Cast in Sorrow (Luna Books)(56)

There was no Consort by this giant fountain, but the eagles had said the water would tell them where the Consort was. First things first, then. She knelt by the edge of the basin, and she lowered her palm into the water. It was surprisingly cold-but the cold was bracing, and therefore welcome.

She should have been surprised when the statue moved; the water didn't usually take the form and shape of stone-and given the way the stone grated as it moved against itself, she knew it couldn't be liquid. Water splashed as the figure moved slowly toward Kaylin, lowering its hands to its sides and lifting its chin as it did.

The dragon roared.

Kaylin froze as the statue frowned and looked beyond her to what she presumed was the dragon itself. She was unprepared for the dragon's sudden leap. He landed in the water and sent it flying in a large spray which left every part of Kaylin that wasn't covered in emerald dress soaked. It soaked Teela, as well. It didn't wake her up.

The statue lifted its hands; the water that had been streaming from its palms froze instantly. Kaylin recognized the shape the ice took: it was a sword.

She almost called the dragon back-but she didn't. Because she understood that whatever this statue was, it wasn't the water she knew; it was some other thing. If it animated the statue, it wasn't bent on the protection of the memories of a mortal race; it was bent on something entirely other.

At the moment, that was the destruction of the dragon.

The dragon wasn't having any of it. Kaylin moved as his tail swung, gripping Teela's arms tightly enough she'd probably cut off circulation. The sword of ice glanced off the side of dragon jaw-but its blade didn't shatter. Neither did the dragon's jaw. It sounded like steel hitting stone.

The dragon reared up as the blade bounced; it inhaled. Kaylin knew what had to follow; she opened her mouth to tell the dragon to stop, but no words fell out. It was too late for them. Either that or they were the wrong words.

Breath, a stream of silver mist, engulfed the statue and its weapon. For one long second, Kaylin thought the mist would dissipate with little effect. The statue brought its sword down-but it hit water. Water froze in a circle that spread across the surface of the shallow pool. It spread everywhere that Kaylin's hand didn't touch.

She waited, her own breath held, and for far less reason.

The statue began to crack, as if it were made of ice, not stone. The dragon roared. The statue, lips crumbling, roared back. Its voice was not a dragon's voice-but it might as well have been. The statue didn't exhale breath the way dragons normally did when they were fighting.

No, it exhaled words, a dark cloud of lines and dots and hatches, a cloud of letter forms. Or at least they looked like letter forms to Kaylin. Not, of course, Barrani forms-although there was similarity in the components-and certainly not Elantran. But they were dark, like the smoke from burning flesh; they didn't attain the solidity of form that Kaylin's words could and sometimes did. They didn't look like True Words.

They looked like the shadows those words might cast, distorted by the landscape that underlay them. She watched as they coalesced; the dragon fell silent.

"Fly!" Kaylin shouted. "Get out of there!"

The dragon gave her a side-glance that, in any other immortal face, would have been dismissive.

"I mean it! Get out of there right bloody now!"

He pushed himself, slowly, out of the ice; it clung to his feet. Kaylin swore a lot. The statue cracked as the ice did. If the surface of the stone was a white-gray, the interior wasn't; it was dark, and it glittered.

Kaylin hadn't been worried about the stone; she'd been worried about the words. They looked familiar to her, and not in a good way; they reminded her of the words that Iberrienne had attempted to draw from the citizens of the fief. They reminded her of the words that Iberrienne had attempted to say in the heart of Hallionne Orbaranne.

Kaylin stopped breathing for one long minute. And then, in a desperate, almost unreasoning frenzy, she began to call the water she knew. She didn't use words; words would take too long. She was never good with words when she was terrified. She was afraid of what the words would do to the water-if the water was actually really here at all.

She almost cried when she heard a single word.

Kaylin.

Come to me, she thought. Come to me right now. Come to where I am.

I am here.

"Come here, come away from the-"

The water rose in a pillar; it was the shape of a woman, and it held Kaylin's hand. You couldn't hold water in your hands; it always slid through, dripping between your fingers. Kaylin tried anyway-but at least this time she had the water's cooperation. She pulled the water out of the shallow pool that was otherwise now ice.

You should not be here.

The water looked down at Teela, and Kaylin realized that while she'd been almost shocked to see fire take a human form, she expected the water to do so. The form wasn't natural to either.

The dragon roared. The ice-which Kaylin now understood was not, in any way, actual water-shattered. Gravity in the environs of the shallow pool broke. Hand still encased in water, Kaylin watched as the shards flew away to reveal the dark, roiling mass of words that remained.

"Can you read them?" she asked the water.

The water shuddered.

Kaylin glanced at her; her eyes-if eyes was really the right word for something that shouldn't actually have any-were closed. Do you understand what has happened, Kaylin?

"No."

A pity. You are Chosen; if you cannot understand, you will tell no story that the green can hear, and you will offer no healing to the wounds that now bleed freely.

Kaylin hesitated. "Can you carry Teela?"

I can. It will not help her now. You intend to return to the greenheart.

"Yes, I think so. But we need you there."

She lifted her face. There is a risk.

There was always a risk. "What risk?"

Watch, Chosen. Watch and understand.

* * *

Kaylin turned to the cloud. It was dense now, and it sparkled as if it had developed a surface that was hard and reflective. The density apparently made it heavier, because it began to sink. It touched the pool bed and it continued to sink, eating away at the stone beneath it; eating away at the earth beneath that stone. Kaylin watched as it slowly submerged.

The water rippled, but said nothing. Kaylin started to move; the water held her back, in the way undercurrents could. Wait.

"For what?"

There was no further answer. She looked up to see the dragon-the huge dragon-hovering above the sinking mass. Only when he landed did the water let her go. She walked to the edge of what was now a pit. The water lifted Teela and followed.

The blood of the green is rooted in me.

Kaylin looked down at her dress; she felt the water's amusement-and she felt, as well, its sorrow.

It is like, and unlike, the dress you wear. The green is injured; the blood from that wound runs through my veins in this place. I cannot stop it, and I cannot contain it; it becomes part of me, while remaining other.

Kaylin had reached the pit's edge. This was not the first time today she would stand at the edge of a pit. It wasn't, she realized, the first time that she'd stand at the edge of a pit that had this shape. It wasn't round. It wasn't oval. Its edge implied shape-the outline of a word.

It was, in miniature, the same pit that she and Teela had seen.

"Was this-was this caused by the blood of the green?"

No.

"Then-then what?"

The blood of the dying, the water replied. Mortality is anathema to the green. Understand, if you can, that the green is not of you or your kin. It has an interest in what you do, but it can touch you only in one place-it is bound in all other ways. Or it was.

Kaylin turned to face the water. "What does this word mean?"

The water was silent. But the dragon roared. The water spoke-to the dragon. The dragon, at far greater volume, replied.

You should not be here, Kaylin.

"No. Can you take us back?"

Yes. But I will not remain for long. I cannot now.

"Why?"

The water pointed at the pit.

* * *

There was no instant shift of scenery. The water, carrying Teela, began to walk away from what had been a fountain. A path opened on the other side of the pool, and she led them toward it. Kaylin was hungry. She was tired. She was aware that the dragon now flew in lazy circles above them.

She didn't ask him to carry her. She was almost afraid to do so.

"Will he-will he shrink again?"

The water was confused. She glanced at the dragon, and then glanced at Kaylin. I do not understand the question.

"He was smaller before. About this size." The explanation didn't appear to make the question any clearer.

I do not understand. Kaylin, when you light a candle you summon fire. You speak its name in a whisper; it is almost inaudible. When you summoned fire here, you spoke its name, and it was louder. But in both cases, you called fire, and fire came.

It was Kaylin's turn to be confused.

The nature of fire is fire. The nature of the-dragon?-is dragon. But I do not think the Tha'alaan would recognize this creature as Dragon. I do not understand your question.

"I didn't summon him. I didn't learn and speak his name. I didn't call him into being. He just-he arrived on his own. And he was a lot smaller when he did."

For one long minute the water ceased to move at all. Above her head, the dragon's shadow covered them. You do not know him. You do not know his name. You must know his name, Kaylin. You must name him.

"But-"

It is only by naming that he can exist in your small life at all. She spoke to the dragon. The dragon replied. The earth trembled. He cannot long remain what he has been, now. There is too much of him here.