Steady, Severn said, anyway.Just be steady. I can see Teela now.
Can you see me?
No. But... Teela is now facing one of the Ferals. I’ve passed on your message—but I don’t think any of us could do what Teela just did.
Is one of the Ferals down?
Yes. But something is taking its place. Nightshade is headed there.He hesitated, and then said,Evarrim believes that offense and defense—by us—will not cause the harm that Teela’s attack did. If we can see Teela, she’s reached the same conclusion.
Have any of the rest of the cohort appeared?
Only Mandoran, and only to give us warning of their intentions.
Severn’s voice was the calm in the growing storm, and Kaylin clung to it. She spoke while extending her left hand toward the name that she could see in the moving mass of unattached body parts. She drew back, cursing, when one of those parts became Feral teeth, unattached to the rest of the mouth or head.
“Hope—can we move at all?”
“You are moving.”
“Can we move so that I can’t see...this? Severn sees Ferals. And Ferals would be better.”
“No, Chosen, they would not. I believe there is a reason that you see what you see now. While you may accomplish the necessary if you step to one side and join Teela, you will not accomplish it as easily.”
This wasnoteasy. She snapped her arm back as disembodied teeth once again attempted to separate her hand from the rest of her arm. This time, however, the teeth glanced off one of the marks that defined Kaylin’s adult life, and she could hear the Feral’s screech. She could feel it, as well; the entire pillar shuddered. She gritted her teeth, shoving her hand back into the pillar. There was some resistance.
Did Mandoran say what his intentions—or Sedarias’s intentions—actually were?
Yes, but not in great detail.
She couldn’t hear the name at all. It made no sound. The syllables that comprised it she would have to find herself. Closing her eyes didn’t help, because her eyeswereclosed, in theory. They’d been closed for a while. Or maybe they hadn’t. Hope had implied that Kaylin used closing—and opening—her eyes to transition between states in a subtle fashion.
Subtlety had never been her strength.
She caught the name as the Feral’s teeth bounced off the marks on her skin. Caught it, but couldn’thearit. She had no way to take a name she couldn’t hear; no way to speak it that would demand the entirety of the creature’s attention. Her Leontine joined Teela’s, except that Teela’s could no longer be heard. The teeth, however, were no longer snapping at Kaylin’s hand.
What the hell was she supposed to do? She drew the name out of the miasma of moving parts; red and pink liquid clung to it like bloody mucus.
Teela wants you to keep doing what you’re doing, Severn said.And now we have a problem.
More of a problem?
She...wasn’t subtle while making that suggestion. She certainly wasn’t quiet.
Everyone’s noticed her?
Everyone who could possibly reduce her to ash, yes.
Have they noticed the Consort?
Not yet. But it’s only a matter of time.
The word that now nestled in the cup of Kaylin’s left palm was slight; it was smaller than Edelonne’s name. This could have been an artifact of the way she viewed this name—and its container, for want of a better word—but Kaylin didn’t believe that was the case. There was power in True Words, and power in True Names. It wasn’t a power that the Adversary could use directly; it was a power that the Barrani and the Dragons could use, because they were born to it, made for it.
This was the truth that Spike feared, because Kaylin was certain that the diminished name had been slowly leached of power. She wasn’t certain if that was a conscious choice on the part of the Ferals here.
It wasn’t, Edelonne said.
But conscious or not, it didn’t matter. Somehow, the words that had the power to drive an eternal life contained within their component parts could be drained entirely by the Barrani. Kaylin wondered what would happen to the name, to the Barrani that possessed it, if that power guttered. She expected that they would die, but not conveniently: they’d be undead. And she’d seen that before, as well.
