He was frustrated. So was she.The Lady says Moran is calling you for a reason. She is newly born, newly come to herself; she is not what she was. She needs an anchor. The Lady says that that anchor must be you.
I can’t be an anchor—
Or it will be the outcaste.
Over my dead body.
Yes. Over all of their dead bodies, saving only the two who are fleeing. Wisely. An’Teela will not leave, he added, as if this were necessary.
What the hell is an anchor anyway?Kaylin demanded as she began to run toward her familiar.
The Consort says you will not understand the words she might otherwise use. She offers only this one:friend.
She needs a friend?
I am conduit, Kaylin. I do not presume to divine the whole of the Lady’s thought. But that is the word she bid me use. She did not think the rest would suffice.
It was enough, though. She clambered up the back of her familiar; he had not shrunk or diminished, as if Moran’s appearance had decided his shape. Or perhaps he’d understood what was happening. To Kaylin, the fight was over the moment Moran had punched a hole through the ceiling and forced them all to exist in the same space.
Or it had been. She was afraid, now. The familiar pushed himself off the cracked floor at the same time the outcaste did. Bellusdeo opened her mouth to breathe; a plume of fire left it. The outcaste stood bathed in flame without condescending to notice it. Bellusdeo leapt—or tried. She seemed to struggle with both gravity and weight.
Kaylin had no doubt that her forced inaction was entirely due to thepraevolo. The golden Dragon wasnotgoing to be happy with Moran.
And did it matter? It wasn’t like Moran was going to be living with them anymore. It wasn’t like she could just turn around and come home. This washerspace. This was her home.
“Can you please,pleasehurry?” she asked the familiar.
I am moving as quickly, he replied,as I am allowed.
“Allowed?”
She is defining the space we occupy. She is creating the rules for it, and everyone who remains within its boundaries.
“What are its boundaries?”
He didn’t answer. He flew, but his flight was heavy, ungainly; his wings seemed to labor against gravity in a way they never had before.
And above them both, Moran waited.
* * *
The outcaste, unencumbered by the attacks of the Dragons who were pretty much honorbound to destroy him, rose as well, and he rose far more gracefully, far more easily, than the familiar did. Kaylin ground her teeth. He looked Aerian now—or rather, he looked like Moran. His wings were as prominent as hers; his voice as clear.
Moran had been angry. She was still angry. But the anger itself had lost some of its heat, some of its dangerous rage. She remained standing in the air as if the wings were mere decorations; she didn’t move them because she didn’t need to move them. The air was hers, and it held her, carried her. As Kaylin approached, she thought she could hear the faintest trace of the elemental air’s voice.
She had always found Moran intimidating; Moran was a sergeant; Moran was the head of the infirmary; Moran had threatened to have Marcus strapped to a bed when he was injured—and Marcus hadn’t even tried to tear the Aerian’s throat out.
But she hadn’t found Moran so intimidating that she hadn’t offered, many times, to heal her injured wing. She hadn’t found Moran so terrifying that she hadn’t pressured her to live with Helen. Moran was a Hawk.
And Hawks, to Kaylin, were family. Having spent years listening to mess hall gossip, Kaylin was aware that “family” involved a lot of conflict, that mothers could be terrifying, that siblings could refuse to speak to each other for months. Or longer. She didn’t expect Hawks to be perfect. But she was part of them. They were part of the Halls of Law.
Moran was part of both.
Moran waspraevolo. Moran had been bornpraevolo. But Kaylin understood the Consort’s words as she approached the Hawks’ sergeant. Whatever the wings had signified, whatever the bracelet had signified, neither had prepared her for this.
The familiar said she was remaking the space they all occupied. Moran, a handful of hours ago, couldn’t even see it. Something had changed—obviously—since their arrival. And that something was...Moran. Kaylin couldn’t see the bracelet on Moran’s wrist anymore. It wasn’t necessary. Nothing, Kaylin thought, would be necessary again. If the Aerian Caste Court was allowed to continue to exist, it would be a Caste Court of one: Moran dar Carafel.
Or Moran something or other. Kaylin wasn’t exactly confident about the survival of the dar Carafel flight, either.
