Cast in Peril

by Michelle Sagara

  “And that’s not true here.” Kaylin hesitated. “Where is here?”

  “Here is the heart of the Hallionne. My heart,” she added as lightning, followed by the first crack of thunder, rolled across distant sky. “It exists in all modalities. It exists in all planes. But this is a place where people such as you cannot go.”

  “Others of my kind were brought here.”

  “Yes. A wrong was done,” she added softly.

  “Why are they attacking you?”

  “Because I am sentinel. Your worlds, your war, are an echo of the war we once fought, and we fought it in these spaces: wars, of words. Can the Barrani be destroyed in your world? No. They can be killed. But the essential truth of who they have been cannot be destroyed. It cannot be trapped, and it cannot be changed; it can be freed. You would call that death.”

  “Here it can be destroyed.”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  * * *

  Thunder. Kaylin turned to the Hallionne, who stood and watched, hands loosely clasped behind her back. “If they recall the story of their origin, if they can recite it—”

  “Yes. They will alter all and may well destroy it. What your race is and what it will—or can—become, if it exists at all, will be different.”

  “That wasn’t Iberrienne’s intent.”

  “It was, in part. If they alter that story, in some small way, they alter mine.” She raised her chin.

  “But you’re—you’re a Hallionne.”

  “Yes. But my word, my truth, was not created, as Bertolle was not, from nothing. It is why they attack me and none of the others, save one. I am not what I was; I will never be that again. But what I am has roots in what I was, and those roots cannot be disentangled.”

  “Why didn’t the Ancients just create you from scratch?”

  “They could not,” she replied. “And so, they revised, they elevated, they transformed. What was done for the Leontines, was done—in more complexity—for me.”

  “Iberrienne brought almost two hundred people here to attempt to break—you?”

  “That is a question I cannot answer, Kaylin.” The lightning was harsher and closer; there was almost no space between it and the thunder. “But I do not believe that is his intent: he wishes to create, in a small way, a language of his own.”

  “What will he do with that?”

  “Anything. Anything at all that he desires. In this modality, he would become a Lord of Chaos.”

  “And you can’t stop him.”

  She said nothing. Kaylin lifted a hand to touch her, and stopped; her hands were black, wet. Ink streamed like liquid from her palms, down her sleeve, and into the grass. The Hallionne frowned, brows drawing together over the bridge of an entirely nondescript nose. Her eyes, the only thing about her that didn’t look ordinary, widened. Without a word, she reached out and clasped Kaylin’s hand in one of her own. Kaylin, aware of the fact that the Hallionne was wearing white, flinched. She didn’t pull back. The Hallionne’s hand felt like a normal, callused hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, because the Hallionne’s hand was now black, and ink dripped across the skirt of her white dress. Hallionne Orbaranne shook her head; her eyes widened. For the first time since she’d approached Kaylin, she smiled. Her eyes faded to a shade of emerald-green that was the color of the grass itself.

  “He is here,” she whispered.

  Kaylin glanced around the wide and empty plain. Lightning struck ground maybe a mile away—if they were lucky. “Who?”

  The Hallionne pointed with her free hand. Standing in the middle of the grass, at the height of the encroaching storm, stood the Lord of the West March.

  * * *

  Beneath gray clouds, to the dubious applause of thunder, the Lord of the West March approached them. His eyes rounded slightly as he recognized Kaylin; they were a shade of indigo that made night seem bright. His lips, a compressed, tight line, didn’t open to let words escape. Before Kaylin could speak—or bow, which was appropriate etiquette—he swept the Hallionne into his arms, lifting her off the ground. Her hand still clutched Kaylin’s, which made what was almost an embrace a bit awkward, as she turned her face into his chest.

  His chin rested, briefly, above her head. “Lord Kaylin.”

  She swallowed. “Lord of the West March.”

  “So formal.” A brief smile softened his expression.

  “Lirienne.”

  “And still unwise. I confess I did not expect to see you here, of all places. You wear the blood of the green.” He bent his head. “Hallionne Orbaranne, the forest road is secure. The portal roads are not, but Calarnenne holds the road with the aid of Bertolle’s forces; we have sent what reinforcements we could spare. The Consort is safe.”

  She seemed to shrink in his arms; lightning struck ground, narrowly passing behind the Lord of the West March. “They are here,” she whispered.

  Kaylin expected rain. Or worse. “Hallionne, let go of my hand.” She exhaled, squaring her shoulders. “Let go of my hand and open the door.”

  The Hallionne shook her head. “There is no door to open. They are almost upon us. I have failed.”

  The Lord of the West March met Kaylin’s gaze and held it. “What will you do, Chosen?”

  Kaylin raised a hand, palm up. It was dark, wet, and as she exposed it, rain began to fall. It was a summer storm’s rain, instantly drenching. The blood of the green appeared to be waterproof; Kaylin herself was not. She felt like a bedraggled urchin in a stolen dress. The rain didn’t appear to care for the small dragon; it avoided him. Literally. Water bent in its downward trajectory to either side of where he sat. She considered dumping him on the top of her head and telling him to open his wings.

  She didn’t, because the rain was, in fact, melting the grass. As if it had never been solid, green bled into what lay beneath: gray, dark. As dark, she thought, as the runes engraved in an anchoring circle of stone. Kaylin said, “Hallionne, let me go.”

  The Hallionne tightened her grip. Her knuckles were white, and her hand felt so entirely normal it was disturbing. She didn’t speak. The Lord of the West March said, “Hallionne, you must choose. Lord Kaylin may stand with you, or I may—but not both. They are almost upon us now.”

  The rain was so heavy, visibility wasn’t an issue; there wasn’t any. The Hallionne’s grip eased. Kaylin started to massage blood back into her hand but stopped. Her hand—the hand that the Hallionne had held so tightly—was clean. No ink, no black, remained on it. The other hand? Black and wet; the rain couldn’t wash what she thought of as ink away.

  “Kaylin,” the Lord of the West March said, “be cautious.”

  She almost laughed, but his expression was so grave. Turning to the small dragon, she said, “Protect the humans. I know they’re not alive, not really—but protect them.”

  “I cannot protect the mortals, if there are other mortals here,” the Lord of the West March replied.

  “I wasn’t talking to you. I was—” She glanced at the small dragon and realized then that no one could see him. The Barrani hadn’t, the humans hadn’t, and the Hallionne had made no mention of him at all. She shook her head. Her arms had shed a soft golden light the entire time she’d been within the confines of the circle. “Go and save them,” she told the dragon. “If you can.” She turned. “Lord of the West March.”

  “Lord Kaylin.”

  Ugh, there was water in her mouth. She wanted the rain to stop. “You said the forest paths are safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the portal roads aren’t. How do you know, if you’re here?”

  “I am the Lord of the West March,” he replied, as if that was any kind of answer. Maybe it was. She was the harmoniste, and she wore the blood of the green, but she had no clue what was happening anywhere she wasn’t standing. Hells, she had no clue what was happening here. “Can you get word to Lord Severn and Lord—Lord Calarnenne? Can you give them a message for me?”

  “I can. It is not without
cost.”

  “Tell them to find Iberrienne. He’s on the portal roads. He’s here, but I think he’s there, as well. Tell them they need to find him.”

  “Alive?”

  She laughed. It was not a happy sound. But she was spared the stress of answering, as the Ferals had finally arrived.

  Chapter 31

  They were drenched. As drenched, as bedraggled, as Kaylin herself. Their eyes were the color of their fur, but they shone anyway. The small dragon squawked, and Kaylin began to walk—quickly and stupidly—toward the nearest Feral. She drew one dagger, aware that she was still invisible to the Feral; it had eyes for the Hallionne and the Lord of the West March.

  She walked quietly; the rain helped. But as she approached the Feral, jogging slightly toward its side, it stopped, swiveling to face her, sniffing at the air. She moved in, leading with her weapon. Its eyes narrowed. She knew she needed to slit its throat as quickly as possible. She’d done it before, although never with Barrani. Never with Ferals, either, if it came to that. Just with people too stupid or greedy to avoid pissing off a fieflord.

  This is different. This is survival.

  But was it? She wasn’t in the streets of the fief. She wasn’t in the real world. What she saw here, all of it, was a weird sort of make-believe that took what was there and made sense of it. She wasn’t even certain that the dagger could actually cut anything.

  Thinking that, she cut her palm. It bled. The small dragon squawked and hissed and jumped up and down, but she didn’t care. What he’d refused to allow her to give to any other Hallionne, she now gave to Orbaranne: she bled. She bled freely, because her dagger hand had not been terribly steady. The small dragon didn’t like it, but it didn’t matter; what was done was done, and he didn’t fly down to intercept her blood as it landed, at last, in the dark, gray mud.

  But when it landed, the world changed.

  * * *

  Where there had been grass, and then green-gray mud, there was now stone. Stone, in a Hallionne, wasn’t rare—but the floor that was suddenly under Kaylin’s feet wasn’t grand, architectural, magical stone—it was worn from the tread of too many feet, some pretty heavy. It was smooth, gray, ordinary stone. Familiar stone. Walls rose in the distance, and they were curved, as the Hallionne’s had been curved, but they were familiar walls, and they ended not in clouds that vision couldn’t pierce but in the lip of an aperture that was, at the moment, open to the sky.

  At the center of the tower—and it was a tower, the Hawklord’s Tower—the Lord of the West March cradled the Avatar of the Hallionne. Kaylin looked down. She was still wearing the dress, but in the center of its chest, as if it were a tabard, was a familiar symbol. The Hawk. She wanted to weep. Instead, she sheathed the dagger. The Feral was in the room. It was not the only Feral, but the Hallionne no longer commanded the whole of its attention; the change in scenery did. Kaylin walked over to the wall, touched the panel there, and closed the aperture.

  With it went the rain.

  The Lord of the West March set the Avatar on her feet; she was gazing around the room in wonder. Wonder, Kaylin thought, when a Hallionne could take on any form it chose, no matter how architecturally unsound. Sloughing water, she turned toward the closest Feral, and reaching out, she touched the back of its neck.

  He froze. Even his breath stilled. She saw the rune at the heart of his form, and it was almost, in its entirety, a name. But beneath it, like smoke or shadow, was the ghost image of that word. It was transparent and, given the light it shed, almost insubstantial. But she could see it. She couldn’t touch it, but because it was simple enough, she could say it. She could speak the name, both names.

  Closing her eyes to shut out the scenery, Kaylin concentrated on the name, because once she could see a name, it didn’t vanish when she shut her eyes. Never had. The small dragon warbled as she gathered disparate syllables and attempted to concatenate them; to speak them as if they were parts of a whole and, simultaneously, all of it. The sound was simple; the saying was hard.

  Ynpharion.

  The Feral reared like a slender pony, dislodging her hand, its great jaws whipping toward where she stood revealed. It was going to kill her if it could; she could feel its fear.

  No, she could feel his fear. Ynpharion, she said again, but this time she grabbed the visible name and she pulled it. She’d spoken the truth of a name before—but on every other occasion, the owner of the name had been willing to trust her. This Barrani was not—and that was smart. And it didn’t matter. What she wasn’t willing to do to Nightshade or Maggaron she was more than willing to do to the Feral, because she trusted herself here. There was no second-guessing.

  And it hurt. It felt as if someone was driving a hot needle into the top of her spine; she went rigid with the force of it. But she held on, because it was cleaner. Because it was her life or his. And she could see him clearly as she tightened her hold on the name: he was Barrani. Barrani but other. It was the other she didn’t want. Having taken hold of the name and its structure so completely, she could see the way the shadow was entwined around the rune; she could see the way its light cast and fed its second form.

  But she had light of her own; her arms were glowing so brightly, the marks were so hot. She forced some of that heat into her grip, and as she did, the Shadow began to burn.

  The Barrani shouted a warning, and as one, all the Ferals in the room turned. But what he could now see, they couldn’t. They didn’t need to see her. They could see their companion: he was Barrani now. His hair was the color his fur had been, but everything else was different. And as the last of the Shadow burned away, he stilled.

  The burning had not killed him.

  She turned, stepped away from him, began to walk toward the next Feral. But the next Feral faded from view. He became transparent as she reached out to touch him, and she caught the brief hint of the word at his core before he vanished completely. With less caution and more speed, she ran toward the next Feral, but it, too, simply melted way, as if it had never been here at all.

  The small dragon squawked, and Kaylin nodded, because the doors to the Hawklord’s Tower—the doors to this imaginary but blessedly solid version of it—were slowly rolling open. Lord Iberrienne stood beneath the peaked frame; behind him was a small, weaponless army: the people he’d spent so much of the Imperial treasury buying.

  “I guess Severn and Nightshade didn’t get the message.”

  “They did,” the Hallionne said. She was no longer huddled against the Lord of the West March’s chest. “But the portal paths are treacherous now; they are not entirely within my control. They are not,” she added, staring beyond Iberrienne, her eyes rounding, “entirely beyond it, either.”

  Kaylin turned to the Barrani who now stood almost at attention to one side. He was rigid, but it was a different type of rigidity; he was both shocked and—for a Barrani—confused. He knew—how could he not?—that she knew his name, but he didn’t appear to remember anything else. That lasted until Iberrienne entered the room.

  Iberrienne was bleeding. The wounds were obvious; they were deep. His eyes were still a livid-green, but the pallor of his skin was now a corpse’s. All of the marks on her arms flared as he lifted his. “I will kill you for this.”

  It wasn’t what she’d expected—and why not? Because he was injured and she wasn’t? He was Barrani.

  “He is not,” Ynpharion said, speaking for the first time, his voice low and intense with hatred. It was not hatred of her.

  Iberrienne’s eyes rounded at the sound of Ynpharion’s voice. He stared in a type of enraged horror, as if he were a caricature of a Barrani and not a Barrani Lord. Snarling, he turned to the mortals who were filing into the room. They walked to his right and left, spreading out against the walls in, yes, a circle. It was a much smaller circle; the Tower had not been built to contain hundreds.

  The Lord of the West March drew blade. Kaylin, who had seen many swords in her life, had seen only one to rival it: Meliannos, the
Dragonslayer. It should have been a comfort; it wasn’t. The man who had called her near-kin in the High Court made no attempt to engage Lord Iberrienne, the architect of the threat: he turned his blade on the mortals.

  * * *

  She cried out in terror and pain as the blade fell.

  It was sharp, solid; it bisected the three people—two women and an older man—standing closest to the Hallionne’s Avatar. And they were close; there just wasn’t enough room otherwise. They didn’t move. They didn’t scream. No one did. No one except Kaylin. She stumbled as Ynpharion pushed against her control, taking advantage of her fear and confusion to attempt to disentangle himself. Snarling, she pushed back, hard. It hurt, but it was a bracing slap; she needed it.

  Because his was not the only name she knew. She had drawn the Lord of the West March out of a sleep that would end in death, and to do it, she had had to call his name. She knew what it was, and she knew she could stop him. It would break things. But his blade, rising again, would break more. She inhaled, found his name, and started to speak it.

  The Avatar moved first, because truly speaking names took time. She moved so quickly Kaylin didn’t see her run; one moment, she stood in the dubious safety of the room’s center, and the next, in the path of the sword’s arc, her arms outstretched in denial. In protection.

  “Lord of the West March,” she said, her voice clear and resonant.

  He did not lower his blade. “Hallionne Orbaranne, you do not understand the danger.”

  “They are my guests,” she replied.

  His eyes widened, their blue paling to the color of surprise. They darkened as he sheathed his sword and turned, unarmed, to face Iberrienne.

  “Lord Kaylin,” the Hallionne said softly, “take my hand.”

  “You do not understand what you do,” Iberrienne told the Lord of the West March. “You do not understand!” Fire erupted around Kaylin, bathing the gray stone in purple, lambent flame. She walked through it, the dragon girding her shoulder, as she reached for the Hallionne’s outstretched hand. It was blackened and wet.