“I don’t have to bleed on this door, do I?”
Severn winced, and she realized she’d fallen straight into her mother tongue in the presence of the Warden of the West March. He didn’t wince.
“No, blood isn’t necessary,” he replied, in Elantran. “You visited the Hallionne Sylvanne on your journey here.”
“I did.”
“My hall is not sentient. What peace exists within it, I preserve. The door is warded.”
Why had she thought this was a good idea? “I have a little problem with door wards.”
“How so?”
“Sometimes they object to my presence. It’s not all door wards,” she added, as he looked down his nose. “But—the ones in the Imperial Palace, and at least one in Lord Lirienne’s home—” She grimaced. “It’s harder to explain than to demonstrate.”
“It will not harm you?”
“No. Not directly.”
“Does it harm the ward?”
She should be so lucky. “It hasn’t harmed any of the wards so far.” She lifted her left hand, and placed the palm firmly against the midsection of the trunk. It was a guess; there didn’t seem to be much in the way of obvious markings.
But the small dragon considered it all boring; he didn’t hiss, leap up, or bite her hand.
The door opened, in a manner of speaking; the tree dilated, the bark folding back in wrinkles, as if it were cloth. Usually Kaylin would be grateful for the lack of fuss; today, it was slightly humiliating.
“It appears that my wards do not consider you a danger to my home,” Lord Barian said. If he was amused, he kept it to himself. He entered and turned to offer her an arm; he nodded at Severn, and the four men Kaylin assumed were his guard stepped back to allow Severn entry.
The interior of the Warden’s home matched the exterior in many ways; the halls were as tall as the High Halls, but they weren’t made of stone—or at least the supporting beams weren’t; they were trees. They grew, evenly spaced; their branches formed the bower of a ceiling. Through the gaps in wood, Kaylin thought she could see stars, but she had a feeling that rain, when it fell, didn’t penetrate the branches the way light did.
He caught the direction of her gaze, because she had to tilt her head and expose her throat to see it. “Does it worry you?”
She shook her head. “This is what I imagined the dwellings in the West March would look like.”
“Why? The High Halls are marvels of architecture, and they are all of stone.”
“The High Halls are in the heart of a city. There are roads and neatly tended lawns and spaces in the inner city where very little that isn’t weeds grow. The West March is in the heart of a forest. I could walk for days—maybe weeks—and not meet or hear another living person.” She hesitated, and then added, “I thought forests would feel like this: grand and ancient and hushed.”
“They did not meet your expectations?”
“There were a lot of bugs and a lot of the transformed. I didn’t really get a sense of peace.”
He smiled. “There is peace here, at the moment. Come. If you wish sight of stars, we might speak in the bowers above.”
* * *
This was not a place for the old or the exhausted. The bowers above involved a walk around the central pillar in the hall—a tree which was fitted with a narrow, spiraling staircase. It was as tall as the Hawklord’s tower, but the stairs were all filigree from the looks of them; Kaylin could see the ground beneath her feet. The Barrani didn’t feel a great need for something as practical as rails, either.
But the stairs did exit onto a platform that seemed to be part of the tree. A bench girded the trunk; it, like the branches, was not shaved of bark. There was something about it that felt natural, rather than unfinished.
The branches here rose; they offered an unimpeded view of the West March—at this height, it appeared to be mostly trees—and the night sky.
“This dwelling is considered rustic,” he said softly. “But it is the seat of the Warden; it has been my home for all but a few decades.”
“Were the rest spent in the High Halls?”
“Yes. In the shadow of a Dragon, surrounded by a sea of mortals and the specter of failure.”
She glanced from the sky to the Warden; no trace of humor touched his expression.
“I hated your city. I hated the noise, the smell, the lack of peace; it is never silent unless one is encased in the stone of the High Halls.”
“You found them suffocating,” Kaylin guessed.
He nodded. “I do not hear the voice of the green when I am in your city.”
“Can you hear it now?”
He did smile then. Kaylin had been cautioned not to trust the Barrani; at times, it was hard.
“Ah. Can you see them?”
She squinted obligingly into the night sky. She could see treetops, the occasional glimpse of a building’s roof, and a lot of stars. She was about to remind the Warden of the marked inferiority of mortal vision when she caught a glimpse of wings.
She glanced at his face; the entirety of the deck was bathed in a gentle luminescence. His eyes, as he watched the eagles, were green. They were the color of the dress she wore. His eyes rounded as the eagles approached; he stood and walked to the edge of the platform. It had rails—but they were decorative, and they were short.
Severn was a shadow on this deck. He had not spoken, and hadn’t moved, since they’d arrived. When she cast a worried glance in his direction, she was surprised; she’d expected him to be wary and watchful. He was the latter, but his eyes were on the approaching eagles, his lips turned up in a half smile that seemed almost unconscious.
When they were close, the Warden held out one arm. “Lord Kaylin, if you would do the same, they will both land.”
She held out one arm looking so dubious that Severn chuckled. “I don’t have arm guards. I have a dress I’m sure it’s an act of treason to damage, and given the Barrani, it won’t matter if the eagles cause that damage. I’m wearing it. It’ll be my fault.”
The first of the eagles landed on the raised arm of the Warden.
The second landed on Kaylin’s left forearm. As it alighted, the marks on her arms began to glow. If she’d had suspicions that these weren’t real birds, it was confirmed; this one weighed no more than the small dragon.
The small dragon, however, sat up. He warbled.
“Well met,” the eagle said—to the small dragon. The Warden turned at the sound of his voice. The eagle on his arm said, “And well met, Barian. It has been long indeed since we have spoken.”
“Too long,” the Warden replied. He lifted his free hand and gently stroked the bird’s head, as if it were the head of a newborn babe. “What does the recitation hold for us?”
The eagle surprised them both. He answered. But he answered in a language that, while tantalizingly familiar in its parts, failed in all ways to cohere. Kaylin turned to Lord Barian. “Did you understand a word of that?”
He laughed. It was a shock of sound, coming as it did from a Barrani. “Perhaps one. I am fond of the sound of it; they spoke it often in my childhood.”
“Your language is confining,” the eagle on Kaylin’s arm said. “But you are a confined people, huddling in your singular shapes; you are easily broken.”
She frowned. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard this. “The Warden calls you the dreams of the Hallionne.”
“He does.”
“But you came from the shadows he called the nightmares of the Hallionne.”
“Did we?”
“Yes. What landed in my hands a few hours ago were shadows. But you emerged from them when—”
“Yes?”
“When the marks on my arms started to glow.” It sounded lame even to Kaylin, and she’d said it.
“Are we, brother?” her bird said to the bird on the Warden’s arm. “Are we dreams or nightmares?”
“They are the same,” the other bird replied. “Dream. Nightmare. They are th
ings done beneath the surface of the world.”
“So...you don’t feel any different than you did when you landed?”
They regarded each other for a long moment, and then turned their beady eyes—and she’d seldom seen eyes that fit that description so perfectly—on Kaylin. “Did we land?”
“More or less the same way you landed just now, but with less feathers.”
They regarded each other again, and Kaylin snorted. What had been a suspicion was hardening into certainty as they spoke. “When I visited Hallionne Bertolle, his brothers woke. I don’t know if Bertolle has dreams; I don’t know what the Hallionne of the West March is called. No one speaks his—or her—name.”
“No one who dwells in this small enclave has ever spoken his name,” the bird replied. “Bertolle’s brothers have woken from the long sleep?”
“They had a little help,” Kaylin said, with sudden misgivings. She was certain she’d have bruised shins if Teela had come with them. “Were they not supposed to wake?”
But the birds now had words for each other, and as they conversed in their odd, melodious language, she turned to Lord Barian, who was staring at her. “What it is that you truly do in the city of Elantra?” His eyes were blue—but they weren’t the shade that meant anger or suspicion.
“I’m a Private. I serve the Halls of Law in that capacity. I hope one day to be Corporal.”
“Truly? You bear those marks, you can speak to the sleeping lost brethren of the Hallionne Bertolle, and you can wake the dreams of Hallionne Alsanis, yet you work as a Private? I recall very little about the Halls of Law; it is an institution that is irrelevant to the Barrani.”
“It’s not. For crimes Barrani commit against each other, the laws of exception can be invoked by the party deemed to be the injured party. But for crimes committed against other races, the Barrani are under the purview of the Imperial Hawks.”
“And if not the Hawks, the Wolves?”
Kaylin shrugged. “The Emperor.”
“It has long been a marvel to me that he shelters behind the ranks of his mortals.”
She shook her head, determined not to be offended, although it was hard. “We’re not there for his protection, of course. We’re there for the protection of the rest of the city. If the Emperor so chooses he can burn down half the city—but most of the people who die in the resultant fire won’t be criminals. We do what his fire can’t. Is Alsanis the name of the Hallionne that was lost?”
“Yes. Does An’Teela still serve the Imperial Hawks?”
“She does. Neither of us are here as Hawks; we’re outside of our jurisdiction.”
“Do you consider her a friend?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know her history?”
“I can’t possibly claim to know all of it, but I know what happened in the West March when she was young enough to be considered a child—and I know that she eventually came back, and she wore a variant of the same dress I’m wearing now. I know how her mother died. I know where. And I know that it’s considered an act of high treason to attempt to do now what was attempted then.” She tried to dampen the heat in her voice, and slid back into High Barrani. You could insult someone in High Barrani, but you had to work harder to do it.
“I did not come here to discuss Teela.”
“No.”
“Why did you ask me here?”
“We asked,” the eagles said in unison.
“The Consort touched the nightmares of the Hallionne, and she has not yet awakened. Lord Lirienne,” she continued, choosing to forego the title that seemed to vex Lord Barian’s mother, “said that the Warden absorbs those nightmares, except when the Lady is present.”
“I would accept them, regardless, but it is proof that she is present. Lord Lirienne took two war bands and left the West March in haste, at the urging of the Hallionne Orbaranne. We did not know if either he, or the party that set out from the city, survived.”
“How did he know to leave?”
“You will have to ask him. I do not speak with any of the Hallionne except Alsanis—and even that speech is limited. I touch the edges of his dreaming, and his nightmare, no more. My grandfather spoke to the Hallionne frequently. After the disaster in the green, he could still communicate with Alsanis; it became more difficult with the passage of time.
“They’re not trapped in the Hallionne,” Kaylin said. She meant the transformed. The lost children. He knew.
“They were,” he replied. “The Hallionne’s defenses are strong; what occurs within its walls occurs at the heart of his power. The Hallionne were not, and have never been, what we are; they have a breadth of experience that we could not survive. The children are called lost for a reason; they are no longer Barrani in any meaningful way.”
“Are they the nightmares of the Hallionne?”
“No.”
“Nightmares first, lost children later.” She hesitated and then said, “They remember who—and what—they were.”
“Demonstrably; they would not be so great a danger to us otherwise.”
“Dreams of Alsanis,” Kaylin said quietly to the two eagles, “how do I wake you? When you landed in my hands, did you sense me at all?”
They glanced at each other. “Yes. You wear the blood of the green, and beneath its folds, you bear the marks of the Chosen.”
“Can you read them?”
They turned to stare at each other, and then once again, at Kaylin. “Can you not?” one finally asked.
It was embarrassing to admit her failure to the large birds, but ignorance wasn’t a crime. “No.”
“But—”
Severn joined her, sliding an arm around her upper back. “Have you spoken with others who bear similar marks?” he asked.
“Yes. Not often. We are not Chosen. The Hallionne are not Chosen. They could not be and do what must be done; they do not travel.”
Neither did Kaylin, if she had any choice in the matter. She kept this to herself.
“Were the others able to read the marks?”
“How could they not? The marks were of them.”
“I didn’t choose the marks,” Kaylin said quietly.
“Then how do you bear their weight?”
“They chose me.”
“How can you do what must be done if you cannot read what is written?”
“The marks didn’t come with instructions,” Kaylin said, voice flat.
Severn, however, said, “Can you tell her what they say? Can you tell her what task they’re meant to accomplish?”
They glanced at each other again. “We are not Chosen,” they finally said—in unison. They said more, but it was unintelligible; it was clearly language, and just as clearly beyond her grasp.
She lifted a hand. “Can you teach me the language you speak?”
They considered each other again. “It is vexing,” the one on Barian’s arm said, “but we do not believe it can be taught to such a small mind. You cannot speak it.”
“But the marks would not be given to one who is mute,” the other eagle said.
“Demonstrably they were,” Kaylin said. She was annoyed; no one liked to be talked about in the third person when they were in the literal middle of a discussion. “Wait.”
Severn knew that tone of voice.
“Can the lost children speak the language?”
There was a long pause. “Yes,” the eagle on Barian’s arm said, the single word spoken in sorrow. “Yes, now they can.”
“Did the Hallionne teach them?”
The eagles fell silent. Kaylin reached out and grabbed the leg of the bird on her arm before it could fly; Barian’s eagle was already gone.
“I won’t ask more,” she said softly. “But I need to understand what you are.”
“We are the dreams Alsanis,” the eagle replied gravely. “What we see and know, he sees and knows—but he can no longer discern what is fixed in place.”
She rushed onward. “The Wardens take the nightmares o
f Alsanis.”
“They do. It is to the Wardens that we come, when we are conscious.”
“Do the nightmares end?”
“End?”
“When we—when mortals—have dreams or nightmares, they end when we wake. Sometimes they drive us in terror from sleep, they feel so real. Will the Consort wake from the nightmares of Alsanis?”
“Barian,” the eagle said, “does she speak truth?”
“She speaks truth as mortals perceive it, although mortals are capable of lying.”
“What would be the point in lying now?” Kaylin said, in frustrated Elantran. “Nightmares aren’t reality. Lying about them won’t change either the nightmares or real life.”
“The nightmares of Alsanis are not the nightmares of mortals,” was Barian’s reply.
“I’m beginning to understand that. Most mortal nightmares don’t fly through the air, land on a person, and get absorbed. Will the Consort wake?”
The eagle said, “Take me with you, Chosen. Take me to her.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“The Barrani do not sleep.”
“Yes, but she’s sleeping now.”
“Take me with you,” the eagle said again. To the small dragon, he spoke unintelligibly; the small dragon squawked. “Barian, it would be best if you accompany the Chosen.”
“I have offered her the hospitality of the Warden’s perch,” he replied.
“Can I just say one thing? I’m not Barrani, and mortals do need sleep.”
“The marks you bear should protect you,” the eagle replied.
Kaylin looked down the long spiraling stairs. Sleep wasn’t in the cards. She released the eagle’s leg.
* * *
“My apologies, Lord Kaylin,” Lord Barian said. His eyes were the more familiar shade of blue, at least where Barrani were concerned. “I did not intend this.”
She said nothing for about twenty steps. “Lord Lirienne said that the Wardens of the West March die prematurely because of the burden of the nightmares. Is he wrong?”
“He is not.” Barian’s words were stiff.
“Five nightmares came out of the trees on the edge of the West March. Is that normal? Is that what usually happens?”