Cast in Sorrow

when she looked at it. She realized that the gleam she saw was the reflection of the two words she was dragging along at her sides as if they were recalcitrant foundlings on an outing.

The statue was made, not of stone or marble, but...glass. It was glass. It stood on a pedestal of white marble. If it had been standing on the floor, it would still have been taller than Kaylin; Barrani were. It looked like a blown-glass representation of a ghost. A male ghost. Its features were delicate, the glass taking the form of ears, chin, perfect cheekbones. Probably perfect skin. Kaylin didn’t really believe in ghosts, but none of the stories she’d heard indicated bad complexions, and anyway, he was Barrani.

She stood, bracketed by the two words, watching the light play off transparent surface as if it were a window. A very beautiful window in a nonexistent frame. She peered through his chest, which was at eye level, given the pedestal. She did not see stone; she saw—thought she saw—night.

She wasn’t surprised when the window moved his arms. She should have been, but the minute she’d hit balcony, she’d given up on anything making sense. The statue reached out to touch the rune that meant grief and loss. His hand passed through what was, to Kaylin, appreciably solid.

She began to walk again, the statue, the ghost, trailing behind her, his open, empty eyes upon the words she carried. And why wouldn’t they be? They were the only obvious source of light.

* * *

He was not the only statue. Immediately ahead, between the pillars of two arches, stood another, also male. His face was broader, the cheeks wider, the chin more chiseled; he was otherwise tall and slender, although she thought him taller than the first. He wore a thin tiara across his brow, although it, too, was made of glass.

She stopped in front of him, watching the first ghost—she couldn’t quite think of them as Barrani, although it was clear that’s what they were meant to be. He, too, reached for the rune that spoke of grief and loss, stepping off his pedestal to do so. He didn’t seem to see the first ghost; nor did the first ghost see him. But his hand passed through the rune, as well, and a ripple of expression moved across his face like a liquid wave.

She would have let them take the runes, because there was something about them that was not Barrani. They seemed younger to her, and drawn only to grief. The second rune might not have existed at all. But she knew the words weren’t meant for them, because as she passed beneath the second such arch, she came to stand in front of a third glass statue.

Unlike the first two, this one was female; the slight swell of breasts and the delicate curve of hips would have given it away, but she also wore a Court dress—a Barrani Court dress—that hung in folds. She wore two rings, two glass rings, and a bracelet that looked almost martial; her hair fell from forehead to knees, unbraided. She was slightly shorter than the second ghost, and of a height with the first; she looked far haughtier than either of the first two. She didn’t attempt to touch the rune, but her chin dropped as she looked at it.

She wouldn’t reach for it, either, Kaylin thought, because she knew she could never touch it. But she, too, stepped from her pedestal, and she followed as Kaylin continued to walk.

* * *

She wasn’t surprised to see that there were eleven such statues by the time she reached the T junction at the end of the murderously long, open gallery. The rune had become heavier as she walked; she was practically dragging it, by the end. Two of the glass Barrani were women, nine were men.

Kaylin was annoyed. Not at the rune. Not at the ghosts. Not even at Alsanis.

No, she was annoyed at the High Court. Because they spoke of twelve lost children. Twelve. There were eleven. She had no doubt, in this amalgam of dream, nightmare, and Hallionne, that these ghosts were the ghosts of the eleven who had been so badly damaged by the ceremony in the green. They had been taken to Alsanis after the end of the recitation, when forbidden blood had been spilled during the telling, as if Alsanis was a jail. They had been sent to the West March by ambitious parents—and they had been sacrificed to that ambition.

But they numbered eleven, damn it. Teela wasn’t here. Teela wasn’t lost. Teela had come to the green wearing the dress that Kaylin now wore, and Teela had served as harmoniste. She had come of age. She was a Lord of the High Court.

Teela had lost her mother. So had Kaylin. Kaylin had lost her home. Teela, in theory, hadn’t. But what home had she come back to? The West March didn’t want her. That was so clear even a non-Barrani like Kaylin couldn’t miss it. That left the High Court. No wonder Teela spent as little time there as possible.

Well, the Hawks wanted her.

The small dragon squawked.

“We do,” Kaylin said. She inhaled. “Pretend I’m talking to myself. I need to get this out of my system before I see Teela again. If she thinks I’m worried about her, if she thinks I feel sorry for her, she’ll break both my arms. Without breaking a sweat.”

He nodded.

“Right or left?”

He batted her face with a wing. She considered plucking him off her shoulder and dropping him, but paused. “No, you’re right,” she told him. “That was a stupid question.” And she turned to the right because it was her right hand gripping the rune that had drawn every statue off its pedestal.

* * *

There were no other statues against the walls—and there were two walls here. If she’d chosen to go left, the gallery was open—but right led into an enclosed hall. It was an odd enclosure, because as she looked up she could see stars. Moons. The moons looked familiar. She thought there were clouds, thin and stretched, across their faces, but it was hard to tell; the pillars sported arches, even if they didn’t have ceiling, and the arches got in the way.

But Kaylin walked, dragging a rune that seemed to gain weight with each step, and a rune that seemed so light she could forget it was in her hand. She didn’t; she didn’t want to let it go yet.

She only knew she was heading in the right direction when she heard singing, because it was singing. She would know that voice anywhere: it was the Consort’s. The Consort’s voice was not the only voice she heard, and sadly, she’d recognize the other five anywhere, as well: the dreams and the nightmares; the eagles and their shadows.

She glanced at the eleven ghosts; they trailed like shadows—reflecting light—behind her. She wondered if they were responsible for the weight of the word in her hand, but they hadn’t been able to touch it. Then again, did she expect anything that happened here to make sense?

She cursed. Leontine again. Her ankle hurt, the rune weighed a ton, and she wanted to reach the Consort before she finished singing, because she knew—the way she did in a dream that was about to go very, very wrong—that the song was almost done.

* * *

She couldn’t run. Her ankle wasn’t broken, but the word had become an anchor. She dragged it down the hall, sweating all over a very fine, very magical dress. She wanted to curse, but saved her breath. The small dragon stopped playing shawl; he rose and stretched, digging claws into various parts of her collarbone and neck as he readjusted his position. The urge to curse grew stronger.

He spread his wings, but managed to do so without batting her in the face—which meant, of course, every other wing-slap was deliberate. She could see him lift and stretch his slender, translucent neck; he inhaled.

“Now is so not the time,” she told him.

As usual, he ignored her. He opened his jaws, with their disturbingly solid teeth, and joined the eagles in song. Kaylin didn’t have the breath to start singing again; she didn’t try. But the runes were warmer and brighter as she struggled with the weight of the one on the right. They served as lamps, but there was no flicker in the light they cast. The fact that they were behind her and she cast no shadow should have disturbed her more.

It didn’t; she was frowning instead at the door she was inching toward. She hadn’t seen a single door so far; it figured that the first one she’d find stood between her and the Consort.

* * *

The door did not obligingly roll open when she reached it. Of course not. That would be too easy. Her arms were shaking; if she had to drag the word on the right another foot, she’d collapse from exhaustion.

To make matters so much worse, the door—a door that was at least two stories in height, and made of either stone or pocked iron—was warded. Exactly how was she supposed to touch a door ward when both of her