Kaylin’s growing desperation did, either. When Teela fell to her knees, Kaylin dropped to the ground beside her, hand still attached to the back of her neck. But there was nothing physically wrong with Teela; nothing that could be healed.
Kaylin had always thought—had always believed—that if she had been there, if she had been at her home the night of the worst loss she had ever endured, she could have
But she couldn’t. They didn’t touch her. They didn’t suddenly become visible, and they didn’t become the eagles the Barrani called dreams. She saw Teela’s face lose all color; only her eyes retained any—and it was purple, the color that Kaylin had almost never seen. There was no green in them; nothing that spoke of happiness or peace.
Kaylin opened her eyes. She opened her eyes to the gray-green sky and the pit, and she understood that the pit itself had taken the rough shape and outline of a word—a word whose elements had somehow been obliterated, but in which the ground had retained a sense of what had once occupied it.
She caught Teela in her arms, tightened them.
“What have I told you about crying?” Teela whispered.
Kaylin told her what she could, in Leontine. “I don’t
“And this is
“Kitling—”
Kaylin raised both her face and her voice, and she shouted into and above the thunder. “We ask for and accept the judgment of the green!”
The ground fell out from beneath her. She tightened her arms around Teela and held on for all she was worth.
Really, as drops went, it wasn’t terrible. But holding on to someone who was, for all intents and purposes, deadweight made negotiating a safe landing impossible.
“You,” Teela said—because she was still conscious, somehow, “are an idiot.”
“Whatever.” Kaylin was afraid, for one long moment, to let go.
“Oh, I’m here,” Teela told her grimly. “I’m glad you think that breathing is optional.”
Kaylin let go. Her arms, however, had stiffened, and her hands were shaking as she tried to pry her fingers off Teela.
“You cannot leave well enough alone, can you?”
“It wasn’t bloody well enough, okay?” Kaylin got to her feet. She was shaking, and she thought she might never stop. Teela’s color hadn’t improved any. “How many?”
“Pardon?”
“How many did you absorb?”
“I wasn’t counting.”
“Don’t give me that look. If you want to commit suicide, you’re going to have to do it when I’m not standing right behind you. Here.” She put an arm around Teela’s back, shoving herself under the Barrani’s left arm and levering them both off the ground. “I don’t know how long the path from here is, but we need to walk it. If we have to walk it in the dark, fine. We’ll do that.”
“Remind me to strangle Nightshade if we somehow manage to survive this.” Light flared in the tunnel. It was a familiar tunnel, of rough rock, low ceilings, and unpredictable widths. “You’re certain that your presence here— so soon after you got ejected—is not going to anger the green?”
“No.”
“Do you understand the reason such an escape is so seldom used?”
“Yes.”
“Then—”
“Are we dead?”
“Kitling.”
“Are you?”
“Demonstrably not.”
“Then we’ll deal. One step at a time.” She wanted to scream at Teela. Or swear. She contented herself with a few Leontine phrases, but her heart wasn’t in them and they sounded pathetic, even to her ears.
“You’re shaking.”
Kaylin said, “So are you.”
Teela chuckled. “We make quite the pair, don’t we?”
Kaylin didn’t reply.
The tunnels were the tunnels that Kaylin remembered, which was good. The first branch, on the other hand, reminded her that this was like a coin toss on which your whole life depended—which was bad.
“No, I don’t know which way to go,” Kaylin said, before Teela could insert a sarcastic comment. “Save your breath.” She meant it, too. Teela’s breathing was labored. Teela, who could sprint across the damn city and back without breaking a sweat. “If you want a say, stay awake.”
“You understand that we’re judged in entirely different ways by the green, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You may accept the green’s judgment. You may leave. What if the green doesn’t choose to release me?”
“I’m not leaving without you.”
Teela laughed. “I wish you could have met them,” she whispered.
“Given Barrani attitudes toward mortals at the time, I’m not sure it would have worked out well—for me.”
“There is that. But I think you would have liked them. Well, maybe not Sedarias, not immediately.” She closed her eyes. Opened them, but not all the way. “Allaron would have liked you. He liked small, helpless creatures. Of all of the candidates, he was the most inexplicable.”
“What do you mean?” She knew, in cases like this, it was important to keep a person talking.
“Most of my kin are of a height, as you’ve complained about on any number of occasions. We are of a height, of a general build, our weight is roughly the same. There is far less variance among my kin than there is among yours.”
“He was really tall, right?”
“Yes.”
Kaylin nodded. “I think he was the second statue. But the thing about the statues—to me—is that they all looked very individual. Most of the Barrani look the same, at least on the surface. It’s like you’re twins, except, you know, more numerous.”
“Allaron was large. He was stronger than most of the children his age. He was capable of astonishing feats of strength—but he was often quiet. Of the twelve of us, he was the most reticent. He would have liked you. He wouldn’t even have complained much. You don’t see our young,” she added. “The children are very seldom raised in the city; they are kept away from the High Court until they are of an age where they might survive it.”
“You were—”
“Yes. I was raised at Court. My father was a very powerful man; not for my safety would he deny himself the strategic arrangement of his place at Court. I spent some time in the West March with my mother, and he allowed it—at the beginning.
“But not at the end. He distrusted the Vale; he found the people of the West March rustic. None of us, once the plans were set in motion, were allowed to spend our childhoods in the more traditional environments. We were meant to excel in all things. We began our training early, and we were kept at it.
