Cast in Sorrow (Luna Books)(51)

She caught Teela in her arms, tightened them.

"What have I told you about crying?" Teela whispered.

Kaylin told her what she could, in Leontine. "I don't care about the green. I don't care about Alsanis, either. I don't care about the lost children-I'm sorry, I don't. I care about you." She sucked in air that felt heavy and electric-and dry. "We're somehow in Alsanis, aren't we? Somehow? We're attached to the Hallionne.

"And this is not where we belong."

"Kitling-"

Kaylin raised both her face and her voice, and she shouted into and above the thunder. "We ask for and accept the judgment of the green!"

The ground fell out from beneath her. She tightened her arms around Teela and held on for all she was worth.

* * *

Really, as drops went, it wasn't terrible. But holding on to someone who was, for all intents and purposes, deadweight made negotiating a safe landing impossible.

"You," Teela said-because she was still conscious, somehow, "are an idiot."

"Whatever." Kaylin was afraid, for one long moment, to let go.

"Oh, I'm here," Teela told her grimly. "I'm glad you think that breathing is optional."

Kaylin let go. Her arms, however, had stiffened, and her hands were shaking as she tried to pry her fingers off Teela.

"You cannot leave well enough alone, can you?"

"It wasn't bloody well enough, okay?" Kaylin got to her feet. She was shaking, and she thought she might never stop. Teela's color hadn't improved any. "How many?"

"Pardon?"

"How many did you absorb?"

"I wasn't counting."

"Don't give me that look. If you want to commit suicide, you're going to have to do it when I'm not standing right behind you. Here." She put an arm around Teela's back, shoving herself under the Barrani's left arm and levering them both off the ground. "I don't know how long the path from here is, but we need to walk it. If we have to walk it in the dark, fine. We'll do that."

"Remind me to strangle Nightshade if we somehow manage to survive this." Light flared in the tunnel. It was a familiar tunnel, of rough rock, low ceilings, and unpredictable widths. "You're certain that your presence here-so soon after you got ejected-is not going to anger the green?"

"No."

"Do you understand the reason such an escape is so seldom used?"

"Yes."

"Then-"

"Are we dead?"

"Kitling."

"Are you?"

"Demonstrably not."

"Then we'll deal. One step at a time." She wanted to scream at Teela. Or swear. She contented herself with a few Leontine phrases, but her heart wasn't in them and they sounded pathetic, even to her ears.

"You're shaking."

Kaylin said, "So are you."

Teela chuckled. "We make quite the pair, don't we?"

Kaylin didn't reply.

* * *

The tunnels were the tunnels that Kaylin remembered, which was good. The first branch, on the other hand, reminded her that this was like a coin toss on which your whole life depended-which was bad.

"No, I don't know which way to go," Kaylin said, before Teela could insert a sarcastic comment. "Save your breath." She meant it, too. Teela's breathing was labored. Teela, who could sprint across the damn city and back without breaking a sweat. "If you want a say, stay awake."

"You understand that we're judged in entirely different ways by the green, don't you?"

"Yes."

"You may accept the green's judgment. You may leave. What if the green doesn't choose to release me?"

"I'm not leaving without you."

Teela laughed. "I wish you could have met them," she whispered.

"Given Barrani attitudes toward mortals at the time, I'm not sure it would have worked out well-for me."

"There is that. But I think you would have liked them. Well, maybe not Sedarias, not immediately." She closed her eyes. Opened them, but not all the way. "Allaron would have liked you. He liked small, helpless creatures. Of all of the candidates, he was the most inexplicable."

"What do you mean?" She knew, in cases like this, it was important to keep a person talking.

"Most of my kin are of a height, as you've complained about on any number of occasions. We are of a height, of a general build, our weight is roughly the same. There is far less variance among my kin than there is among yours."

"He was really tall, right?"

"Yes."

Kaylin nodded. "I think he was the second statue. But the thing about the statues-to me-is that they all looked very individual. Most of the Barrani look the same, at least on the surface. It's like you're twins, except, you know, more numerous."

"Allaron was large. He was stronger than most of the children his age. He was capable of astonishing feats of strength-but he was often quiet. Of the twelve of us, he was the most reticent. He would have liked you. He wouldn't even have complained much. You don't see our young," she added. "The children are very seldom raised in the city; they are kept away from the High Court until they are of an age where they might survive it."

"You were-"

"Yes. I was raised at Court. My father was a very powerful man; not for my safety would he deny himself the strategic arrangement of his place at Court. I spent some time in the West March with my mother, and he allowed it-at the beginning.

"But not at the end. He distrusted the Vale; he found the people of the West March rustic. None of us, once the plans were set in motion, were allowed to spend our childhoods in the more traditional environments. We were meant to excel in all things. We began our training early, and we were kept at it.

"Allaron was, as I said, strong. But all of his ferocity was in appearance. My father despised him."

"His own father?"

"His own father hoped that exposure to the rest of us would toughen his son up. I believe that's how mortals would express it." Teela closed her eyes again, and this time, the light that made the path navigable faltered. "Which way?"

"Right."

"The other right?"

Kaylin cursed. "Fine, left, then."

"Terrano had a sense of humor that you might have appreciated. He was-what is the Elantran word again? Clown?"

"A clown, but yes."

"He laughed a lot. He found things constantly delightful or amusing. Sedarias found Terrano very difficult to deal with-she had less of a sense of humor than Tiamaris."

"Did he have the typical Barrani sense of humor?"

"He had not yet developed the more refined edges, but he was Barrani."

"What did Terrano say to you?"

"They regret leaving me behind. It confused them, I think. They were changed. I was not. They felt that they had betrayed me, in some fashion, by abandoning me." She grimaced. "And I felt that I had done the same."

"You didn't-"

"My mother died in the greenheart. My father and his kin killed so many there." She closed her eyes again, and this time, it took her a lot longer to open them. "Blood is forbidden in the heart of the green."

Kaylin nodded.

"Do you understand why?"

"No, but I can make an educated guess."

Teela had the strength to snort, although her breathing continued to be labored. "The reason it's forbidden is that the will of the dying, expressed through blood, has power in the green. It isn't about a random life-it's about your own life. People who are unwilling sacrifices don't generally have the welfare of the green or its people at heart."

"Do I want to know how that was learned?"

"Probably not."

"Your mother died-"

"Yes. My mother, who had the blood of the Wardens in her veins. My mother, who could speak with Alsanis, who was welcomed-always-into his heart. She bled to death on the green. She asked for only one thing, kitling. Only one. That I be preserved. That I be unchanged, untransformed; that I remained myself.

"She was not the only person who died that day. The will of the others was harder, harsher; they wanted to preserve the green against the depredations of outsiders and people who did not live in-and of-it."

"How do you know?"

"I heard their dying thoughts. I heard their dying wishes. I heard the fear they felt-for us-when we were taken to the greenheart. I heard the hope that the recitation would pass without altering us; we were too young, too unformed. The Vale had no ambitions for us.

"And I heard our parents. We all did. I heard what they wanted. I heard what they desired. I heard their contempt for everything in the green except its power.

"We knew, by that point," she added. Her eyes were closed. Kaylin was afraid she wouldn't open them again. "We knew what the Warden and the Guardian feared. We knew that we were an experiment. If it was successful, we would, of course, be coveted and valued. We were not, in any way, valuable in and of ourselves. They didn't see us; they saw their own desires."

"Had we been older," she continued, "had we been, in truth, adults, this would not have surprised us. It wouldn't have wounded in the way that it did. Even the Barrani have the naive hope that mortal children know. We do not know it in exactly the same way, but when young, we believe in the promise of...affection. We learn.

"Just as you learn. You don't have to live with the truth for as long."