Cast in Flame

by Michelle Sagara

  And she was certain, if the Consort could see what she now saw, her rage and fury would know no bounds. Kaylin wasn’t the Consort, but she had touched what the Consort guarded, and she felt an echo of the revulsion the Consort would have known.

  These were lost words. Lost lives. They would not return to the Lake, although the Barrani who had been brought to life when they were bestowed were long dead. They did not belong here. They did not belong in the hands of a creature who destroyed life, rather than created it.

  “Arkon,” she said, knowing he couldn’t answer. “If there’s anything you can do to cover me, do it. I can see the source of his power, now—and I think I can break it.”

  Looking up to her familiar, she said, Can you carry me again? I need to reach the words, and the ground will kill me.

  Yes.

  And I don’t have to kill people?

  No, Kaylin. He moved as he spoke. He didn’t land. Instead, he gripped her shoulders with his solid talons, and lifted her. That is not the choice you have made. What is done—or not done—now, will be done by you. Or failed—by you. I give you what your Hawks would give, if they could hear you or see you; I give you what your Bellusdeo would, if she understood the whole of your intent.

  She wouldn’t survive it. The Hawks wouldn’t.

  That is not guaranteed.

  Her feet skirting molten rock, the air rippling with heat, her eyes watering at the ash and debris the wind threw at them, Kaylin approached the ancestor’s words.

  * * *

  They were true names.

  They were true names, and his story would either consume or destroy them—because she was certain he was telling a story, just as the Arkon was. Both stories were true. That was the nature of the words they used.

  She had touched—had taken—true names from the Lake. She reached out for the closest of the words the ancestor had spoken, and grabbed it. It was smaller in shape—and weight—than the single, long stroke that had been a component of the High Lord’s; it weighed less, and it didn’t cut her palm.

  Why could you destroy the barrier? she asked, as she gathered a second word. A barrier—faint, golden, sprang up around her; it wasn’t evenly centered, and it followed her with a delay.

  The barrier?

  That surrounded the High Halls. She picked up a third word; she could not easily grab a fourth. Her hands were full. And there were more than four words.

  There was also an angry demigod standing in the streets. He gestured and the ground froze. Stones cracked. Shards flew. He was coming, Kaylin thought.

  I can intervene.

  That’s not a small intervention. I couldn’t bring that barrier down.

  No. But your Arkon could. Your Sanabalis, with time, could. Your Evarrim—

  He is so not mine.

  —could. They could not do what you asked of me; not in isolation. What you asked of me is possible. Even in your world. But to do it, the world itself must be altered, the shape broken, the word at its heart—vast and complicated—redrawn. No one who lives now in these lands you call home could do this.

  She remembered Teela’s stories of Sorcerers of old. Stories of the sundering of worlds. Stories of what was done to summon a familiar at all. She even thought she understood why someone might consider it worth trying.

  What you are doing now, Kaylin, you can do. I do not change you or alter you or alter the rules that govern this world; I do not change the name at its heart; I do not devour any part of its essence. Your Lady could do what you now do. She is the only other who might gather what was taken, because she has seen the Lake, and she serves what it represents. But so, too, have you.

  She couldn’t pick up a fourth word. She tried.

  What am I supposed to do with them? How am I supposed to send them back to where—to where they should be?

  I cannot answer that, Kaylin; I do not know. But there is one who does.

  The shell of shielding around her grew brighter as wind flew, pushing everything but Kaylin and the words toward the Arkon. The familiar hissed.

  * * *

  Ynpharion.

  Lord Kaylin. There was no resistance at all in the communication; it was almost as if he was waiting—or hoping—that she might reach out for him. He failed to acknowledge this, if it was true.

  Is the Consort still with you?

  Yes. We are not alone.

  I don’t care. But damn it, the Consort would. The fighting is going on outside—how many guards does she need?

  Silence.

  Fine. I need you to ask her a question for me—and I need the answer right now.

  Ynpharion turned to the Consort. There were a half dozen Barrani guards in this chamber; they wore white armor. They were hers. But among the Barrani, that meant almost nothing. Teela’s guards had attempted to assassinate her.

  You are right, Ynpharion said, and Kaylin realized that the attempted assassination was probably not common knowledge. Teela was going to kill her. She will not, as you well know. But we do not trust where we have choice. Men and women of power do not. No one who is in possession of something highly coveted can afford to take that risk.

  I need the information. I think we can—we can take him down if we have it.

  What information, Lord Kaylin?

  I need to know how true names return to the Lake when the Barrani who possess them die.

  She felt his shock and his fear. You cannot ask that question.

  I have to ask that question! The ancestor is using true names for power. Barrani true names. I can gather them—but I can’t gather all of them if I can’t send some of them back!

  He was frozen for one long moment; had she been standing beside him she would have shoved him out of the way. The screams and the sobs and the orders blended in her ears with the spoken ancient words; the air was thick with smoke and cold with ice and loud with magic.

  Let me see.

  Kaylin didn’t even hesitate. The lack of hesitation disgusted him; he had firmly classified her in the “too stupid to live” category. But he clawed some of that disgust back, and she felt one small, hard, Barrani resentment unknot. You cannot—you cannot speak of this to any of my kin.

  Except the Consort. I know.

  You are speaking of it to me.

  I don’t have a choice, Ynpharion. How do I send these back?

  And she felt the knots of other fears tighten, robbing him of breath; she felt his fear and his sense of humiliation war with his certainty—and hers—that if she was given this information, the fight might, somehow, be winnable. He cared about his people as a race; he cared less about the individuals—even those he knew were dying in the streets of this city.

  The Consort was the heart of the Barrani. And the Consort had gone out of her way to preserve a lowly, irritating, stupid mortal for a good reason. Not for weakness. Not for indulgent sentiment. Lord Kaylin had touched the Lake of Life. Lord Kaylin had drawn words from its many waves. Lord Kaylin was the emergency measure.

  And no one knew this. No one but the Consort and now, because Lord Kaylin was desperate, Lord Ynpharion.

  But he could not ask this question of the Consort. Oh, he could ask—but she could not answer. Not where it could be heard. Not where it could be questioned. Not where any answer could be used as a weapon in some future war or some hostile coup.

  There was only one way.

  Kaylin understood what he intended to do; she caught it as he withdrew. She was motionless for one long breath. Ynpharion—don’t. You’re right. She has reason to keep me alive. I have a use, if only in the absolute worst case.

  And I do not. He didn’t argue. He didn’t try.

  And you don’t. She didn’t even like Ynpharion. He was a constant misery.

  This amused him; the am
usement steadied him, because otherwise, he stood on the edge of a personal abyss. There was only one way in which he could ask that question; only one way in which the Consort might ever answer it.

  Ynpharion turned to the Consort, bowed low, and rose. He closed his eyes. He had to close his eyes. He could not bear to see pity—or worse—in the Lady’s face.

  Open them, Kaylin told him. It was an unexpected command. He almost fought her—but they didn’t have the time, and he knew it. He opened his eyes.

  He opened his eyes to see the sudden glow of gold in the Consort’s eyes. He had surprised her, because, in silence, he now offered her the whole of his true name.

  And she understood why. She lifted her head. “Lord Kaylin.”

  But it was Ynpharion who answered. “I must ask a question. It must be answered. There is only one way to ask, Lady, and only one way in which you would ever tender that answer to me. Please.”

  The glow of gold diminished; it shaded into a golden brown, which shocked Ynpharion, who had expected pity or disgust instead. He gave her his name; she accepted it. She spoke it. Her touch was not Lord Kaylin’s touch; it was strong and certain and complete. But it had to be, because to answer this question, it was the only way to be certain of safety.

  That, he thought, and his death.

  Kaylin was witness; she was on the inside of Ynpharion. She heard him ask the question.

  The Lady says it is not dissimilar to choosing a name.

  This was not a helpful answer. And Kaylin wanted the answer to be helpful; to be defining. Because Ynpharion had given up everything, eternally, to receive it.

  She chose our names, he said, voice soft. She gave us life. I have to have faith that it is not in my destruction or enslavement that she will find her power. She is the mother of our race.

  Kaylin didn’t point out that this Consort had almost certainly not chosen Ynpharion’s name. She was struggling to remember what dipping her hand into what hadn’t even looked like a lake had felt like.

  She closed her eyes; the familiar carried her, and anyway, the ground was now solid. It wasn’t flat, but it was solid. The Arkon was attempting to keep her from being turned to scorched ash. While speaking. She could, of course, see the words. She carried three. One, she set down; she couldn’t say why. But the two, she lifted.

  And as she did, they gained weight. Their size didn’t change; their shape wasn’t altered. But they grew heavy. As heavy, she thought, as the words she had first chosen in the High Halls, from the Lake. Their edges felt sharper, harder; she thought they would cut her palms.

  And she didn’t care. Because the High Lord’s name had been heavy—and she had only carried one small part of it. The name she had taken, without thought, for herself, had been heavy. The words themselves hadn’t been so damned heavy when she’d picked them up—and now was not the time to be struggling with their weight.

  The Consort says: yes, it is. She says it is the only way. The Consorts carry the names any distance required—she says you will understand this: you are a birth-helper.

  A midwife, Kaylin told him.

  But not all births, she says, are simple; some are deadly. When a mortal birth goes wrong, you have the power to stave off death.

  I’m not trying to deliver a baby.

  No. I am sorry, but she seems to feel you will understand the weight of life.

  These words aren’t alive.

  Not on their own, no. She says—

  Time seemed to slow in the sphere in which Kaylin stood. The wind whipped debris toward her, and only in her direct radius did it suddenly crawl to a dead stop, suspended in midair. She turned; she saw that splinters just past her shoulder suddenly flew as they moved beyond her.

  Lord Kaylin, I must see. No—not the street and not the ancestor; I can see those. I must understand what you do when you aid birthing mortals.

  There was nothing—in any of those memories—that Kaylin feared to share. She did as he asked. She felt his disgust, but it was tempered by genuine curiosity, and as he watched—and it was fast—that curiosity became something entirely other. Ynpharion was moved.

  I did not know, he said.

  His ignorance was a matter for any other day.

  Apologies, Lord Kaylin. I have...transmitted...your memories to the Consort. She is frustrated. But she says that if the infants themselves are of insignificant weight to carry, they are not insignificant to you. It is that that you must...translate. You have carried words from the Lake. You understand what they can—and must—mean for our kin.

  They are like your infants. You cannot know, when you deliver a living child to its parent what that child will become. You cannot know if you will be forced, in future, to hunt them or kill them. You cannot know if they will remain at the side of their parents or murder them and turn against them. You know nothing. But it is the same nothing that the Lady knows. It is an act of hope and faith, not certainty. It is an act of the moment.

  The words were heavier, now. Kaylin regretted taking two. They were warm in her hands, but they had edges, and she knew her hands were bleeding. No one’s waiting for these words, she told him. It’s not the same as babies. It’s like delivering a child from—from a corpse.

  She thought you would say that. But she says: trust. You understand what they mean—to the future of our people. The ancestor did not. Release them, and they will return to the Lake, and to that future.

  But—but—

  How do they return on their own?

  Yes! Kind of really, really, need to know that, about now.

  She says—I’m sorry—that if you gather them as you gathered—shock. Absolute, utter shock.

  Kaylin knew what the Consort had just told him. And she knew, as well, that had he not surrendered his name—and his freedom, his future choice—she would never have done so. Ynpharion.

  ...If you gather the name as you gathered the remaining part of the High Lord’s name, if you feel and understand the weight and the measure—

  I don’t!

  —of their value and their necessity, it will be as if you were drawing them from the Lake itself. And when you release them, they will return. You can touch them and take them—I told her this—but if you cannot imbue them with your own sense of their potential, they will not...move.

  So she wants me to just—just—throw them away?

  She knows that you will never do that. They are lives. They were not meant to be bound and used as they are being used now.

  As, Kaylin realized, Ynpharion was being used now.

  They were not taken from the Lake. They were forbidden their return. She does not understand how—but she says that what you feel now is what she has always felt. In your hands, she says, if you gather them the same way, you are seeing to their rebirth.

  How can she know this?

  She doesn’t. She feels this. This is why, he added softly, so few can become Consort, no matter how many might have that ambition. There is some part of the Consort who carried the weight of our names, no matter how briefly, in every one of us. She says you will know when it is time to release them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kaylin couldn’t raise her arms, they were shaking so much. Two names, she thought. And there were more. She’d carried one part of one name through the High Halls. One. But she’d known when to release it because she was carrying it to someone. No midwife ever just dropped a newborn babe. They placed the babe in the arms of its mother, father, or nurse. They released the infant to safety.

  You carry these, Ynpharion said, as if anticipating the question she couldn’t even frame, to their kin. To their home. The Lady says you will understand, he repeated, as if by repetition he could drive away her panic. It is not safe, but you will understand. She says she is sorry.

  Whatever it w
as she was supposed to know or see, it wasn’t happening. Kaylin lowered herself to her knees; felt the ridges of frozen rock bite into her left kneecap. She let loose a few choice Leontine words—but she did it quietly. And in a much softer voice than Leontine generally demanded.

  She could hold them—but honestly, not for much longer; she was afraid that she was going to lose her right hand. She didn’t—and couldn’t—understand the very essence of Barrani life. The words weren’t infants. They weren’t babies. They weren’t wed to flesh, to vanish when flesh failed. She couldn’t give them to their terrified, stressed out, underslept, elated parents when her job was done.

  For some midwives, there was no parent to give the child to. And in that case, midwives didn’t just throw the child away.

  She inhaled slowly. Exhaled slowly. These were not newborns. They had lived. Their owners had died. She hoped they had died. She had a sudden, cold memory of Barrani undead, and wondered.

  What part of life existed in eternity?

  This. And this word, either of these two, could be the reason a Barrani infant opened its eyes. What he saw, what he liked, what he hated—were somehow influenced by the life force that these words represented. How many other Barrani had carried these words at their heart, until that heart ceased to beat at all?

  How many more would?

  None, she thought. None if the words remained where they were, riven from the living by an ancestor who saw the lives—of others, of course—as nothing but a source of power.

  Even if the words couldn’t cry—and of course, they couldn’t—they were far, far more than that. They were precious. Precious and so very heavy. But she couldn’t drop them. She couldn’t leave them here.

  In the outlands, at the edge of a constantly shifting landscape, she had—without thought—saved one word; she had added it to her forehead. That word—that word had no weight; it had shape and form, but far less substance.

  She could not do that here. Because here, she knew, was where these words belonged. The Lake waited. The Lake that was not a Lake in any real sense of the word. The first time Kaylin had seen it, it had been the surface of a table. A large table.