Cast in Oblivion

by Michelle Sagara

  For one long moment she thought he would ignore everything she’d just said.

  And then Ynpharion caught her in arms that were at least as stiff as her own. Her entire body was rigid; it was all she could do not to stab him, or not to try. Given his own turmoil, she might even have succeeded.

  He kissed her.

  His lips, against hers, were closed; they opened. She couldn’t force her own mouth to do the same—he could. She didn’t struggle; she could manage that much, because she understood, now, what the Consort intended.

  Barrani were possessive. The mark itself was a symbol of, a gesture of, possession. It was a figurative warning. Perhaps a literal one. She kept her eyes closed; she tried to breathe. Spike helped; he was frantically buzzing.

  The air thickened; she tasted the barest hint of smoke, of something burning that didn’t normally catch fire. She heard roaring in her ears, remembered to exhale, to inhale, and then Ynpharion let go. She stumbled, but Hope caught her before she could fall.

  That, a familiar voice said, was extremely unwise.

  She opened her eyes. Ynpharion was three yards away; he had resumed his position by the Consort’s side, his eyes indigo, his body no more relaxed than Kaylin’s. Nightshade was not standing in the hall.

  “I have him,” Kaylin croaked.

  “Good.”

  * * *

  Can you find your way back to us? She could no longer see him.

  Yes. Nothing that might prevent it is currently standing in my way.

  She didn’t want to talk to Nightshade. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She wanted to go home and bathe.

  You are remarkably squeamish. A hint of humor tinged the words; some of the stiffness left them.

  Kaylin shrugged.

  Ask the Consort if she might remain where she is currently standing. If that is not a possibility, ask that she allow you to remain where you are currently standing. Moving while bearing Meliannos is much more difficult than I had foreseen.

  Put it away?

  It is not that simple, sadly. An’Teela is not with you.

  No. She’s scouting ahead.

  Had Kaylin been speaking aloud, the words would have been lost to a sudden, guttural roar.

  And she’s found something. Or something has found her.

  Chapter 22

  Kaylin wheeled instantly in the direction of the roar. And it was a roar, a wordless shout that reverberated in the shorter stone halls. The halls weren’t wide; they were probably tall enough that Teela could wield her sword if all of her strikes were top down. This was not the terrain for great swords.

  The Consort began to move, and in her wake, almost orbiting her, Ynpharion and Evarrim followed. Kaylin began to follow, as well, but Hope placed a hand on her shoulder. “Not yet.”

  “Can you see whatever it is that’s attacking?”

  “Nothing is attacking,” Hope replied, his voice almost unnaturally soft.

  “But the roaring—”

  “Nothing is attacking yet.”

  She grimaced. “Spike, go.” Spike moved swiftly down the hall, toward the Consort. Evarrim wouldn’t like it if he hadn’t been made aware of the situation, but she was certain the Consort could keep Evarrim in check.

  “That is not entirely wise.”

  “Nothing I ever do is. But if we’re waiting for Nightshade, I won’t lack muscle.” Her grimace deepened.

  Nightshade balanced between amusement and annoyance without falling squarely into either.

  I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but could you hurry? The Consort’s back was dwindling as she progressed down the hall. The roaring, however, had banked; it had been replaced by snarling, growling; it reminded Kaylin of hunting Ferals.

  Kaylin remembered the forest Ferals. She remembered Ynpharion.

  Yes, Ynpharion said. The word was like a flash of lightning; he was angry.

  Is that what they are?

  Yes.

  How many?

  Three.

  Three. Don’t let them bite anyone!

  Everyone present has faced them before, Chosen. They understand the risk.

  She wondered why, as she forced her thoughts away from Ynpharion, that it was Ynpharion she interacted with the most. She felt no fear of him, and no discomfort from his constant irritation, his endless condescension. She could, at this distance, feel the tension in him; and his anger—if she weren’t careful—would color everything.

  Lord Ynpharion is young, Nightshade said. He is not accustomed to hiding his own thoughts. When fear is absent, this is who he is. Fear in his life, given his status, has very seldom been absent. Were you to hold Evarrim’s name, you might find the experience similar. Silence followed; it was a thicker silence, a heavier one, the difference between a sheet and a tarpaulin.

  Kaylin closed her eyes. She could see the marks on her arms, regardless—but that had always been true. She could also see Hope’s wings. Hope himself disappeared beneath the reddened dark of eyelids, but his wings were alight, and far more transparent.

  She looked through those wings.

  Through them, she could see Nightshade dragging his sword. Had there been actual ground beneath his feet, she would have cringed; dragging swords was permissible only if you were badly injured and had no way to lift them. It was part of the reason Kaylin had never taken to the sword as a weapon; swords were too heavy, too ungainly, given her height.

  She sheathed her dagger, took a step and, reaching through the wing—which she understood was a visual metaphor—held out her hand, palm up. Nightshade’s eyes widened slightly; he could see it. He could, with effort, see her. He made that effort.

  I must give my brother some small credit, he said as he made his way toward her. This is far, far more difficult than I could possibly have imagined.

  He’s not carrying that sword when he steps sideways.

  No. I am not entirely certain the sword would condescend to allow it. Nightshade kept the sword in his right hand as he reached for her hand with his left. His grip was tight.

  Kaylin pulled. Hope helped. Nightshade landed in the corridor with a distinct thud. There, he bowed.

  “Not the time for manners,” she told him as his grip on her hand eased.

  “Only for you, Lord Kaylin. For those of us who have lived this life, they are as natural—and oft as necessary—as breathing. They are not work. We do not have to fight base instincts to be polite.” He drew himself up to his full height, and used the leverage of her hand and arm to pull her toward him. There, he gazed down at her, his eyes upon her cheek. “I would ask you what you were attempting to do, but it will have to wait.”

  “Trying to find you.”

  “By attempting to remove the mark itself?”

  “I wasn’t trying to remove it.”

  “You were. In no other way would it cause the damage it has caused.” He inhaled, gained a few inches of height and released her. “I am of a mind to kill Ynpharion.”

  “Stand in line.”

  * * *

  If the Consort was happy to see Nightshade, she gave no indication other than the pause in forward motion. She accepted his bow—which was deeper by far than the one he’d offered Kaylin—bid him rise and then continued down the hall to where Teela and Severn were at a standoff.

  These creatures were very like the forest Ferals that had attacked the Consort’s party on the road to the West March, a journey that had, in the end, set everything in motion. Everything.

  “I think,” Teela said almost conversationally, “that this might be your job.”

  Kaylin frowned. “My job? You’re the one with the gigantic, glowing sword!”

  “Apparently, I’m not the only one.” She glanced at Kaylin and her eyes narrowed. Of course they would. Kaylin’s cheek was bleeding. But a bleeding cheek and a r
eminder of the mark was lower on the priority list than bestial, former Barrani.

  Teela offered Nightshade a very controlled nod. But she said, “Lord Calarnenne.”

  “An’Teela, kyuthe to my brother. I am at your service.”

  “Kaylin,” the Consort said.

  Kaylin almost shrieked. These weren’t the Ferals of her distant childhood, no—they were larger and far more cunning. She raised her hands—both weaponless now—and turned them toward Teela.

  Teela rolled her eyes. “Use your head,” she snapped in a corporal’s voice.

  Kaylin’s reaction, since she was a private, was almost immediate. She snapped into position and reached for her familiar’s wing. Her familiar who wasn’t sitting on her shoulder, and whose wing therefore couldn’t be pulled up like a mask.

  Behind her she heard a warm chuckle. “Yes,” Hope said, as if she’d spoken out loud. “I believe the Consort wishes to redeem them, if that is possible.”

  “She wants me to do what I did to Ynpharion.”

  “For Ynpharion, yes. You have said yourself that people are not all of one thing or all of another. You are aware that Ynpharion’s desire for both power and freedom was not the whole of his thought or will. But it dominated the moment in which he was either transformed or taught to transform, and it became the entirety of his thought; all else was forgotten.”

  She did not want to somehow be in possession of three more names; the chorus on the inside of her mind was loud enough.

  “You do not have to hold the names,” Hope said quietly.

  “Then what am I supposed to do with them?”

  “You are Chosen.”

  She had never hated that word quite as much as she did at that moment, burdened by the expectations of the people who surrounded her. How in the hells was she supposed to touch names that were behind bristling rows of fangs? She was fond of keeping her body parts attached, and she needed her throat for trivial things like breath.

  You’ve done it before, Ynpharion said with far less patience than even Teela had shown.

  She closed her eyes, as she had done in the safety of her dining room at Bellusdeo’s command. She wasn’t doing what she had done while racing through the Hallionne Orbaranne; there, she had seen the landscape beneath her feet—it just hadn’t been the same as the one she could see when she didn’t have Hope’s wing plastered to her face. Closed eyes always made words easier to see. They made words easier to hear, as well—even Elantran words—but people took it badly if she closed her eyes to listen to them.

  She could see the words on her arm. She could see the light cast by Hope. As her eyes became accustomed to being closed, she could see the shapes of words across the edges of two blades, one in Teela’s hands, one in Nightshade’s. These were not words in the same way the marks on her arms were—they were transparent and elongated, trapped and stretched in a form that implied weaponry, even in the dark.

  They grew brighter as she turned toward them, darker when she turned away. She turned away. She could hear Severn, Ynpharion, Nightshade. They were breathing—to be expected—but she couldn’t hear the breathing of the rest of her companions. When she turned in the direction of that familiar noise, she could tell whose breath, separating them easily. She couldn’t see their names.

  How had she seen Bellusdeo’s name? What had she done differently? She turned away from the people she knew, and looked toward the end of the hallway, where the three waited, holding their ground and blocking the Consort’s progress. Although they had been snarling and growling before she’d closed her eyes, she could not hear their voices now.

  “My eyes are closed, right?”

  “Yes,” Hope replied.

  “And I’m not plugging my ears.”

  “No. But you are concentrating now on an entirely different type of sound. You can hear those name-bound to you. You cannot hear the creatures you refer to as Ferals because you are not listening to the noises they actually make.”

  “And I can hear you.”

  “Yes. You can hear me.”

  “Why don’t you do this all the time?”

  “Because it is somewhat taxing. Teela carries a sword. She carries an impressive sword. She can—as you have seen today—wield it, but while you have seen it before, you have never seen it used. It is a weapon. It exacts its price. There is a time and a place for weapons, but she does not, in spite of the conflict she expects, wield it constantly. I am like her sword.

  “To do ‘this,’ as you call it, you have collapsed states of existence into each other.”

  “Say that in Elantran.”

  “You are here, where I am speaking, and there, where your friends are watching the hall. Usually, these two states are separate. They exist, but you are anchored in only one of them.”

  “When you say two states, do you mean only two?”

  “No. But it is easiest to explain it that way.”

  “So... I’m doing what the cohort does naturally?”

  “Absolutely not.” The words were crisp and instant. After a pause, Hope added, “It is possible that you are doing what the cohort’s constituent members believe they are trying to do.”

  “And I’m doing it because I have you.”

  “Yes.”

  “So the Ferals aren’t actually here.”

  “If you are not careful, you will be where the Ferals are, yes.”

  * * *

  She opened her mouth to ask Teela a question, but no words came out. Instead of trying again, she accepted that she could not speak to Teela in this place.

  Ynpharion.

  Lord Kaylin.

  Surprise almost caused her eyes to fly open. If I actually move down the hall—physically move, I mean—please let me know.

  He did not consider this the stupidest request she had ever made, but felt it was close. Then again, he considered almost all of her requests stupid.

  “Why could I see Bellusdeo’s name?”

  “You looked.”

  “I can’t see the Consort’s. I can’t see Teela’s.”

  “No.”

  “What’s the difference, if I’m looking for names?”

  “You are not specifically looking for either of their names, and they are not calling you.”

  “Bellusdeo wasn’t calling me, either.”

  “Not literally, no.”

  Kaylin stopped moving. “You can see them.”

  “I can see the Ferals, yes. My vision is not limited in the fashion yours is. You were not meant to see this way at all. Were it not for the marks you bear, I do not believe you could.”

  “The cohort can.”

  “No, not like this. They can exist in a much more physical way across various states; they have not learned to fully reintegrate with the lives they were born to. But part of that is the effect of the regalia. They are like miniature centers of gravity; they pull all states into nexus points simply by existing.”

  “Terrano?”

  “He is the exception; he is far less anchored than any of the rest of the cohort. In their absence, however, he is far more cautious than your Mandoran might be in similar circumstances.”

  Kaylin wished she could see the hallway, because the walls would have served as a partial guide; they would have given her one clear indication of both distance and direction. She didn’t lift her arms to touch the wall, because she wasn’t certain her hands would connect with anything. Although her eyes were closed, she could see light. She could hear breathing. She could feel something like stone beneath her feet.

  She had walked toward Bellusdeo.

  “Move as you moved before you named me, Chosen. You understand the danger the Ferals represent to your friends. If you had the time for this standoff, it might be wisest to let Teela and Severn fight—but Severn is mortal, and human. His survival here is
not guaranteed.”

  Kaylin moved then, the motion a visceral lunge forward into a darkness alleviated only by Hope’s diffuse wings. As she did, she finally saw the Ferals.

  “Kaylin.”

  “Not now,” she snapped.

  “Open your eyes.”

  She did. She was no longer standing in a hallway. There were no people between her and the Ferals that stood their ground. No Teela or Nightshade with their humongous swords; no Severn with a weapon chain he could not set to spin. Even in a shorter circle, the halls here were too narrow.

  The Ferals did not immediately look up to meet her eyes. They didn’t shift position at all. Ynpharion certainly had.

  He was beyond irritated by the observation; Kaylin realized that he found it humiliating. But she had no way to turn off her thoughts, and didn’t waste the effort trying. She did waste the effort on amazement that Teela and Nightshade could guard their own so completely.

  An’Teela is impressive, Nightshade said. I am less so. It is not difficult to guard one’s thoughts against someone who very seldom listens.

  Can you see what I see?

  I believe so.

  The Ferals seemed almost like statues; their bodies were obsidian, with flecks of color. That color moved, swirling and shifting, beneath the surface of skin that was hard, carved, smooth. This was not how she had seen Ynpharion, the first time. This wasn’t, she was almost certain, what Teela and Severn were seeing now. The Ferals were the Shadows closest to animals in appearance; they didn’t sprout extra eyes or extra mouths; they didn’t have fingers and hands instead of paws. And they had fur, like short-haired dogs.

  These didn’t. Not here. Their surfaces seemed almost chitinous, with small gaps in the armor where their joints would bend. But their faces were the larger variant of the Ferals that had made nights a time of pure terror in her childhood.

  And their eyes were Barrani blue. They were Barrani eyes.