wide and unblinking. She saw the fief of Nightshade. And the fief of Barren. She had spent six dark months there; she saw the deaths. The training. The other vows. Dark and sharp, the rune bit her hand again. A reminder.
Everything was here, in this shape, every little scrap of knowledge that memory couldn't contain so elegantly. Everything she was.
And she understood, in a way she had never understood, what a cage was: this. This word. And it had her name on it.
No. Worse than that, it was her name; she had chosen it, and it had taken her blood and her permission. It would become what she was, and she would bear it as scar and threat, as vulnerability and fear, for the rest of her life.
She had envied the Barrani. Anyone less beautiful than the Barrani always did—and that was pretty much anyone. She had envied them their forevers; had envied them their Hawks, their golden crests, which they could bear long past her dotage.
But she did not envy them now.
Choice. She closed her eyes again. There was too much of her life here, and she was living it all in brief flashes so intense they made her nauseated. The hate she had felt for herself, the contempt, the disgust, were brighter and clearer than they had been in—hours. Hours ago. When Severn had buried Steffi and Jade.
She lifted her right hand. What it held was now weightless, almost insubstantial. Closing her eyes because open eyes were infinitely worse, she brought the hand to her chest; the word was crushed against a part of her dress that she hadn't managed to rip, slash, bleed on or otherwise deface.
And she bled on it. And bled.
The sharp edge of the word cut her dress and her skin as if neither were of consequence. She understood that this was symbolic—but symbolic was something that involved long robes and funny hats, cheap wine and incense, stupid words repeated by people who were so accustomed to saying them they'd lost all meaning in the drone.
This was different; it was the root of symbol, the thing from which the branches grew, distinctly different from the powerless repetitions that might follow. Or even the powerful ones.
She accepted the choice. Accepted the irony in the Elantran translation. And she pressed the rune into her flesh, into her skin, into her heart. It was an act of suicide.
Or an act of birth.
The pain ebbed slowly as she drew her bloody hand back. She heard Severn swear. Words.
First words.
And she heard, blended with his syllables, the rush of his welcome worry, his obvious fear, another sound like the crash of thunder momentarily given sentience and voice.
Ellariayn.
Her name. Her true name.
By your choice you shall be known, she thought bitterly. And now, by her choice, she would be, and in a way that no mortal should ever be known.
Severn's hands touched her cheeks; they were wet. His eyes were dark, the same shade they had always been. His hands were gentle as he brushed the tears away.
"You've cut yourself," he told her softly, as if she had gone mad, or had come so close there was no other way to speak to her.
She nodded. Felt the weight of the word take root inside her, where no others had gained purchase. Or permission. And the words that were crawling up and down what had already been written on her arms stilled; they faded until she could no longer feel them.
Looking at Severn, she reached out to grab his hand; hers was ice. And smeared with blood. But he didn't seem to notice.
And her left hand? Weighted and heavy, she looked at it: It was empty. Whatever she felt, whatever she had pulled from the miasma, it was gone.
And it was not gone.
"Elianne," Severn whispered, stroking her face, calling her back.
It had once been her name. Kaylin had once been her name. She felt them as words—Elantran words—shorn of life or power. No, not power. There was power there: When Severn called, she looked up.
"Severn," she whispered. "What do you know of Barrani names? True names?"
He shook his head, drawing her close; she went into the hollow of chest and arm, and found shelter there. But not truth. She wanted to tell him. She'd never been good with secrets, and she was terrible with lies.
But the instinct that shut her mouth was older and stronger than either, and she said nothing at all.
Minutes passed, or hours; Severn was stroking the dirty mess of her hair; he was whispering something that made no sense, in the most quiet of his voices. She wanted the peace of the moment, and took it, High Halls be damned. She had seen too much, and this was the way she accepted it: in his arms. In that safety.
If safety was illusion, comfort was not.
"It's over," he told her. That's what he'd been saying. "It's over, Elianne. It's over."
She let him say it again and again until she half believed it. The wanting was stronger than the ability to have, but hadn't Severn himself said as much? She held on to it anyway.
And then, looking up from his chest, pulling herself a little way from the harbor of his arms, she looked at the only door in the room. "It is over," she told him quietly. "For now."
As it happened
, she was woefully optimistic.
Severn led her to the door, and she followed him, learning to walk again. Halfway there, he bent and removed her shoes. He didn't offer to carry her, and she wouldn't ask. What he carried instead, he did without physical effort, but it was more important. Well, except for the shoes.
They reached the door together, and to Kaylin's relief, it wasn't warded. It was a simple door, an elegant door, and engraved across the planks of its surface was a tall tree. Severn caught the door's handle—because it had to have one, missing the ward—and pulled it open.
Sunlight seen through the height of forest leaves fell at an angle through the open door, and the sound of soft music and softer voices drifted toward them.
So, too, did a breeze, and it carried the scent of food.
Kaylin's stomach did a sharp turn and grumble, which would normally embarrass her. She was beyond embarrassment.
Mostly.
But when she stepped through the open door, her hair mired in root-dirt, her nails a mix of blood and earth, her one whole sleeve resting above the slash made by dropped dagger, her torn sleeve exposed and ragged, she stopped. Beneath her feet was familiar stonework, and she could feel it all against the soles of bare feet; it was sun-warm and hard, but not so hard that she couldn't walk it with ease.
She looked around with a growing sense of dread.
And found herself in the center of the circle of the Lord of the High Court, somewhere about three feet to the left of his seat.
There should have been noise.
Or shouting.
There should have been surprise, or at least consternation. Guards should have drawn swords. Barrani should have sneered or looked down their noses or said something. Anything. At all.
But as Severn joined her, standing by her side in such a way that his shadow covered her, she realized that they were all watching the Lord of the High Court. Every single one of them. Kaylin had often been in crowded, large rooms; she'd carried words that caused surprise or shock. She'd watched that surprise spread, like the ripples around a stone dropped in still water, but even when it didn't, it never shut everyone up; there was always a child, a buffoon or a man too deep in his cups to notice the Hawks were there.
This attention was therefore entirely unnatural, and it made her nervous. The fact that she was underdressed in the extreme didn't seem to have caught anyone's attention. And it should have. It should have been either a joke or an insult.
She looked at Severn. He did not touch her with anything but his eyes; those eyes were slightly narrowed. A silent reminder that she wasn't among friends. As if she needed it.
And maybe she did. She felt disoriented. The High Circle
looked strange to her eyes, as if the luminous and magical light that mimed the sun had increased both in brilliance and the multiplicity of its colors; as if it fell on one thing more heavily than the object just beside it. She wanted to talk to Severn. She wanted to ask him if he saw what she saw.
To ask him anything, really. To hear the sound of his voice. Because she knew that sound; knew all of the variants of it. Knew its weight, its seriousness and its mockery. He offered her silence instead, and his silences had never been so comfortable or predictable.
The Lord of the High Court rose from his seat beneath the bowers of the central tree. He trailed odd light, and his expression was not so sharp as it had been; it was as if he stood in mist, or was of it. Kaylin wanted to slap herself; she felt like she'd been drinking a shade too much.
Well, where a shade meant several hours' worth.
He turned to Kaylin, and to Severn, and he studied them in silence for what seemed far too long. He did not speak.
The woman by his side, the silent slender woman, came to stand beside him, facing Severn. She touched her Lord's arm, and he looked to her; their eyes met. They were an odd shade, an almost unfamiliar color. Pale blue. But then again, her hair was pale and fine, as unlike Barrani hair as human hair would seem.
It was the Consort who spoke first. "Lord Kaylin," she said quietly, and then, "Lord Severn." And she inclined her head. "The Lord and Lady of the High Court greet you and bid you welcome to the Circle. Take your place."
She was speaking in High Barrani. She might as well have spoken in Dragon, for all the sense she made. Except that she did make sense. Dim sense. Political sense.
Kaylin had failed politics at least once, but the failure there—the profound inability to recall the right dates or names—had been theoretical; confined to scratches on board or paper, and the weary disapproval of a Master of the Halls of Law.
Here, it was worse. But here, she was willing to try a hell of a lot harder. She bowed to the Lord of the High Court, and then bowed, more deeply, to his Consort. At this, a whisper did rise among the Barrani, but it was like the sound of wind in leaves; she couldn't pinpoint its source.
"You have been tested by the High Halls," the Consort told her almost gently. "And you have returned to us." Her words were formal, and they should have been stiff—but they weren't. There was an odd warmth in her expression, something that spoke of kinship and secrets. Then again, everything about the Barrani spoke of secrets. Especially on the rare occasions they claimed not to have any.
She straightened, feeling every inch of dirt that had been ground permanently into her dress. That, the blood on her hand, the blood on her chest, and the ragged half sleeve, finally hit home, and she almost winced, looking down at herself.
But the Consort said, "The Barrani have that effect on humans. Were you to arrive at this tree wearing nothing but scars, you would still be worthy of honor. That you have arrived at all is a story that will be told long after you have gone the way of mortals." Her smile was not unfriendly. Which was shocking in and of itself.
As if those words were a signal, the Barrani were suddenly free of their strange paralysis. The first to approach Kaylin was the Lord of the West March. And by his side, Andellen and Samaran. She almost forgot to breathe, seeing them here, in the High Court; the Lord of the High Court had been very, very specific about their duties. And the value of their lives.
But if his word was law—and it was, here; there was no other—he seemed neither surprised nor ill pleased; he offered no expression at all.
Andellen bowed to her.
"You said you'd wait by the arch," she hissed. She couldn't help herself. Her brows, she was certain, had disappeared into the unruly mess of her dirty hair.
His expression was grave, but his eyes were brown. Entirely brown. They almost looked human.
"Lord Kaylin," he replied. If she expected an excuse or an explanation, it wasn't going to come from him. It occurred to her that Samaran had no place at all in the High Court. It must have occurred to Samaran as well; his eyes were blue. But he showed no fear and no hesitation as he offered his respect—and possibly his envy—to Kaylin and Severn.
The Lord of the West March offered her a bow as deep, but he held it longer. When he rose, he smiled, and his eyes, green, were ringed with the same brown that had changed Andellen's eyes. "There is only one place to wait," he told her quietly, "when the trial has been undertaken. And it is here, in the heart of the High Circle
, at the feet of the Lord of the High Court."
"You were granted your freedom of the High Halls," he said gravely, "by the Lord of the High Court himself. And the laws that bind the test are older than he. He will not visit judgment upon your guards."
"But—" She looked into the crowd. Saw Teela. Saw, beside Teela, Lord Evarrim. She expected Lord Evarrim to argue; saw by the cast of his features that he had no argument to give. His expression was neither cold nor warm, and he was just distant enough that she couldn't see the color of his eyes.
Or shouldn't have been able to. But they were blue.
Teela's were a blue-green, a pale blue, and flecked with gold.
"If you were not to be offered the opportunity," the Lord of the West March told her, "to undergo the rite, you would nev
er have found the tower. We do not speak of these things to outsiders," he added, "but you are no longer an outsider.
"And the High Halls are yours to wander now, at the pleasure of the Lord of the High Court."
She didn't understand.
She looked at Andellen because he seemed to, but he offered her nothing to hold on to. As if this, too, were a test. Then again, he was a Barrani; it could just be malice. But his eyes were brown. Approval.
"You have missed the meal," the Lord of the West March told her quietly, "but food will be brought."
"Food will be brought," he repeated, with just a little more force.
She smiled brightly, and saw Teela wince.
What she really wanted was a bath, a change of clothes, a bed and about a week's sleep. But she was going to have to settle for food.
Before the food came music. It started everywhere, as if it were part of the light, but it coalesced, at last, into instruments held by two Barrani; they were draped in a pale sky-blue, and their hair was braided and fell almost to the stones of the circle. They looked like twins. It had been a long time since Barrani had looked like twins to Kaylin's eyes, and she wondered, then, if they really were.
But their music was pleasant, even soothing, and they added no words to mar it; the strings of their small harps seemed to speak of peace, and only peace; of repose, of the small joys that came at the end of a successful journey.
Barrani songs were usually high tragedy or dark lay; she expected that they would get around to those sooner or later, and profoundly hoped for a later that didn't include her.
But as she sat—beside the throne itself—she felt her stomach's familiar grumble, and winced. Food, when it came, came in the hands of other Barrani—tall and proud and dressed like Lords or Ladies. They carried thin platters and fine goblets; they carried slender-necked bottles, and fruit—peaches, berries, brown furry things that she hoped weren't actually alive. They set these on the ground around her; there was no table, and there were no implements of destruction.
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