Kaylin nodded. “They’re loud. They’re as loud as Terrano, and I’m having a bit of trouble separating his voice from theirs.”
“Is his voice getting any quieter?”
Kaylin hesitated, and then shook her head.
“Do you think he’s also among the trapped?”
It was what she was suddenly afraid of. “He couldn’t be,” she finally said with a slight rise at the end of the short sentence to rob it of certainty. “If the Tower is trying to shunt him to the side so he can’ttakethe test, there’s no way he could be where the trapped are.”
“It’s Terrano,” Teela said, as if that explained anything. She turned back up the stairs and Kaylin felt magic brush the skin that had only barely settled into its normal sensitivity. It was a small magic.
The Consort bids me to inform you that you have her permission to continue; it appears that your current direction is where we must be, in the end.
Kaylin’s legs were cramped by the time they reached the end of the stairs—or at least the end of the stairs created by the Tower. The fire Evarrim had summoned still swirled around her, casting both shadows and light against the stone beneath her boots. The crackle of fire was its own voice, and the lap of flames, the touch of gentle, warm fingers.
Hope continued to maintain his humanoid, winged form. She had an uneasy suspicion he wouldn’t remain that way; the stairs allowed him to move freely, and communicate freely. If he decided to go Dragon—as Kaylin referred to his large, aerial form—he wouldn’t fit. A hall opened up at the foot of the stairs. This hall should lead to the cavern in which the Adversary was imprisoned.
The cavern could easily house Hope’s draconic form.
I will not fight, Hope said.I will not fight unless you command it, and pay the price. What I can do, Chosen, you can achieve.
I can’t fly, she pointed out.I can’t cover the distance between here and the West March in a handful of hours. I can’t—
I did not carryyouwhen I made that journey, and I did not take routes you could easily take. Or take at all. You are being pedantic. You understand what I mean.
She did.
I will protect you as I can. I will protect those within your sphere in a fashion similar to what they might individually achieve. Had Bellusdeo been prepared for the Arcane bomb, it would not have destroyed her.
It would have destroyed me.
No, Chosen. Regardless, if you wish me to face the creature trapped here by the will of the Tower, you will have to sacrifice something. It is not different, in the end, from the fight that enveloped the High Halls.
Could you kill it?
I am uncertain. I believe it is possible, but until I arrive at the foot of the Adversary, I cannot be sure. I feel it irrelevant, however.
She wondered then what familiars actually were. She wondered what they had been in the distant past, and on other worlds that had purportedly been destroyed because their masters were idiots. She wondered if all familiars were like Hope, or if, conversely, Hope were like Helen: singular in existence, with serial masters. And more physical freedom.
Hope had no opinion that he cared to offer, and as the seconds passed, she forgot the half-formed thought. She could, once again, hear Terrano. A spasm of guilt came and went, but so did the unconscious tension that had taken up residence in her jaw, her shoulders, her neck. It was almost impossible to listen to the wails of despair and pain when one could do nothing to help.
It is why we are here, Ynpharion said without his usual condescension.It is why, in the end, we are all here.
This wasn’t, strictly speaking, the truth; Sedarias was here to earn the title that would allow her to, oh, kill her brother and take over the family line. At this point, however, Kaylin was fine with it. She was certain that her brother had intended to either harm or kill Helen as the fastest way to kill all of her guests.
And she didn’t like the emblem he’d put on the carriage his aide had driven up in, either. Mostly, she didn’t like the uneasy certainty that Sedarias was going to get her chance to kill her brother before she was officially a Lord of the Court—because Kaylin was certain he’d be here in person.
Chapter 25
The hall was long, and appeared to be unbroken by intersections or turns. Kaylin’s hope that Terrano was not where the Adversary was died by slow degrees; although Hope could protect her from the storm of wailing voices, the direction of that storm and the direction of Terrano were the same.
She wanted to raise her own voice and shout, just to see if Terrano responded.
Do not even think it, Ynpharion snapped. To be fair to Ynpharion, Nightshade wasn’t far behind.
I understand that, she snapped back.It’s why I haven’t tried.If a ceremony of some sort was being convened here, it was being convened by the Barrani—those who had somehow become entwined with the Shadow and the Adversary. And while the Consort and her companions wanted to interrupt that ceremony—fiercely and with great prejudice—they wanted to do it on their own terms, with as little warning as possible.
Nightshade moved up in the line, but left Teela and Kaylin at the front. Kaylin grimaced. She expected magic, but approaching it was never comfortable. And this very uncomfortable magic grew, just as the volume of Terrano’s voice did. She wished he would say something useful that she could understand; that he would give them some kind of hint, tell them what he was facing or what he needed rescuefrom.
