Cast in Sorrow

Yes. He withdrew.

Severn—don’t. I can’t make you tell me anything—but don’t shut me out.

I won’t. But, Kaylin, there are things I don’t want to talk about. There are things I don’t want to think about. This was part of my life as a Wolf; it has nothing to do with your life as a Hawk. I saw the runes. I passed them. But I didn’t come here with a guide, or with the blessing—however reluctant—of the guardian.

Who did you come here with?

He was silent. She retreated; she felt irrationally stung, but couldn’t deny the truth of what he’d said. She had never, for instance, talked much about Barren with Severn. There was a lot he didn’t know. A lot she didn’t want him to know, when it came right down to it. And why? Because if he did, he’d stop caring?

Maybe. Maybe that was part of it.

The small dragon bit her ear. She cursed at him in Leontine. In quiet Leontine, which didn’t work so well.

Everyone was staring at her.

“Lord Kaylin?” Lord Barian said, as if prompting her for a reply.

Damn it. What did I miss?

The eagles have offered to lead us to the seat of life. Or rather, they’ve offered to lead you to the seat; they’ve agreed that we will accompany you if you decide to accept their offer.

And if I don’t?

The implication is that we won’t reach the seat. At all.

That’s going to make the recitation difficult.

No, it won’t. But if the Consort is trapped elsewhere, we’ll have wasted days. The Barrani don’t require sleep.

But they did require food. “Yes,” she told the eagles, who were staring at her as if they could hear every word she hadn’t said out loud. She watched as the path beneath their collective feet began to move.

* * *

At this point in a long evening that was, as the minutes passed, giving way to dawn, it shouldn’t have been surprising. It was.

“What’s happening?” Kaylin asked, forgetting everything she’d learned about the proper political address extended to powerful men. “Why is the ground doing this?”

“This may come as surprise,” the Lord of the West March said, “but this is not generally the way we approach the heart of the green.” They started to move. Either that or every other part of the landscape did.

“Look,” she said to the eagles, dropping into Elantran. “Can we just, oh, walk? ”

She felt Lirienne’s amusement—and a hint of his approval. She did not understand the Barrani.

You ask the questions none of my kin will ask; they tolerate it because you are mortal, and mortal ignorance is expected. The Warden will answer the question you have chosen to ask, without insulting the High Court.

Why in the hells would an answer be insulting?

It would imply ignorance.

But you just said you are—

Indeed.

The eagles looked at each other. “The wards cannot hear,” they said—in unison.

Lord Barian cleared his throat. “The path that winds its way through the heart of the green is not, in any sense of the word, a physical path. Only during the recitation is it laid bare; at that time, the whole of the green is turned toward one purpose, and one alone. At other times, the path opens as the propiciants speak the words of greeting; they open again when they speak the words of benediction. Each section of what you perceive as path is governed by the wards.

“Only in the presence of those who can speak the necessary words is the path revealed, and it is revealed almost step by step.”

“You wished to travel quickly,” the eagles added—again in unison, and again, to Kaylin. “This is the safest mode of travel for your companions.”

That, however, was less well-done.

You’ll note it’s not me who said it.

“An’Teela. Teela,” the eagles said.

Teela said nothing.

“The green is waiting. The wait has been long.”

* * *

Motion didn’t usually make Kaylin nauseous. The motion of the path did. It was like a gut punch accompanied by the sharp, stinging pain of her exposed marks. The hidden ones hurt, as well.

Lirienne, would you know if—if something had happened to the Consort?

Would I know if she were dead?

That was what she meant. She couldn’t bring herself to use the word.

Not here. I find it odd, he said. Barrani could find things intellectually interesting at the worst of times. You are mortal. You will die. You walk to death from the moment of your birth. Why, then, is death such a difficult concept?

Because we can’t avoid it.

But that wasn’t the truth. Human death, Leontine death, Aerian death—and Barrani death—were all the same, in the end. It wasn’t her own death she feared, although she went out of her way to avoid it where possible. It was what death meant. It meant absence. Permanent absence. It meant abandonment. The fact that it wasn’t chosen by the person who left didn’t change the fact of its effect.

Time didn’t change it. Nothing could. You could learn to accept it—hells, you had no choice. But the loss? She bit her lip and glanced at Teela, hoping Teela wouldn’t notice. Teela remembered everything. Teela remembered it as clearly as if it were stored in Imperial Records. Teela knew now and for as long as she lived, every single thing that was gone. All the details. All the details of how she had lost it.

Kaylin had never known her father. Teela had known hers—and she had both loved him and killed him.

Did that make it better, in the end? Could memories of her father’s death somehow ease the cost of the memories of her mother’s?

No, Lirienne said, his voice soft. But that is always the hope. Teela is kyuthe to you.

Kaylin said nothing.

Do you understand why, Kaylin? When she failed to answer, he said, you have always seen her as invulnerable. Immortal. Nothing the Imperial Hawks face will kill her. She is safe, for you, because she is not mortal. She is the family that you cannot lose. She will not die. She will not change. Time will take nothing from her, and when it takes your competence from you, you will know that she is there.

Why are you telling me this?

It is truth. But it is your truth. Hers is different. You are, to the surprise of the Barrani of both the High Court and the Vale, kyuthe in her eyes. We understood why she chose to join the Hawks; she was...

Bored?

Yes. You do not understand what boredom means to the Immortal. We understood. With her went a handful of Barrani who had neither the courage nor the desperation to take the test of name. That was unusual, but not unheard of. We did not know—until you—how attached she had become to your ephemeral world.

Me?

She faced the Dragon Court, for your sake. She returned to the High Halls, she donned both her title and the grandeur of her line, and she walked into the Imperial Palace. She did not claim her rank as an