Cast in Sorrow (Luna Books)(20)

In the silence of watchful Barrani, in the darkness behind closed lids, she could hear the eagles speak, and the language that sounded so painfully familiar took on the tones and the range of sound she associated with song. There was a distinctive cadence to the words, a stretching and thinning of syllables that speech didn't normally contain.

Music-even wordless music-had a feel to it. It evoked emotion. There was a simple harmony to the speech of these creatures, although she couldn't quite place how-they seemed to take turns, to be singing different parts, and their voices were distinct. They didn't overlap. But there was no point in expecting dreams in the shape of eagles to actually make sense.

"Lady." Kaylin's voice was rough and tuneless in comparison.

The Consort didn't answer-no surprise there.

Kaylin inhaled, exhaled, and then reached out with the power that she used to heal the injured. If there was nothing wrong with the Consort physically, there would be nothing to heal.

The dreams of Alsanis continued their song, and as Kaylin listened, she understood why it sounded so familiar; she had heard something similar before-but never in voices like these. The Consort had sung something with the same feel, the same tone, when she had been forced to wake the Hallionne Bertolle. There was a yearning, a desire, and an emptiness to the song of the dreams of Alsanis that reminded Kaylin very much of the Consort's song of awakening.

She started to tell the eagles that the Consort wasn't a Hallionne and couldn't be woken that way, but stopped. She had no idea whether or not that was true, anymore, because something about the Consort was subtly different from the other Barrani she had healed. She almost forgot to breathe, the panic was so sharp.

But it was hard to hold on to it; the song of the dreams of Alsanis was too insistent, too urgent; there was a warmth-a heat-to the urgency. She felt it pass through the Consort's hand into her own. As it did, she heard a second song.

If the first song was the conversation of the dreams, the second was the construction of the nightmares. It should have been cacophony. It wasn't. Somehow, the two disparate songs overlapped and blended; they were distinct, but they were-as the eagles had said-part of a single piece.

Kaylin's arms began to burn. So did the back of her neck, her legs, and a small spot in the center of her forehead. She knew the marks that adorned over half her body were now glowing. Lady, she thought, squeezing the Consort's hand. Wake.

There was nothing wrong with her body. There was nothing to heal. But Kaylin knew, as she listened, that the Consort wouldn't wake without intervention. Barrani didn't require sleep, but even Barrani could starve to death.

The small dragon bit her ear hard enough, she was certain, to draw blood. She let loose a volley of Leontine as she opened her eyes and grabbed for him with her left hand. Her right remained tightly clasped around the Consort's.

"Lord Kaylin, your ear is bleeding."

"I kind of guessed that. I don't suppose you have a cage?"

The small dragon squawked. He batted her face with surprisingly heavy wings as he pushed off her shoulder, roundly berating her in his unintelligible bird-speak.

Except what she heard was cadence. Rhythm. Nothing in his lizard vocal chords evoked music, but she realized that he was trying to sing when both of the eagles fixed their gaze on him. Their voices rose; she was caught instantly by the shift in their song, as if it were current and she was almost drowning.

Her very frustrating companion squawked back. It was a harsh noise; it blended with nothing. If he'd tried to coax notes out of a drum, he'd have had an easier time. As if he could hear the thought, he then turned his attention back to Kaylin, and this time, his voice was softer and almost plaintive, although it wasn't any more musical.

"You want me to sing?" she asked.

He nodded with his whole body, bobbing up and down in place.

"Only because you've never heard me." She glanced once, apprehensively, at the gathered Barrani lords. Singing off-key and out of tune in the West March was not the same as singing with the foundlings in the foundling halls, and that was the only place she readily joined a group song.

But the small dragon landed on her shoulder and nudged her cheek, and she knew he not only meant her to sing, but meant to join her. How much worse could she sound?

"What," Nightshade said sharply, "do you intend to sing?"

"Badly, and probably off-key, whatever it is," she replied. "But not on purpose. The eagles are singing," she added, "and I think small and squeaky wants me to join them."

"The eagles are not singing," the Lord of the West March said.

"But they are," Lord Barian said. The two men's gazes met, and both fell silent.

Kaylin wanted to ask Lord Lirienne what he heard, but the eagles' voices had grown higher and more urgent, and she turned to listen, closing her eyes and concentrating on a song that was two parts. Two parts, and what seemed like a dozen. There was no room for her voice in the throng.

She made room. She wound her voice-dissonant, unmusical, and uncertain-around the squawking of her small dragon, finding words that spoke to what she heard, even if there were no similar words in the music of the dreams and nightmares of a Hallionne. Feeling self-conscious made her voice even weaker than it usually was, but it wouldn't be the first time she'd made a total fool of herself.

Her arms ached. The burning, she was used to-if one could ever get used to that sense of skin being seared. But they also trembled, as if she'd been carrying way too much for too long. She looked at the small dragon; he was watching her, his squawk gentled to a croon.

She wished she could understand him. For now, it was enough that the eagles seemed to. The only two people caught in this song that couldn't were Kaylin and the Consort herself, because as Kaylin found voice and exposed a ridiculous vanity, she heard the Consort singing.

But the Consort lay unmoving, her eyes and lips closed. Her skin, sallow, was now beaded with perspiration-but so was Kaylin's. It made it hard to keep the grip on her hand. She changed that grip, entwining their fingers and tightening her hold.

She didn't know what the birds hoped to wake, and in the end, that wasn't her problem. What she wanted-what she needed-was to wake the Consort. She needed to make herself heard over the beautiful storm of sound that occurred when dream and nightmare clashed.

The dragon batted her cheek and shook his head.

The marks on her arm were a gold-white glow; she had to squint to read them. Not only were they on the edge of tear-inducing brightness, they seemed to be moving as she watched.

Gripping the Consort's hand tightly enough she started to lose feeling in her own fingers, Kaylin reached out with her free hand, passing it over the brilliant lines and dots that formed runes on most of her skin. They were warm, but not searing, beneath her callused palm-but they weren't solid. She felt resistance as her hand passed through them. The small dragon was bouncing up and down, although he didn't stop his noisemaking; nor did he vary its rhythm.

Still, she understood that he meant her to do what she was trying-and failing-to do: take them in hand. Lift them.

No, she thought. Not them. One. Just one. In the past, she had lost marks before: to the trapped spirit of a dead dragon, to the Devourer, to the small dragon hatchling. But the marks had lifted themselves off her skin; she hadn't chosen. She hadn't had to choose.

She had no idea why they were hers; someone immortal, someone older, wiser, and more knowledgeable-someone like the Arkon-should have been chosen instead. She didn't know what they were for. She had no idea why a word was necessary now-but she understood, watching the marks, that it was. And that this time, the hand of the Ancients wasn't going to make the choice for her.

Her hands shook, and not because she was nervous. She closed her eyes.

Eyes closed, she could still see the marks, but the light didn't burn her vision. Her body didn't impede it, either. It wasn't just the marks on her arms that were slowly beginning to rise.                       
       
           



       Chapter 8


She could see-with her eyes closed-the shape of nightmares. They were clearer and darker than they had been the first time she'd encountered them; there was so much light here, the edges of shadow wings were harsher and sharper. They implied bird-or maybe bat-without any of the other physical traits: they were like the shadows the eagles cast in flight.

She held on to that thought as the voices of the actual eagles filled her awareness, blending in rhythm, if not in actual sound, with the voice of her squawky sidekick. Her ear was throbbing. After this was done, she'd have pointed words with the little dragon.

The shadows filled her vision as they wheeled in the confined space.

Except it wasn't confined; it had no obvious shape, no floor, no roof, no walls; it implied a vast and endless sky-the kind you'd crane your neck to look up at. But it was a sky without color or cloud. She heard the voices of those shadows as clearly as she heard the eagles of Alsanis.

She looked down.

It was a mistake. She could see herself. She wasn't translucent, and she wasn't terribly impressive, but the dress she wore was: it was the essence of green, and green was the color of life in the West March. It was, she thought-and wondered why-the color of blood.