Cast in Sorrow

couldn’t have known that you’d be here. He certainly couldn’t have guessed that the Consort would choose this bloody recitation to visit.”

“He knew some part of what Iberrienne intended.”

“I don’t think Iberrienne understood what Iberrienne intended.” Kaylin bit her lip. “But it’s all tied up in the past, isn’t it? Iberrienne lost someone here. I thought—I thought Iberrienne was younger. He’s not, is he? He lost someone. Nightshade lost someone. You lost—”

“Yes.” Teela started to pace. She disguised this by pacing in a straight line; Kaylin fell in beside her. Their stride and the even, slow fall of their steps were pure groundhawk.

“How long were you with them?”

“Pardon?”

“I thought—I thought you were all chosen and brought here together.”

“We were.”

“But you weren’t just thrown together before you came.”

“No.” Teela exhaled. “Kitling, you don’t like to talk about your past much. You spent years of your life not talking about it.”

Kaylin nodded.

“We knew that your mother had died, that you had grown up in Nightshade. We didn’t know every detail of your life between the time your mother died to the time you became our mascot.”

“No.”

“We don’t know it all now.”

“Teela—”

“And we don’t ask, because it doesn’t matter to us. Can you not do the same?”

They walked what would have been a city block before Kaylin replied. “I would—”

“That’s not a yes.”

“I would, Teela—but I think it does matter. It doesn’t matter to me. You’re Teela. You’re always going to be the person who broke my first chair—”

“It was a shoddy piece of furniture.”

“You broke my first lock, too.”

“I replaced that.”

“And the bed?”

“I only broke the slats.” Teela glanced at Kaylin, and added, “But I take your point.”

“I think the green is worried about you.”

Teela said nothing.

“The Hallionne, too. At least the ones who talked to me.” She hesitated. She thought, now, that part of the reason she’d been given the role of harmoniste—and the dress that went with it—was not her role as Chosen, but her friendship with Teela. “I don’t know what you understand. If you told me that you understood what the green intended—and why—I’d leave it alone. I would.”

Teela gave her a look that defined the word skeptical. “I’ll allow that you’d try.” She stopped walking. “And to be fair, I don’t understand it myself.”

“Do you want to?”

“You’re remarkably perceptive today.” Teela exhaled sharply. “I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the past—because for me, the minute I start, it’s not the past. It’s the disadvantage of immortal memory. None of the edges are dulled—and none of the pain. We hold long grudges,” she added. “Your kin can’t. What you think of as a grudge might last a year. Or six months. Or even a decade. That is not a long grudge for the Barrani.

“It takes effort to be here, kitling. It takes effort to see the West March as it is now, and not to walk it as it was then. Every memory of then leads to one place.” She smiled. It was not a happy expression. “We spent more than a decade together. We lived and trained together. We were young. Even the Barrani are young at one point —but youth is such a tiny fraction of our lives. We dreamed,” she added. “We dreamed of being heroes. Of saving our people. Of defeating the Dragon flights. We dreamed that we would one day be called upon to wield our people’s legendary weapons.

“And we knew that we had been chosen. Each and every one of us. We fancied ourselves the best and the brightest of our kind. We were meant to be powers, Kaylin.”

Kaylin understood what power meant to the Barrani. She said nothing.

“I could tell you their names. I can remember what they looked like, and when. We were...more open. Less cautious. Youth often is.” Her smile deepened. “My childhood was not like yours. I understand that in many ways, I lacked the fears that drove your mother, and you, in the fiefs. I had food. I had shelter. I had the relative safety of my lineage. We all did.

“Perhaps because of that, we could dream in ways you didn’t. I don’t know. But we promised that we would thrive, Kaylin. That we would survive. That we would hold true to our beginnings when the wars were at last ended—we would not fall upon each other. We would not war against each other, not even in the name of our kin.” She shook her head. “Such are the follies of childhood. I do not know if we would have held true to those vows.

“I was not the leader of our group. That was Sedarias. She was everything that neither I nor the Consort can be—even when young. She was cool, collected, perfect; her poise was terrifying. She could, with very little effort, pass for adult; of the twelve of us, she garnered the most praise. She understood politics, and the undercurrents of both power and weakness; she understood desire and how to manipulate it. She understood standing, status. I would say that compared to most of the mortals I’ve met, any Barrani child would be considered sophisticated—but even among our kin, there are standouts.

“But it was Sedarias who suggested the vow; Sedarias who first made it. Perhaps she meant to bind us to her; perhaps it would have worked over the centuries. I don’t know. But she made the vow, and then asked that we respond in kind. She told us that she believed holding true to that vow was simply a matter of will, of power, of intent.

“We were, of course, the children of the powerful. We understood what was intended for us. But Sedarias —and Eddorian—were suspicious.”

“Not you?”

Teela laughed. Or tried. “No. I told you—I wanted it. I wanted to be worthy of my father’s regard and respect. I wanted to be what he wanted. But—I was young. I liked the vow, kitling. I liked the idea of forging unbreakable bonds with the only peers, the only friends, I had.”

Kaylin missed a step. Given that the ground was totally flat, and mostly dirt, she had no excuse, and Teela noticed immediately.

“What connection have you just made?”

“It’s just...I can’t imagine even Barrani children thinking that promises could be unbreakable.”

“No.”

“Teela—”

There was so much pain beneath the surface of Teela’s oddly gentle smile. “No, kitling. Not even the children we were could believe in a simple, spoken vow.”

“Teela—what did you do?”

“Show me your hand.”

Kaylin lifted her left hand and opened it for Teela’s inspection.

Teela said, “Mandoran. We called him Manny; he mostly hated it.”

“You can...read...the name.”

“Yes, kitling.”

“But—but—”

“Yes. In theory, it means they could read mine.” She lifted her face to the skies, to the sunlight that fell from no sun. “But only if it had meaning to them. They are not what they were. I call them, Kaylin. I called them then. They did not hear me. They can’t speak the name I gave them.” She reached out and touched Kaylin’s open palm. “And now, I think I understand why.” She exhaled again and looked at the landscape. There was a lot of dirt, and very, very little in the way of foliage; even the dead, standing trees were absent. “This is not getting us