Chapter 20

20

To Kaylin's eye, the ground was, visually, very much like Shadow, but it felt like packed dirt beneath her boots. Severn saw packed dirt unless he looked through Kaylin's eyes. "Hey," she said to Hope, "could you sit on Severn's shoulder and cover his eye with one wing?"

Squawk. The tone of voice made clear the answer was no. But Hope lifted one wing across Kaylin's right eye as she turned to look back over her shoulder. The arch hadn't disappeared, and she could still see her companions gathered around its opening, watching as she and Severn walked.

Here, there was light—like sunlight in its fall, but without any obvious source. Branches of great trees shadowed the ground, but almost in reverse: the ground where their shadows were cast became lighter, not darker; the path in the shadows of those branches became the color of beach sand, not dirt.

Through Hope's wing, she could see what Severn saw; through the wingless eye, she could see darkness with flecks of color. Her marks were glowing, but the color was odd: it was mostly green, edged in ivory. Usually gold or blue were the dominant colors when the marks were active. But the marks hadn't risen from her skin; if there was something they could interact with, she hadn't stumbled across it yet.

It was just strange that it was Hope's wing that revealed what everyone else could actually see. Why was her own vision so different? Was it just the effect of the marks of the Chosen?

That would be my bet.

What do you think the marks are trying to make me see? I mean, what am I looking at and not seeing clearly?

I don't know. But you saw Jamal clearly. You saw the Ancient. I'm betting Azoria tried to interact with the Ancient, to no success.

Kaylin nodded. I'm almost certain that was why she was desperately trying to cultivate Mrs. Erickson. Because Mrs. Erickson could command the dead.

She could, yes. In theory she could also stab someone who wasn't careful. I think the latter more likely to happen.

I don't know. If Azoria could have gotten ahold of the children, if she could have realistically threatened them, I'm not sure what Mrs. Erickson would have done. I don't have the ability to command the dead. If I have the ability to see them, it doesn't give me much else to work with. She frowned. The marks gave me the natural ability to see Jamal and the rest of the children. That's it. But the marks didn't interact with the children in any way beyond that.

And with the Arkon's collection?

She nodded. There, I could interact. The marks on my arms rose as I did—not all of them, but some of them. Those marks , she added, are gone now. Human life doesn't depend on True Words. Human death doesn't affect the status of True Words because we don't need them to live.

But you have a True Name.

It was true. She did. So, too, Severn—one she'd carried from the Lake of Life for him. I don't need it, though. I mean—I need it to talk to you like this. But even if I hadn't given you a name from the Lake, you'd still be able to talk to me as long as you knew mine. If you die—if I die—I'm almost certain the names will go back to the Lake of Life.

And until they do, will we live forever?

Squawk.

I don't think that's how it works. We weren't born to contain them. We weren't born to need them. If it worked that way, there'd be more Immortals who'd been born human.

If the human caste court knew of the fact of your name, of your possession of it, it would cause a war—not a small one, either. His tone was grim.

No Consort, no Lady, would grant a living adult a Barrani birth name. It would never happen.

The Lake allowed you to take the names.

The Lake probably wanted a High Lord who wasn't controlled by the Shadow at the heart of the Tower. No , she added, before he could ask, I don't think the Lake is sentient the way we—or the Barrani— are. But there's enough of a will in the Lake that it chooses the Lady. It chooses the mother of the race.

The way the green chose a wielder of its weapons.

Kaylin nodded. I think the Lake had to choose to allow me to take those names. It's why the Consort considers me a backup Lady. Anyone who knows that I can do this is probably horrified at the very idea: a Barrani brought to wakefulness by a mortal. Had I been Barrani, there would have been a fight for control of the Lake—by the families of those granted the ability, not those who could. But no one is going to attempt to unseat the current Consort if I'm what they have to deal with.

Still, the Lake recognized something in you.

Kaylin nodded. Don't ask me what—I don't know.

Severn smiled. I think I can guess. He paused as Kaylin came to a stop. He always matched his pace with hers on the streets they patrolled together; this felt no different.

She looked at the trees she could see clearly through Hope's wing. Severn saw those. What he didn't see was the black glow that surrounded them. She could almost hear it crackling, as if it were produced by persistent, dark lightning. She looked at the ground between the paired trees; the shadows that light cast didn't exist here.

"This might be a problem," she said.

And the trees said, Chosen .

Severn reached out for her shoulder—the one Hope wasn't standing erect on. To do this, he had to sheathe the blades he carried—or sheathe one of them. She'd never been certain how the weapons functioned.

Kaylin hadn't spoken, but knew he was listening through the name bond that two mortals shouldn't have. Listening to her, listening through her, probably even watching through her eyes. She could feel the sudden weight of his presence. The weight of his hand was almost trivial in comparison.

She exhaled. "I'm here. I'm listening."

Come. We have been waiting for your return.

"We?"

Your companions disturbed my rest. I would not have noticed them had you not awakened me. I notice them now. I notice too many things; hear too many voices. Some are almost familiar.

Severn's hand tightened.

"What do you want of me?" Kaylin switched into High Barrani as she spoke. Her voice sounded normal to her ears, but the voice of the dead Ancient did not; it was almost more of a physical sensation than it was a sound; her body reverberated with the spoken syllables.

Come, Chosen. I am waiting, and he is waiting. I do not think he can hold on for much longer.

There was no threat in the words; Kaylin's fear made them louder and far darker. She wanted to ask him who might not be able to hold on for much longer. She didn't. She knew.

"Can you let him go?"

I do not detain him. I sense something about him that is like, and unlike, you—you are Chosen, he is not. But he serves an ancient purpose; I can almost sense the imperative. It was not mine. Come.

Kaylin swallowed. "Another friend followed the one of whom you speak. Is he also with you?"

The Ancient didn't answer.

"I cannot come alone," she finally said, lifting a hand to briefly cover Severn's. "The path is difficult for me to traverse."

It is not. You sought the wrong path. You did not respond.

"I cannot come alone, but I will not try to reach you if you will not accept my companion."

Hope squawked up a storm; Kaylin had to lift a hand to the ear beside his tiny working jaws. She didn't know if the Ancient could hear Hope the way he could hear her. "Two companions," she said. "One is my familiar—I don't know if you know what a familiar is."

No response. The black crackling mass that had outlined tree branches grew larger, darker, and much louder.

I think we have to trust him , Kaylin said.

I don't. But we don't need to trust him to do as he requests.

I don't think trust matters. It would be like trusting a hurricane or an earthquake. Trust wouldn't make a damn bit of difference if we were caught up in either.

"We will follow the path you've created," she said aloud. She pulled Severn's hand from her shoulder and adjusted her grip, holding on to him as if he—or she—were a foundling.

He raised a brow.

Mandoran once told me that I perceive different planes of existence when my marks are active. It all seems solid and real to me—but when things become strange, I'm actually traversing layers; I just don't see it that way, or feel it that way. He could follow me—but he sees things the way Terrano sees them, not the way I do.

Severn nodded.

So I just want to hold on to you to make sure you actually come with me.

I know.

She turned to look over her shoulder. She could see the trees they'd passed, but they seemed to extend for as far as the eye could see; she couldn't see the companions she'd left behind. She was almost certain Larrantin would follow if he suddenly lost sight of them; they hadn't walked far.

But the landscape was the Ancient's. What had begun in the halls that had swallowed Evanton and Terrano had continued after everyone else had fled. What she saw without Hope's wing was the Ancient's landscape.

Before Kaylin had freed the Ancient, he'd been trapped in the small section of the outlands Azoria's painting transcribed.

After, his influence had clearly begun to bleed into Azoria's home. On their previous visit, the shape of the halls, the placement of the foyer and its stairs, had remained relatively fixed; the appearance was different, but the structure had been similar.

That was clearly no longer the case.

"Can you think with me for a bit?" she asked Severn, as she walked.

He nodded.

"After Azoria died, Mrs. Erickson made us walk through every square inch of the area. She could see the dead trapped in service to Azoria, and she wanted to free them all. She didn't want any of them to be left behind. I didn't tell her about the dead Ancient, because to me, he wasn't very dead.

"But I've been thinking about this hall since then. Azoria could see the dead while they were in this hall, in this part of the manse. She could see the children here. Could give them commands she expected would be obeyed. When they came here, she could see them. When their bodies were alive, I believe she could see them as well, even if they weren't in her home.

"But once their bodies died, she couldn't. Jamal discovered this because she visited once or twice. He was—they all were—terrified of Azoria. With reason. Jamal was a smart kid. He figured out that she couldn't see them in Mrs. Erickson's house. But she could see him when he came here. She could trap him here.

"Something about this space—the space she created—was made for the dead. While she was alive, she could entrap and contain most of them, even the Ancient. But the Ancient was in the outlands, not in her mansion, and the only way to reach him was the portal she'd created in that giant self-portrait. The portal served as a connection. I think part of the power she utilized came from the words, the names, that existed in the Ancient, even after his so-called death. So she couldn't cut it off or seal the entrance; she needed a persistent connection." She glanced at Severn.

"Do you believe her ability to handle the dead was something she learned, or do you think it came from the Ancient's power?" He surveyed the area as he spoke.

"I'm not certain. It's clear that she meant to possess Mrs. Erickson because she wanted command of the dead Ancient. But I'm not at all certain being dead somehow granted the Ancient any specific power. It's just...dead doesn't mean the same thing to Ancients as it does to the rest of us."

"You think she constructed this hall as a containment for the dead, a way of holding on to some essential part of what they'd been in life?"

Kaylin nodded. "Does that sound stupid?"

"I wish it did. Do you believe that her specific construction allowed the Ancient to seep into these halls and remake them?"

"That's my fear now, yes. I wish I understood what death means to Ancients—but Larrantin didn't know, and I'm pretty sure we won't get answers from the Arbiters, either. Just a lot more questions. I think Mrs. Erickson could speak to the Ancient; I don't know what she would see. Helen believed that shamans existed to help free those trapped in our world after their deaths. I just don't know if there's much of an after for an Ancient."

"You're worried."

"I am. The ghosts that rose from the altar in the bowels of the Imperial Library didn't look like ghosts to me. They looked, with effort, like words, trapped in the mirror and bound to it until the moment Mrs. Erickson entered the room. They possessed Sanabalis. Had Mrs. Erickson not been able to reason with them, I'm not sure they'd have let him go.

"But she could. She sees them as people. As humans. She doesn't see them the way I do—and I could barely manage to see them at all. I know she finds it exhausting to tend to their fear and their anger, but she can. What she sees isn't what anyone else sees; I'm not sure anyone else could.

"I don't know if she'd see the Ancient in the same way. Azoria was somehow banking on command, on control—but I'm not sure Mrs. Erickson would have that, even if she tried."

"And you don't want her to try."

Kaylin shook her head. "In an emergency, maybe. Azoria was dead the moment we cut the connection between her and the Ancient. But dead, she was still present, still mobile, still very much a danger. And Mrs. Erickson wouldn't attempt to stop her because she'd made that promise to Jamal. She wouldn't break it—even at great need—without his permission, and he gave her permission to do it once. He's gone. I really don't think she would even make another attempt.

"She doesn't command the dead she's rooming with. She talks to them as if they're people. She reasons with them. She calms them because, on some level, they can trust her. I don't think she could do that with the Ancient; the Ancient is perfectly capable of reason."

"You don't want her to try."

"I don't want to put her through that. Look, she's old, and she's lived her life in service to dead children. I want her to have some kind of life of her own, some kind of peace, while she's still alive. And it's not as if she only has the ghosts from the library; she has Bellusdeo's sisters—and Bellusdeo herself. If there's anything she can do—in the normal way—to help Bellusdeo, she'll do it. But I don't think she'd command the dead sisters, either. If she tried, I'm not sure what Bellusdeo would do."

"But you think the ghosts in the library and this Ancient are somehow related." It wasn't a question.

Because it wasn't a question, Kaylin couldn't move words around in an attempt to avoid answering it. She nodded. "I just think it's so unfair. She wasn't even born when she first encountered Azoria; she was a child when Azoria began whatever spell it was that's embedded in the family portrait. She didn't have a normal life—if it weren't for her parents, I'm not sure what would have happened to her. Her parents," she added, voice softening, "and the four kids."

"You're afraid she's necessary here."

"Aren't you?"

Severn shook his head. "The dead have never attempted to harm Mrs. Erickson—with a single exception. If she's needed, I think she'll be as safe as anyone else."

Kaylin didn't agree, but she had no time to argue; they had reached the end of the row of trees; the last two formed an arch, and beyond it, the floor shifted, from the black, cloudy murk she could see without Hope's wing to something that was almost its opposite: pale, almost insubstantial clouds with glints of sparkling color. It was the color that formed the continuity between the two floors.

Through Hope's wing, she saw grass. Grass, and, growing to the side of a footpath, flowers. Familiar flowers.

Hope dug his claws into her collarbone, as if bracing or anchoring himself. Kaylin winced but said nothing; she understood that her familiar was both alert and worried. The flowers she could see were pale ivory, but in shape they were similar to the flowers that had adorned Mrs. Erickson's hair in the portrait Azoria had painted.

Flowers that grew nowhere but the green. "Can you see the flowers?"

I see them.

Do they look like the flowers Mrs. Erickson wore?

They do. He stopped walking and attempted to free his hand; Kaylin tightened hers. He accepted the constraint and sheathed the second blade. He then reached out to touch a flower. He made no attempt to pick or uproot it. It's the same , he said, voice flat.

She didn't ask him how he was certain; she accepted that he was.

He rose, and once again unsheathed one of the weapon's blades; she could see the chain extending from the hilt. In this light, it did not look metallic; it looked like the very essence of the color green, but brighter, almost too bright to look at.

Mrs. Erickson had said that she couldn't look at Severn's waist for long without squinting—which the old woman clearly found rude. Kaylin wondered if this was how she always saw it. The light was the same brilliant color through Hope's wing.

Azoria did have some entanglement with the green, with the essence of the green. Severn's voice was grim.

Kaylin couldn't see the flowers with her own eyes. She could only see them through Hope's wing. Severn and his weapon were clear when viewed through either eye, but the flowers didn't exist without Hope's wing. She could see the outline of the path they walked, but it was blurry, inexact. If something grew here, it grew in the folds of those clouds.

He fell silent.

This path, through grass and flowers, opened up as they reached its end—or its beginning. In the distance she could see two figures; one immense—as he had been the first time she'd encountered him—and one so diminutive she might have missed him had she not been looking.

Evanton.

She sped up, half dragging Severn; he adjusted his pace. Hope was rigid.

"Go to Evanton," she told her familiar. "I've got Severn here. I can see what he sees if I try hard enough."

Squawk.

"I mean it—Evanton has to survive this. If it's something you can't do without a sacrifice, name your price. I'll pay it."

That is not wise, Chosen.

She looked up as the figure turned toward them.

"If we lose Evanton, we'll lose the world. There is no replacement for him. The people I care about, the people I'm responsible for, live there. I'm willing to pay Hope's price because the alternative is the loss of everything . Hope. Go."

Hope squawked like a localized storm before pushing himself off her shoulder. He flew toward the Keeper, and as he did, he grew, shifting from the tiny winged lizard into the much more majestic Dragon. His form remained translucent.

I have not harmed your friend , the Ancient said. He has harmed himself and continues to do so.

She picked up speed, dragging Severn into her pace. She was afraid to lose him here; he wasn't afraid to be lost. She slowed as she reached Evanton; Hope towered above him, standing between the Ancient and the Keeper as if he intended to be a wall.

Evanton didn't look in her direction, but his words were definitely meant for Kaylin. "It is about time you arrived." His tone was waspish, but weak.

"What are you trying to do?" she demanded.

"What I do in my garden," he replied. "This being is not unlike your Devourer."

" So not mine."

"The Devourer sleeps the sleep of the exhausted. It dreams, and its dreams cause fluctuations in the elements; they do not sleep, but they can hear his dreams when they grow turbulent."

"And this being is like that?"

"No, not in that sense. It is more subtle than the Devourer, but it is newly wakened. By, I assume, you."

"I didn't waken him—I freed him. Azoria had him bound."

"It was a captivity of which he was only peripherally aware. You do not understand the Devourer; no more did I when first he entered my garden. But he could not devour the garden; it is not that kind of place. Look around you, Kaylin. Understand what this small space is, what it signifies."

"I don't see a small space. I see...flat mist. Fog. It's like the outlands. But the land surrounding it or leading to it...that was like Shadow to my eyes."

Evanton frowned. He looked up to meet Hope's eyes, each almost the size of the old man's head. "An interesting observation," he finally said. "I see grass. I see flowers. I see something akin to sky above the head of the Ancient. You are not looking at the land in which I stand. I invite you to do so immediately."

She would have argued, but Evanton's exhaustion wasn't feigned. She looked, far more carefully, at the ground upon which Evanton was standing.

Or in which Evanton was planted; she couldn't see his feet. She could see that he wore the robes of his office—robes that he seldom wore in the store, but often donned in the garden. He hadn't carried them with him when he'd arrived at Helen's, but now wore them, regardless.

She knelt to examine the ground more carefully.

The marks on her arms—the ivory-edged green—began to rise; as they did, their light brightened. She hadn't seen this color before, but it blossomed in the area Evanton occupied. The colors reminded her of the flowers that Severn had identified.

Yes , he said. It is almost an exact match. His tone was neutral; she could sense his growing worry.

She regretted the absence of Hope, but couldn't call him back now. The marks that rose from her skin rose in a wave, becoming fully dimensional; she felt them as a weight. It was almost a struggle to lift her arms. She could feel the back of her neck growing heavy in the same way. The marks there were also rising. Rising and growing in both size and subjective weight.

Chosen.

She recognized the shape of the marks, although they looked different when given a third dimension. She didn't know their meaning; the Arkon had implied that careful study of the tongue of the Ancients was beyond the span of her life. Even his knowledge, having spent centuries in study, was meagre; he could decipher words, could even, with will and intent, speak them—but he could not speak them as he spoke his mother tongue, or any of the languages Kaylin knew.

All of her understanding was instinctive, just a grade above frantic and baseless guesswork.

But she understood on some level how to use the powers of the marks—she had used them to heal, to save lives, even when she'd lived in the fiefs. The marks hadn't glowed then. They hadn't come to life the way they now did. She hadn't needed to know them, to understand them; she'd only needed to understand the injuries she sought to heal. That had been a miracle: that she could see, feel, and understand what needed to be healed in order for a person's life to continue.

She had resented the marks. She had hated what had become of people she knew in the fief of Nightshade. But she had taken the healing power that had come with the marks as compensation. She couldn't remove them. She could—and did—hide them; she'd become so used to hiding them she wore long sleeves even in the privacy of her own home.

But this wasn't her home. In this space, before all of these people except maybe Severn, the marks were not a terrible secret; they weren't the cause of unjust murders; they weren't a curse. They were part of this odd space, this hidden world, this place where a dead god stood and spoke before a man who had once, many, many years ago, been human, as he attempted to keep an Ancient constrained.

Kaylin had never asked Evanton what mysteries, what ceremonies, conferred the responsibility of a Keeper; she had never asked him why he had chosen to become the Keeper. Maybe he'd had as much choice in his position as she'd had in hers: marks of the Chosen had appeared across half of her body without her conscious leave.

But he was what he was, and he was good at it.

And she was what she was: Chosen. She didn't know what that meant—or what it had meant to the others who had borne these marks. She didn't know if they had used them as intended. At first, she hadn't asked because she hated them; she hadn't cared what use was made of them. But as time passed, as she accepted their existence, she hadn't wanted to know. She was uneducated, poor, an orphan—things that people already looked down on.

She couldn't help but be certain that she was doing it all wrong. That smarter people, people with families, people with education, would have been a better choice. Anyone would have been a better choice. The healing, she grew to love.

But it wasn't only healing that she'd done.

She'd once, at the age of thirteen, skinned a man alive—without restraining him first, without a skinning knife or a dagger or any other weapon. Just rage, murderous rage. It had caused a lot of trouble for Teela and Tain, and that trouble had extended to the rest of the Hawks—of which she wasn't, in any official way. Not then.

Healing was better.

Healing would always be better. If there was desperation and panic involved in healing, there was no rage; she was in control of her power; her power was not in control of her anger.

Here, she felt no anger. The marks rotated, growing in size until they couldn't possibly fit on her skin. Can you see them? she asked Severn.

I can. Through your eyes, they're quite impressive.

And through yours?

They're flat against your skin, as always, but they're glowing.

The same colors as the flowers from the green?

The exact same colors, yes. What do you mean to do?

I don't know. The usual. Wing it. Can you see Evanton's feet?

I can.

I can't. But I think Evanton has made use of the malleability of the environment to create a space, a patch of land, that conforms to the rules of his garden. It's not his garden—that's probably why he's exhausted. But I think the Ancient understands some part of what Evanton is trying to achieve, and he accepts it.

Severn didn't ask why she believed it; Evanton was alive.

I don't suppose you see Terrano anywhere around here?

He wouldn't remain in a space that's meant to contain him , Severn replied. It was meant as a comforting possibility. Kaylin understood and didn't argue, but she didn't feel particularly comforted.

She didn't have time to worry about Terrano, even if she had the inclination; the ground beneath her feet began to rumble—no, to undulate—as if it were both solid and liquid simultaneously. She looked up to see Evanton; his face was a mask of focus and concentration, his hands clenched in fists by his sides.

Hope said, Hurry, Kaylin. Whatever you intend to do, you must do it as close to now as possible.