Cast in Sorrow (Luna Books)(66)

Kaylin was reminded, then, of Teela. She wanted the reminder, even as she found it painful. "We will find her," the Consort whispered. As if she could read minds.

As if it were necessary.

What if she doesn't want to leave? What if she wants to stay with them? They were the wrong questions, and Kaylin managed not to ask them. It wasn't what Kaylin wanted-but what Kaylin wanted never made a difference, in the end. What was, was. She couldn't change it; she could only endure.

The dragon roared. He didn't land, but at the moment, the path didn't have a roof; it had a lot of ugly sky. A bit of what might have been lightning, and distant rain. A bit of green sunlight.

No eagles, she thought. No nightmares. None but the ones she carried within her.

* * *

She was surprised when the tree came into view, because it looked exactly like a tree. So much of the interior of the Hallionne had no solid features; you couldn't call it a building because building implied deliberate construction, architecture, things like walls, floors, and ceilings. The tree however had brown bark. It had a trunk. It had roots, or at least the top part of roots, and branches that filled the sky above.

Only as they walked toward it did Kaylin realize it was not a small tree, and when they failed to reach it after twenty minutes, she revised that to huge, and then bloody gigantic. And she knew, then, which tree this was; she knew where the roots rested. She knew that it was the heart of the green.

Then again, Hallionne Sylvanne had been a tree, too.

The path came to an end. Which is to say, it passed beneath the rounded surface of exposed root. It might have continued beyond it, but the Lord of the West March called a halt. There was no ward here that Kaylin could see.

But she recalled that she had only seen the ward when she'd looked through the wings of a small dragon. She heard his magnified voice; felt it in the interlocking stones beneath her feet. He couldn't fly easily above the tree; he could circumnavigate it, but instead, chose-for the first time-to land.

Every breath she could hear momentarily banked as he did.

"You cannot see him," Alsanis's brother said, unexpectedly. "But, Chosen, he sees you. He sees what you cannot see."

Which was about as helpful as most of the words that fell out of ancient, immortal mouths. "This is where we're supposed to be?" she asked.

He failed to answer. It was the Consort who said, "No, Lord Kaylin. It is the outer edge of the heart of Alsanis, and it is closed to us."

"Clever," Nightshade said.

"What's clever?"

"They expect us to destroy the tree."

"We can't."

"It would not be wise, no. But it serves as barrier here. If we breach that barrier, we will find them."

"I don't think they care."

"No. They expect to be found; if we destroy the tree-"

"They'll be able to do what they've been waiting to do."

"That is my guess, yes. You understand what this tree is?"

"Yes. It's the heart of the green. The living heart of the green."

* * *

The dragon roared.

Kaylin said, "I know how to enter it."

The Warden said, "This tree is not like the Hallionne Sylvanne, Lord Kaylin. It is like a body; you do not enter it by asking permission."

She nodded, and then said, "But there's a way in, now."

The Lord of the West March frowned. She felt his surprise, his consternation, and his slow sense of something that felt like approval. We cannot ask for the judgment of the green here.

No. But I'm certain that if we can approach the base of the roots of the tree, we can find what I found. A wound. An entry.

He looked at her, waiting. And she looked up at the dragon. "Move back along the path," she told her companions without looking back. The dragon's eyes were wide, round, dark; the flashes of color across their surface seemed to have slowed. She could almost see an image in them, but only out of the corner of her eyes; it was like the faintest of stars. She couldn't see it if she examined it directly.

"I need your help."

He roared. She was almost certain all of her hair was now standing on end.

"We need a way down. You know where we have to go. You probably know it better than I do."

The familiar sibilants of his laughter made her smile. Somehow, causing amusement in a creature this size just felt less humiliating.

"Can you do it?"

He folded his wings, lifted his great, long neck, and looked down at her from an almost-regal height. He spoiled the effect by scratching his nose. She thought about the egg hatching, and about the permanent shoulder ornament that had crawled out of it. She'd mostly complained about him.

To be fair, she mostly complained about Teela, too. But Teela hated sentiment. It put her off her lunch, as she so often said. The small dragon couldn't give her the same warning, and maybe he didn't care. But she thought she would miss him if he were gone.

She missed so many things once they were gone.

"Help us," she whispered.

The dragon inhaled. Kaylin inhaled, as well. She dropped her arms, let her shoulders slide down her back. She felt wind; it was cold. But the dress itself was warm. It was, she thought, as she glanced at the folds of its skirt, glowing faintly with a familiar green light. In Iberrienne's eyes, she had thought it repulsive. On its own, it wasn't. It was the color of Barrani eyes at their happiest, lit from within.

The dragon exhaled. Kaylin was the terminating point for the stream of silver cloud that left his open jaws. She flinched, but didn't move.

Kaylin!

But she shook her head at the Barrani voices inside her mind. Ynpharion was silent.

I asked, she told Nightshade and Lirienne. I asked for this.

* * *

Her eyes teared. She let them. She felt tears warm her cheeks as they fell. She didn't take her eyes off the dragon until the cloud had cleared. She'd seen his breath melt steel, changing it into a liquid that she could cup in her hands. She'd seen it kill Ferals. She'd certainly seen its effects on the High Court; they feared it.

There were so many things she feared more at the moment, she had no room for more fear.

Have room for caution, Lirienne said, with some anger.

She almost laughed. She understood when the time for caution had passed-and it had passed the moment she had left Teela in the heart of the green. She wondered, idly, what the dragon's breath would do to her; it did nothing, at least at first.

But the marks on her arms began to glow silver. And the dress she wore began to shift color, as well, taking on a sheen that implied iridescence when the cloth rippled. It didn't seem to change shape, though. She blinked away the last of the tears; to her surprise, the dragon appeared less translucent in her vision.

She turned to her companions. If the dragon looked different, they didn't, although the Barrani, with the single exception of Nightshade, looked almost shocked, their eyes midnight-blue. It was the dress. Of course it was the dress.

I am not entirely certain, Lord Lirienne said, how you survived An'Teela's temper all these years.

She couldn't strangle me; she's a Hawk. Kaylin was surprised to find herself smiling at the thought. If it helps, I'm most of the reason she learned to curse in Leontine. Look, she added, although it wasn't necessary. The stones of the path began to sink. They didn't dissolve, and they didn't sink in concert; they sank in recessed steps.

"We have to go down," Kaylin told everyone. The dragon roared; the stairs-the oddly shaped, uneven stairs-shook. "I think we also have to hurry."

* * *

The Lord of the West March took the lead, almost shoving Kaylin off the path in order to do so. Kaylin was willing-barely-to give it to him. Taking risks-as she had-was one thing; exposing other people to them first, quite another.

"He is Lord of the West March," the Consort said with a soft smile. "He has his duties and his responsibilities. Even if he did not, it is not his way to throw a stray mortal into the path of the unknown within his own domain."

Kaylin nodded, but scurried immediately after him. The Consort was forced to let Nightshade follow, which at least two people disliked, Ynpharion being one. This surprised her.

If he kills me, she told him, doesn't that work to your advantage?

The Barrani Lord failed to answer. He couldn't cut the Consort off, as Nightshade had; he didn't wear the Teller's crown. But he followed the Lady stiffly. He could feel Kaylin's confusion and her amusement, and the last was definitely not to his liking.

"What will you do with the dragon?" the Consort asked as they descended.

"I'm not certain. I don't think his part in this is done yet."

"No. Do you understand what his part in this is?"

Kaylin shook her head. "I would have said it was impossible that he have one-this story started long before either of us were born."

"You don't believe that." She spoke in Elantran.

"I did. But...no. He doesn't really have an age. I, on the other hand, do."

Nightshade said a word, and the stairs were flooded with light. Kaylin blinked different tears out of her eyes. Was that necessary?

Yes, Kaylin. It was dark.

But it hadn't been, to Kaylin, which was a first. If the Barrani found it too dark for vision, Kaylin was usually bumping into walls, or anything else that stuck out.

What did you see?

Stairs, mostly.

Ah.

She still saw stairs. She realized, with a start, that there were no walls; the stairs descended in a winding, tight trail, toward the distant earth. They were narrow stairs, without rails, and without an obvious central pillar. But they felt familiar. She could have been running up-or down-the stairs that lead to the Hawklord's tower.