Cast in Oblivion

by Michelle Sagara

  “Could what?”

  “I could almost pronounce it. Almost. And he knew and tried to kill me—”

  “As any sane Barrani would in those circumstances,” Sedarias interjected.

  “And I grabbed his name and held on to it for dear life.”

  “Why ‘dear’ life, exactly?”

  “Because it was my life.”

  “Very funny. I don’t understand—”

  “Not now,” Sedarias barked. “So you saw the name at his core. Did you try to touch it before you...pronounced it?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Did you try?”

  No, she hadn’t, because she knew she couldn’t; all of his body was in the way. And yet, when push came to shove, she’d done exactly that. She’d grabbed his name.

  It is almost humiliating to hear you speak of this, Ynpharion said. Is there anything you achieve that cannot be attributed to panicked bumbling?

  “Sedarias,” Bellusdeo rumbled. “Please.” Sedarias subsided. “You saw my name with your eyes closed,” the Dragon then said to Kaylin. “Could you touch it?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t try. It was about as far from me—with my eyes closed—as you are now.”

  “Then try.”

  Kaylin shook her head.

  “Try. If the Shadow holds the names but you can actually touch them, we might be able to free the trapped in the event he proves impossible to kill. If he can see our names, if he can somehow entrap them without using them, you might be able to pull them free.”

  “But what if I—”

  “Yes?”

  Kaylin swallowed. “I don’t really understand how I came to hold Ynpharion’s name. I don’t want to do that to anyone I—to anyone who isn’t trying to murder people. And I can’t let go of the name now. I have no idea how to release it, and the usual suggestions—all of which involve my death—aren’t really appealing.”

  “The Emperor will not execute you,” Bellusdeo said, her eyes darkening and narrowing as she correctly guessed part of Kaylin’s fear.

  “He would if he knew.”

  “I have no intention of telling him. I agree that it might be difficult for you to keep it from him were you to spend time in his company—but that happens so seldom it should not be a concern.” When Kaylin failed to close her eyes, Bellusdeo’s narrowed. “I understand your fear,” the Dragon said. “But I have reached the end of patience. If I, as the person at risk, am willing to take—in fact, insist on—that risk, there is nothing left to discuss.”

  Kaylin agreed enough to say nothing. When it became clear her lack of words was deliberate, Mandoran laughed. Bellusdeo did not.

  Ynpharion was highly unimpressed with all of them. With Kaylin, who had taken advantage of a weakness he had always feared, with Bellusdeo and Mandoran, who were willing to expose themselves to a risk he would never have taken, with Helen—even Helen—for allowing it when she was clearly against it.

  “I’m waiting,” Bellusdeo said, folding her arms. Smoke eddied out of her nose and mouth, like little tufts of death.

  Kaylin closed her eyes.

  * * *

  She could see the Dragon’s name. “Look—I’m doing this because I really don’t think you losing your temper is going to help these discussions at all. But if I—if you—”

  “Yes?”

  “You have to let me know immediately, because—have I mentioned this?—I don’t know what I’m doing.” People injured themselves, sometimes fatally, because they didn’t know what they were doing. Kaylin wasn’t certain if she was afraid of injuring herself or her friend, but settled on friend, because as far as she could tell, she hadn’t physically injured Ynpharion.

  Who almost shrieked in frustration.

  Can you see it? Her voice was curt.

  No. Since he couldn’t lie to her, given the bond of the name, she accepted his answer.

  What do you see, then?

  I see that you are attempting to stall for time.

  Anything else? Like, say, something relevant?

  I see the usual red-tinged darkness that occurs when I close my own eyes and attempt to look through my eyelids.

  So you can’t see the marks?

  The marks?

  The marks of the Chosen? The ones that appear to be sitting a foot above my skin and glowing?

  No, I can’t see your marks. I have a sense that’s what you perceive—but you are not perceiving it in a fashion that is accessible to someone normal.

  She ignored the dig. “Bellusdeo, can you see my marks?”

  “They’re glowing.”

  “Yes—but to me they’re not really attached to my skin.”

  “You are stalling for time.”

  Ynpharion chuckled.

  “Can’t I gather information?”

  “You can do both, but only one is guaranteed to annoy me.”

  Kaylin exhaled. “I can see your name. It’s sitting in the same direction as your voice.”

  “Can you see mine?” Mandoran asked. Sedarias said something in very curt—but very well-pronounced—Leontine.

  “No,” Kaylin said, answering him, anyway. “But... I haven’t been looking.”

  “Stand in line,” Bellusdeo snapped.

  Kaylin was almost afraid to take a step, and not only because the table was in the way. She couldn’t see the table, but knew it was there. Her steps were slow and hesitant, and...there were too many of them.

  Too many not to strike the table.

  “I’ve changed the nature of the table slightly,” Helen said in her most comforting of voices. “It should not impede your progress.”

  Please, Kaylin thought. Please, Helen. Don’t let me hurt Bellusdeo.

  “I won’t, dear. I understand what you fear—and I think you very wise to fear it. But Bellusdeo is not a child; she was once an empress. And I have been reminded that this is, in some fashion, the war, to her. She will not allow the cohort to take a risk she has decided it is strategically necessary to take—and this is now the only thing she can do for both you and them. If you cannot trust yourself, trust her. Trust me.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  She understood that the Emperor’s desire to protect Bellusdeo was one of the biggest sources of conflict between the two Dragons. The Emperor was trying to protect Bellusdeo from everyone who wanted her dead because they didn’t want more Dragons to exist. Bellusdeo understood this, even as she resented it. She would never, ever accept that Kaylin wanted to protect her from...Kaylin.

  When she reached the word, she recognized it. It felt so familiar half of her fear dissipated. She heard nothing, and felt no visceral need to attempt to find some sort of pronunciation for what she saw; she was certain it would take hours, possibly days. She raised her left hand out of habit; it was the hand she used to invoke door wards when she was forced to touch them.

  “You’re sure about this?”

  Bellusdeo growled, a very Leontine sound.

  Kaylin reached out and placed her left palm against the nearest flat surface—a long, single line that seemed to anchor everything else about the word’s form. She hoped that that hand had not encountered any inappropriate part of the Dragon’s body on the way to the word itself, not that Bellusdeo was likely to care. Much.

  “Breathe,” Bellusdeo said, the word underlined by that almost Leontine growl.

  Kaylin exhaled, chagrined.

  “Well?”

  “I’m—Can you feel anything?”

  “Irritation—but that’s mine, not yours. Are you touching the name?”

  “Am I touching you?”

  “No.”

  “But I—”

  “You’re standing about six inches away from me.”

  “But my arm—”

  “You haven’t moved y
our arm, or anything beyond your mouth, since you walked through the table that Helen obligingly cleared.”

  “I’m touching your name.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “Figure it out.”

  “You know, you’d make a bloody good sergeant if you ever need an actual job.”

  Mandoran snorted.

  “Only if I defeated the one you already have in mortal combat.”

  Tain chuckled. So did Teela.

  “I—What exactly did you want me to do? I’m touching the name because I can. But... I might as well be touching warm rock. I can’t move it.”

  “You’ve tried?”

  “I can’t move you and apparently it bears your weight. It’s...really—Warm rock is the best description.” She exhaled. “Well, not the best description.”

  “Give me the best one.”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t like sentiment all that much, especially when it interferes with duty.”

  “I’d love to hear it, on the other hand,” Mandoran said.

  “The rest of us would not,” Sedarias snapped. “Sentiment is not appropriate in a state of emergency.”

  “I will defer to Sedarias’s wishes in this case,” Bellusdeo said. “What are you doing?”

  “Well, umm.”

  “Kaylin.”

  “I think—I think I can climb it.”

  “That is quite enough,” Helen said, and Kaylin’s eyes flew open. Her house was not looking very amused. “It is a name, Kaylin. It is a source of life, of sentience. It is not part of an exercise yard.”

  “I couldn’t do anything else, and I thought—” She stopped. Nodded. “I’m sorry. We don’t have names like this. I’m not used to thinking of them as the source of life.”

  “I am just grateful that this did not occur when the Consort was actually present.”

  “Sorry, Helen.”

  * * *

  Kaylin couldn’t tell if the cohort was relieved at the results or not. Bellusdeo seemed mildly annoyed. Teela seemed mildly annoyed, but given the events of the past month, that was about as good as her mood was going to get. Terrano, however, seemed pensive—and as pensive was potentially less painful than annoyance, Kaylin found herself sitting with him in a dining room that was otherwise empty.

  “Where’s everyone else?”

  “In one of Helen’s training rooms.”

  “Bellusdeo?”

  “She’s with them. Helen advised against it,” he added. “She really doesn’t listen, does she?”

  “She’s listening enough, as far as she’s concerned. She can’t go with you guys. She knows it. She’s going to make damn sure that any of the expertise that might have been useful is in Sedarias’s head.” Which would give her just a week, given that Immortals didn’t need sleep. “Why aren’t you with them?”

  “I got tired of listening to Sedarias in her military mode. Everyone’s panicking.”

  “Are you going to go with them?”

  Terrano shrugged. It was a fief shrug, but Mandoran had taken to it like a duck takes to water, and the rest of the cohort had fallen in line.

  “That’s a yes.”

  Terrano said a long nothing before he shifted in place. He was shimmering faintly, as if lit from within by a subtle magic. It was a magic that didn’t make Kaylin’s skin itch.

  “You have a delivery at the gates, dear,” Helen said.

  Kaylin got up from the table. She wasn’t expecting anything, but the cohort was. “Do you want to let them in?” she asked as she made her way to the door.

  “No. I don’t think that’s at all wise.”

  Kaylin stopped. “Mortal or Barrani?”

  “Barrani,” Helen replied. Something about her voice caused Kaylin to start moving again. Quickly. She’d drawn a dagger before she reached the door, but barely noticed the knife’s handle in her palm, because her familiar was sitting, rigid and alert, on her right shoulder. He lifted a wing and spread it across her upper face.

  Kaylin opened the door to discover that the visiting Barrani—in livery—hadn’t breached the very shut gate. A carriage waited on the other side of the fence; it was the Barrani equivalent of a royal carriage. Although it didn’t have the solid appearance of heft, it was light and visually pleasing; greens and gold highlighted what appeared to be a Dragon’s head, very obviously not attached to the rest of its body.

  Terrano came to the door; he’d moved so silently Kaylin jumped at the sound of his voice. “I don’t think you want whatever it is they’re claiming to deliver.” Something in his tone made her look to the side; his expression was grim, his eyes narrowed. They were blue, but it was an odd shade of blue, or so Kaylin thought at first; she realized that the blue was the typical Barrani color, but it had spread to cover the entirety of his visible eyes, blotting out the whites.

  “Helen?”

  The Avatar appeared to Kaylin’s left, looking distinctly more martial. Armor tended to have that effect. “Yes,” she said softly. She wasn’t answering Kaylin. “I think you’re correct.” She smiled. If knives had teeth, that’s the kind of smile they’d give.

  “You recognize them?” Kaylin then asked Terrano.

  “You don’t?”

  Kaylin grimaced. She’d studied the piles of information handed to her by Diarmat but, as she so often did, concentrated on the names that were already somewhat familiar and therefore relevant. Only a few of the entries had had accompanying illustrations, and she was pretty certain she’d remember a decapitated Dragon as part of a standard. “No, obviously. I don’t. People you’ve had reason to interact with in the past? I mean, the recent past.”

  Terrano nodded.

  “I’m guessing you think they’re up to no good.”

  “They might be here to welcome their long-lost kin.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

  “You approached them?”

  “Not directly.” He grimaced. “Yes.”

  “Which is it?”

  “Sedarias would have murdered me if I’d gone directly to her kin—but they’ve always been interested in new and unusual power, and we needed people who were more concerned with power. I didn’t go to Mellarionne. Suicide would have been less painful—although Alsanis would probably have prevented that. But they serve Mellarionne. And in case it’s not obvious, that’s Mellarionne’s crest.”

  “I think I’d’ve remembered a Dragon’s detached head.”

  “It’s their ancient crest. It’s the one they used to use when we got sent to the green.”

  And using it now was a statement. Great. “The Consort said she’d supervise clothing appropriate for both the High Halls and the Test of Name. I’m guessing this is not that clothing.”

  “It’s possible that it is,” Terrano replied. “But there’s something off about the entire carriage.”

  “The carriage?”

  He nodded.

  “Not the man in the tabard?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure he’s normal.” Normal and clearly worried. A head appeared in the carriage’s open window; from this distance it was hard to tell whether the occupant in question was male or female.

  Ynpharion, do you have any idea who that is?

  I would let Helen make all relevant decisions at this point, Ynpharion replied. He was surprised but not shocked. He was also worried. The man in livery spoke to the person in the carriage while Kaylin watched. She sheathed her dagger as the discussion continued.

  “I don’t see anything wrong or strange,” Kaylin finally said, “except for the crest itself.” She poked her familiar, and her familiar smacked the bridge of her nose, lowering that wing. In the light of day, the Dragon’s head crest vanished. What remained appe
ared to be curved swords above and beneath a mountain.

  Kaylin exhaled. “You win,” she said to Hope, who once again placed a wing over her eyes. “But I don’t understand why they’d bother to enchant a crest on the side of a carriage. No, on second thought, I take that back. I’m guessing Mellarionne is agitating for a declaration of war.”

  They are, Ynpharion said.

  “We either have to let them in or send them on their way,” Kaylin told her house. “If we keep them waiting at the gate—” She stopped. The carriage door had opened, and its occupant stepped out. Or rather, all three of its occupants.

  * * *

  There was something strange about this party of three. The man in livery spoke only to the person who had stuck their head out the window; he did not seem to notice the other two at all. For their part, they adroitly moved out of his way when he did lift an arm or take a step.

  “Hope, wing.” The familiar withdrew his wing from only one of Kaylin’s eyes.

  She could only see two Barrani with her regular vision—one in livery, obviously a footman or a servant, and the lordling who occupied the carriage.

  Do you recognize him? she demanded of Ynpharion.

  Yes.

  And the other two?

  I am less certain of the other two, as you call them. I can see that you see something, but the image is imprecise; it will not come into focus, for me. Can you see them clearly?

  Only with the help of my familiar. Fine. Just tell me who the first is.

  He is an adjutant to Coravante An’Mellarionne, a Lord of the Court. Bressarian.

  He’s An’Mellarionne?

  No. It is not the habit of Mellarionne to keep their kin in close physical proximity, for obvious reasons.

  Kaylin frowned. Do you think he’s aware of the other two at all?

  Yes. If they could enter and leave the carriage without use of the actual door, I would be less certain. Ah. It appears Bressarian will now take matters into his own hands.

  The man Ynpharion named approached the locked gates, waving the servant in livery out of the way. To Bressarian’s left and right stood the two that Kaylin could see only through the wing of her familiar.