She saw black mist cross the floor, and she would have skidded to a stop. She was barefoot and bleeding, and she knew better than to offer her blood to what lingered, attempting to take form.
But he swept her off her feet, knowing—and approving of—her fear, and she let him, although it would slow them down.
It should slow them down.
But he seemed to take strength from the motion, from the necessity, from the passage of time. She allowed herself to cling to him while he ran. The mists parted or squelched unpleasantly beneath his mailed boots. He did not set her down, and she wondered if there would be any safe place he could do so. She hated shoes more than she could say; she couldn't even begin to think of the words with which she could express the loathing. Which, given she wasn't wearing any, should have been a surprise.
And then, she could swear the wall parted, and they looked into a forest of green and brown and gold, with sun-mired shadows and the paths of stone that lay, like works of art, for the wary foot. Rising above the forest, she saw the bowers of the tree—first tree—that formed the throne of the Lord of the High Court, that bowered his Consort.
And saw, as well, patches of flame, and black smoke, in the distance.
He set her down then, and ran, and she ran after him. He disturbed nothing, and she stubbed her toes, tearing slender stems from their thin moorings, and crushing open blossoms beneath her feet. His cloak didn't tangle in anything, and her skirts—well. The less said, the better, because pausing to swear meant losing him.
She was losing him anyway.
Fires appeared to the left in the heart of the forest that she had thought of as garden until this moment. He stopped, hesitated, and then threw an arm wide, and the fires banked. She didn't stop to watch them die; she took the moment to catch up.
But she was aware that she had done what she could. Now she was decoration, no more. The blackness that she had thought smoke when the wall had first parted was not smoke; she had seen it before.
He followed the path, and it led him, at last, to the High Circle. He entered it. Kaylin paused at a circumference made, not of words in stone, but of trees, and she looked upon a battle that might have been the source of legend.
She saw swords flashing, and armor glinting, and blood—blood everywhere—saw feral corpses, and the corpses of things that were larger than angry bulls. She saw Barrani Lords—and their Ladies—in number, and some of these had fallen, and would not rise again.
Still, she hesitated as the green-cloaked form of the man she had pulled from the edge of the abyss waded into the fighting.
They saw him, the men and women who mounted their last defense, and a cry rose at his passage. They parted, and she knew that she had one chance—this one—to follow. She had a sword, and no armor, but she could read his name as if it were part of her, as if she still carried it.
She could read it, but she could not pronounce it, not even on the quiet inside of her mind, where Nightshade's name and the name of the Lord of the West March were so carefully held.
She leaped across the corpse of a feral, carried by the fight, and made her way to the throne itself.
And there, at last, she saw the bloodied man who was—who had been—the Lord of the High Court. He was shining, not like fire, but like light, pale and gold, and his sword was twin to the sword his eldest son carried. His side had been pierced by horn or claw, although the creature that had caused the damage was nowhere to be seen, and he fought grimly.
But he did not fight alone.
By his side, to the right and left, stood The Lady and the Lord of the West March. They, too, were wounded, and The Lady would bear a scar across her brow, but they were unbowed and undeterred.
They fought, in the end, one man. One man who seemed to be made of obsidian, and who looked very like the Lord of the Green in face and form. He lacked only color—and life—and the latter, he took. But what he took did not sustain him.
The Lord of the Green stopped there, and then he lifted his sword to center, and held it a moment. "Go back!" he shouted.
And the creature turned. Kaylin could see that swords had wounded him, could see those wounds closing, as if they were insubstantial. He did not bleed, this shadow being, and he did not die. How could he? You had to be alive to die.
As one person, the three looked up at the sound of the voice of the Lord of the Green. Sister, brother, father.
"Go back," the Lord of the Green said to his shadow twin. "The High Halls are barred against you. The abyss is your home, and your only home. Go back."
"I have your name," the darkness said.
The Lord of the Green laughed. All around Kaylin—and admittedly, that wasn't far—silence fell. His laughter was wild and low, like the sound of horns. It was not defiance, and not delight, but some mingling of the two.
"You could not contain my name," the Lord of the Green said, raising his sword. "Not the whole of it. And what you hold, you cannot use against me. You are welcome to try." He drove his sword down and forward, and shadows swallowed the blade. The savage thrust brought the Lord of the Green to the heart of the darkness, and they stood, joined by sword, for a moment.
And the Lord of the High Court stepped forward and thrust like blade into the back of the creature.
The darkness began to twist. Not to fade as Kaylin had hoped, and not to melt, but to lose the form it had taken; to lose the shape of the arms, the fine length of face and jaw, the height of cheekbones and the fall of ebon hair. In their place grew other things, ancient things, glimpsed only in the chasm below the High Halls.
As it struggled to take form—any form—the Lord of the High Court reached forward and touched his oldest son. The light that limned him grew in brightness until Kaylin could hardly bear to look at him. She could not, however, look away, and settled on being blind as her only option.
But his smile, the blindness couldn't dim, didn't hide; she saw it clearly. He whispered a word, a long word, and Kaylin could hear its edges. Understood it as a name, and more than a name. It was a duty and a burden almost beyond bearing.
Certainly beyond her ability to bear.
The Lord of the Green accepted it, and with it came the light, moving between them, and erasing, in its strange passage, the scion of the old, dead gods. It settled about the Lord of the Green like a mantle, and she could see in its texture—for it had texture somehow—the rocks, smooth and worn, old and new, red, black and pale alabaster, marbled, glittering and dull, that were the body of the High Halls. The armor of the world.
The shadow dissipated, but it did not spread. It seemed to sink into the stones as if it were liquid. Its only passage was down.
Wiping her eyes, Kaylin looked at the father and the son, and then, beyond them, to the brother and the sister who now waited. The Lord of the West March moved first, although he was slower. The Lady, lighter and faster, pushed past him, nearly shoving him over in her haste to reach her brother. She threw her arms around him in a way that Kaylin had never seen a Barrani of any gender or rank do, and her pale hair blended with his cloak and the sheltering fall of black.
Someone touched Kaylin's shoulder, and she jumped, spinning on heel.
Severn was bleeding from the lip and the side, but his smile was grim. "You made it," he said.
She shrugged, smiling weakly. "As usual, just in time for the cleanup." She reached up and touched his face; it was bruised. "You're bleeding."
He shrugged. "I'm standing."
Her smile dimmed. Because she knew what he meant: So many others weren't.
The rite of leoswuld was a combination of the practical and the ritual. No one, gazing upon the Lord of the Green, could doubt that the first part had been achieved. Kaylin, gazing upon the rest of the High Court Circle, could believe that the second would be.
There was a grim anger in the Court, and a grim satisfaction. There was a keen, sharp quality to Barrani faces that made them seem almost young. Not, of course, that they ever looked any
thing else. In ones and twos, they began to tend to their fallen, to lift those that could be lifted, and to move those that would never rise again.
Kaylin started to help—it was what she was good at, after all—but the Lord of the West March stopped her. She met his eyes; they were green now, and flecked with… gold. "Kyuthe," he said quietly. She could see evidence of the battle across his armor, his tunic, and his skin, but none of it remained in his expression.
She grimaced. "I'm sorry," she began.
But he lifted a finger to her moving lips. "I was wrong," he said gravely.
"It has to happen once."
At that, he smiled. It was an odd smile. He turned to look at his brother and their father, and then turned back. "He… is the Lord of the Green," he told her quietly. "But he is changed. What did you do?"
"I carried his name," she told him softly. And then, in an even lower voice, "The rest of his name."
The Lord of the West March frowned. "I don't understand," he confessed. It was not the normal tone of voice she associated with those words and a Barrani. Usually, there was more frustration, more anger, and a touch of Leontine cursing for emphasis.
As if she could hear the thought, Teela joined them quietly. Her eyes were green now, but she looked… tired. "The Consort is waiting for you, Kaylin," she said, no trace of Leontine anger in her. There was gravity. More.
Kaylin froze. "She's not—"
"She was injured in the battle, yes. But she is not—yet—beyond us. We work now to save her."
"Can I—"
"I don't know."
Kaylin swallowed and nodded. She looked at the Lord of the West March. His expression was once again pure Barrani. But he nodded and let her go.
The Consort was seated as Kaylin approached her fountain. She was not alone; her daughter sat beside her, an arm around her shoulders. But they both looked to Kaylin as she approached. Not even in these circumstances had Teela dared to follow.
The Consort smiled at Kaylin, her eyes a pale green.
The Lady's eyes were darker, and Kaylin thought she'd been crying. She failed to notice, and for once her acting wasn't brought into question. But she bowed to both of them and held the bow until the Consort bid her rise.
"Lord Kaylin," she said, her voice quiet. "You have—"
Kaylin lifted both hands, as if in plea.
"You went to the source," the Consort said, choosing different words in deference to Kaylin's gesture.
Kaylin nodded, almost mute. "I went to the source," she added. And was surprised to hear the word. She repeated it almost to herself.
"Here, it is possible for you to speak of it," the Consort told her, as if aware of what caused the momentary surprise. "I have seen it, and it is my daughter's legacy. It is not so bitter a legacy as that left my oldest son. What did you do there, Kaylin?"
"I took the rest of his name," Kaylin whispered.
The Consort closed her eyes.
"I'm—sometimes I'm called a midwife." Kaylin was forced to use the Elantran word; she had no idea what the Barrani word for midwife was.
It wasn't a word that was familiar to the Consort.
"I come when there's difficulty in the birthing," she said quietly. "When the child's life is threatened, or the mother's. Or both."
"Then you came to us, as needed." The Consort opened her eyes. "You will help me rise," she added. "You will aid me. My daughter will accompany us."
The Lady's arm shifted.
"I can try to heal—"
But the Consort shook her head. "Not yet, Kaylin. If there is a time, it is not yet. I no longer hold my son's name," she added softly.
"You hold the part of it that matters," Kaylin replied. And meant it.
"I hold only the part that failed," was the bitter reply. And yet there was some pride in it.
Kaylin shook her head. "He made a choice," she said. "And his brother, a choice, as well. Duty can mean many things. What you couldn't do then was done, in the end."
"By a mortal."
She shook her head again. "By time, maybe. The darkness is rising, here and in the fiefs. The magic is growing. I don't understand Barrani names, I don't know if I ever will, but I understand this now—he is to be Lord of the High Halls when the High Halls face their harshest test. He was to be that, even then, and you knew it. Or the High Halls did. I don't know how the source works. I don't know—" She smiled weakly as she put an arm around the Consort's waist. The three women began to walk.
"He needed a name that would sustain the High Halls. I couldn't have carried the whole of it. I don't think that any one person could have. You carried what you could. I carried less. What I carried couldn't have given him life. Sometimes we need each other."
"It is not our way," was the quiet reply.
"No. It's not. It's not really been my way either. But… there's a sense to it. If you hadn't broken the law—" And here she stiffened, aware of the daughter's regard. "If you hadn't held on to his name and brought him back to the High Court, there would now be no one with his name. No one with a name that could contain the darkness and hold the Halls against it at this time.
"I know what the Lord of the High Court wanted from the Lord of the West March. But Consort, if this is a comfort to you—no one could have taken the gift. Not now. The Lord of the West March would have failed, had he tried. His name is not the equal of his brother's."
"And you know this because you have seen both names." It wasn't a question. It wasn't a threat. Kaylin still hesitated.
"You have seen the source," the Consort replied, serene, blood trailing the corner of her lips. "And I? I have seen my son, whole, and in possession of the High Halls. I have seen the chasm denied him. It is more than I thought I would live to see, but it is all that I hoped for. I am not the Lord of the High Court." She led, sagging between them, her steps bereft of grace. They followed, bearing her weight.
"And he will have his brother, where my husband had none." Her lips were thin as she spoke the last words.
"But I thought—"
"We had a brother, yes. He was killed."
"By the Lord of the High Court."
"By the desire for power, yes. In the end, it is usually that desire that takes us all. But not always."
"If he wanted the High Halls, he mustn't have known—"
"No. He didn't."
They continued to walk. After a while, Kaylin noticed that the ground beneath their feet was just that: ground. No artisan had labored here. The path existed, but it was a wild thing, and made by footsteps. There were even weeds here, and the birds that flew above were neither brightly colored nor loud.
"Where are we going?"
But she needn't have asked; the forest crept away on either side and left them, at last, in front of a cliff face. In it, there was a cave. Not a door.
"This isn't the tower—"
"The tower has many entrances," the Consort whispered. "But none of them are barred to one who has seen the source."
They made their way to the entrance of the cave.
The ground here was flat stone, weathered by season, and not by the work of hands. The Consort stepped upon it, and her eyes closed.
Kaylin understood then that she had one more duty.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kaylin stepped upon the stone, and it began to glow, as it had not done for the Consort. She didn't speak to the Consort; she didn't speak of the journey. If she had wondered why she had been summoned, she had her answer. She wanted to tell the Consort that she didn't know the way, but she bit back the words; it would have been the same as telling a terrified father that she had no idea how to save his wife: Even if it were true, it wasn't welcome. There was no point in saying it.
But the light from the stone spread out, into the cave entrance, and a path could be seen, tracing its way into the darkness of a stone mouth. Kaylin, taking more of the Consort's weight on her shoulders—which, given the difference in their heights, was awkward—took the
lead quietly. She looked to the Consort for guidance, but it was an empty look, offered now for the comfort not of the mother but of the daughter.
They made their way down the path, their steps echoing against rough walls. Tunnel walls. "This is old," Kaylin whispered.
"As old as the chasm," the Consort replied.
But not so cold as that, and not without light.
They walked together. The Consort's eyes closed again, and Kaylin felt a sharp stab of panic. But the weight across her shoulders didn't change.
The walking didn't, either; the path was still glowing, and she followed it without thought.
"Won't we be missed?" she asked at one point.
"Missed?"
"By the High Court."
The Lady laughed. It was an uneasy laugh, but not without genuine amusement. "They won't expect to see us yet," she told Kaylin. "There are two parts to leoswuld. And they've other things to worry about for once."
"I thought you had to do this—"
"Alone. And I do," The Lady replied. "But in the end, the Consort leads until I face my test."
"What test?"
But The Lady shook her head. "No one can say."
The path led forward, and then down. Kaylin followed it until the moment it began its descent, and stopped, nearly stumbling.
Down was a long way, to her eyes.
And at the bottom of down was the rest of the light. It was as vast, in its way, as the chasm had been. But where there had been shadow and darkness that moved like a slender river, twisting its way between stone gaps, there was… light. It moved, rippling, like a lake.
And in it, at this distance, Kaylin could see moving shapes, small, black lines that twisted around one another, forming patterns and breaking them almost before she could discern their shapes.
"This one doesn't speak, does it?" she asked.
The Consort opened her eyes and gave Kaylin an odd look. "Speak?"
"Like the darkness did."
"It speaks," was the whispered answer. "Did you not hear its voice?"