Chapter 04

04

The chancellor's eyes shifted between Bellusdeo and Mrs. Erickson. Given the affection Lannagaros felt for the gold Dragon, Kaylin was surprised.

Mrs. Erickson wasn't silent; she was speaking in Bellusdeo's direction, but it was clear she wasn't speaking to the living Dragon.

"She wants to know what you want for yourselves."

"I want to know what they want at all. I didn't mean to bind them. I didn't mean to tie them down. If they were happy to be where they are, I wouldn't care. Kaylin's mentioned your ghosts—the children—but they wanted to be with you. They wanted to be with you for as long as you lived.

"Dragons live forever, unless something kills them. Mortals don't. I think your children knew that—but they wanted your company."

Mrs. Erickson shook her head. "They were trapped in my house. If they hadn't been trapped, I'm not certain my company would have had any appeal to them; they were children. They might have left my house and gone to where other children play."

"But they couldn't interact with them. They could interact with you. They didn't stay with you because they were raging. They didn't stay with you because they wanted revenge."

Kaylin nodded. "They knew who had killed them, but they were terrified, not enraged. Bellusdeo is right: those children loved you. They were with you because they did."

"They wouldn't have stayed if they had the choice," Mrs. Erickson said, voice firm. "They didn't. They couldn't pass on until Azoria An'Berranin was gone. I have tried all my life not to be a harsh, judgmental person, but I do believe I hated that woman in the end. I was happy she had died."

Kaylin didn't understand the guilt Mrs. Erickson clearly felt; her words were a confession. Kaylin was very happy that Azoria was dead—well, dead and gone. She didn't consider herself a terrible person for feeling that way.

Maybe that was why she found it impossible to dislike Mrs. Erickson. All of the Hawks did. She was a truly gentle person. Kaylin didn't have that in her.

"And my sisters?" Bellusdeo whispered.

Mrs. Erickson's brow furrowed. "They're bound to our world, as the children were bound, but in a much more restricted space. They can't see each other. I think, had each of my four children been isolated that way, it would have been much, much harder for them."

"Why could your children see each other, then? If my sisters can't see each other, if they can't tell you what they want—"

"They can't, yet—but I'm sure they will," Mrs. Erickson replied. "But I do agree. If they could be made aware of each other in the way my children were, they would be happier."

"Can they—can they see me clearly?"

"Yes, dear. They can see you. They can see the world around you. One or two have distinctly unkind opinions about that world or the people in it."

"Can they see Lannagaros now?"

"I believe they can—but they're looking at me because I'm present and I can hear them clearly." Mrs. Erickson then looked at the wall, or rather, at the Wevaran stuck to it.

"We wish to know how I can better use the gift I was given. I can see these ghosts, but I cannot touch them; they can hear me, but they cannot hear each other. It must be possible to create a space where they could at least have that. But I don't think Jamal, Katie, Esmeralda, or Callis became ghosts in the regular way."

"Neither did Bellusdeo's sisters." Kaylin's voice was soft.

Bellusdeo, pale, eyes fully copper, said, "They did. They died. My sisters weren't bound by enchantment. They were lost in battle, devoured by Shadow. They weren't like the children."

"How much did Helen tell you?" Kaylin glanced at Mrs. Erickson.

"She answered all my questions. She was hesitant. The privacy of her tenants is something she guards—but Mrs. Erickson didn't want that privacy, at least not with me." Bellusdeo swallowed. "They died in Shadow."

"You were absorbed by Shadow, but you weren't killed by it; I would never have found you, otherwise."

"I was the last," was the bitter reply. "The last and the strongest. I was the perfect warrior for Shadow's cause. I could go where they could not. Even here. The Towers could prevent my entry into your city because I bore the taint of Shadow, but not completely; I had the right to walk the streets of Elantra, as any other living being does."

"So they didn't transform you."

Bellusdeo nodded.

Starrante began to click as he spoke to himself. "Apologies, apologies," he said, in Elantran. "I forgot for a moment that you couldn't understand me. Shadow is corrosive. For Immortals, Shadow can blur the words that give life, rewriting them in subtle—or obvious—ways. When Shadow touches mortals who carry no such words, the transformations are writ in their flesh. It is not always so with the Immortal.

"Bellusdeo does not bear the taint of Shadow. If she did, she could never have become the captain of a Tower; the Tower itself would reject—or destroy—her."

"Perhaps," the chancellor said quietly, "this is a topic that could be discussed at a different time. Starrante is correct; Bellusdeo is free of even the hint of Shadow. She is not, apparently, free of the dead. Corporal? Your frown has been deepening enough your face may be frozen in that expression."

Kaylin shook her head. "Sorry, I was thinking about something."

"And that?"

"Bellusdeo once told me her sisters were killed by the Outcaste. He could travel to the empire she ruled before her adopted world fell to Shadow."

The chancellor's eyes were now orange. Kaylin considered her options. She understood that Lannagaros didn't want the discussion to touch on Shadow, Bellusdeo's long enslavement there, and the possible consequences; he did not want to deepen the gold Dragon's grief.

Given the existence of Mrs. Erickson and the existence of Bellusdeo's dead sisters' ghosts, Kaylin thought it was unavoidable. And she had questions that she felt, instinctively, were necessary to ask. But maybe they didn't have to be asked right now.

Bellusdeo said that her sisters had been killed on the world she'd once ruled. But their bodies had been found in Elantra.

Why had their corpses appeared in Elantra? The identical bodies had caused a stir, but they were the essential clues that led, eventually, to the gold Dragon's escape from Ravellon .

The sisters' names were the True Names that, combined, had become the name Bellusdeo now carried within her: a sign of her coming-of-age in Dragon terms. Had their bodies somehow been preserved because their True Names had been preserved?

That wasn't the way it was supposed to work.

The bodies found in Elantra had been almost pristine; there was no sign of the cause of their deaths. They looked as if they were sleeping; she would have assumed they were, but she knew Dragons, like any other living creature in this world, needed to breathe, and these bodies didn't.

She knew when it came to the nature of True Names as sources of life, she was almost entirely ignorant. She understood that they worked, because she'd seen the Lake of Life, and she knew what the Consort's actual job was.

True Names didn't preserve Barrani bodies. Tain's tooth, chipped in combat, had never magically become whole again. Barrani could be scarred, they could lose limbs, but the Hawks didn't see much of that because mortals couldn't really cause those injuries to Barrani Hawks.

She had no idea what happened to bodies when the morgue was done assessing them. Most would be released to families; those without families would be interred...somewhere. She'd never been too concerned with that part of the procedure, because it wasn't her job.

But even if the bodies had somehow been fully preserved—which she doubted—and even if they had some way of transferring True Names back to those bodies, they had no way of extracting those names. The names were part of Bellusdeo's name.

Maybe that was why these ghosts were now bound to the gold Dragon.

Bellusdeo would have accepted that—with immense guilt—had the ghosts not been weeping. She'd accepted the deaths of her sisters—and the structural change in the actual name at her heart—until the moment she'd met Mrs. Erickson in person.

But Bellusdeo hadn't come to Helen to discuss ghosts with Mrs. Erickson; she'd come in a terribly, almost red-eyed mood to discuss something else.

Kaylin cleared her throat. "I don't mean to change the subject—"

"Then don't," Bellusdeo snapped.

"—but you didn't visit Helen to meet Mrs. Erickson. You didn't visit because you had a ghost problem."

"Why I visited no longer matters. This is more important."

The chancellor exhaled a thin stream of smoke. "If you felt it important enough to visit Helen," he began.

"It isn't as important as this." Bellusdeo folded her arms, lifting her chin. "Nothing's as important as this."

"Very well. I assumed there might be difficulties with your Tower, and you wished Helen's input."

"It's not just the Tower. And I don't appreciate Kaylin's attempt to change the subject."

Since that was exactly what Kaylin had been trying, she winced but said nothing.

"I haven't spoken with Karriamis about Mrs. Erickson. I intend to ask him for information about Necromancy—or whatever it is we're dealing with—after we finish at the Academia. I've asked the Arkon for any information he has, and I've applied for permission to return to the internal mirror at the heart of the archives."

"I do not believe he wishes Mrs. Erickson to be in the presence of that mirror."

Bellusdeo clearly didn't care. "I'll be visiting with Helen for the foreseeable future. Mrs. Erickson hasn't had a lot of focused practice with her abilities, and even if the Arbiters can unearth practical, historical information, she's still going to need to attempt to use that information properly."

Arbiter Starrante came down from the wall. "I would, with permission, like to take Mrs. Erickson on a walking tour of the Academia campus."

The chancellor's brows rose.

"With your permission," Starrante added, half of his eyes turned toward Mrs. Erickson.

"I would love that," Mrs. Erickson replied, as if she meant it. She probably did. "But it's going to be dark soon—should we wait until tomorrow? My eyes aren't very good in the dark anymore."

Starrante's eyes—two of them—rose from his body and swiveled toward the chancellor, who seemed to be all smoke or steam, given his breath. His eyes remained orange.

Bellusdeo's were orange as well, but shading toward red. Kaylin expected a lot of red in the coming days.

"You have my permission."

Kaylin rose instantly. "We're going to head home, then." Her stomach hadn't embarrassed her yet, but it was dinnertime, and if she didn't eat something soon, it would.

"I'll take you both back," Bellusdeo said, turning toward the door.

"We can walk."

"I will take you home."

"Or not."

Helen had clearly been informed that Bellusdeo would be flying in; they landed in the tower with its odd, collapsing roof. Helen's Avatar was waiting for them. She moved immediately toward Mrs. Erickson, and the look she threw Bellusdeo was as critical as Helen ever got.

"Dinner is ready," she told them all. "Bellusdeo, will you be joining us?"

"I'll be back in the morning. Early." Which meant no. "Kaylin will be joining us at the Academia tomorrow."

Mandoran, Annarion, and Terrano were at the table when they reached the dining room. The rest of the cohort weren't.

"Sedarias is at the High Halls with Allaron and Karian," Mandoran told Kaylin as she pulled out a chair. "Everyone else is too exhausted by Sedarias to even look at food." He grinned. "How did the visit to the Academia go?"

"About as well as anything involving two Dragons in a snit."

"The chancellor doesn't normally engage in snits, according to Serralyn."

"Tiamaris and Bellusdeo. The chancellor stopped the snit from becoming full-blown hostility."

Mrs. Erickson didn't look comfortable with this description, but notably made no attempt to correct it. She'd spent decades around the police; she knew how they talked, and she'd learned to accept it with grace.

"Serralyn would have been here for dinner—she has questions—but she also has some sort of study period that's apparently urgent. She's speaking with Starrante now."

"About?"

"Bellusdeo and Mrs. Erickson. She's worried." He frowned. "Where's the limp lizard?"

Kaylin wondered that as well. He hadn't joined Helen in the landing tower, and he hadn't come to the dining room. She turned to Helen. "Do you know where Hope is?"

Helen's frown was similar to Kaylin's—uneasy. "Yes and no."

Kaylin began to eat. "Give me the yes after dinner and I'll go look for him. What's Starrante saying?"

"He's mostly venting frustration at what he considers the library's insufficient mandate for entry into the archive."

"He can't find actual books about Necromancy."

"Not direct ones, no. I mean, he's just said that it was a forbidden art in many places, or in many periods of time. If there were books, they would have been destroyed or hidden."

"That wouldn't make a difference to their presence in the library."

"No, not usually." Mandoran ate between replies, his brow furrowed. Kaylin saw the moment his eyes began to darken.

The cohort could speak to each other no matter how great the physical distance between the various members—that was what the name bonds meant. It was therefore hard to tell which particular member of the cohort was causing the stiffening of Mandoran's otherwise genial expression.

She glanced at Annarion. His eyes were generally blue—only Serralyn's were green on a daily basis—but they darkened as well.

Terrano, who had been silent, looked across the table to Kaylin. "That dinner you wanted to finish?"

Kaylin put her cutlery down.

"Torri says there's a lot of noise coming from one of the rooms upstairs." He set his own cutlery down. "I'll meet you upstairs." Before he vanished, he added, "I think Mrs. Erickson should probably come with us."

Kaylin turned immediately to Helen. "What's happening upstairs?"

"I am not entirely certain. But I believe Hope is part of the noise to which Torrisant refers."

Kaylin fell behind Mandoran and Annarion. She remained with Helen by Mrs. Erickson's side, an arm around the older woman's shoulders. No matter how quickly Mrs. Erickson moved, she was never going to run up the flights of stairs at the cohort's speed. Or Kaylin's, if it came to that.

In any other circumstance, Kaylin would have ordered Helen to take Mrs. Erickson somewhere safe. But if Torrisant was right, the noise was being caused by Mrs. Erickson's ghosts—ghosts that no one else could see. In theory, no one else should have been able to hear them either, but Torrisant had, and he'd alerted the cohort.

Terrano was nowhere in sight. Of course he wasn't. Knowing Terrano, he'd rushed into whatever it was making noise. No wonder Sedarias worried more about Terrano than the rest of the cohort combined.

Mrs. Erickson said, "You can go on ahead. I'll be there as soon as I can."

Kaylin shook her head. She was certain that if the guests were involved, Mrs. Erickson was their only conduit; there wasn't much point in arriving before the newest of her roommates.

She reached the end of the stairs, turned toward the hall that had only one resident, and nearly ran into Annarion's back. Mandoran stood beside Annarion, but the halls were wide enough to accommodate more than two people standing side by side; they had clearly taken up defensive positions.

Torrisant was farther down the hall, and the two Barrani moved cautiously to join him; they stood three abreast. Kaylin looked between them. The gallery, with its balcony, looked normal for another three yards past the three Barrani men—but beyond that, it no longer resembled any part of Helen's house. The carpeting ended in a blur of blue and gold—as did the walls, rails, one half of a painting, and the ceilings.

Something that resembled a large, out-of-focus moon had taken over Helen's physical control of the space. Or maybe Helen had shifted space to contain whatever it was they were all staring at. Kaylin hadn't drawn daggers. Annarion had drawn sword, as had Torrisant. Mandoran had taken to leaving his sword in his room, where it was safe. Swords while within Helen's boundaries weren't usually a necessity.

Kaylin didn't think a simple sword—or a pair of daggers—was going to be of much use here, unless monsters suddenly emerged from the orb.

"Helen—what is that?"

Helen stepped between Mandoran and Annarion. "That," she said, her voice lower than its norm, "is Hope."

"He isn't alone," Mrs. Erickson said. She attempted to follow Helen, but none of the three Barrani moved to allow her passage. They were silent; they were probably fielding questions from members of the cohort who weren't present.

"Kaylin, tell Terrano to retreat," Mandoran said.

Terrano was, as expected, in the thick of the unnatural. "Why are you telling me that? I can't even see him."

"Shout—he might listen to you."

Kaylin grimaced; it was Terrano—he didn't listen to anyone. "Helen—can you see him?"

"He is...very close to Hope; I believe Hope is attempting to isolate him."

"Please tell me he isn't actually trying to make contact with...whatever this is."

"I have never made lying to my tenants a practice." In a tone surprisingly similar to Mandoran's, she added, "Where else would he possibly be?"

"You can't pull him out?"

"I can," Helen said. "But I am containing the guests, and it is surprisingly difficult. Extricating Terrano would split attention I'm not certain I can spare."

"What is Terrano even doing?" Kaylin demanded, of the three backs.

To her surprise, it was Torrisant who answered—she couldn't remember him speaking much. "He's not completely stupid—he's got an anchor."

Anchor. She quickly reviewed the list of cohort members. Sedarias, Allaron, and Karian—another silent presence in the house—were at the High Halls. Serralyn and Valliant were residents in the Academia. Eddorian, alone of the twelve, had chosen to remain within the Hallionne Alsanis. That left only one straggler: Fallessian.

"Can Fallessian handle it?"

"He's trying." It sounded like no .

"Mandoran, what is he doing?"

"He's trying to phase into a plane which would allow him to talk to Mrs. Erickson's friends."

"They're dead!"

"None of us understand what that means right now. I mean, if they were dead, they'd be gone, right? But they're definitely here."

"Did Terrano call them out of their room?"

"No—they left it on their own."

Kaylin shoved her way between Mandoran and Torrisant; it was Mandoran who gave first. "Hope!" she shouted.

The moon, for want of a better word, moved.

"That is not a good idea," Helen said, voice far sharper than the norm.

Kaylin had seen Hope in three forms: the small transparent winged lizard that sat on her shoulder, the large transparent dragon she could—in emergency—ride, and the winged man, closest in appearance to an Aerian, who appeared when there was no room for a Dragon. She had never seen this form before; it was almost an orb of light, with indistinct edges.

"I'm going to try to talk to Hope," she told her companions. "I mean—I'm going to try to understand what he's trying to say to me. If he's trying at all."

It was Torrisant who gave her an odd look. He didn't speak, though.

She closed her eyes.

The marks on her arms began to glow; they were, for the moment, the only thing she could see. She'd learned that their glow's visibility had little to do with her actual eyes. The glow was subtle; it was hard to tell if the color was silver or a gray blue. Her skin didn't hurt, which meant there was no normal magic being used.

What she noticed, beyond the expected marks, was the sudden drop in temperature. It was cold. It was so cold.

It wasn't the first time she'd experienced cold like this—underdressed, no shelter in sight, almost resentful of the fact that death could come from something that had no will, no intent; it wasn't hunting her—it didn't notice her at all.

No. No—she wasn't that child anymore. She had a home, had income, had food. She wasn't trapped in the winter, her fingers and toes aching with a pain that would pass into numbness. She was with Helen. She was surrounded by friends. All she had to do was open her eyes.

Her marks flared suddenly, as if they'd been struck by fire; they were a gold almost eclipsed by orange, as if they reflected a Dragon's eyes. They had never been this color before, but everywhere the marks shone, the cold receded. She always resented their presence across over half her skin; for the first time, she wished they covered all of it.

Who was it who had told her she wasn't seeing her marks with her normal eyes? Terrano? Who'd said that to look at certain things she was unconsciously stepping to the side, stepping into a slightly different plane of existence?

Whoever it was, she wanted to thank them. Or strangle them. Which meant it was either Terrano or Mandoran.

She lifted her arms and realized belatedly that she could see them. She could see herself, her marks, and the darkness behind closed eyes, even if she'd opened hers, and she had. She could also see the white glow in front of where she stood. It no longer looked like a moon or an orb; she could see the faint outline of something draconic.

"Hope!"

You should not be here.

"Are you stuck there? Do you need help?"

You should not , he replied, in a more severe tone, be here. Helen should know better.

"I'm not the only person who's here—Mrs. Erickson is here as well. Can you see Terrano?"

Hope wasn't a Dragon, but his rumble was definitely a good imitation. I am aware of Terrano; he is tied to Fallessian, who usually knows better than to join his brother in reckless action.

"What are you even trying to do?"

Terrano attempted to knock on the door of the guest room. Helen had advised him against interfering with her guests—there is a good reason she has made their quarters in a separate hall—but he convinced her that he could do so safely. She created a space in which he could stand with Fallessian, adjacent to the guest room in some fashion.

Terrano and Fallessian could, with effort, occupy that space, but Terrano's attempt to somehow see and interact with these extremely unusual ghosts hadn't met with success.

Kaylin grimaced. "So he decided to take a walk."

He decided to attempt to approach them more closely, yes.

"Is that why you stayed home today?"

Yes and no. It did not occur to me that Terrano would be as foolishly reckless as he has been. I stayed because the guests were suddenly restless.

"How could you know that?"

I could hear them. I cannot tell you if they were afraid or angry; I could hear noise, murmuring, where there should be none.

"I can't hear anything but you."

Hope's silence was one of frustration.

"Can Terrano hear anything?"

Torrisant heard the disturbance first. It's a pity he doesn't join you more often; he is sensitive in ways his companions are not. Torrisant, however, is cautious. Terrano is not. When Torrisant declined to explore—he wished to alert Helen, and wait for her input—Terrano chose to investigate in his place.

"And Fallessian was just collateral damage. Are they safe?"

Fallessian is safe.

Kaylin cursed. "Where is Terrano?"

He is partially with me.

"And the rest of him?"

Occupies a space I cannot safely enter.

"Can I?"

Hope took longer to answer this question. I am uncertain. I am aware of you; I am aware of your current location. It is not a location I could easily traverse; were it not for our bond, I am not certain I would find you at all.

"Helen, can you hear me?"

"I can."

"Can you see me?"

"Not in the normal fashion."

"Great. Is this the same problem you're having with Terrano?" She added a few choice words after his name.

Helen clearly did not approve, given the tone of her response. "Imelda is not an officer of the law; she is unaccustomed to language such as this."

"She came to the Halls of Law every day, Helen. She must be used to it."

Helen chose to abandon the argument about appropriate language. "My difficulty seeing you is similar to the difficulty I have with Terrano."

"Can you see Hope?"

"Yes. He is not in his usual form, but he is clearly visible. I am only aware of Terrano and you because of the defenses against intruders built into my core."

"And Mrs. Erickson's guests?"

"I am aware of them as well, and in the same fashion. Imelda is attempting to gain their attention now."

Kaylin frowned. "Can Mrs. Erickson see them?"

"Yes. Yes, she can."

"What do they look like to her?"

"I believe they look like...people. It's how she managed to bring them to me in the first place."

Kaylin grimaced. She stood in a darkness alleviated only by the light of her marks; those marks were now a livid orange, as if her skin was on fire. But without the pain, which she appreciated.

"Hope says he has Terrano."

I did not say that.

"Hope says he's aware of Terrano, and he doesn't sound too panicked. I'm going to try to reach him."

No!

"No!" Helen shouted, at the same time as Hope, the two denials overlapping in tone and texture. "Please, Kaylin, allow Imelda to attempt to quiet her ghosts before you do anything rash."

"I can't see Mrs. Erickson."

"Just please remain where you are."

"I'm not trying to reach her ghosts—I'm just trying to find Terrano."

"The two, at the moment, are entwined. We do not know what these so-called ghosts are; we don't know what they can do. What we do know is they were capable of possessing the Arkon.

"Death for the endless and Ancient is not death as we perceive it. Death for mortals is finite and irreversible."

Kaylin hesitated, remembering the corpse of the Ancient, trapped in Azoria's enchantments. Nothing about that being, when finally freed, was dead in any fashion Kaylin understood. Jamal and his friends had been: they were ghosts; they couldn't interact with living people, with the sole exception of Mrs. Erickson, and that was more because she could see them; it was her power that allowed contact, communication.

If these ghosts, these words, were dead in the fashion of that Ancient, they weren't dead in any way that Kaylin, a mortal Hawk who had seen her share of corpses, understood.

Did words die?

Did they perish, unspoken?

Or did they remain, waiting for new readers, new speakers, to give them life again?

She heard murmurs as she listened—as she realized she was focused on listening—in this dark place; they sounded like a crowd of people at a great enough remove that the words they shouted were indistinct, blurred.

The marks on her arms grew brighter, orange and flickers of red giving way, at last, to gold and white. As if she had finally reached the outer edge of the crowd, words broke through the murmur of the crowd.

To her surprise, they were spoken by Mrs. Erickson.