“And he will be dangerous then. The power that he can easily reach will be lessened, but he will be able to draw it; he will be a window from the heart of the fiefs into the fief of Tiamaris, and we are already undermined by some Shadow we cannot yet locate.”
She turned back to Maggaron. He smiled. It was not a happy smile, but unlike most smiles one saw in the fiefs, it wasn’t cruel, either. Bending at the knee, he retrieved the sword that had fallen between them. “Chosen,” he said. “Learn to speak the tongue of the People. Ask Mejrah what the Ascendants are, and how they are born.
“If I understood the Dragon Lord correctly, you bear a name much like mine, but you are, like the People, a thing of flesh and mortality. Take this. It will serve you well in your coming war.”
She looked at the runed sword in his hand. It was no longer the greatsword of a giant; it had lost that form and shape when he had lost the same. But at its size it was still something even Severn would have difficulty wielding with any grace; it was a weapon of brute force.
“Take it, Chosen. Take it, or it will serve me, as it has done.”
She shook her head. “I can’t—”
But Mejrah shouted in her ear loudly enough that her teeth were rattling by the end of it. She didn’t need to understand the language of the People to understand exactly what the old woman’s demands were. She wanted Kaylin to take the sword. Kaylin’s sword training was such that she was competent; she doubted she would ever be good.
And she didn’t doubt, looking at the blade whose runes still glowed, that good was what this sword deserved. But she lifted her hand, and Maggaron placed the sword across her palm hard enough that the blade bit the skin of the single hand she’d lifted; the second was occupied. She wasn’t willing to release him yet, and she therefore kept her hand around his name.
He shuddered once as the sword left him, and then took a step back.
Mejrah shouted at him.
Tiamaris, however, roared at Mejrah, and the old woman stilled. She didn’t, however, shut up; instead, she lowered her voice and spoke quietly to Kaylin. Quiet didn’t have the force of imperative behind it. “What is she saying?” she asked Maggaron. She couldn’t focus clearly enough to pick up the language again.
His smile was slow and sweet around the edges; it was also sad. He shook his head. “Go with her, Chosen.”
“Maggaron—”
“She wishes you to bring me to the People here. I cannot take that risk.”
“You can’t destroy yourself.”
“No. But…the Shadows have less purchase here, and I do not think they will send me to the outlands again.” He bowed. “I must go. Can you not hear them?”
Kaylin frowned. The rune beneath her palm was still warm, but it felt…less solid. “No,” she told him, staring at the hatches and curved strokes beneath her palm. She began to speak the word again, and it gained brilliance, as if her syllables were filling it. His brows rose, and his eyes took on that light.
“How important is this?” she asked him. “Ask Mejrah.”
Mejrah replied almost before he’d finished the sentence.
“She says it is very important, Chosen.”
Kaylin nodded. “Tiamaris!”
The Dragon rumbled, his language as unintelligible for the moment as Mejrah’s. “He’s been to the heart of the Shadows; he knows something about them that we don’t—or can’t—know safely. I think it’s worth taking the risk—but it’s not my fief.”
“Good of you to remember,” the Dragon Lord replied. She couldn’t see what he did next, but she heard steps, and Sanabalis entered her peripheral vision. “How strong is your hold?”
“I don’t know, Sanabalis. I haven’t fought many wars inside a living person before.”
“If you aren’t careful, you’ll cut your hand in half,” he observed. He walked past her until he stood like the third point of a very tight triangle, the other two of which were Kaylin and Maggaron. “I am aware of your dislike for magic,” he told her calmly. “Unfortunately, some magic is now required.”
She nodded. While she couldn’t hear what Maggaron clearly could, she could feel it beneath her hand; the texture of the rune was shifting and changing. Not the word itself—the parts didn’t bend, split, or fold. But it was, once again, losing solidity. She knew that when it became permeable enough, he’d be gone.
Sanabalis had given her warning. As usual, he had mastered the art of understatement. If she’d plastered her entire body—both sides, bottom of feet and top of head—against the most extreme door ward in the Imperial Palace, it would have tickled in comparison. She bit something—her tongue, her lip—and her mouth filled with the familiar and unpleasant salt of her own blood.
It was followed by the worst Leontine phrase she knew; it was all she could do not to drop the sword and the damn name simultaneously.
Sanabalis didn’t seem to be particularly concerned—at least not with her. But he studied Maggaron’s face, and as he did, Maggaron’s eyes began to shift colors in a rapid cycle. She’d never seen anything like it before, and had she, she would have immediately assumed the person possessing those eyes was dangerously insane. But Maggaron’s expression didn’t change at all; he continued to stare at Kaylin. It was very disturbing.
“Sanabalis,” she said, forcing the syllables through gritted teeth, “is this entirely necessary?”
“It is.”
“Will-it-be-over-soon?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t even ask him what he was doing because his answer might have prolonged the casting. But her eyes began to water, and her vision began to blur; she saw two or three of Maggaron begin to separate as she watched. The blood in her mouth did not help. People began to speak—shout, cry, babble, and hiss—in a way that destroyed the actual weight of syllables. She bent slightly into her knees to brace herself, and then bent slightly more, because if her legs were too stiff she’d probably topple, and folding usually left fewer bruises.
She could barely see Maggaron now; she could see—and feel—his name, and she clung to that, tightening her fingers into rigid claws. Unfortunately for Kaylin, her suspicion that the sensation of hand-on-rune was a metaphor that didn’t actually involve her real hands was proved correct. It didn’t hold her up.
Nothing did; she felt as if she were walking—slowly—through the portal in Castle Nightshade. Or rather, that Sanabalis had uprooted said portal and had dropped it, in one go, on her head.
Kaylin. The single word was cool and clear, and none of its syllables—all two—clashed with anything else. Even given the source, it was a relief.
Nightshade?
Where are you? In Tiamaris.
You are not in Tiamaris, was his edged reply.
I am—she stopped. I’m less than ten yards from the border of the fief.
Return to the fief. Now.
So much for relief. We have a bit of a situation here, she said as tersely as she could, given that she wasn’t actually speaking any of this aloud. I’m leaving the heartland as soon as Sanabalis stops—
Stops what?
Whatever the bleeding hells he’s doing.
What is he doing? Kaylin—what are you doing?
I’m falling over.
Nightshade