If it helps at all, it’s not any better here.Severn’s voice. She couldn’t hear any of the others, but didn’t try.
What’s happening there?
The usual.
The usual was bad.Let me see.Hope returned to her side as she looked through Severn’s eyes.
She had no control over what she saw. She wasn’t part of it in any real sense. Nor could Severn easily shift his line of sight, because that line of sight was broken by a spinning chain. What he saw, what he looked for, was magic. What was strange—to Kaylin—was his sensitivity to it. He couldn’t see magic—neither could Kaylin. But he responded to it as if it were a sound, an incoming projectile.
Even if it was beneath his feet.
The weakness of the spinning chain as a spell break was the ground itself. He had to shift, and spinning chains with deadly blades on the end weren’t conducive to throwing himself to the left or right. He jumped instead, timing that jump, the motion carrying him slightly forward as the stone beneath his feet cracked.
She could only barely see what had broken through the patch of stone, cracking it but not fully shattering it. Seeping through those cracks—straining against the barrier of stone—was a livid, deep purple. If it had a form, Kaylin couldn’t see it. But she had no doubt that it was not going to be good for Severn if it reached him.
He landed, adjusted his grip on the chain, moved again, this time sideways. The ground wasn’t the only avenue of attack. She was aware of the Consort. She was aware of Ynpharion. Severn had taken the front, and Nightshade had pulled up the rear. Lightning lit the cavernous heights.
Nightshade had taken the rear, and whateverMeliannosrequired of him to be fully active, he’d done. But she knew, now, that it wasn’t done trivially; it wasn’t done without need. Severn trusted Nightshade in combat. He did not assume that the fieflord required protection or warning.
She wanted to know what the cohort was doing, but realized that asking could be almost fatal. He paid attention to what he needed to see to survive.
A second spike of lightning illuminated the cavern, this from in front of Severn. Teela, she thought. She wondered if she was actually standing motionless in their world, while Teela was forced to protect her. She didn’t ask.
Severn, however, said,Yes.Hope is with you; whatever shielding he provides from magical attack is more comprehensive than my chains.
Beneath that answer was the unspoken need for speed.
Your friends, Spike said,are there.Teela is attempting to keep you safe. She understands what must be done.
“Why can’t you move myactualbody here?”
“Because you are mortal, Kaylin. You are not the cohort. You are not Spike, or me. You are part of the world into which you are born, inextricably rooted in it. The marks protect you,” Hope added. “But they cannot make you invulnerable; they cannot make you other than you are.”
What she was, at the moment, was frustrated—at herself, at her inability to be useful, at her need to be protected by Teela, when Teela should have been with her cohort.
“Lord Evarrim is aiding Teela.”
The words that fell out of her mouth were all Leontine. Leontine or no, they caused ripples in the air, as if her breath here had force. No, she thought, not the air. The wall. This made no sense; the Leontine wasn’t visible; it wasn’t a true language in the way the marks, created by the Ancients who were more than gods, were.
She spoke in Leontine again. Nothing.
She spoke in Aerian next. Nothing.
Barrani netted the same results. But she was certain that the wall, impermeable, had shifted at the first spoken Leontine. And she knew what the difference was. She abandoned the language that made her throat hurt if she spoke it for too long, and slid once again into Elantran.
“I don’t like Evarrim. I am never going to like Evarrim. But he wants the same things I want, right now. Ihatehaving to depend on him. Ihateowing himanything.” Movement, there. Movement in front of her. She tried to take a step forward, and found that she could. A small step.
“He’s arrogant. He’s powerful. He’s never had to struggle the way I’ve struggled.” Another step. “But that’s not why I hate him. I hate him because it’s become clear to me that hedoescare about other people. Hecan. Just...never about me. I’m never going to be worthy of anything in his eyes.”
A larger step. Unfortunately, she’d run out of things to say about Evarrim. There were many things she hated. There were many things she feared. She understood, as she stood here in this moment, that she had to separate the truth from the lies, because some of the things she said were lies. They were believable lies. Credible lies. They were things she believed about herself; she just didn’t examine them very carefully.
“You know,” she told Hope, hesitating, “I really, really hate this.”
“This is the Tower of Test,” Hope replied, his voice almost entirely neutral.
“I didn’t have to do this the first time.”
“No. But there is only one first time, Chosen. And you were not then where you are now. Nor is the Tower.”
