“He is home,” the Leontine replied. He closed his eyes. Opened them. They were now a shade of gold. “Calarnenne does not sing to his brother.”
Kaylin blinked. “Does he sing to you?” Leontines were not notable for the quality of their lullabies.
“Yes, when he is restless. Have you heard him sing?”
“Once or twice. Mostly in the middle of battle.”
“You have seen him fight? You have stood by his side?” The way the last question was asked implied that it was an undreamed of privilege. Kaylin revised her estimate of his age down. He looked, in stature, to be fully adult.
“Yes,” she replied, because technically it was true.
“Do you travel to his side, now?”
“Yes.” The fact that arriving there wasn’t a certainty was unnecessary information.
“Will you take me with you?”
Kaylin faltered at the desperate hope in his eyes. And the fear, which was an edge of orange. When she failed to answer, he reached for her, grabbing both of her hands with greater than usual Leontine force.
“He woke me,” the Leontine continued. “He must have intended to be with me.” As if he were a child.
“Does he wake you often?” Kaylin asked, stalling. She could no more drag this Leontine into the wilds of Castle Nightshade than one of Marcus’s own children.
“He wakes me when he can spend time with me,” was the unadorned reply. “But he is not with me now. You are mortal.”
She nodded.
“As am I. I will wither and die if I am left to live on my own. This,” he continued, releasing her hands to trace an arc in the air that took in the whole of the chamber, “is my eternity, as promised.”
“You spend most of it as a statue,” she replied, before she could bite back the words.
He nodded, as if she’d just said water was wet. “How else can we live forever? We cannot live without aging. Age leads to death. If we wake only when he is with us, we are his forever.”
This was so not one of Kaylin’s life goals.
“He is busy. He is forever. If we live and breathe and walk as you do, we might never see him again. Do you understand? His life will lead him away from you. When he has time to return, you might be dead.”
If only, Kaylin thought.
“This way, all our lives are spent in his company.”
“And in no one else’s,” Kaylin pointed out. “Your family. Your pridlea. Your pack. They are gone.”
“They were gone when he first came to me,” was the quiet reply. “They were dead. I was carrion fodder. I remember.”
“As if it were yesterday.” Because, she thought, it might have been.
“I remember the vultures. I remember the war cries of the victors. I remember the color of blood on grass, and the wails of the survivors who would add to it. I remember my mother. My pack leader. I remember.” He smiled at her, then. It was a smile tinged, of all things, with pity. “I remember Calarnenne. I remember his song. It stopped us all—enemy and family, both. I could not understand the words, but I heard them as if he was remaking language.”
“Did you know he was Barrani?”
“I knew he was not kin,” was the quiet reply. “I had never seen beauty in other races. Not until him. But he is not here.”
Kaylin shook her head. “I don’t think he wants you to leave this room, unless you want to. Stay here. I’m not—I’m not like you. I wasn’t chosen for his—his eternity. Let me find him. Talk to your companions,” she suggested.
“They are not my companions; they are his. We are his.”
Kaylin nodded, mouth dry. “Keep them here. This hall is safe. Outside...there are predators.”
* * *
“I think Annarion is both unhappy with this outcome, and simultaneously less angry. You, on the other hand, look green,” Teela said, as she walked away from the Leontine.
Kaylin felt it, too. She was big on personal choices, and clearly, the Leontine had made his—but it left her feeling uncomfortable. “Have you found Annarion?”
“Have you found Nightshade?”
“No.”
“Is half of what Nightshade says to you unintelligible babble?”
“No.”
“Then don’t ask.”
* * *
Kaylin. Throughout the conversation with the Leontine, the fieflord had been silent. An’Teela is correct. There is a danger here.
For me, or for all us?
For all of you, he replied, with just the faintest hint of irritation. Teela is not young for one of my kind, but she is not ancient. You have seen two of the ancestors; they are bound to the Castle and its service. The binding is older than either myself or Teela. I do not know its strength. It is my belief they were made outcaste for reasons far less political than mine. They would have been hunted, Kaylin. Had they been found, they would—with grave difficulty—have been destroyed. Ask her.
Teela, understanding that the possible danger had passed, waited until the small dragon was once again anchored to Kaylin’s shoulder, still carrying the rune. When he was she turned toward the most obvious set of doors available.
She allowed Severn to loop his chain around her before she opened the doors; they weren’t warded, but she didn’t bother to touch them. Kaylin was often surprised when Teela used magic as a tool. Hawks weren’t supposed to be mages. They definitely weren’t supposed to be Arcanists or former Arcanists. She didn’t really care for this reminder of Teela’s life before she’d been part of it, which wasn’t reasonable or mature.
Some days, Kaylin fervently wished that she had already passed Adult 101 and could get on with being the person she wanted to be.
On the other hand, she had to survive if she was ever going to reach that near unattainable goal. She glanced at squawky. His eyes were wide, black opals; they reflected nothing. As he wasn’t doing the small dragon equivalent of shouting in her ear, she assumed he didn’t consider the door a danger.
“One day,” she told him, “you’re going to talk to me, and I’m going to understand you.”
“And until then,” Teela added, “she’s going to talk to herself. A lot. Luckily the rest of us are used to this.”
The doors swung fully open; nothing leaped through them to attack. Kaylin saw a lot of hall beyond the room itself; it wasn’t brightly lit, but at least there was light. “Teela, tell me about these Barrani ancestors.”
“Tell me,” the Barrani Hawk countered, “why you call them vampires.”
Kaylin shrugged. “They said something about my blood.”
Teela closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, the Barrani equivalent of counting to ten. “They spoke to you.” The words were so flat, they were hardly a question, so Kaylin didn’t answer it. “What color were their eyes?”
“Teela, it was a long time ago.”
“It was months ago. Not even mortal memory is that bad. Please do not tell me you don’t remember.”
But she didn’t. “They were pale, even for Barrani. But perfect the way Barrani are. When we approached the door they guarded, Nightshade told them it had to be opened. Their eyes were closed until he spoke; they opened. But nothing else about them moved—not at first.” She tried to remember her first—and only—walk through the Long Halls, as Nightshade called them. She could clearly see the Barrani standing to either side of the door like perfect statues. She couldn’t, however, see the color of their open eyes. “They must have been blue,” she finally said. “I’m sure I would have noticed if they were a different color. Green would have made them harmless. Relatively,” she added.
“Were you bleeding at the time?”
“Maybe. I wasn’t bleeding enough that it was significant.” Kaylin hesitated. Severn held his weapons; she kept her hands on her
daggers, but didn’t draw them. “They asked Nightshade to give me to them as price for passage.”
Teela’s eyes were, of course, midnight blue, so it couldn’t get any worse. “Passage through what?”
“Doors. They were door guards.”
“They were not simple door guards. Do you know where these doors were?”
“Yes.”
“Could you lead us there?”
“...”
“Could you make certain that you don’t lead us there without some warning?”
“It’s a Tower, Teela, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Teela began to walk, and Kaylin fell in beside her. At Teela’s frown, she fell back a bit; Teela didn’t want Kaylin playing point. Kaylin didn’t exactly want that position, either.
“I didn’t notice the color of their eyes,” she said, “because of their voices.”
Teela stopped walking. “Their voices were different?”
“Not when they spoke to me or to Nightshade. But—I could hear them talking when we approached. Without, you know, seeing their lips move.”
“I am beginning to understand why you feel boredom is not a fate worse than death,” Teela replied, with a brief pause for a healthy, Leontine curse. “Did Nightshade hear their voices—their non-speaking voices?”
“I didn’t ask him. It was the first time I’d been on the inside of the Castle, and it didn’t seem safe or smart to ask questions. If I heard it, I assume he did.”
That would be an unwise assumption. Amusement had been stripped from his voice; had he been standing beside them, his eyes would have been the same color as Teela’s.
“Kitling, this is very important, and I will strangle you if you cannot answer me clearly. What were they saying?”
Kaylin was an old hand at exposing her throat, although she usually only did it when confronted with a raging Leontine Sergeant. Teela literally growled. “I couldn’t understand them.” Kaylin spoke quietly. “I could hear them, but they sounded entirely unlike any voices I’d heard before. I could identify it as speech—but I couldn’t understand what was being said.
“I’d just come from an underground forest. I’d just touched the leftover echoes of a message from the Ancients—or even an Avatar. I was very disoriented.”
“Fine. Is there anything else you’d like me to know?”
“I’d like you to answer my question, now.”
“It wasn’t a question, that I recall.” Teela exhaled. “The Barrani, like the Dragons, are ancient races. Mortals are relative newcomers. You’ve seen the Lake of Life. I don’t know if you’ve seen the draconic birthing pits—I’m going to assume that you haven’t.”
“I haven’t.”
“I’d suggest you avoid it, although given it’s you I shouldn’t bother—you tend to do the opposite of anything resembling smart.” She murmured something about having three wings, which was an Aerian expression that wasn’t always used to imply innate stupidity. “You’ve probably heard the Barrani Hawks complain about boredom.”
Anyone with functional ears had heard the Barrani Hawks make that complaint. Kaylin nodded.
“The Ancients liked to create. Much of what they created would make no sense to you—it barely makes sense to us. We were not—Barrani and Dragon—the first attempt at creating a self-replicating species.”
“The Shadows—”
“We don’t believe the Shadows were meant to be a distinct species. The Ancients’ sense of either distinct or species, however, is poorly understood. You know that we require words to fully come to life.”
“Names. True names.”
“We require one,” Teela continued. “And the one is drawn from the Lake, by the Lady. Without it, the vessel of our body never wakes. When our ancestors were created, there was no Lady. There were Ancients.”
“Were you like the Dragons, then?”
“In what way? I am not aware that Dragons require two names.”
“They don’t require it. But I think they can contain more.”
“That is a thought you will keep firmly to yourself. Forever.”
“The Dragons were supposed to be made of stone and imbued with life.”
“Yes, well. It’s probably true of the first Dragons. We are not entirely certain that it’s true of the first Barrani. You think of stone as something that can be chiseled into the desired shape; it is why the word stone is used in these tales. The Ancients were not so limited in their building materials. Flesh could be—and was—shaped and changed.”
The Leontines.
“Flesh could be merged and combined, while both living creatures somehow remained alive for the process. But flesh was perhaps a later concept, for the Ancients. You think of them as large, powerful people. Perhaps that is how they appeared to us, when they still walked the world—or the worlds. But it was only a facet of what they were in total, and they couldn’t show us most of their faces. We couldn’t perceive them; couldn’t interact with them.
“It’s my belief—and I am not a sage—that they could speak to us and we could not hear them unless they chose a form with which we could interact. We could not see them, unless they chose to confine themselves or diminish themselves in a similar fashion; we were too slender, too fixed, and too small.”
“I’m guessing that’s not the popular view among the Barrani.”
“It is accepted as probable history. Popularity has very little to do with it. The earliest of our kin were not concerned with keeping records for their possible descendants.”
“Did they have descendants in the traditional sense? Like, children, grandchildren, that kind of thing?”
“Not most of them, no.”
“Then why are they even called Barrani?”
“Because we lived in the cities they built. They were not like us, Kaylin. You hate Arcanists. You wouldn’t have a word for what the ancestors were. But it is believed that they were not possessed of single, true names, but complex phrases. When the ancestors were bored, they had options to alleviate that boredom that are undreamed of by the rest of my people now.
“One of them historically involved destroying the rest of us.” At Kaylin’s sharp intake of breath, Teela shrugged. “They did not see it as destruction; they wished to take control of the words that gave us life, and to remake them in some fashion.
“They attempted to do the same with the Dragons; if I am fair, they attempted to relieve the Dragons of their names first.” Teela began to walk again, taking the hall to the right because the hall to the left ended abruptly in a lot of wall.
“I’m going to assume that failed, since we still have Dragons.”
“It was not notably successful, no. It caused some difficulties with the Dragons.”
“Were there Dragon ancestors, as well?”
“You will have to ask your Arkon,” was the stiff reply. “The Barrani are not keepers of Dragon lore, except where it involves war.”
Kaylin was silent for another long beat. Dragons did not require names to wake. They didn’t require names to live. They just required true names to become their dual selves. She decided that if Teela didn’t know this, she wasn’t about to inform her. Then again, Nightshade was probably listening. Ugh.
He was diplomatic; if he heard, he said nothing.
“If they were that dangerous, how did you kill them?”
“We formed the war bands,” she replied. When Kaylin failed to respond immediately, she added, “You didn’t think they were created just to fight Dragons, did you?”
Since the answer was more or less yes, Kaylin said nothing. “We don’t have a war band here.”
“No. You said there were two?”
Kaylin nodded.
“I’d really like to strangle Nightshade.”
“How would Annarion feel about that?”
“At the moment? Sanguine. He doesn’t, on the other hand, feel it would be easy.”
“Easier than meeting the ancestors head on?”
“Definitely easier than that.” Teela stopped. “Corporal? The halls have not materially changed since we entered them, and I dislike being roped together like human foundlings.”
Severn nodded and unwound his chain. To Kaylin’s surprise, he also released her. He didn’t sheathe his weapons, and the visible scar on his jaw looked whiter and more pronounced than it usually did. The talk of Barrani ancestors had clearly raised the stakes.
Not that they were insignificant to begin with.
Nightshade, are the ancestors still guarding the Long Halls?
Yes.
Are they awake?
I am uncertain, Kaylin. The Castle is in flux.
Where are you, damn it?
I am at the heart of my castle.
And where is Annarion?
He is also at the heart of the Castle. Before you ask, we are not in the same place.
Kaylin hated magical buildings with a loud, multisyllabic passion. Can you come to us?
Not safely—for you. I am attempting to keep the Castle’s defenses at a minimum.
Given the existence of Barrani that even Teela feared, this didn’t seem like a great idea.
If the Castle’s defenses are fully mobilized, it will attempt to exterminate all intruders. This is unlikely to harm the ancestors. It is, however, likely to damage you.
You don’t seem that concerned.
No? I am unlikely to perish here, no matter what the outcome. You, however, are not guaranteed to survive. Do not look for me; look for the runes of the Ancients. It is there you will be safest.
She was silent for a beat, watching Teela’s tense back. The runes are in the heart of the Castle. We’ll need to enter the Long Halls to even get there.
In theory, yes. But remember: you are in a fief Tower now; geography bends to the dictate of will.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The dimly lit hall seemed to go on forever, something Kaylin definitely didn’t remember from her first visit to the statuary. She had been by Nightshade’s side while traversing the halls; he had made it clear that she was not to leave him if she wished to move safely within the Castle.