But she also lifted her head and turned her face toward the Consort. “How long do we have?” Even that, Kaylin thought, was Sedarias. She took command because she wanted to divert attention from Terrano. Possessive and protective.
The Consort turned away from Sedarias, toward the basin of her fountain. She spoke three words; Kaylin’s arms—which were still glowing—began to ache. The water in the fountain stilled instantly, the surface frozen in place, although it still appeared to be liquid. “I would give you all of the time you felt you required,” she finally said, although her eyes remained on the not-quite-liquid water. “But given the complications introduced by your brother—and his followers, not all of whom are known to us—the risk of waiting is high. We assume that he can see the existence of names, but cannot touch their substance as the Chosen can.”
Sedarias nodded.
“Lord Kaylin—Kaylin, if she prefers—has no desire to understand the mechanisms of the power she does possess. It’s almost as if she’s afraid that understanding will lead inevitably to responsibility, or rather, fault. She wants nothing to be herfault. Regardless, she lacks the ambition of Mellarionne. I do not know if the ability to see names will lead, with effort, will and research, to the ability to take their essential nature and control it; in the case of the creature beneath the High Halls, I think the answer must be no.
“But he is not a creature that was born to house a True Name—Spike, please correct me if I am mistaken. Coravante, however, is. And Coravante and his allies are, even as we speak, on the move.”
“Does my brother still have his name?”
“I cannot answer that question,” the Consort replied. She turned to Kaylin. “Does he?”
“Ynpharion still has his,” Kaylin replied, which was a bit of a dodge. “Knowing a name doesn’t remove it.” Her tone implied that the Consort already knew this, because, of course, she did. “As far as the Barrani are concerned, knowing a name gives someone ultimate power over someone else. Removing the name? You might as well just kill them.” Which the Barrani were good at.
“And yet,” the Consort said, her eyes still focused on the water, “Terrano is here, and Terrano has no name. I cannot look at him and see the name’s absence, and if I cannot, no Barrani should be able to do so. But Coravante did.”
“Maybe,” Terrano said, “because I told him I wanted to be free of it.”
“As do many of our kind. Mortals have cautionary tales about the fates of those who seek immortality; none of them end well. Barrani have cautionary tales about those who attempt to be free of their name, and oddly, none end well, either. Perhaps it is the nature of sentient life to struggle against the thing that most defines their existence.”
“I told him I wanted freedom,” Terrano said, speaking more clearly. “And when Alsanis was once again safe to offer hospitality, it was clear that I wasn’t there. Maybe he attacked me because he guessed.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I’m uncertain, Lady. But the form of attack he used against me isn’t one that would work against you or Tain.”
“Would it work against Kaylin?”
“Hard to say. I think it would affect mortals—but no one really understands how they’re alive at all. It would definitely affect animals.”
“It would work against Mandoran,” Kaylin said.
Terrano’s hesitance was marked. “It would probably work against any of the cohort. I think it would be most effective—” Here he stopped. “It would be most effective against creatures in the outlands.”
“You do not use the wordShadow.”
“No. I think that’s too broad a word. Spike was in thrall to Shadow. His physical form makes that much easier. But free of that control, he is not Shadow. He’s not like us—or like you—but he’s not Shadow. I’m not Shadow,” he continued into the uneasy silence. “I can see Shadow, and I can see some of its fetters. I’m not like you; I’m not even entirely like the rest of my cohort—but I’m not Shadow. You might not like the choices I’ve made, and I sympathize; I’m questioning the wisdom of a lot of them right now.
“But this type of attack would work better against Spike, at least when he’s not mostly buried in Kaylin. And Mandoran said that you’ve seen a similar style of attack before the rest of us arrived.”
Kaylin nodded contemplatively.
“It wasn’t Coravante who launched it.”
“No, of course not. It happened in the Southern Reach, and Coravante couldn’t get there without an invitation.” Her silence, like the rest of her, became sharp and focused.
“You’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking that the attack was launched by an outcaste Dragon, who did reach the Aerie on his own wings. But they were Aerian wings, not draconic. There was an Arcanist in the Aerie—I’d assumed this was his doing. It wasn’t. He was just terrified for his own survival. But... I’d swear the outcaste wasn’t, and isn’t, under anyone else’s control.
“Spike, when we first encountered him, was definitely under someone else’s control. Distance didn’t matter. We managed to break that, but until we did, he was enslaved to something that exists inRavellon.”
It was Sedarias who asked the obvious question. “Is the Adversary at the heart of this Tower now in contact withRavellon?”
“Assume,” Spike said, “that that contact has never ebbed. It is like—very like—the contact you have with your chosen kin.”
“Helen can block that contact, though,” Kaylin pointed out.
