This wasn’t something Tara, the Avatar of the Tower of Tiamaris, had ever enforced. But Tara was awake, in a way that the Avatar of Castle Nightshade wasn’t. She’d asked the fieflord once why his castle didn’t speak directly to her; he’d replied that living within the folds of a sentient being was not one of his life’s ambitions.
What his actual life’s ambitions were, he’d never made clear.
“Teela, is Annarion talking to anyone? I don’t think he’s speaking to his brother at the moment.”
Teela replied without looking back. “I believe he is speaking with...something. He isn’t speaking a language I recognize or understand.”
“Would he know if he was speaking to your ancestors?”
“We prefer the ancestors, if we must speak about them at all; it’s not considered wise.”
“Probably wiser than walking into a sleeping, sentient building that’s having nightmares.”
“If the building hears us, it is not guaranteed to end our lives.”
“It might help preserve them,” Kaylin replied.
“No, Kaylin. Your Tara—and I am making assumptions on hearsay, because I have not visited the Tower in Tiamaris—was, in some ways, emotionally corrupt. You cannot assume that the other Avatars are likewise compromised. If their mission was to halt shadow and its contamination, we are—in the best case—irrelevant.”
Squawk.
“Can you hear Annarion?” Kaylin asked the small dragon.
Squawk.
“...Can he hear you?”
The small beast tilted his head to the left. All the way to the left; by the time he stopped, it was almost upside down, which made it hard to meet his eyes. He whiffled.
She would have pursued the line of questioning, but the ground beneath her feet—stone, and at that, rather plain stone—began to rumble. She looked to Teela and Severn; they’d both stopped walking. They hadn’t stopped moving; they were now on alert, and they scanned the halls and the walls that enclosed it, hoping to see danger before it dropped on their heads.
The small dragon wilted. So did Kaylin, as the walls to the left and right began to recede. The stone beneath their feet didn’t, but it expanded to fill the growing space. The ceiling above, however, faded from sight. In its place was something that didn’t resemble normal architecture in any way.
It looked a lot like sky, if sky were full of storm clouds and edged in flashes of luminescent light that refused to remain one color. The clouds were gray-green; they weren’t the roiling darkness of the shadows at the heart of the fiefs. Kaylin frowned; something was wrong—if you didn’t count the disappearance of ceiling and the sudden enlargement of the halls themselves.
The clouds weren’t moving; they were fixed. She revised her opinion of their composition; they looked like they were made of stone. She hoped there were support beams somewhere that kept them off the ground.
“Forward or back?” Teela asked, dragging Kaylin’s attention away from the heights.
Kaylin shrugged. Reaching into a pocket, she flipped a coin, caught it, and laid it against her forearm. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the result. “Forward.”
“What’s wrong?” Severn asked.
She grimaced and handed him the coin.
He held it up to Teela, trusting Barrani vision to show her what he could see up close. The coin had two sides—which anyone expected from a coin. The two images, however, were not the usual Palace and Emperor; they were the profiles of two familiar men. Nightshade and Annarion.
“Nightshade was forward?” Severn asked, as he handed the coin back to Kaylin.
“Nightshade landed face-up. There’s no way he was responsible for changing the coin,” she added. “Having his face on money is probably beneath him. If I had to guess, the Castle is making its opinion known.” She glanced up. “In more ways than one.”
* * *
Wider halls meant they could walk three abreast. Kaylin drew a dagger, although moving her arms made her skin ache. The small dragon was making his usual quiet noises; the rune that was glowing between his teeth didn’t seem to inhibit his version of speech.
“You’re thinking out loud again,” Teela said.
“I’m just trying to remember how Tiamaris took the Tower in the fief.”
“And you have to work that hard?”
“Very funny. The heart of the Tower in Tiamaris was covered in words. Very like the words on my arms—except that Tara could read them. I think, in total, they were meant to be the governing commands of the Tower; I’m not sure all Towers have identical words at their heart.
“But...there was one room—and room is a really bad description—that was also adorned with words in Castle Nightshade. It was where I first heard the word Chosen.” She hesitated again.
Teela’s exhalation was sharp enough to cut. Or should have been. “Out with it.”
“I—does Annarion know that I know...”
“No. I am not a child; I understand how to maintain privacy of thought and action from those with whom I’ve shared my name.”
Clearly implying that Kaylin didn’t. “I would have been lost in that room if I hadn’t had Nightshade’s name as an anchor. I didn’t take his name. I couldn’t see it. He offered it to me.”
“Why exactly did you require an anchor?”
“I don’t know, Teela. I just—I’m not sure I could have come back from wherever it was I got stuck. I couldn’t really see the Castle or the rest of the world clearly. I could see his name.”
“That is far too much information. I’m amazed Calarnenne isn’t screaming his lungs out.”
I have some concern for my dignity.
“You weren’t likewise trapped in Tiamaris.”
“No. But Tara was there. She was trying—inasmuch as she could—to guide me. I had to choose the words that would reaffirm her existence as a watchtower without the benefit of actual understanding.”
“But you don’t own the Tower.”
“No. I didn’t get a chance to fully finish whatever it was I was trying to do. Tiamaris kind of threw me out of the circle.”
“And Nightshade is likely to do the same?”
“I don’t think the situation’s the same. We’re not under attack here. By shadows,” she added. “The Tower defenses kick in on their own in emergencies; they’re open to suggestions— or commands—if the emergency isn’t the one they were built to handle.”
“You’re still hesitating, kitling.”
“I’m not sure we can all get to the heart of the Castle without passing your ancestors.”
“The ancestors.”
“Whatever.”
* * *
She hadn’t had to walk through the Long Halls to get to the forest at the heart of the Castle. Nightshade had opened doors which should have led to halls in any sane building; they’d opened to trees, instead. Kaylin had thought—for one long moment—that she’d stepped outside. She hadn’t. The forest grew within the Castle.
She’d been afraid of Nightshade, that first time.
It was not fear, he told her softly, but caution. Caution, when dealing with my kin, is not only wise, but necessary.
A stray memory of Teela stretched, catlike, across Kaylin’s narrow bed passed by; she made an effort not to grab it.
Even An’Teela. Perhaps, in her current situation, especially An’Teela.
I don’t understand why you can’t come to us.
I am not entirely mobile; the Castle itself demands most of my concentration.
Is Annarion aware that we’re approaching him now?
He should be. If he is not, consider why.
Kaylin exhaled. We need to bypass the ancestors.
Yes, sadly, I believe you do. Be cautious, Kaylin. It is not
in your nature, but try. I think the possibility that they remain bound to the Castle’s environs during this upheaval is low. There is nothing in the Castle that presents more of a danger to you now.
She thought of him. He laughed; she could feel the warmth of his surprise and amusement. Yes, he replied. But I am only a danger to you should I decide that your death—at this moment—suits my purpose. It is your preservation that is proving more challenging—but that is oft true of mortals. The humor dimmed. If An’Teela can communicate at all with my brother, she must make the threat the ancestors pose clear.
I can’t imagine she’s not trying. Teela was unimpressed. Annarion would likely be less so.
Yes. But it may be enough to focus his fury; to narrow it. He...is still my brother at heart, but we have both changed in inexplicable ways—to each other.
* * *
“I do not think it wise,” Teela said, when Kaylin hesitantly asked her to tell Annarion that danger times two was likely to pop up at any time.
“I know. But we don’t have Nightshade with us. We can’t circumvent the ancestors—if they’re still standing guard at the doors at all.” Kaylin slowed. She’d bypassed the ancestors on the way into the forest, the first time. They had had to walk through them to leave it.
Clearly it was easier to find one’s way into the heart of the Castle than to leave it, even for Nightshade.
“I know you don’t like the chain line,” she began.
Teela waved her, imperiously, to silence. “I’ll accept it. You think you can take us to where we have to go?”
“Yes. I should warn you that if I can, it’s a one way journey; we get back the long way. Severn?”
He was already winding links of chain around Teela’s waist. Kaylin was surprised: she’d meant to use the chain as a rope line. It didn’t look like he could fight while they were bound together.
“You’d be surprised,” he said, his smile slender; it was all edge.
“I’ve had enough surprises for one day. For,” she added, with more emphasis, “one lifetime.”
“I haven’t,” Teela interjected. “But I think I’m done with surprises for today.”
“Fine,” Kaylin replied. “You choose the door we take.”
Teela turned to stare at her. “If you were any other mortal, I would assume your questionable sense of humor was at play. There’s only one door.”
Kaylin frowned. “There are doors on either side of us down this hallway. We’ve passed a handful; you’ve just been avoiding them. They’re hard to miss, even given the width of the hall.”
“Corporal, do you see these so-called doors?”
“No. I see the door at the end of the hall in the far wall. There are no halls to either side of it.”
Kaylin glanced at the small dragon, who exhaled the sigh of the long-suffering everywhere.
“Is there any sign, from any of these doors, that whatever lies behind them is occupied?”
“No. You’d’ve noticed that.”
“Because I noticed the doors in question, of course.” Teela’s eyes were blue. “Is there a reason to avoid the door we’re being herded toward?”
“It’s a Tower, Teela. How should I know? If the Tower is determined, any door will lead us to where the Tower wants us to go.”
“In which case, we can cut to the chase. Pick a door.”
“Fine. I’ll take the invisible door on the left.” Teela turned toward the wall she’d mentioned. There was no door there.
Kaylin walked directly toward the blank stretch of stone; she placed her hand on the wall. It was distinctly warm beneath her palm, although the warmth was not as strong a sensation as the marks on her arm. “There’s no door here,” she told the Barrani Hawk.
Squawk.
“But...I’m not sure there needs to be. Nightshade’s not driving a lot of the Castle right now.”
Squawk.
“Yes. If you’re going to get rid of the rune in your mouth, this is probably the place to do it.”
* * *
The small dragon nudged Kaylin forward, if by nudge one meant swatting the side of her face and craning his neck toward the wall her hand rested against. Given she was already touching said wall, she found it annoying. She started to lower her hand, but he jumped down to her extended arm, and crossed it, shuffling sideways as if it were an unstable bridge.
When his snout was flush with the wall, he exhaled. A small, pearlescent cloud left his tiny jaw before Kaylin could speak; it folded itself around the rune in his mouth. Given what his breath had done in the past, this wasn’t comforting. The rune absorbed the glinting white-gray and slowly melted into the stone face of the wall, as if the stone were a sponge.
“It’s not that bad,” Kaylin said, to no one in particular. Or herself. “Tara can rearrange the contents of the room you’re sitting in.” And she frequently did, if not reminded that some people found this lack of solidity disconcerting.
The wall began to thin. It didn’t thin in the shape of a door; it thinned in the shape of a spreading patch of what seemed, on the surface, to be liquid—except thicker. It was unlike any liquid Kaylin had seen; glass was thicker and far more dangerous to touch when it melted—she hoped.
But as the patch spread, the stone beneath it became translucent, reminding her of the texture of the small dragon’s wings. “Can you see this?” Kaylin asked softly.
“Yes,” Teela replied. “From what you’ve described, though, it doesn’t look like it leads to the Castle’s center. Where does this lead?”
“I’m not sure,” Kaylin replied, staring. “I can’t actually see much. But I think this is where we need to go.”
“I am not filled with confidence.”
The small dragon crooned, the edges of squawk softened as he made an effort he generally didn’t waste on Kaylin. She tried not to resent this.
“I think I prefer large dragons,” Teela told him, without obvious resentment.
The small dragon gave a version of a shrug that would have been at home in the fiefs.
“Severn?”
“I’m not the resident expert on Castle Nightshade,” he replied. Which more or less meant he was willing to leave it up to her.
“We have no resident experts.” She sucked in air. “Let’s go before I lose my nerve. If we’re lucky, this is the Castle’s way of telling us to get the hell out, and we’ll end up butt first on the street.”
* * *
Kaylin was never willing to bet on her luck. Stepping into what looked like unshaped glass didn’t take her into the familiar—and far less changeable—streets of the fief. It took her into forest. Nighttime forest.
She’d seen forest in Nightshade before—but it wasn’t quite this forest. A hint of moonlight touched branches; the air was still. “Teela, tell me this doesn’t remind you of the forests surrounding the West March.”
“I don’t know why you complain about people who lie,” the Barrani Hawk replied. “Because you generally demand that we do it.”
“No comment.” The forest had no obvious path, which was the first thing Kaylin looked for. It had no insects, which was a bonus, but also didn’t appear to have any of the other noises she now associated with forest travel. She touched the nearest tree. “This is made of stone,” she said, voice flat.
“The ground is packed dirt,” Severn observed.
Kaylin nodded. Had it also been stone, she’d’ve felt—and probably heard—the difference. “I don’t think this leads us to the center of the Castle. If I had to guess—”
“It leads to Annarion.” Teela, untethered by Severn, chose a direction and began to walk. Her feet made no sound.
Kaylin and Severn followed her. They walked quietly—but speed made silence impossible for the merely mortal, and Teela didn’t see
m intent on proceeding with caution. Watching her back, Kaylin frowned.
What’s wrong? Severn asked. Given Teela’s proximity, whispers would reach her ears, and given the color of her eyes, discretion was necessary.
She knows where she’s going. She’s not just scouting—she recognizes this place. Or she recognizes the place it’s modeled on. Kaylin bit her lip; the small dragon had settled around her shoulder like a shawl and couldn’t be bothered to add commentary. By unspoken mutual consent, they closed the growing gap.
Teela was armed. Severn grimaced and unwound the weapon chain around Kaylin’s waist, arming himself fully.
Kaylin’s daggers remained in their sheaths. She knew that she was still within the Castle; she guessed that her current surroundings were the Castle’s attempt to communicate with Annarion, and was grateful that the Castle wasn’t attempting to speak with her. She’d had experience with that before; she didn’t envy Annarion.
* * *
They didn’t clear the forest; the forest continued. Kaylin touched the odd tree; she found that most were stone. But one or two felt like actual, living trees; the bark was rough in a different way. There had been living trees in the Long Hall; she wondered if some of them had been transported here.
“I will never get used to this,” she murmured. “I want physical objects to remain static.” It was impossible to get a grasp on the strategic value of layout if the layout arbitrarily shifted. Nor could she assume that the Castle was safe—given Teela’s reaction to the ancient Barrani who served as door wards, the opposite was probably closer to reality.
But the small dragon wasn’t concerned. If Kaylin was embarrassed to take cues from a creature the size of a small cat, it didn’t stop her.
Squawk.
“Thanks a lot, small and squawky.”
“Why,” Teela said, voice drifting back as she continued to walk, “don’t you call him by his name?”
“Because his name—at least the version I can say out loud, is ‘Hope.’”
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