You can say that again. Now shut up and let me concentrate.
Sedarias seemed to radiate youthful delight as she turned to the cohort and introduced them, one at a time, to her brother. It was interesting to watch their reactions. Annarion was stiff and formal. Serralyn was shy, almost demure. Mandoran was crisply formal, but seemed happy with the introduction. Terrano was almost silent. No, Kaylin thought, that was wrong.
She’d assumed that his near-silence was due to the awkwardness of the situation, but as she watched, her eyes narrowing, she realized she was wrong. Entirely, completely and dangerously wrong. She hadn’t been introduced to the High Lord or the Consort; neither had Teela or Severn. But she’d watched the entire meet and greet as if it were the only significant activity in the room.
Stupid, stupid,stupid.
Coravante wasold. He’d held his seat for a long damn time. He understood subtlety so completely he probably didn’t have any other way of interacting. Nothing about his face, nothing about his clothing, nothing about his tiara, implied Shadow, or Shadow’s taint. But it was a carriage sporting his crest, and containing his people, that had come to Helen and attempted to sneak right through her defenses.
And she could see now, staring not at Coravante, who demanded focus and attention, but at his feet, that Shadow was present. A tendril, something so fine it was probably the width of three strands of Kaylin’s hair put side by side, seemed to come from the point of his elegant boots. It traveled a direct line to Terrano’s feet.
She poked the familiar on her shoulder; he was both rigid and utterly silent.
Your marks, Ynpharion said,are beginning to glow.
She didn’t have time to curse, or she would have given in to the Leontine that was building behind her clenched teeth. Whatever Coravante had done, or was doing, Terrano was struggling to contain it.
She moved quickly—far more quickly than the Barrani milling around the cohort. Someone stepped in her way. She might technically be a Lord of the High Court, but she was mortal and clearly needed to be reminded of her place. Sadly for the Barrani lord—whoever he or she was—she knew the place she needed to be, and it wasn’t groveling or waiting for implied permission to proceed.
In a fair fight, she had no chance. In any fight, her odds were slim. But she wasn’t trying to kill them; she was trying to get them out of her way Right Now. And that, when they’d turned their backs with studied disinterest and barely veiled contempt, shecoulddo.
Ynpharion didn’t even try to stop her.
Terrano’s back faced her; she reached for his left shoulder with her left hand, forgetting, for just a second, that Spike was in it. But Spike had tripped no alarms; no one in the Court had noticed his presence at all. Most of them noticed the familiar, and those that somehow hadn’t certainly noticed him now. He pushed himself off her shoulder, spreading his wings and squawking up a storm.
She lost the wing cover as he left her, but didn’t need it now. Whatever her normal eyes could see was enough as her hand made contact with Terrano. Spike was their bridge.
And if it weren’t for Spike, she’d have taken a step back. Or several. At a run.
Spike didn’t give her the peculiar vision that Hope did, but she didn’t need that vision now. Nor did he give her the abilities she instinctively put to use. She had seen something like this before—when the Shadows had wrapped themselves around Mandoran, holding him fast—but this was different. For one, it was worse. Much worse. Mandoran had some base resistance to the influence of the Shadow that Terrano did not have.
Kaylin could feel the burning thread of Shadow throughout the entirety of Terrano, as if every part of the thread’s length had hooks. But they weren’t part of his body yet, although she had no doubt that that was their intent. Or Coravante’s intent. Terrano might end up leaving again. He might never return. He might cast away all of the trappings of his birth and his race—but that washischoice to make. Or not to make.
Not Coravante’s.
Terrano!
Don’t shout—I’ll disincorporate.Pause.What in the hells are you doing?
You’ve got Shadow throughout you, and it’s spreading.
I can get rid of it on my own.
Can you get rid of it without transforming?
The answer was no.
Is that what he’s trying to make you do? Turn into something Shadow-like in front of the entire damn Court?
Probably.
You’ll get the entire cohort declared outcaste in under two seconds.
Fine. Fine—but you’re going to need to hurry.
No kidding.When he spoke, the Shadow seemed to shiver or shudder as Kaylin used the only useful power the marks of the Chosen had granted her: she tried to heal him. Healing mortals was simple—if exhausting. The body knew its correct shape, its correct form. She poured power into that instinctive knowledge, and the body took it, repairing the damage caused by injury, disease, childbirth gone wrong.
Terrano’s body didn’t have a correct shape. It had theechoof a correct shape, but pouring power into what were technically injuries didn’t have the desired result. Of course not. Nothing about Terrano was simple. Nothing was ever going to be easy. Cutting out the wrong chunks—and there were clearly wrong chunks—probably wouldn’t work, either. But catching those threads and removing them?
