Cast in Sorrow

understand the question.

“He was smaller before. About this size.” The explanation didn’t appear to make the question any clearer.

I do not understand. Kaylin, when you light a candle you summon fire. You speak its name in a whisper; it is almost inaudible. When you summoned fire here, you spoke its name, and it was louder. But in both cases, you called fire, and fire came.

It was Kaylin’s turn to be confused.

The nature of fire is fire. The nature of the—dragon?—is dragon. But I do not think the Tha’alaan would recognize this creature as Dragon. I do not understand your question.

“I didn’t summon him. I didn’t learn and speak his name. I didn’t call him into being. He just—he arrived on his own. And he was a lot smaller when he did.”

For one long minute the water ceased to move at all. Above her head, the dragon’s shadow covered them. You do not know him. You do not know his name. You must know his name, Kaylin. You must name him.

“But—”

It is only by naming that he can exist in your small life at all. She spoke to the dragon. The dragon replied. The earth trembled. He cannot long remain what he has been, now. There is too much of him here.

Understand what the water wants. It is complex, as you know. You have seen the tidal wave; you have seen the drowning. You have seen the infants. I am not all of one thing, or all of the other. But, Kaylin, it is only by the grace of the Tha’alani that I can speak with you as you see me now; it is by the grace of their constant experience and thought that I have some small control—and it is small—over my nature.

I am storm. I am death. I am life. I am all of these things—but at times, with will and effort, I can choose. I cannot always choose.

Nor, in the end, can he.

Chapter 21

The path ended abruptly, giving way to tall, dry grass. The water didn’t pause; she continued. Because she was carrying Teela, so did Kaylin. Watching the water walk over the dry grass was a revelation. In the water’s wake, the grass became the color of Kaylin’s dress, and small flowers began to push themselves out of the dirt, budding and blossoming as if seasons existed beneath her feet.

It was striking; it was even beautiful.

“Look, can you tell me something? I don’t understand how the green and the Hallionne are connected. I’d swear when we activated the wards we entered Hallionne Alsanis—but the wards exist in the heart of the green. To reach you at all we had to drop through Alsanis and into the tunnels.”

You think of the green as a place. You think of the Hallionne as places. They are not that. They are, in a much larger way, like your cities and your citizens. They are not all one thing, not all the other; the Hallionne are bound by the words that form the reason for their existence, but they are not fixed as you are. And yet, Kaylin, some part of them once was.

The green, never.

They are part of the green. The green is part of what they have become.

“And the lost children?”

They are also part of the green. They are part of Hallionne Alsanis.

“But...they’re trying to destroy the Hallionne.”

Yes. They understand, in part, the nature of words. But they do not understand in full. The pit that you see as an outline of a word is their attempt to tell a tale. We are almost there.

But Kaylin knew, because in the distance, she could hear singing.

* * *

This was like, and unlike, her first trip through the nightmare of Alsanis. The Consort’s voice was unmistakable; the song, however, was different. It took Kaylin one long minute to understand why, and when she did, it confused her. The Consort was singing in High Barrani. Given the extension of syllables and vowels, it wasn’t immediately clear, because the songs the Consort sang to the Hallionne also contained similar vocal sounds.

But the sounds were words that Kaylin could actually understand. She saw a ring of standing trees—or of things that looked, at a distance, like trees. They weren’t. They were stone structures, but branched, rooted. Something about them made Kaylin very uncomfortable.

Above these nontrees, the dragon roared. Kaylin was afraid that he would breathe; before she could shout at him, he did.

She shouted something different instead, and the singing banked sharply. Clearly this song was not like the songs of awakening.

Grey mist hit the strange stone grove, billowing at the edges like cloud, not fire. Where it touched stone branches, the branches melted, running like molten rock toward the ground. But they burned nothing they hit; instead, they shimmered, like silver liquid. The water passed over them without concern. Kaylin wasn’t as brave; she leaped over the small rivulets that seemed to flow, like giant, exposed veins, into one small pool.

The Consort stood on the other side of this network of tiny streams, but as the cloud spread, they surrounded her. She didn’t touch them, either. Instead, she looked at the water. No, Kaylin thought, at what the water held.

The Consort’s eyes darkened as she finally met Kaylin’s gaze. She was either angry or afraid, and opened her mouth; she shut it before she spoke.

“Lady.” Kaylin fell to one knee.

But the Consort shook her head with obvious impatience. “Not here. At Court, yes. But not here. Do you know what you’ve done?”

“We came to find you.”

“And you could not come here with any other Lord?”

“Teela wouldn’t stay.”

The Consort’s expression softened. “No,” she said at last. “She wouldn’t, would she? And no one of us, not even the High Lord himself, could command her when she did not wish to obey. It was never wise to make the attempt.” She watched as the trees finished melting.

“How did you get here?”

“The dreams of Alsanis.”

Kaylin blinked. “I don’t understand.”

The Consort’s smile was bitter. “No. No more do I.”

“I doubt that.”

“Do you imply that I lie, Lord Kaylin?”

“Clumsy of me. I’m not usually that subtle.”

To her surprise, the Consort laughed. Kaylin thought she would never understand the Barrani. “Great harm was done here when An’Teela was a child. You know of it.”

“I know what’s said.”

“Teela is of the Warden’s bloodline.”

Kaylin nodded.

“As was her mother. The Warden’s bloodline is dear to the green; it is gifted. Its gift does not extend beyond the green and the Hallionne; it does not touch the High Court in any significant way. But the green hears the Wardens and Alsanis speaks with them.”

“He doesn’t anymore.”

“Ah, but he does. The nightmares come to the Warden.”