Cast in Sorrow (Luna Books)(55)

The small dragon cocked his head. He squawked. Except, of course, it was a roar of sound.

When Kaylin failed to answer, he snorted again; she knew, if he were on her shoulder, he would either smack her face or bite her ear. Instead, he stalked-which, given his feet, looked funny-toward Teela. Kaylin stiffened, shifting both position and daggers; the small dragon looked at the knives and hissed.

It was the hissing she associated with amusement.

She didn't sheathe her weapons. She watched him as he headed toward Teela, and she stiffened again. "Don't breathe on her. Don't even think it."

His eyes widened, and then he shook his head, looking for all the world like a child's version of a dragon baby. He did, however, nudge Teela's hand with the tip of his nose. He even bit her fingers, but gently, as if she were a dead bird and he were her mother.

Then he turned to Kaylin again.

And she understood what he was offering. He was tiny, yes-but his voice implied that size wasn't necessarily an issue. He could, if she asked it, carry Teela. He could, if she agreed, carry her.

And if he did, she thought, as her throat went dry, he wouldn't be a small dragon anymore. He would be a large dragon, as much hers as Tiamaris was when he went Dragon. She couldn't own Tiamaris-or any member of the Dragon Court. She relied on their sense of humor, their indulgence, and her own relative insignificance in order to survive her mistakes and the many, many social gaffes she was learning to obliterate.

Except that he wasn't a Dragon. His eyes-his eyes were like Terrano's, like the fire's. They always had been. They were shadow eyes. Did she trust him?

She wasn't certain. Trust hadn't really been an issue before. He was like a cat. You could love them, and you could trust them to be cats. But you couldn't trust them not to wreck your furniture or your carpets, and you couldn't trust them to stay out of your food; you couldn't trust them not to kill helpless mice and leave parts of their corpses scattered around your home. It just didn't matter because cats couldn't kill you. They couldn't kill your neighbors or your friends.

Why was life like this? Why was she asked, so often, to choose between two different fears?

Because, she thought, that was mostly what life was: choosing between two different fears.

"Yes," she told him, before doubt and uncertainty made her change her mind. "Please. Carry her. Carry us."

* * *

He stepped back. Actually, that was the wrong word-he launched himself into the air, and flew ahead down the path. Kaylin returned her daggers to their sheaths as she knelt beside Teela. Teela was still breathing, or at least, she still had a pulse. She didn't wake.

Kaylin watched the small dragon.

His wings expanded first. She'd seen that, before; they'd become the size of Aerian wings in the dreaming world of Alsanis. They weren't Aerian wings. They were more membrane, less feather; they seemed less substantial only because they were translucent. They spread. They spread, and as they did, Kaylin could see a purple sky unfold in the azure that could be seen at any spot his wings didn't touch.

She vastly preferred the azure.

His neck elongated, thickening; it was still much longer than normal Dragon neck, and seemed flexible in the fluid way snakes were. His jaws grew, his face thickening and stretching; his legs developed a heft and musculature she wasn't sure she cared for. She couldn't see his tail; it was lost to the bulk of his growing body.

But he didn't seem to have scales; his body seemed smoother, more glasslike. And he wasn't actually all that far away from them when his transformation had been completed.

He roared. She could swear it sent her hair flying. Then, before she could say anything else, he pushed himself off the ground. His shadow covered both of the Hawks. Kaylin discovered that he could hover in pretty much the same way he had at a more compact size; his claws, however were not the pointers he used to get her attention; they were thicker and attached to feet that couldn't actually grip her shoulder; they were too large.

They could, however, surround her entire body, and one of them did. The other clasped Teela firmly. He rose.

"Can you carry us to the end of the path?"

He roared.

She needed a different method of communication; her own voice hadn't changed, but she'd be deaf by the end of the day if his continued like this. She reached out to grab Teela's hand, although she was fairly certain the small-the nonsmall-dragon wouldn't drop her.

They began to move.

* * *

She didn't know what a familiar was. Truth? She'd been uncomfortable with the idea. Anything that made Barrani Arcanists covetous was never going to work out well for a mortal. She already had the marks of the Chosen, and she'd more or less made peace with those, in part because she was certain it was the marks that allowed her to work with the midwives. They saved lives.

No, she saved lives, using their power. It didn't make up for the lives she'd taken. Nothing would. There was no going back. But going forward, she could prevent deaths that would happen without her intervention. She could make a difference in the lives of strangers-and this time, it would be a positive difference.

The small dragon-she really had to stop thinking about him that way-wasn't like the marks. He clearly had a mind of his own, and he could make it known, even if he couldn't speak. And he could speak-she just didn't hear his squawking as language. The Hallionne did. Hallionne Bertolle's brothers had. The fire had.

If he was something as ancient, as wild, as they were-why would be live as a pet? A pet owned by a mortal Hawk? How could she bind him and command him when she could barely keep Ynpharion from scorching what little self-esteem she managed to maintain? She'd relied on what she assumed was his interest or affection; she did treat him like other people treated their cats.

And she was beginning to realize that she couldn't keep doing that. She had no idea how to change that. What had the Hallionne said?

She had to name him. The thought was terrifying; the only thing that calmed her was the fact that she had named the fire. She could. But she'd learned the fire's name; she hadn't had to come up with something that meant fire-because what would that be? Hot? Pretty? Deadly?

Did the dragon even have a name?

Terrano didn't now.

She froze, considering that. Iberrienne only barely had a name. His memories were not Barrani memories; they were broken and confused. She didn't understand why, but then again, Barrani birth was pretty much mystical; it made no logical sense. Work with the midwives had made it seem far less sensible than it had to start, and it hadn't made much sense when she'd first heard it, either.

She also understood that the Consort, the giver of names-and therefore the Mother of the Race-might be able to help Iberrienne. She doubted very much that she could help the lost children; what they wanted from her wasn't what Iberrienne required.

Kaylin closed her eyes; wind swept her hair out of her face. Water. Consort. Teela. Everything else could wait, unless it tried to kill her first. Opening her eyes, she looked down at the path. It was a slender, gray-white line in a field of green and silver that continued on, to the horizon-like a road might. She attempted to look behind, but the dragon's leg was in the way, and maybe, given the geography in places like this, that was for the best.

Forward, she thought. You had to keep moving because if you stopped you might never start again. Who'd said that to her? Oh, right. Teela.

She wasn't surprised when what was sort of road through picturesque wilderness ended in a large, large circle. At the center of that circle, seen from this height, was, at last, a fountain.

"Is this where you were?" Kaylin shouted.

The dragon roared.

"Take us down. Do not drop us!"

He laughed. It wasn't the normal hiss, either; it was full-throated laughter; even his legs shook with it.

He did set them down before he landed, but he didn't land on them, which Kaylin had been half-afraid he'd do. He set them down a yard or two away from the fountain itself. This fountain was very much like the fountains in the grounds of the Imperial Palace. Water didn't trickle from thin air; it poured from the stone structure that stood in its center. It was not a small statue; the basin itself was almost a pool, it was so large; it was set into the ground, not over it.

Sprays of water caught light and made small rainbows of it. It was quiet here. There were no obvious shadows, no obvious threats. She felt the ground shake as the dragon landed.

Kaylin found her feet and immediately turned to Teela, supine on the ground. She then caught Teela's arms and draped the bulk of her body across her back, as she'd done once before. "I think we're here, Teela."

* * *

The statue at the center of the fountain was familiar, but until Kaylin was almost in the water-she stopped at its edge-she wasn't certain why. It was a figure-and it seemed to Kaylin's eye to be a human figure. A woman, or a girl on the edge of adulthood. Water spilled from her open palms-palms that were held in front of her chest, upturned as if in offering or supplication. Water trailed from strands of her hair.

Blood trailed from her eyes.

At this distance, it shouldn't have been obvious, but it was, and Kaylin didn't doubt what she saw. It was red. It was the only color in an otherwise white-gray.

Kaylin recognized the girl: it was the Avatar of the water. Here, in the heart of the green. If Kaylin had wondered how much of the landscape was drawn from her memories, she had her answer. This was Kaylin's version of the water. This was how her mind had seen the element the first time she'd encountered it.