Cast in Sorrow (Luna Books)(54)

"Except through me."

"Yes."

Kaylin exhaled. "Let's go."

* * *

She had to stop at the twelfth pillar, and she was relieved to find that it, unlike the other eleven, was one great column that seemed to almost hold up the sky. There was no likeness of Teela here.

"No," Teela said, as if reading her mind. "But there are twelve."

"I just think it's weird that they're pillars. I don't understand the symbolism. I think I understand why they were made of glass in the nightmare-it makes more sense to me."

"Why?"

"Because they're empty. They're vessels. Whatever made them real, for want of a better word, is all but gone."

"But not gone."

Kaylin lifted her left hand, exposing the mark; it was the only one that hadn't changed color. "But these pillars kind of hold up the roof."

"You are looking for too much logic."

"There's nothing wrong with logic."

"No-but you're trying to understand a book when half of it's written in a language you've never heard, let alone read. You're missing half of the story because it's not a story you can inhabit in any way. The Hallionne are not mortal. The green is not mortal. You are."

"You're immortal-do you understand it any better than I do?"

Teela shook her head. "The green and the Hallionne don't differentiate between your kin and mine. Oh, they understand there is a difference-but to them, we are locked into our shapes and we exist in an entirely superficial way. We live in the world. We are of it."

"And they're not."

"No. They exist in a space of their own. They overlap many roads. I think that visitors sometimes came to the Hallionne from the outlands."

"We did."

"Yes-but in an emergency. We don't, and can't, live there. If not for Bertolle's...brothers...most of us would never have arrived at Orbaranne. You would. Nightshade. I'm tempted to say the Consort."

"And you?"

She didn't answer, but turned her face up toward the light because there was light now. It was sunlight. It was the type of sunlight that artists painted, the type that fell through branches into the quiet of forest floor. The forests without insects and burrs and things that were all thorn with a tiny bit of root beneath. An arch opened up in the wall at the end of this gigantic hall, and it framed-at last-green.

Kaylin could see trees; she could see grass, or at least wildflowers. She could hear the trickle of water in the distance, which implied either river, brook, or possibly fountain. She could see sky, and the sky was the normal azure.

"I think we're almost there," she told Teela.

Teela nodded and closed her eyes.

* * *

There was no sun in the sky, which was the first oddity. Kaylin was so grateful to see life-or at least its imitation-that it took her some time to realize what was missing. There were no insects or birds. In all, this should have been idyllic.

It wasn't. It was giving her hives. The marks on her arms were glowing brightly. Of course. When they could have been useful, they'd been flat, gray, and lifeless.

She viewed the garden from a terrace. The terrace, like the hall itself, suggested Barrani architecture, and a path led from both the height and the base of its steps. Kaylin hesitated. She looked to Teela for an opinion; Teela was utterly silent.

The fire set her-carefully-down. I will leave you now, Chosen.

"I'm not-"

You are. I have been in this place before; it is peaceful, but it is not mine. Go. My part of this story is told.

"I can't carry her."

You can, if you must. Come back to the Keeper's garden when you are done. There are stories to be told.

* * *

The fire took warmth with him. Kaylin didn't need it, not here-but Teela did. She knelt beside the Barrani Hawk she'd known and envied and-yes-loved for so much of her life. And she was afraid-that was the truth. She hadn't understood, at her mother's deathbed, what death meant. Severn had.

But she'd learned. It was endless. It was loss. It was loss every day. It was an emptiness and a permanent lack of warmth.

Teela had been nothing like her mother. Teela was Barrani. Teela was immortal. Teela had taken her places her mother would never have taken her; had forgiven things her mother would never have forgiven. She wasn't always kind. No, scratch that, she was almost never kind. It wasn't her way. But she was solid. She was-mostly-safe.

And she wouldn't wake up.

Kaylin shook her. She shouted. She whispered. She even pleaded-because Teela couldn't hear her. That was the point, wasn't it? Teela couldn't hear her. God, Tain was going to kill her. Tain would be so upset.

They'd all be upset. This wasn't supposed to happen-if anyone was in danger, it was supposed to be Kaylin. Kaylin, who was going to die sometime anyway. She was crying, now. She was crying, and she had to stop because tears were useless. They'd get them nowhere, and they had to move.

But she hadn't lied to the fire: Teela was heavy. She was wearing too much armor. The armor could be mostly removed-and Kaylin did remove it. The sword, she kept; she attached it to her own waist, where it dragged across the ground. She would have tried to sling it across her back-half the Barrani war band did that-but if she had any hope of moving Teela at all, it was going to be by taking the brunt of her unconscious weight across that back.

Kaylin caught Teela by the arms, inserting her back between them; she bent at the knees and used momentum to propel herself to her feet. Teela came with her-but only barely, and her feet dragged across the ground. It was, short of just dragging her by the arms, the best Kaylin could manage-and she couldn't manage it for long.

No, she thought, clenching her jaws. She could. She could manage for as long as it took because she wasn't going to leave Teela behind. The path that led from the terrace was wide enough, flat enough, and solid enough. Kaylin followed it, letting it lead.                       
       
           



       Chapter 20


The sun was high, even if it didn't exist; the day grew hotter as she followed the path. The grass that bounded the path on either side gave way to trees with silver bark; they provided no shade-only the disappointed hope of it. Kaylin had to stop several times, partly because her legs were shaking, and partly because she needed to check Teela's pulse. She couldn't hear Teela's breathing, even though Teela's head was more or less tucked beside her left ear.

She could hear water. It sounded too loud to be a fountain, but it didn't matter. The dreams of Alsanis had told them to find water. If she found water, she might find a way back. If she found a way back, if she was in the actual world, and not the dreams of perverse pocket realities, she might-just might-be able to help Teela.

She had woken the Consort, after all.

But she couldn't do that for Teela, not here. She'd tried. Kaylin frowned. The words on her arms were bright and golden, but they lay still. They didn't prompt her, and they didn't offer assistance on their own.

The sound of water grew closer, but Kaylin was practically crawling. She couldn't move quickly; desperation gave her enough strength to carry both of their weights, no more. Not until she heard the roaring.

She was immobile for one minute, glancing wildly at the trees she'd barely registered. She wasn't Teela. She couldn't fight Ferals on her own. But the roaring didn't disturb Teela at all, and Kaylin lowered her, roughly, to the ground. She drew the sword because it had the greater reach-and then set it down. Greater reach, or no, she wasn't competent enough to wield it against a truly dangerous opponent. She drew daggers instead.

But the roaring, when it came again, made her look up. Squinting against a daylight shed by no sun, she thought she could see a familiar winged shape. It was small-it was slight; translucence made it hard to be certain she wasn't mistaken. She stood in front of Teela as the winged creature flapped closer. Even when she was certain that it was the small dragon, she didn't move. She felt relief at the sight of him, but the hair on the back of her neck started to stand on end, and her skin-where the marks weren't-began to goose bump.

She had never been afraid of the small dragon. He had saved her life at least twice. Yes, he criticized her, and yes, he smacked her face-but so did the Hawks, or at least Teela on an annoying day. He had also killed Ferals, simply by breathing into their faces. She knew he was deadly, or could be deadly. The Barrani treated him with healthy respect.

Until this moment, she hadn't.

Then again, until this moment, his voice had never been a Dragon's voice. It was, now. As he approached, it shook the earth she was standing on. Yet when he did descend, hovering, he was still tiny. His neck was delicate, his wings wider and broader than they had been in any place but the dream of Alsanis. She could see, briefly, through their membranes-and the sky was violet and black.

He roared. It was like listening to Bellusdeo and Diarmat; Kaylin had two hands full of daggers or she would have covered her ears.

He snorted smoke. It looked like steam, not the usual clouds. He then landed-on the ground a yard away from Kaylin's feet. He looked up at her face, his eyes dark, the colors that skirted their surface bolder.

"I don't even know what you are," Kaylin told him, as he lifted his face and opened his small jaws. "I don't know where we are. But the whole dive into the stone basin, nose first? Don't do that again."