“Moran? What can she do?”
“I don’t know. But she’s thepraevolo, and this is the Aerie. Do you know where she went?”
“I was kind of busy,” was his curt reply. “But I’ll find her now.” He was gone before Kaylin could argue. She was grateful. In the meantime, she gritted her teeth, grabbed the strands of Shadow, and pulled.
* * *
Some of the strands were solid enough that she could. They were the strands that had wound themselves around the marks on her arms, slightly dimming their light. They hadn’t changed those marks; Kaylin assumed the Shadow hadn’t been changed by them, either.
But that, she saw, was wrong. They were more solid. She could—and did—loop them around her own palms. She had control of her hands. Mandoran had lost voluntary control of his. His eyes were wide; he clearly hadn’t lost control of his mouth, because he was cursing. In Leontine. Kaylin found this a comfort.
Hands bound by specific lines of Shadow, Kaylin put her weight behind them and pulled.
Mandoran flinched. He didn’t scream. He didn’t demand to know what she was doing. “Teela’s swearing at me.”
“If that’s all she’s doing, you’re fine. She swears at everyone.” She wound the lines as tightly as she could, and said, “Sorry about this.” She pulled again. She could see his face stiffen, his skin pale. And she could see that some—not all—of the Shadow tendrils were retreating.
She wondered if she wanted that. If somehow these strands of Shadow had been altered or changed enough, maybe she didn’t want to leave only the unaltered Shadow to do its work.
This wasn’t like healing. She was afraid to touch Mandoran because there was Shadow in and around her hands, and it had clearly done him no good.
“Annarion’s found Moran.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Good and bad.”
“Just give me the bad part.”
“Some of the Caste Court is trying to kill her.”
Kaylin cursed. “Give me the good part.”
“She’s got a Dragon on her side.”
The Emperor was with Bellusdeo in the cave. “Which Dragon?”
“How in the hells would I know?”
“Whatcoloris the damn Dragon?”
“Blue. Oh, no, wait, I was wrong.”
“He’s not blue?”
“There’s more than one.”
“How could you miss aDragon?”
“I have other things on my mind at the moment. And before you ask, the other one is also blue.”
* * *
Blue meant Diarmat, which was bad, and possibly Emmerian, which was neutral. If the Aerians were stupid enough to attack Moran while she was being defended by Dragons, they deserved the death that was coming. Kaylin viscerally felt they deserved it anyway, but that wasn’t the Hawk speaking, and she’d learned the hard way to let the internal Hawk make the choices.
“Umm,” Mandoran said. It was almost a hiss of sound, without the sibilants. “There might be another problem.”
Of course. Of course there was. “The Caste Court isn’t normal.”
