The eagles fell silent; the shadows fell silent, although they continued to glide.
Kaylin wasnt Teela; she couldnt carry the Consort farbut she could now carry her to the edge of the fountain; the water had ceased to fall. The last drop of water hit the surface of the rippling pool beneath it; Kaylin could see reflected light in the basin.
The light grew. It grew, and it rose; the Consort whimpered, lifting her hands; she had no voice left. But Kaylin shook her head. Its all right, she said, although it wasnt. She turned to look at the runes she had left at the edge of the fountain. They were glowing, but they had done that since the moment shed touched the Consort and closed her eyes, entering a dream and a nightmare.
She was afraid to let go of the Consort. She was afraid that if she did the Lady would slip away; the dream would swallow her. She would go where Kaylin couldnt follow.
Lirienne.
No answer. Kaylin set the Consort on her feet and kept one arm around her back, beneath her arms. She stumbled; shed forgotten her ankle. She didnt fall. The runes werent that far away.
The Consort whispered something; Kaylin couldnt hear it. It sounded like Barrani, but spoken with a throat so dry only a rasp was left. Kaylin shook her head. She had no idea what the words were supposed to do, and this was the first time she was being asked to decide. To choose the words. To choose their destination.
Chapter 10
Kaylin hesitated, but only because supporting the Consort and dragging the heaviest of the runes at the same time was impossible. The small dragon squawked.
If you cant be helpful, shut up. Not you, she added in panic as the Consort lifted her head.
Kaylin grabbed the rune that had remained weightless; that, she could do. It fit her hand like one of her own fingers, although it didnt vanish at the contact. The Consorts eyes widened, shifting from green to a familiar blue. But she reached out, as Kaylin had, and she touched it, as well. Her eyes widened farther, and took on the oddest sheen of gold. Kaylin noticed that the Consorts hand didnt pass through the rune, the way the others had. She was as real as Kaylin in this place.
Supporting most of the Consorts weight, Kaylin turned to the fountain. The surface of the water in the basin was rippling, and the ripples grew stronger. Light was no longer reflected in it because the water wasnt still enough. She almost asked the Consort where the rune should go or be. Almost. But she understood that somehow, it was her decision to make, wrong or right.
The first word shed chosen was easy to move; it came with her as if it weighed nothing. She was afraid to let it go, because if that feeling of acceptance, of belonging was somehow a part of her, it was a part shed worked for. A part she wanted. But she understood that its meaning didnt and couldnt exist in isolation, and she offered it to the only open space it might fit: the fountain, with its rippling water.
The Consort watched, eyes darkening. In the Barrani, fear, anger, and loathing were all expressed with shades of darker blue.
The water rose as the rune began to sink. Given how little it weighed, Kaylin had thought it might float, but she didnt watch it disappear; instead, she turned to the weightier word and saw that the Consort still gripped one long, curved line in white fingers. Kaylins were about the same color. Hold on to it, she said, her voice low. I cant lift it with one hand.
She could barely lift it with two. The Consort understood what she intended. The Barrani Lord was shaking with exhaustion, her eyes ringed in circles that Barrani skin almost never saw, but she planted her feet against the floor, straightening as she did. She put a second hand on the same curved line, and as Kaylin struggled with the weight of the complex word, she strained to help her lift it.
Together they pushed it over the edge of the fountains basin, scraping gold and ivory; it teetered for a moment on the rim, and the whole of the fountain shook as the runes weight balanced there.
If Kaylin needed any proof that dreamsat least the dreams of a buildingmade no sense, she had it; where the weightless rune had sunk into water that was theoretically too shallow, the one she could barely move began to rise. Kaylins fingers were numb and tingling as she let the word go and turned to the Consort. She slid an arm around her as the Consort began to sway.
Together, they watched the rune rise. It seemed to absorb the sunlight that shone from a near cloudless sky, brightening until they had to squint to see it at all. When it was four yards above them, the shadows took to the air directly above it, the featherless wings moving in time. They began to circle the rune, and as they did, they began to speak.
So did the eagles, although the eagles didnt join their flight pattern.
The rune stretched, thinned, elongated. The light it had absorbed was so brilliant a white, Kaylin lifted a hand to her eyes. Shed tried closing them, but it still made no difference; she might as well have had no eyelids.
She lowered her hand in a hurry when the water shattered.
Shards flew. Kaylin didnt have time to duck; unlike the Consort, she tried anyway. Three glittering pieces of what could only be ice struck her; two hit her arms, piercing skin exposed by the patterned holes in her sleeves.
The third struck her in the chest, just beneath the hollow of her throat. There was no convenient hole in the green, perfect fabricor there hadnt been. The shard wasnt large, and it wasnt long; shed taken more serious injuries in the drill yard on a bad day. But it was cold; she felt a brief, sharp pain followed by a spreading numbness as the world stopped moving.
No, she thought, not the worldjust everything in it. The eagles. The shadows. The Consort. Shards of iceice that glittered like broken glasscontinued their outward trajectory. She watched, knowing suddenly where they were flying: to the statues that stood on nonexistent pedestals in the spokes of the courtyard.
The statues moved, as Kaylin had, lifting arms to protect their faces. Nothing made sense; Kaylin held her breath as flying ice met standing glass. She wasnt certain what to expect. Where the Barrani ghosts were struck, their entire forms rippled and shivered, as if they were water into which a small object had been violently thrown. The rippling didnt stop; it was disturbing. Worse. The rippling spread, changing their haughty, Barrani expressions, distorting the lines of their faces in a way that implied emotion was the result of external force.
She turned back to the Consort, who hadnt moved at all. The eagles had. If Kaylin hadnt spent too damn long in pointless memory exercises in the Halls, she might not have noticed. Time hadnt stoppedit had slowed. It had slowed for everyone but Kaylin. Reaching up, she grabbed the ice that had lodged in her chest and attempted to pull it out. Her hand went instantly numb; she couldnt even move her fingers.
She stopped trying.
No sign of the two words shed brought to this chamber remained.
Instead, in the center of what had once been a basin, standing exactly where water would have fallen, was a statue; it was a thing of ice, a sculpture just under six feet in height. Its feet were bare, and its arms; a simple summer shift fell from its straight shoulders, trailing down front and back in a drape that implied heavy silk.
Hair fell in the same way, but Barrani hair always did that. Kaylin lifted her face to meet the clear eyes of the twelfth statue, the twelfth Barrani ghost.
It was Teela.
But she wasnt the Teela Kaylin knew, not exactly. Kaylin knew shed never seen Barrani children. The eleven ghosts hadnt looked particularly young to Kaylin, either; they looked like Barrani to her.
But Teela did look younger. She didnt look like a child, but she didntquitelook like the adult she was now, either; she was caught in the middle somewhere, the way teenaged mortals were. She didnt look gawky or skinny; she looked slender, not quite finished, her chin slightly softer, her expressionwell, she had one. These colorless, ice eyes were wider, her lips were parted, her hands extended, palms cupped before her as if she were carrying something, offering it, pleading. It made Kaylin distinctly uncomfortable, but she couldnt look away. And because she didnt, she wasnt aware that the other statues, still distorted by whatever had struck them, had started to move. Not until they approached the basin.
The nightmares spoke; the eagles spoke.
The statues were silent until they reached the basin that had become a pedestal. There, they lifted their arms in unison and looked up at Teela, as if reaching for her.
As one, they opened their mouths. And as one, they began to scream.
The Consort staggered as movement returned to the room. She flinched at the sound of Barrani screams because they were Barrani voices.
The runes were gone. The water, gone, as well.
Kaylin and the Consort, however, were still trapped in a stone courtyard in the nightmare of a Hallionne; Kaylin couldnt think of this as a dream. She turned to the Consort, trying to quash growing panic. Im sorry.
The Consorts voice was thin and rough. For what? There are very few apologies I will now accept from you.
I thought Kaylin swallowed. She had to lift her voice; even standing as she was right beside the Consorts ear, everything else in the room was making so much damn noise she had to struggle to be heard. I thought, if I brought the words to you, theyd
Yes?
I thought youd wake up.
I am not asleep, the Consort replied. Her voice was calm and quiet.
How do we get out of here?
The same way we entered, the Consort replied. She raised one hand; it was an imperious gesture. The nightmare shadows wheeled and turned toward her, breaking their flight pattern.
Kaylins jaw would have hit floor if it hadnt been attached to the rest of her face.
The Consort smiled. Her eyes were still blue, but it was the blue you might see at the heart of an emerald; it suggested the essence of green. She whispered a word. Alsanis.