Cast in Sorrow (Luna Books)(50)

"I think-I'm sure-I know who Sedarias was. And this isn't really getting us to water-" Kaylin fell silent.

"Let me guess," Teela said. "There was a fountain there."

Kaylin nodded. "The Consort was by the fountain. She was-she was singing to it, the way she sang to Kariastos and Bertolle and Orbaranne." She bit her lip and stopped moving.

"Kitling-"

"I saw you there. You were there. But-you were made of ice, where they were made of glass-and Teela-"

"Don't feel compelled to share the rest; I no longer require it."

"What I don't understand is, what was Iberrienne trying to do to Orbaranne? I don't think he meant to just destroy her-or rather, he wanted something from the process."

"That is not the only thing you don't understand."

"Well, no. But-if Iberrienne was somehow doing it because of Eddorian, he was doing what the lost children want. What do they want, Teela?"

"This may come as a surprise to you, but I don't know. They don't want what I want, because, Kaylin, I have the name I was born for."

"It's got to be something to do with names. With True Words. I don't get it." Kaylin ground her teeth.

"You are such a Hawk." It was said with amusement, affection, and a touch of frustration.

Teela slid an arm around Kaylin's shoulders and began to drag her toward the distant pit. It made Kaylin feel young again, but without the resentment and the insecurity. Her feet left a short trail in the dirt.

* * *

The pit was not a cavernous, flattened, cylindrical city-which was both a relief and a disappointment. It was much larger than it had looked at a distance, but it wasn't larger across than the city in which Kaylin made her living. It was, on the other hand, pretty bloody dark, and as it had no architectural enhancements that Kaylin could see; there weren't convenient stairs leading down.

"Is this where we're supposed to be, do you think?"

Teela gave her A Look.

"Sorry." She walked to the edge of the pit.

"You'll be careful, right?" Teela said, joining her. Neither of the two Hawks were particularly height sensitive; they could hug the edge of the pit in relative safety.

"I'm always careful."

"I cannot believe the things you can say with a perfectly straight face. That was serious, wasn't it?"

* * *

Short of jumping, there didn't seem to be a way down, and neither of the Hawks carried rope. "You know-if this is the green's attempt to have a conversation, I wish it'd just use words, like the rest of us."

"You really, really don't," was Teela's grim reply. "Think before you speak."

Kaylin glanced at the sky. "Please tell me those are not clouds."

"I could, but you frequently complain when you think I'm lying."

"Did they just roll in when I said-"

"You know, kitling, you've seen a lot of the noncorporeal world. You've walked the outlands. You've walked the between. You've seen the heart of the Hallionne. Given the number of years you can actually expect to live-on average, and ignoring your total lack of basic caution-you've seen more than many of the Barrani who call the Vale home.

"Why do you still expect things to make sense?"

* * *

The storm clouds did not shed rain. They did shed a lot of lightning, and the resultant thunder was almost a physical sensation, it was so damn loud.

Lightning struck the ground ten yards in front of Teela.

"Things are going to get ugly," Teela said without looking back at Kaylin, who came to stand beside her.

"Why?"

"Can you not see them?"

Kaylin squinted as lightning changed the color of the sky. "See what?"

"The nightmares," she replied. "The nightmares of Alsanis."

* * *

The thing Kaylin hated most about Hallionne space or Tower space was this: people saw different things. They walked in different versions of reality. What Teela saw, Kaylin couldn't see. Lightning, yes. Clouds. Thunder. But not the nightmares. She'd seen what the nightmares did to the Consort, and she had no doubt at all that they could do the same-or worse-to Teela.

"How many?"

"Maybe a dozen," Teela replied, her face still turned toward the sky. "They're moving so quickly it's hard to count them."

"Are they heading this way?"

The Barrani Hawk's smile was grim. Grim and resigned. "Yes."

Kaylin closed her eyes. She meant to open them, but the moment her eyes were closed, the lightning became insignificant, as did the pit; it was the thunder she heard. And the thunder had a voice. It spoke words. They weren't words that she understood, not immediately-but she could pick out the rumble of deeply roared syllables.

The dreams of Alsanis spoke what Kaylin heard as Elantran. Not that many of their words made solid sense-but they could speak. They had never spoken like this. The thunder's voice was a roar of pain. Of pain, of anger, of loss, of denial. It wasn't one voice; it was many.

Many, she thought. The nightmares of Alsanis had never spoken aloud, not in a way that Kaylin could hear. "Teela!"

"I'm here."

"Can you hear them? Can you hear what they're saying?"

Silence. Well, on Teela's part; the thunder didn't stop.

"Yes, kitling."

"Do you understand it?"

"Yes."

Kaylin's eyes flew open. Teela had lifted her hands to the sky. Kaylin grabbed the left one and yanked it down to her side, which took real effort; mortal strength was not a match for Barrani strength-not when the Barrani was determined. "What are you doing?"

Teela looked down at Kaylin, and Kaylin saw that her eyes were now a deep purple, tinged with the blue that spoke of either anger or fear. "What I should have done, kitling. What I should have done years ago."

"This is not what you should have done!"

"I tried. As harmoniste, I tried to call their names. I tried to insert them into the story I was given."

"What story?" Kaylin shouted. "What story were you given?"

"Does it matter? I couldn't hold the whole of it. I could only barely choose something that made sense. Some path out of the chaos. But what I wanted was to tell the story of the lost. To call them back, somehow."

Kaylin tried to yank Teela's right arm down. She was now afraid because she still couldn't see the nightmares. She could hear the thunder's voice, but she was no longer certain that the thunder and the nightmares were one.

"I tried, kitling. But the truth is, I never left this place."

"Yes, you did. You left it, you left it whole, you came back to Elantra. You came to the Hawks, Teela-you came-"

"To you?"

"To me."

Teela's eyes were still purple. She looked gaunt. And young, Kaylin thought. She looked young. Teela lifted her arms again. "What you did for the Consort, you cannot do for me. You cannot see what I see, not here."

"Let me try!"

Teela shook her head. "You will, kitling. You are harmoniste. Nightshade is Teller. Perhaps you will hear what I couldn't hear. Perhaps your mortality will allow you to see clearly what I could not see." She staggered; her hands clenched in fists.

Kaylin placed one hand on the back of Teela's neck. At any other time, she wouldn't have dared; Teela, like the rest of the Barrani, had a loathing of healers that skirted the edge of murderous rage. What she couldn't see, she couldn't feel-but she hadn't attempted to heal the Consort when the nightmares had landed.

Teela staggered again.

"Teela! Teela!"

"I wanted to give them peace. I wanted to save some part of them. I wanted-" Teela shook her head, staggering again, her arms falling slowly, as if she could no longer bear their weight. "Remember this, kitling: there is no way back. There is no way out but through."

"This isn't the time for stupid philosophy-Teela!"

Teela shuddered, and Kaylin knew that she would not stop. The nightmares that Kaylin couldn't see were the only thing that mattered here.

"No," Teela said, her voice a whisper. "But it's me, kitling, or it's you. The nightmares of the Hallionne visit someone when they choose to fly."

The marks on Kaylin's arms were gray and flat. Nothing about this storm brought them to life. Nothing about Kaylin's growing desperation did, either. When Teela fell to her knees, Kaylin dropped to the ground beside her, hand still attached to the back of her neck. But there was nothing physically wrong with Teela; nothing that could be healed.

Kaylin had always thought-had always believed-that if she had been there, if she had been at her home the night of the worst loss she had ever endured, she could have done something. Something. Anything. But there was nothing she could do here. Whatever it was that attacked Teela, she couldn't see it, couldn't fight it. She tried. She tried to place the backs of her hands over Teela's shuddering palms; she tried to catch the nightmares before they touched her.

But she couldn't. They didn't touch her. They didn't suddenly become visible, and they didn't become the eagles the Barrani called dreams. She saw Teela's face lose all color; only her eyes retained any-and it was purple, the color that Kaylin had almost never seen. There was no green in them; nothing that spoke of happiness or peace.

Kaylin opened her eyes. She opened her eyes to the gray-green sky and the pit, and she understood that the pit itself had taken the rough shape and outline of a word-a word whose elements had somehow been obliterated, but in which the ground had retained a sense of what had once occupied it.