“Have you ever been in the outlands?” Kaylin shouted.
“I wandered the heart of the shadows.”
“I don’t think it’s the same.”
“No.” Bellusdeo sucked in air. Ynpharion had time to shout a warning before he was thrown clear with a metallic clang; no one could see what struck him. Bellusdeo tensed, clenching her jaw; she fell silent. The Consort raised her voice; the ancestor attempted to speak over her. Both spoke deliberately, slowly, evocatively—but the ancestor was doing it on the move. He was fighting on two fronts, one of which couldn’t be seen.
Kaylin felt another surge of magic; she could almost hear Evarrim’s voice. It was weak, attenuated—and she wasn’t at all certain it was because he was out of phase. She looked up to see her familiar flying in a tight circle over the edge of the basin in which the fighting was taking place.
I cannot, he told her, before she could ask, go to your Evarrim. Not without you. And you serve as anchor for your Consort. Evarrim will not be fighting alone for much longer.
Kaylin frowned. She started to ask what he meant.
The shouted WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BROTHER? told her all she needed to know. Annarion had arrived. She looked across the basin to Teela, but Teela was occupied; her cheek was bleeding, and she had drawn her left arm to her side. She could wield the sword one-handed, but was wielding it far more defensively than she had been. It was a greatsword. If she was aware of Annarion’s presence, she said—and did—nothing that indicated it.
The ancestor stumbled; Severn’s chain seemed to actually clip his arm; sparks flew.
“Teela! Is Annarion with Evarrim?”
“Yes!”
From the heights, another net fell. It had about the same effect as the first; strands were cut before they landed. This time, Kaylin watched where they fell. The netting wasn’t rope; it was metallic. It didn’t ensnare the ancestor; nor did it trap Teela or Severn. It hit the ground and lay there like a necklace snapped and lost in transit.
White fire leaped across the pit; red fire followed. The fire had come from Bellusdeo. She could, apparently, breathe and maintain a spell at the same time. Her eyes were—and had been since her arrival—crimson-red. They still weren’t as disturbing as the Arkon’s.
“How much longer?” Bellusdeo shouted at Kaylin.
Kaylin looked at the visible words. There were fewer than there had been when Kaylin had started to gather them; they were less substantial to the eye—or at least to hers. Kaylin was certain the Consort could see them. She thought that the Arkon might. “You can’t see them?”
“No.”
“Keep up the protections you’re casting—whatever they are—and I think we’ll be clear to move—” which meant pulling up stakes and fleeing as quickly as humanly possible, “in maybe five minutes. Whatever the ancestor is doing, he’s not as strong as the Consort.”
Bellusdeo snorted. Loudly. With smoke.
“It’s not as strong as what she’s doing with the words. Better?” She looked at the Dragon and added, “You fractured something.”
“I didn’t fracture it. Blame the ground or the ancestor. Don’t even think it. I can stand. I can’t run. I can’t fight well. But I am not mortal. I am not frail.”
“Your wing—”
“Yes. And it cost you, Kaylin. You would have made a terrible, terrible soldier. If we lose here, it’s the battle—and quite possibly the war. I can’t do what you’re doing—whatever it is. Do not weaken yourself further until it’s done.”
“And if I—”
“I’ll heal.” The second syllable in the sentence expanded into a roar.
She would. She would, Kaylin thought. She looked up to see Teela and Severn. They had both taken injuries in Helen’s dining room; Teela’s left arm looked broken now. But they moved as if injuries were minor insults—there, but not life-defining. Not life-ending. Tain was not injured—not yet; he formed most of the offense. He was wearing the Hawk and it glittered in the light of multiple spells. His eyes, at this distance, were black, as if the pupil had expanded to take up all the space.
Above them, a third net fell—a third, final net. The Aerians were far fewer in number, and Kaylin felt her throat constrict. At this distance, she could see the Hawklord. She could see Clint. She could see—of all people—Moran.
If I don’t make it, they will.
It brought her a peculiar peace, a little bit of calm. She was very, very tired.
“Kaylin—” Bellusdeo shifted in place; Kaylin felt an arm slide around—and under—her shoulders. She heard a soft Leontine curse—Leontine, from a Dragon. “You idiot.”
She was. She knew it.
“Do you think you’re invulnerable?”
Kaylin shook her head. Or Bellusdeo shook her; the motion was similar.
“Lady,” Bellusdeo said, to the Consort. “Are you finished?”
She was. Kaylin could see proof of it in the ancestor, whose movements had slowed. He was still far faster than she was; he was still stronger than the Dragons in their human forms.
The Consort’s voice receded. She turned for the first time since she’d arrived. “Yes, Lord Bellusdeo. I am in your debt.”
“It is never wise to accrue the debt of the Barrani—or so it is said.”
The Consort’s smile was tired, but sharp. “You understand.”
“Lannagaros!” Bellusdeo roared. She lifted Kaylin bodily and, to Kaylin’s humiliation, hoisted her up onto her left shoulder.
The Arkon was silent.
“We need a lift!” Bellusdeo spoke in Elantran. She moved to the edge of the basin, grimacing at the climb; she walked slowly.
The Arkon appeared at the edge of the basin—in his human form. He was, to Kaylin’s shock, bleeding; his forehead was scored, and his cheek; his armor—like Bellusdeo’s—was dented. It was worse. But his eyes were only crimson, now. “I am not,” he said, “capable of carrying you all at the moment; I do not think I could even lift Private Neya.” He glanced beyond them, his smile sharpening.
“But I do not think we need fear the ancestor anymore.” He gestured, his hands grasping air and twisting it sharply, as if the air were somehow solid.
Kaylin could only barely turn her head. “Bellusdeo, put me down.”
“Don’t,” the Arkon said, before Bellusdeo could properly ignore her. “Lady. It is time to leave.”
Ynpharion?
I am alive. I was thrown some distance, and I believe my leg is broken. I am, if the Dragon is concerned, out of the area of effect.
What area of— Oh. The nets.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Speed is to be desired,” the Arkon added, in a pinched voice very much like his library voice.
Kaylin turned her head, which was difficult, given how she was being carried. “Teela and Severn are still fighting him!”
“Yes.”
“If it’s not safe for us we can’t leave them—”
“Private.”
“Bellusdeo—put me down.”
Bellusdeo did as Kaylin asked. But not until she had climbed up to stand by the Arkon’s side. She kept one hand on Kaylin’s arm as Kaylin turned toward the pit.
“Corporal!” someone shouted. The Hawklord. There were three corporals standing in the ice and stone of the ruined street, fighting. Only one of them looked up: Tain. “Now!”
Tain drove his sword into the ridged, malformed stone on which he’d been standing.
The strands of cut netting that lay across the ground like scattered decorations began to glow. To glow, Kaylin thought, and to move. They reminded her of smaller, finer versions of Severn’s weapon chain; they were delicate, and—as the ancestor had already demonstrated—easy to sever. She turned to the Arkon; he appeared to be sweating
. Kaylin couldn’t recall ever seeing a Dragon sweat before. His hands were out, palms toward the ground, fingers bent—and moving.
He reminded her, in that moment, of a puppeteer.
And the chains responded as if he were; they rose like slender, flashing snakes, twisting and spinning in place. Fire bounced off them, as it did off Severn’s chain. Severn had one. The chains on the ground, finer and more fragile, were many. Tain shouted Severn’s name, and Severn shook his head; his own chain was in motion. Kaylin understood that he meant to retreat, and that he meant Tain to grab Teela and make a run for it.
Since grabbing Teela without her express permission or desire was courting a different kind of death, and the Hawklord was shouting orders, Tain settled for second best: he caught her, shifted his grip and tossed her over the edge of the basin that fire and magic had formed.
He then leaped up himself. This left Severn. Only Severn.
Kaylin held her breath.
She looked up to see her familiar, tracing the same circumference in the air that the basin occupied on the ground. A giant, translucent dragon was impossible to miss—but none of the Aerians in the air, none of the Hawks on the ground—and the Hawks were here, if Tain’s presence was any indication— seemed to notice him.
No one but Kaylin noticed when he suddenly dived, folding wings and plunging groundward. No one flew into him, and he struck no one on his way down—but the Aerians avoided the flying masses of the Emperor and Sanabalis; they didn’t alter their flight paths to avoid the equally spacious familiar. The Hawks on the ground did feel the earth shudder as he landed in the center of the basin, which seemed to Kaylin’s eye to be a field of slender, spinning stalks. The ancestor’s magic, severely interrupted, didn’t burn Tain; it didn’t—more importantly, and she felt guilty even thinking it—harm Severn.
Severn could see the familiar.
So could the ancestor. His back, black hair unimpeded by anything as everyday as knots, was turned toward her; she couldn’t see his expression. She could hear the silence that fell across the basin as he lifted his head and faced the familiar.
The familiar roared.
The ancestor spoke in a language Kaylin didn’t recognize. She wondered if it was a language that could be taught to the merely mortal, or if only Dragons—and possibly Barrani—could speak any part of it.
The familiar replied. This time, his voice was modulated; it sounded—to Kaylin’s ear—like Elantran did when pushed through a throat the size of a cart horse. A Dragon’s voice.
The ancestor spun, turning, his eyes bright and widening as he met Kaylin’s steady gaze. He continued to speak, his voice high with disbelief. The Arkon grabbed Kaylin by the shoulders and spun as fire enveloped them.
“Put me down!” Kaylin shouted. The Arkon didn’t seem to be impervious to this particular fire; his beard was singed. His hair. Barrani hair, she was certain, would have been untouched. Kaylin wondered at the differences between immortal hair—and at her own unbelievable stupidity in even thinking about it at a time like this.
Her arms were awash with blue light. She reached out and grabbed a handful of the Arkon’s hair, and the small fires guttered against her palm, as if they were the weakest of candlelight.
“Yes,” the Arkon said, releasing her—although he didn’t look happy about it. “He is your familiar. But Kaylin—” He shut up before the rest of the warning could leave his mouth. “Go. Go while our protections still have effect.”
* * *
She stumbled into the basin, legs shaking. She cursed. She drew the first dagger of the evening, although she was pretty certain it would be useless, here. She wasn’t even sure why she had entered the basin until she heard Annarion’s voice.
What have you done with my brother?
She heard, as well, the sound of distant blades: steel bouncing off steel. The ancestor leaped before the familiar could snap him in two. She couldn’t see Annarion. She could see Severn as he backed toward the basin’s edge, his chain spinning before him.
She couldn’t hear Evarrim’s voice.
At any other time, she might have tendered regrets for his death to the Barrani, but they would have been insincere. Good manners. She wouldn’t weep at his death now, but she would regret it. That surprised her.
She took a step forward. Two. Neither were enough to carry her into the range of the ancestor; nor were they nearly enough to bring her to Severn’s side; he was almost at the opposite end of the stretch of land that, empty of the rest of the combatants, now seemed so large.
The ancestor moved only once to follow Severn; the familiar cut him off. He moved like a graceful feline, not a lumbering giant, although he was that, now.
The third step brought her closer to the ancestor and the familiar.
* * *
The fourth step took her away from what remained of the city streets.
* * *
She recognized the gray, shapeless mass on which the familiar and the ancestor now stood. Annarion had materialized to the right of the ancestor; he wielded a sword that reminded her of Meliannos, although she knew it couldn’t be.
Annarion made a lot more noise here than she’d heard when she’d been trying to avoid fire, magic and the dissipation of the words. His eyes were black.
They were all black. His features were accentuated, the lines that spoke of anger sharper and harsher. Annarion appeared to be fighting almost alone. The familiar now hovered above him—in almost the same position he had held in the normal city skies. Or rather, the city skies; nothing about this night and its attack were remotely normal.
She could see Evarrim. The Arcanist lay face down in the fog, his hair a black, perfect spill, his right arm stretched above his head, fingers pointing, as if he’d collapsed in midspellcast. It was to Evarrim she ran. Her dagger—which had made the transition with her—was about as useful here as it had been in the streets of Elantra during the fight. But it was her talisman. She didn’t throw it, but she didn’t sheathe it, either.
She did shift it into her left hand as she knelt by Evarrim’s side. Her fingers fumbled for his pulse. If Barrani anatomy wasn’t human anatomy, the crude similarities made it fairly easy to determine whether or not the Barrani in question was still alive.
He was.
She leaned in. His face was turned to the side, his eyes closed. His eyelids looked bruised, but the rest of his skin was normal, flawless Barrani skin. “Evarrim.” He was breathing.
When his eyes shot open, she jumped, but managed not to fall on her butt. “What. Are. You. Doing. Here.” His voice was a dry rasp, but his eyes—bloodshot—were dark blue.
“The Arkon and the Hawks set up some sort of trap while Teela, Tain and Severn distracted the ancestor in the real world; the Consort managed to sever him from the source of his power.”
“Not an answer.”
Kaylin exhaled. “I came looking for you. I think you’re going to be stuck here if you don’t move.” She held out a hand; he looked at it as if a cockroach had hitched a lift in her palm. On the other hand, cockroaches were apparently less offensive than actual death; he took the hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet. His weight was close to dead weight, and Kaylin wasn’t all that steady on her own feet.
The blood that wasn’t on his back was a large, expansive splotch across his chest and his upper thighs. None of it clung to the mist he had fallen into. Kaylin suspected that was for the best. She hesitated until she looked at the ruby circlet he wore on his forehead. There was a black crater where the gem had been. Stepping closer, she tucked herself under his arm-pit, and put an arm around his back to brace him.
He looked even less pleased, but endured without comment. Or rather, endured without comment about her proximity. He was watching the ancestor and Annarion, his eyes narrowed to edges, his lips thinned in about th
e same way.
“Why,” he demanded, “did you not command the familiar to destroy the ancestor earlier?”
“I haven’t commanded him to destroy the ancestor at all,” was Kaylin’s tight reply. She was remembering, now, that there were still plenty of things to detest about the Arcanist. She was not about to answer his question. She knew damned well what his response would be to that. “I don’t know if he’s trying to destroy the ancestor; it doesn’t seem like he is, to me.”
No, Kaylin. I am waiting. If the ancestor is destroyed now, Evarrim will perish. Come to me, he added.
“He’s waiting,” Kaylin told Evarrim.
“For what?”
“For the two of you to leave.” She glared at Annarion, who was far enough away he couldn’t see the expression.
“Leave him,” Evarrim told her, making the effort to modulate his tone so it at least sounded reasonable. “He will not, I think, be stranded here. He is not without power and presence on this plane.”
Kaylin could see that. She thought he fought with more savagery and power than he had in Helen’s dining room—although admittedly she hadn’t actually seen him in combat there. But his eyes were not Barrani eyes. His facial structure was more accentuated, and his hair seemed to have a life of its own. Where his feet touched ground, fog warped and dispersed, leaving something solid in his wake. It was a solid Kaylin recognized.
Chaos.
Neither the familiar nor the ancestor had the same effect on the fog, although the familiar hadn’t actually touched the ground here, such as it was. “I can’t leave Annarion,” she told the Arcanist. “I don’t think he’ll come back.”
“We would be better quit of him—what he does now is not natural.”
“You’re here.”
“Yes. And I know how I arrived. He could not have arrived the same way.”
“Can you return now?”
Evarrim stiffened. “Yes. I can return now.”
“Then go back. I won’t be lost here—I have the familiar.”
“You are, as expected, unreasonable.” He looked as if he had more to say. What he did say however was, “You have my gratitude for your intervention.”
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