Cast in Peril

by Michelle Sagara

  They continued to move.

  * * *

  There was no sunlight here, because there was no sky. Nothing cast shadows, short or long; it was hard to gauge the passage of time. Kaylin’s arms and legs ached in a bone-deep way, but she couldn’t tell how much of that was due to the marks and how much to physical exertion over an extended period. She knew that if she’d been chasing a runner in the streets of the City for as long as she felt they’d been on the move, the runner would have been free and clear.

  Her stomach made noise. She ignored it, or tried. There was no place to stop for either food or rest.

  Wilson did not return. Neither did the faceless roar. The ground was the only difficulty they faced, but it was more than enough. The path jogged to the right so sharply it wasn’t a curve but an angle. That was bad.

  What was worse lay yards ahead.

  The path simply stopped. Beyond its border, on all sides, was the thick, mistlike gray of the outlands. If the path led to the Hallionne, Orbaranne hadn’t opened any doors or left any signposts to indicate they’d reached the checkpoint.

  Nightshade, at the head of the line, said something in Barrani that was just that little bit too soft to catch.

  “Is the Hallionne here?” Kaylin asked without much hope.

  Nightshade hesitated. “I cannot sense the Hallionne,” he finally replied. “But I cannot definitively say we are not close. Lady.”

  The Consort made her way to his side; it was awkward—even for a Barrani—because the rope was still a necessity, and much of the shift of position occurred at the same time as the physical swaying of the path.

  “This is what we would have faced had the Hallionne not exerted themselves,” she finally said. “I do not sense Orbaranne’s presence.”

  Kaylin hesitated. Since Kaylin’s hesitations were never subtle, the Consort and Nightshade turned to her.

  “Lord Kaylin?”

  “I think you should try.”

  “Try?”

  “To wake Orbaranne.”

  “Orbaranne, according to Bertolle, is awake.”

  “That was the wrong word, then. Try to call Orbaranne.”

  The Consort and the fieflord exchanged a brief glance. It was Nightshade who said, “I do not think it possible. The song of awakening is taxing even when all other conditions are neutral. The ground, such as it is, is unstable that we risk loss merely by standing or walking.”

  To underscore this, the chaos ribbon, as Kaylin privately thought of the path, once again bucked, as if trying to throw off a rider. “It’s that or walk,” she told him. “We can’t stand here—”

  Roaring.

  * * *

  Kaylin turned to the small dragon. “I don’t know if you can do anything,” she told him softly, “but…we need this patch of ground—this patch, the one the Consort is standing on—to remain stable for as long as it takes.”

  To Nightshade, she said, “Do you recognize the sound at all?”

  “I?”

  “To me it’s just generic angry-monster-or-animal sound. It’s not Draconian. It’s nothing specific. If it’s anything like the beasts we met in the real forest, Severn can stand against them. If it’s not—”

  “I would not assume that it is,” Nightshade replied. “Nor would I assume there is only one.”

  The small dragon pushed himself off Kaylin’s shoulder, hovered for a moment over her head, and then landed, more or less lazily, on the ground between too many boots. He was translucent, as he’d always been—like an empty glass or a ghost—but Kaylin, who had opened her mouth to reply, forgot what she was going to say as she looked through his body.

  He tilted his head as he returned her stare.

  “Lord Kaylin?”

  Through the thin layer of wings, the stretched, slender length of body, even the slight bend of his raised neck, she could see bodies, parts of bodies; the brief glimpse was like a window onto a battlefield. Something might be alive, but if it was, it would have to struggle its own way out—no one would see it.

  “Kaylin?”

  The small dragon nodded, as if he knew and understood what she was seeing.

  “What is this place?” she asked, kneeling, bringing her face closer to the small dragon’s so that she could see his eyes. His eyes and his open mouth appeared to be the only two things about him that weren’t transparent. His eyes widened, his head at a tilt that was almost a right angle to the rest of his neck.

  “Yes,” she said as if he’d asked an actual question—as if he could. “I want the answer.”

  Small wings rose. He turned his head, glanced at the rippling ground beneath the Consort’s feet, and sucked in air.

  “He’s going to breathe,” Kaylin said, voice rising in panic.

  The small dragon exhaled. He exhaled pale, opalescent smoke in a steady stream that hit the path directly in front of the Consort’s feet. It spread from there, blanketing the surface of the tenuous road. What had moments before been a sickly, reflective mass of something glass, metal, or oil began to shift in texture and color. Greens, blues, purples, and obsidians folded into each other to become a solid, almost nondescript gray. It was stone. Flat, thick stone.

  Nightshade did not speak a word.

  The Consort, however, bowed briefly to the small dragon. Turning to face the gray fog, she lifted her arms, her shoulders, and her head. She sang.

  * * *

  Kaylin looked back to the small dragon, who had not moved. Where the ground nearest his tail had become solid stone, she saw stone; beyond that edge of solidity, she saw corpses. “What have you done?” she whispered. “What happened here? What is this place?”

  “Kaylin,” Severn said above her left shoulder. “Don’t let go of the rope.”

  She glanced up and saw that she had. She raised her hand to grasp it, and the dragon squawked. The hesitation lasted a few seconds. “Your show,” she told him, lowering her hand into her lap.

  That is unwise, Nightshade said.

  Being here at all, at the moment, trumps it. She hesitated. Can you see them?

  See what?

  That would be no. When I look through him, I see corpses.

  Nightshade turned immediately; the small dragon met his gaze, tilting his head. Kaylin, I do not mean to question either your perception or your sanity, but how, exactly, are you looking through him?

  He’s transparent.

  He is not.

  It was her turn to shift gaze; she looked at Nightshade. His eyes were blue, his expression intent. Barrani were often accused of having no sense of humor, which was unfair. Mortals, on the other hand, seldom found Barrani humor amusing—which was fair, in Kaylin’s experience.

  “Severn? What do you see when you look at the small dragon?”

  Severn immediately understood that the question wasn’t trivial. “He hasn’t changed size. His wings are high, his neck is extended, his tail—”

  “Does he look transparent to you?”

  “His skin is vaguely translucent.”

  “Can you see through him?”

  “Through him?”

  “As if he were a window, but all the wrong shape.”

  “No. I see the hint of veins, vessels, possibly even a heart or lungs. But he’s not completely transparent.”

  She exhaled. “He is to me.”

  Severn’s brows rose slightly. “You’re looking through him now.”

  She nodded.

  “You don’t like what you see.”

  “I don’t understand what I see. And no, I don’t like it.”

  Looking at her expression, Severn hazarded a guess. “Dead people?”

  She nodded.

  “When you say ‘people,’ is that a general term or can you differentiate race?” Nightshade’s voice was sharp and cutting. He couldn’t speak quietly because the Consort’s voice was now louder. Louder, stronger, clearer.

  “Does it matter?”

  “It may. This is not a matter of Immortal arrogance,�
�� he added. “If the corpses you see are mortal corpses, there is something very wrong.”

  “More wrong than corpses no one else can see? They’re corpses, Nightshade—not skeletons, not desiccated husks. They’re recently dead.”

  “If they are mortal corpses—and I think you would recognize Leontines instantly, so we may discard that possibility—think: how did they arrive in this place? These paths connect the Hallionne.”

  “They connect more than just the Hallionnes, or we wouldn’t be under attack!”

  Teela placed a hand on Kaylin’s shoulder. “Kitling,” she said, “think like a Hawk.”

  “I am. I know there’s something wrong with the Hallionne in the West March. Whatever is attacking us here had to originate from there, if everything you’ve said is true. But we met some of these non-Shadow Shadows in the actual forest. They weren’t mortal.”

  “No.”

  “The Hallionne aren’t mortal. Anyone who stays in a Hallionne isn’t mortal.”

  “You are.”

  “And I’m a Lord of the High Court, as is Severn. How many other mortals can say the same?”

  “None at all, as you well know.”

  “If these are— If what I’m seeing is—”

  Teela inhaled. Exhaled sharply. The tremulous song of the Consort rose, and Nightshade rose with it. Kaylin knew why. He joined the consort, and as he did, he, too began to sing. For just a moment, the sound of their voices was so perfect it was all she wanted to hear.

  But when she opened her eyes—and she had closed them almost instinctively—she once again saw corpses.

  “You don’t think they’re Barrani,” Teela said. It wasn’t a question. “I know you, kitling. Please tell me they aren’t children.”

  Kaylin said nothing for a long moment. “I don’t think they’re only children. But no, Teela. I don’t think they’re Barrani. They’re too—too dead.”

  The Barrani Hawk raised a brow.

  “I mean, I know what it takes to kill a Barrani. It takes a lot less to kill…me.”

  Teela knelt in a crouch in front of the dragon. She didn’t bother with the rope, and Severn didn’t remind her that she needed it. “Yes,” she said as she rose. “I concur.”

  Severn became utterly still. “You see what Kaylin sees.”

  “I do. They are corpses. The window is not large; I can’t estimate numbers. There are more than six. There is some possibility that not all the bodies are dead, but they appear—to my eye—to be very recent deaths.”

  “Mortal.”

  “Human.” There wasn’t even the hint of a doubt. “There isn’t a Barrani among them, although the window, as I said, is very small.” She looked down at the small dragon but continued to speak to Kaylin. “We need to see more.”

  Nightshade turned but did not drop the harmony he had shouldered. His eyes were indigo.

  “You don’t need to do it now,” Severn told the two Hawks. “I think Hallionne Orbaranne has finally arrived.”

  * * *

  The air—or mist, or miasma—directly in front of the flat, heavy stone began to twist, gaining both momentum and size as it moved. It had, for the first half a minute, no form. The flat, thick stone had not notably increased in width, and as the Consort and Nightshade occupied its edge, there was no way for the Lords of the Court to interpose themselves between it and their Lady.

  Not that one Lord didn’t try; Evarrim raised a hand, no more, and the man froze.

  Kaylin’s arms, legs, and back already ached so intensely the Arcanist’s use of magic didn’t actually make it worse. The fire that she’d lost track of during the very brisk walk appeared from the left, emerging out of the mist as if evaporating it. She recognized the fire’s size and shape, and the lack of a path beneath his figurative feet seemed to cause no difficulty, but he stopped short of the gathering storm at the path’s edge, waiting.

  “What do you see?” She spoke softly, and had he relied on the normal variant of hearing, her words wouldn’t have carried over the Consort’s song.

  The fire crackled in response and drew closer to where she knelt, the small dragon at her knees. She rose in a panic. “Don’t burn them!”

  I will burn nothing that you do not wish burned. I see a door opening, he added. He was gazing at the standing storm, which seemed, as she watched, to be condensing.

  “What do you see here, where I’m standing?”

  A path, he replied. It is both living and dead. I will not burn it, in whole or in part. You must leave this place soon, he added. She heard roaring; it was the only sound in the immediate vicinity that was louder than the song, and it sounded closer than it had been—if that meant anything in the wilds beyond the twisting path.

  It meant something to the dense, roiling cloud. She bent and lifted the small dragon; he squawked in feeble outrage as she more or less dumped him back on her shoulder. The cloud took on both size and shape: it was not Barrani.

  It was, just as the first wakened Hallionne had been, a Dragon—a Dragon of storm whose wings shot out to either side of its growing body as a neck and head at last emerged.

  Chapter 28

  The small dragon stirred, raised its comparatively tiny head, and squawked. The Consort’s final note—and Nightshade’s accompanying harmony—faded, and as it did, the Dragon roared. The path beneath their feet began to shudder. Kaylin reached out with a nerveless hand and once again caught the rope.

  She is angry, the fire said.

  “Lady, could you ask the Hallionne to destroy everything after she opens her doors?”

  The Consort, however, now listed to the side; Nightshade threw out an arm to catch her before the ground did. Kaylin sucked in one sharp breath. To the small dragon, she said, “All right, never mind. You tell her.”

  Squawking, the small dragon rose. His tail whacked the top of Kaylin’s head.

  The small dragon flew up toward the maw of the large one as the large one roared again. She half expected the smaller one to suffer blowback, but he managed to cling to his small bit of what passed for sky in these parts. When he reached the level of the larger Dragon’s eyes, the large Dragon paused.

  She heard her own dragon’s squawk; it sounded pretty pathetic. It certainly contained no words. But the large Dragon looked down, as if seeing the path and its occupants for the first time. It lifted its head again, roaring so loudly Kaylin had to choose between her ears and the rope; she chose the rope, but it was close.

  The Dragon then folded its wings, and as it did, it diminished in size, although its lack of solid, physical form made it harder to track the transformation. In the end, however, a Barrani woman stood a yard beyond the edge of the stone. She was the gray and white of perfect, distant clouds.

  “Lady,” she said. She stood at the heart of rolling mist, wings of pale gray rising above the height of her shoulders.

  The Consort nodded, her eyes blue and darkening.

  “The way is closed.”

  “How, Hallionne?” was the urgent reply.

  The Hallionne said, “I do not know. The outlands are held against us. Even the path upon which you now stand will not exist for long.”

  “Who fights against us?” Kaylin asked as the small dragon returned to her. “Who are our enemies? Are they your enemies?” Kaylin knew they were not necessarily the same. The Barrani generally brought their enemies with them; the Hallionne provided a safe space in which enmity must—and therefore could—be held at bay. This was clearly different.

  The Hallionne swiveled; around her, the mist began to rise, turning in on itself as if it were trying, for a moment, to take form. “I do not know. Our enemies are here, and if they seek to prevent you from reaching your destination, they may be your enemies as well, although you are too young and too slight in all ways to bear the burden of that enmity for long.”

  Kaylin didn’t argue. She turned to the Consort, who had pulled herself to her feet, releasing Nightshade. “Lady,” she said, voice low, “where do we g
o from here? We can’t go back.”

  The Consort reached out and caught Kaylin’s hand; hers was cold and trembling. “When you look at the Hallionne, what do you see, Chosen?”

  “She’s like Kariastos, but made of mist, not water.”

  “When you looked at Bertolle—” She broke off, but her grip tightened. Kaylin understood the question then. She turned to the Hallionne, but as she did, she reached up to place one palm against the small dragon’s body. He was warm.

  She was in pain. It was a constant, throbbing pain; it had grown deeper and sharper as they’d stumbled, at speed, along the path held by two of Wilson’s brothers—a path that had ended at the foot of an Avatar. The stone upon which she was standing, however, was solid; only its edges were fraying. The pain made little sense. The dress was demonstrably magic, if subtle. The illuminations were magic. The Hallionne themselves, magic, all. But none of those three had caused her the usual pain. Evarrim’s magic—his elemental—did. But if he was summoning or casting now, he was utterly silent, utterly still.

  Iberrienne, the only other Barrani Lord to reveal his mastery of the Arcane, had vanished. She didn’t believe it was accidental. Yes, the path purportedly sent those who walked it in entirely different directions, but it was just too convenient. Someone was casting. Someone was using a magic that set off Kaylin-style alarms. Someone neither she, nor any of the Barrani present, could see.

  She turned to face the Hallionne, her hand still cupped around the body of the small dragon. As she did, the Consort drew breath and began, once again, to sing.

  * * *

  The Hallionne’s wings rose as the notes grew louder and fuller. Nightshade hesitated before he added his voice to the Consort’s. Kaylin watched the Hallionne, even when the small dragon bit her fingers, forcing her to release him. He pushed himself off her shoulder, moving so slowly he might have been underwater, his wings spread and stiff, as if he were gliding. He paused in midair a foot away from Kaylin’s face, wings spread like windows before her eyes.