Chapter 25

25

"Corporal," Evanton said. "Please stop huddling behind Lord Bellusdeo and join us."

She rolled her eyes but slid between the wall of Bellusdeo and the more flexible support of her partner. Evanton hadn't told Mrs. Erickson the room was dangerous, and Kaylin understood why the old woman wanted to return there. But the room and the painting weren't like the rest of Mrs. Erickson's home. Evanton had suggested that this room—specifically Azoria's painting—was the key to the door that led to Azoria's hidden manor. It was probably the reason that he wished to return to the room.

Kaylin entered; Hope stood and gently placed his wing across one eye. He'd been droopy for the entire walk from Helen's to Mrs. Erickson's.

For the first time since they'd allowed themselves to be laid against her skin, the temporary marks vibrated; the resultant cold made Kaylin's teeth ache.

Mrs. Erickson didn't hear them. She was standing beside Evanton. The two stood in front of Azoria's painting. Kaylin had never seen the painting clearly, so much of it was in shadow of a magical—and inimical—nature. But she could see it now; it was lit from within by the glowing light of the flower bound and braided into the young Imelda's hair. That color had seemed a sickly, terrible green when she'd first seen it.

It was simply green now—edged in ivory, leaves like petals bending slightly over the girl's hair, as if to shelter her.

Evanton had never seemed tall to Kaylin, but his presence made Mrs. Erickson seem incredibly tiny in comparison. Or perhaps that was illusion. He hadn't told her to stay out, and his expression—astonishingly gentle, but laced with sadness—made clear that he considered her desire to see her former home, and the parts of it in which she'd had happy childhood memories, the more important need.

But he must have considered it a risk if he'd ordered Kaylin to join them. Mrs. Erickson's face couldn't be seen by anyone but Evanton—and he kept his eyes straight ahead, giving her as much space as he possibly could, while still remaining to protect her.

Kaylin didn't speak, either. If she could have returned to the home of her childhood, she would have done it at least once. She hadn't lost what Mrs. Erickson lost—she had no idea who her father was, and her mother had never said; only that he'd died. Kaylin doubted it, but it was a fiction her mother created, and she'd believed it when she was a child.

A child too young to fully understand what death meant: eternal absence.

Neither Mrs. Erickson nor Evanton was that child. It was perhaps the first time since she'd met the Keeper that she wondered what he'd lost, what he'd had to leave behind, to become what he was. He'd seemed so ancient to her when they'd first met. She hadn't really connected ancient with history , until now.

"Could I take this painting with me?" Mrs. Erickson asked, without taking her eyes off this image of her family.

"I judge it safe if it is to be placed in Helen's domain—but I am less certain she will consider it harmless," Evanton replied, his voice both soft and brisk. "But if we finish what we intend, I believe she will accept it; it is what you want, after all."

Mrs. Erickson nodded and squared her shoulders. "Have you opened the door?"

"No—but the door, when it does open, will open to the manor in which so much atrocity occurred. Come." He held up an arm. Mrs. Erickson nodded and accepted it.

Bellusdeo was silent, her eyes full copper. She made no attempt to displace Evanton. When she caught Kaylin's worried glance—which Kaylin had tried her best to hide—she said, "I begin to understand why Teela despises your worry so much." The Dragon exhaled smoke, but the copper wasn't displaced by orange or red. "I've been incredibly self-absorbed and selfish. I do not deserve your worry." She watched Mrs. Erickson's back, and added, in a softer voice, "Or hers. Perhaps especially not hers. Will she be all right?"

"I don't know. I have every intention of making sure she survives and comes home. Helen would be devastated if we lost her before her time."

Bellusdeo swallowed and nodded.

The front door did, as Evanton had said it would, open into Azoria's manor. Kaylin didn't understand the trigger; she didn't understand the magic. Magic, or the magic she'd been trained as a Hawk to detect, left signatures, visible sigils to her eyes. Mages saw these sigils in entirely different ways, but to Kaylin they were like words. Like signatures.

Azoria's enchantments left none, and she didn't understand why. She was aware that not all magic was strong enough to leave that kind of signature, but if this wasn't strong enough, nothing should have been.

Hope continued to leave one wing over the eye closest to him; he expected that she would need it. "Will she be okay?" Kaylin asked her familiar.

Squawk.

The landscape had not shifted since their last visit. The door wasn't a portal in any traditional sense of the word; Kaylin could simply walk through the entrance. She heard no voices, no demands, no commands, and when she turned to look over her shoulder, she could see the familiar confines of Mrs. Erickson's hall.

Ahead, she saw the odd miasma that reminded her of the outlands; it was far darker than the outlands, and it was the darkness that had made her so uneasy. Through Hope's wing, she could see packed dirt, a footpath between enormous trees. Those trees were the first difference she noted; they'd grown, although the shape of the path hadn't. The ceiling above the trees was obscured by the crossing and blending of high branches.

Mrs. Erickson could see the trees, given the way she looked up, and up again, to see their crowns. "The trees make it look lonely, somehow," she said, which surprised Kaylin. "Even if we're all here together." She looked back to Kaylin, and Kaylin separated herself from Severn to walk on the other side of Mrs. Erickson. There was certainly room for her.

She marked the moment the ground changed; she could see the flowers.

Mrs. Erickson could see them as well; she stopped walking, glanced at Evanton, and nodded in the direction of those flowers, as if afraid to ask permission for something so frivolous.

He smiled and nodded. All his impatience seemed to be reserved for Kaylin and Bellusdeo today.

Mrs. Erickson crossed the ground and headed toward the greenery and the flowers it sheltered. She knelt slowly in front of them, and reached out to gently touch one flower's petals, as if to convince herself that they were real.

The flowers began to glow, the ivory becoming golden with light, the green, emerald. The flowers directly in front of Mrs. Erickson's feet rose before her, stretching on their stems as if in greeting, as if they weren't flowers but small kittens or puppies who were eager for attention.

She must have been surprised, but the predominant expression that transformed her face was delight. She knelt carefully as if afraid to crush them, and the flowers came to her hand. Azoria had bound one—a single, carefully grown blossom—in Mrs. Erickson's hair. The flowers that were rooted seemed almost to envy that long-ago bloom. As Mrs. Erickson reached out for them, they came to her hands, separating themselves from their roots.

This did shock her, and she turned to Evanton as if seeking reassurance.

"You did not pick them. You did not break their stems. Be at ease, Imelda."

Kaylin turned to Evanton. "Did you expect this?"

"It is folly to have expectations of the green," he replied. "But Mrs. Erickson is not the green. I did not expect this, no—but I find myself very unsurprised."

That couldn't be said of Teela, whose eyes had rounded; nor could it be said of Bellusdeo, whose grief had given way, as it so often did, to worry, copper becoming orange. "Are they harmful?" she demanded of Teela.

Teela shook her head, and after a moment, found her voice. "No. But I have never seen them except in the green, and I have never seen them in this number, or in this state."

"They won't hurt her?" Bellusdeo demanded.

"Can you not hear their joy?" the Barrani Hawk replied, her words spoken in a hush. "No. They will not hurt her, and if their presence is this strong, I pity anything that makes that attempt." She shook her head. "Forgive me, I have no more understanding of what transpires here than you."

Bellusdeo turned orange eyes on Kaylin; Kaylin shook her head. "I'm with Teela."

"And do you hear the joy she does?"

"I don't hear it, no—but I can see it. Don't they look like puppies to you?"

"Small dogs? Hardly."

Kaylin watched as the flowers that had gathered, that continued to reach for Mrs. Erickson, began to twine themselves together, becoming, in her hands, a wreath.

"I believe you may wear it," Evanton told her. "As a crown."

"It's a lovely crown. Yes, thank you," she added, speaking directly to the flowers.

Crown. Kaylin frowned. The wreath didn't look like a crown to her eyes, but to Evanton's they did. Kaylin knew her dress was the dress of the harmoniste; that her role in the green and the West March had been to somehow facilitate the Teller. The Teller, who was chosen by the green, and could prove it because of the crown granted him, in the same fashion the dress had been "granted" her. This wreath was not the crown Nightshade had worn as Teller; it wasn't a crown any Barrani would have recognized—not the way they instantly recognized Kaylin's dress.

She was now worried for Mrs. Erickson but managed to keep this to herself.

Unless someone was very familiar with her facial expressions. Teela understood instantly what Kaylin's concern was. "Mrs. Erickson," Teela said. "Are these flowers dead?"

The question surprised Mrs. Erickson. "No. They don't look like the dead look to me. But they don't quite seem like regular flowers, either."

"No, they don't. Thank you," Teela added.

Kaylin would have been happy to watch as flowers formed wristlets around Mrs. Erickson's arms—and as individual flowers became rings—but her arms became so heavy, she couldn't lift them. The cold hadn't gotten worse, but the weight had become significant. She wondered if the temporary marks could sense the flowers, or merely sense the only woman who could speak to them as if they were people. Kaylin couldn't. She could carry them, but she couldn't interact with them the way Mrs. Erickson did.

"Imelda?" Evanton said.

"I'm sorry—I'll be right there." She didn't have to step as carefully leaving the flowers as she had approaching them, because most of them came with her. She walked with a different kind of care, but Kaylin understood that; she didn't want to crush any of the petals and leaves.

When she was once again on what passed for road, Evanton offered his arm; she took it, angling her own in such a way that her wrist overhung his forearm.

"I honestly cannot understand how such a charming, decent person could become so enmeshed with the Hawks," the Keeper said.

"I like the Hawks," Mrs. Erickson replied.

"Clearly. Kaylin?" His tone changed as he spoke her name, reverting from something as close to charm as Evanton was likely to ever achieve to his usual pinched command. "What do you see?"

Kaylin looked into the distance. "It's the same as it was before. But the ground here isn't as dark as it was; it looks more like the outlands might if it had a night."

"And ahead?"

"That looks like the normal outlands. Maybe there's a bit more color in what I see as clouds—flecks of color. They glitter a bit."

"The Ancient?"

She shook her head. "I think we have to pass the trees four rows ahead to arrive where I found you the last time."

Evanton nodded, as if she had confirmed his suspicions. "Very well. Let us proceed."

"What's Serralyn doing?"

"Trying not to be distracted by us," Teela replied. "And trying to dump everything of interest to Larrantin on Larrantin. He'd leave otherwise."

"He's going to be angry."

"Probably." His anger was clearly not Teela's problem—or concern. "But Bakkon is aiding Serralyn. Bakkon is, for a scholar, very meek; he likes all of his learning to be in the data collected by other more foolhardy scholars. Those are Serralyn's words."

"They seemed a little tactless to be Bakkon's."

Hope had been silent throughout this second walk; his gaze was riveted to Mrs. Erickson's back, because Kaylin walked slightly behind the older woman. Severn walked with Kaylin; Bellusdeo took the rear. Unlike Emmerian, she had yet to go full Dragon, but she'd dressed to have that option.

Kaylin heard the rumble of draconic breathing and turned back.

Evanton had eyes in the back of his head, she swore. "Corporal."

But Bellusdeo had stopped walking, and she was almost gasping for breath. Evanton had Mrs. Erickson, and while Kaylin's presence had been deemed necessary by the green, emergencies couldn't be the only thing in her life. Bellusdeo had been her first roommate, her first housemate, and she knew she had been Bellusdeo's first friend in this new world, if one didn't count the former Arkon.

Kaylin, however, was part of the new life; Lannagaros was part of the past—the past in which she had lost everything. Her world. Her family. The friends a queen might have.

She understood why the Dragon had become so dangerously unstable—but Kaylin would have been no better had the dead bound to her been Steffi or Jade. She would have been worse. Far worse. She tried to kill that thought because Severn was right here. He was entangled in the heart of that loss; he always would be.

But here or far away, he was also at the heart of her thoughts.

Instead, she focused them on Bellusdeo. Bellusdeo, who was crying. Not weeping; her tears were silent. If Kaylin hadn't turned to look back, she might not have seen them at all—but the light changed the trail her tears left. Light? She couldn't see its source.

It wasn't her marks. The light didn't come from Kaylin. But thinking that, she could see the luminescence of her gown. She reached the gold Dragon; she might have run, but she wasn't certain she could, given the weight of her arms. She couldn't really lift them either, although she did try.

She met the Dragon's eyes.

"What is it? What happened?"

"I can hear them," the Dragon whispered. "I can hear them. I can finally hear them."

It was an intensely private moment, or it should have been—but as Bellusdeo spoke, Kaylin could hear them as well. Could hear them because she could see them.

Eight women, of a height, of a color, with the gold Dragon; they wore the same armor she now wore, and they stood, four to each side of the woman whose body they had been trapped by, trapped in; none of them were crying now. They did glance at each other, and Kaylin thought one whispered to the sister beside her, although the sister didn't reply.

"Can you see them?" Kaylin whispered.

Bellusdeo shook her head. "I can't. You can?"

Kaylin nodded. "They all look like you. They're even wearing the plate armor. One of them just whispered something to the sister beside her—she's on your left. Oh. She just glared death at me. I guess I wasn't supposed to say that."

Bellusdeo nodded. "I heard it. I heard them. One of them likes your dress and wants me to wear one just like it." She grimaced.

One of the eight laughed.

It was impossible to believe that they were dead; impossible to believe that any of these eight had drawn Mrs. Erickson's attention because they were weeping. But Mrs. Erickson had said she had worked with them until they could at least see or be aware of each other, and that had made all the difference.

She remembered Arbiter Kavallac's story about how draconic mothers were born, and if she'd had any doubts, she repented.

"I have to go," she told the gold Dragon. "Do you want to take a moment?"

"I want to take a year. Maybe a decade," Bellusdeo replied. "But...they know what's at stake now. They died protecting a world, after all." Bellusdeo lowered her chin for one long breath, before lifting it. "Let's join the others."

Mrs. Erickson could always see Bellusdeo's dead; Kaylin could now see them as well. She wasn't certain why, but accepted that this space, built by Azoria, amplified the existence of the dead. She'd been worried about Bellusdeo's short fuse and emotional desperation; she'd thought it might be better if Bellusdeo had remained behind. She'd been wrong.

Kaylin thought that hearing the voices of the sisters she had loved and lost had steadied the gold Dragon, as if that had been her only wish, her desperate prayer; as if being granted even this much had been something she could not believe in but could not let go.

But it was clear to Kaylin that the sisters, the dead, had wanted that no less desperately.

They should have been one.

They should have been one being, all nine of their childhood experiences a weave of experience, of steadiness, of knowledge, part of a single, inseparable whole.

Bellusdeo's name was the combination of the names of her sisters; the adult name taken from the childhood names—names large enough to wake them from birth, but too small to form the soul of a Dragon.

Eight sisters.

Eight. What mother, what queen, might nine daughters have become? How strong? How significant? How powerful?

Nine children in total. Nine, who might once again begin to rebuild their race.

But there was something she didn't understand. Bellusdeo had the nine names. Kaylin knew; Kaylin had helped to fuse those names into a single name, a single word—a word untainted by, unknown to, the Outcaste who had led them to take names for themselves in defiance of a truth none of the nine understood.

Those names had not been theirs, but they had carried them, used them, communicated with each other through that bond.

It was not from those so-called adult names that Bellusdeo's adult name, Bellusdeo's current name, had been built, fused, made whole. It was the earlier, childhood names that she remembered.

She had carried and held those names. Somehow. How else could they have been there , waiting?

Kaylin, emergency midwife, couldn't save a baby or a mother if they were already dead.

She couldn't lift her arms, couldn't reach for Bellusdeo or her sisters, but she understood something, in this place, that perhaps Mrs. Erickson had always understood on a visceral level.

What had Mrs. Erickson done? What had she attempted to do? She tried to connect the dead sisters to each other . So that they wouldn't be so isolated, so alone.

That was half right, Kaylin thought.

Half right.

The sisters were dead, but they weren't dead; their names were in the right place. Mrs. Erickson might be able to command them to leave—not that she would ever even consider trying—but Kaylin wasn't certain she would succeed, even if she did. And if she did, what would that do to, or make of, Bellusdeo? What would it mean for her name?

She shook her head, trying to clear it.

Bellusdeo and her sisters faced forward, understanding that it was not their fate alone that was of concern. They fell into step beside Kaylin—or through her—as Kaylin walked once again toward the rest of her waiting companions. Evanton's expression was familiar, it was so pinched.

"Are you perhaps ready to continue?"

"Bellusdeo had fallen behind," she said. "And I don't want to lose anyone here."

Evanton then shared part of his glare with the gold Dragon. One of the ghosts said something that would have been questionable even in the Hawks' office, and that said something. She said it, however, in a very sweet voice while she smiled at an old man who couldn't hear or see her.

Bellusdeo's lips twitched. Her eyes were almost pure gold, and Kaylin didn't think a waking dead Ancient would mar that color even briefly.

"Sorry, Evanton. Yes, we're ready."

"Good. I believe you should go first."

Of course he did.

The path through the trees seemed much longer than it had the first time she walked it. Bellusdeo was on her right.

"Are you okay?"

Kaylin nodded but bit her lip. At some point, Severn slid an arm under her arms, because she was now stumbling in the way people did when they'd tried to carry something far too heavy for longer than they could reasonably bear the weight. Bellusdeo cursed and did the same on the other side.

You don't feel any heavier , Severn told her, voice gentle.

To you. She didn't speak because she was afraid she'd start to shudder and bit her own lip. She was cold; the cold had seeped into the whole of her body, and the dress did nothing to warm it.

But she walked past the trees that formed the boundary of the path—visible to her clearly through Hope's wing. The arch that had led to the dead Ancient finally came into view. By this point, she was content to let Bellusdeo and Severn drag her through it; dignity wasn't worth the effort.

Her supports required no direction, although Severn took the subtle lead. Both he and Bellusdeo could see the standing form of the Ancient; from this vantage, it looked like a colossal statue, carved in gray stone. It had the form of a slender man—perhaps an older boy, which was not what the Ancient had looked like the first time she'd seen him move and speak.

The immediacy of this statue drove that early image from her mind. She really envied Immortals their perfect memory; hers went to pieces after a few days, whereas Teela could tell her what she'd eaten for breakfast for three full months. Kaylin had only asked once; the answer wasn't as interesting as the fact she could be so definitive, but Teela had made Kaylin listen to the entire list, probably to make certain she never whined about memory again. It had mostly worked.

To her surprise, the flowers that now adorned Mrs. Erickson grew in abundance around the feet of the statue, which couldn't be seen for flowers and leaves. The green had been at work here.

Kaylin stopped moving because both Severn and Bellusdeo had stopped; two of Bellusdeo's sisters overlapped Kaylin and Severn as they looked up.

Teela joined them. "Serralyn has a message to pass on," she said to Kaylin. "Azoria did not trust the green."

"Did Azoria even understand it?"

"No—but she had a somewhat fragile ego. She felt the green was judgmental and, in her words, conservative; it was an ancient entity that should have been confined to history; it should not have been respected and obeyed by enlightened people."

"Which enlightened people? The Barrani?"

"Of course."

"Who are famously conservative and outright hostile to change."

"I did not say I agreed with her views. She believed that the power inherent in the green was simply power, which should be of use to the Barrani; she argued strongly against what she saw as the inverse: the Barrani struggled to be of use to the green, as if it were the High Lord. Regardless, some experience she had with the green—and we're still searching through her very wordy recollections—aggrieved her.

"But she wanted that flower, and the flower could only grow in the green. She created a slender, minor connection to the green—or rather, to its power. It was minor enough that she felt it would not be noticed; she timed the building of that connection to coincide with the regalia of that time. She had been stymied by the Wardens in her attempt to gain a seed, which seemed a totally reasonable request to her eyes."

"Let me guess: all of her requests seemed reasonable to her eyes."

"Of course they did. She was engaged in research which could bring great power to the Barrani."

"Do you think she believed that?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. She certainly wrote as if she did. Serralyn is now annoyed with my commentary. What she wanted me to tell you is: Azoria didn't trust the green. She considered the green inimical to true research. Deliberately inimical. Serralyn therefore advises you, if you have any doubts, to trust what Azoria would not trust. What Azoria built, the green would have destroyed. If the green is here—and given the dress and the flowers, Serralyn doesn't doubt its presence—it means Azoria's obfuscation of the connection vanished when she died; the connection itself did not.

"And if the green wishes to obliterate what Azoria built, do what you can to help."

"It's not—not like w-w-we have much choice." Kaylin found it hard to speak, she was so cold. Bellusdeo released her; Severn did the same, but with more reluctance. She felt the absence of his warmth.

But it was time. She could walk for a few steps without physical aid; she moved toward the statue, only then realizing just how much of her weight the Dragon and Severn had been carrying. Her legs shook, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her. Had she been forced to take more than half a dozen steps, she would have fallen.

The marks on her arms were humming; they were vibrating. All the marks, not just the marks of the Chosen. The green and ivory cast of the original marks was now gold and emerald, almost the same color as the marks that had once been the color of jade.

"Are you ready?" Evanton asked. He, too, had stepped forward, Mrs. Erickson's hand on his arm. They stopped in a line with Kaylin, each of the three close enough to raise a hand to touch the statue. In Kaylin's case, that was entirely theoretical; she couldn't lift her arms.

"Evanton—I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing ."

"How is that different from usual?"

Hope snickered.

If Kaylin had no idea what she was supposed to be doing, it didn't matter. The dead Ancient moved. Had it taken a step forward, it would have knocked three people over—at best. It didn't. Instead, as if bowed by the weight Kaylin carried, the Ancient knelt. As it did, it opened its eyes. Those eyes flickered over Kaylin and Evanton, before fastening onto Mrs. Erickson.

Of course. The Ancient was dead.

Kaylin didn't know what Mrs. Erickson saw; she'd been too involved in her own struggle just putting one foot in front of the other, and hadn't thought to ask .

But Mrs. Erickson was unencumbered by the weight of the ghosts that had consumed so much of her energy; she immediately lifted her hands, palms up. She didn't appear to lift her head much, which confirmed Kaylin's expectations. She didn't see what anyone else present saw.

"Hello," she said, her voice the same gentle, yet bright, tone Kaylin had grown to love.

I greet you, Warden , the Ancient replied.

"Oh, I'm not anyone important," Mrs. Erickson said. "I'm not a Warden—unless you mean Evanton?"

I speak to you. The Ancient lifted its slightly bowed head. I speak to all of you: Keeper, Chosen, and Warden.

Kaylin's marks hummed in harmony with the Ancient's voice.

What must I do? My purpose is long ended. Without purpose, what point is existence? A hint of a tremor inflected the words. A terrible longing.

"Rest," Mrs. Erickson said, her voice gentle, her expression empathic. Of course it was. She had lived with the children for literally all her life; her life had been built around keeping them company. Even her connection with the Hawks had come down to the children in the end—she wanted to have new stories to tell them, new events that would tie them to her life, to the life of the living, which they had yearned for so desperately. They couldn't leave the house; they left it vicariously through her, and she returned to them every night.

But they couldn't interact with anyone else. When she'd fallen and hurt her leg, they couldn't call for help. She was theirs, yes—but they were the beloved burden she bore; they couldn't carry her weight.

She knew about losing the purpose that defined her life.

But her solution was to open up to the rest of life. To start again, to start anew. To accept new friends, and to let her beloved old friends go. She could do this only because she was alive. She was alive, living as the children had wanted her to live. Wanted, and were too young, too needy, to convince her to do.

Rest?

Mrs. Erickson nodded. "Rest. My purpose vanished, and I wanted to see what my life could be like without it. But you're not alive, dear. There's a place the dead go, where they can set down all the burdens of life: all the sorrow, all the fear, all the resentment."

This was more than Kaylin had heard her say to any of the dead; she didn't acknowledge death if they didn't. She spoke to them as if they were alive until they were ready to tell her they weren't, as if speaking of their death would drive her away.

"I'm not sure it works that way for you," Mrs. Erickson continued.

Both Evanton and Kaylin turned toward Mrs. Erickson. The hands she had held out, the Ancient reached to touch; the Ancient's hands were far larger than Mrs. Erickson's, but Mrs. Erickson clearly occupied a different reality. The Ancient's hands were placed in Mrs. Erickson's, obscuring them.

"Tell me," the old woman said. "What would you do in the ideal world?"

Kaylin's skirts were swept back in the wind of the Ancient's answer.