30
There were intruders in the foyer; they were armed and armored, and Barrani to a man. Or woman. Nightshade was in the foyer;
An’Tellarus was beside him. She wielded a sword that seemed more slender than the usual Barrani long sword, and she moved
like a localized storm. There was blood on her dress. Kaylin guessed it wasn’t hers.
What she couldn’t see was Helen’s Avatar. Helen had surrendered the fray to the two who fought it here. To Nightshade, armed
with one of The Three, and An’Tellarus. Kaylin knew nothing about An’Tellarus, but the way she carried herself implied a history
of violence and war.
Hope lifted a wing and smacked it across her face. Squawk.
He was right. Now was not the time. But she wasn’t armed with anything but daggers, and she knew she couldn’t stand for long
against this many Barrani assailants. Nightshade was attacking so quickly she could barely track his movements; the reach
of his sword was greater than An’Tellarus’s. She wasn’t letting that slow her down.
They fought at the foot of the foyer stairs; the chandelier above them created diamonds and sharp flashes of light as it bounced
off armor and blade flat.
This wasn’t where she needed to be. She moved down the stairs, taking them two at a time; she used the banister and momentum to leap in a circle that sent her down the hall leading to the kitchen.
She felt Severn’s worry, but ignored it as she sprinted, skirts flying, toward the door that led into the basement, for want of a better word.
Hurry, Nightshade said, in contrast.
The rooms Helen brought into being beyond this door were rooms meant to contain the cohort when they practiced. What they
practiced looked, to someone who didn’t understand what they had become, a lot like disintegration. Kaylin had once walked
into a room in which it looked like an insane interior decorator had thrown different colors of paint against the walls in
a rage. That paint was the cohort in conflict.
She didn’t expect that now. Helen’s training room was her most secure room—it had to be. Not because she needed to protect
the occupants from intruders, but because she needed to protect them from themselves. She was aware of them, no matter where
or how they moved through the house, and she was fond of them.
Even the prickly Sedarias. Sedarias wasn’t in the foyer; she wasn’t immediately visible. But Kaylin could hear swords and
shouts. Those shouts were likely meant for Severn, the only person fighting alongside who wasn’t part of the cohort; he wouldn’t
hear what they said to each other.
What she didn’t understand immediately was why she could hear them.
“They are attempting to stand to one side of the path that’s been constructed. It is dangerous, for the cohort, to stand and
fight on it.”
“Because Terrano was injured there?”
“No. He could have been injured on this plane in a similar fashion to Nightshade. But he was anchored by the injury—he didn’t choose to return. He knew that something was wrong—beyond the bleeding.”
Kaylin looked at her hand. To her surprise, she could see the orb that had vanished when Mandoran had taken her to where Terrano
stood, bleeding, and then brought her back. “Helen—can you still hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Can you see me?”
“Yes.”
“Have I wandered into another encroachment?”
This time, Helen didn’t respond immediately. Kaylin didn’t press for an answer, because she could see the Yvonnes. Kaylin’s
eyes were open; she stood on the winding stairs that descended into a darkness unlit by torch or vision. The eyes of the Yvonnes
were once again that odd shade of green, and they were focused on her as she made her way down the stairs, one hand on the
wall. They formed a human railing, because these stairs had no rails or guideposts.
If they’d spoken at all, they’d be far less disturbing. They simply watched, their expressions neutral.
“Yes,” Helen said. Kaylin had to work to remember what her question was; the presence of the Yvonnes had driven it out of
her mind. “Yes, you stand at the edge of an encroachment—but it’s not one our attackers are using. It is far more like the
planes Terrano wanders; it feels natural, not constructed.”
“It’s the green,” Kaylin said, her voice a whisper. “The green is encroaching.” Maybe she shouldn’t have invited Yvonne to
visit. But there was no doubt that An’Tellarus was helping the cohort. And Helen.
“Cediela is, and has always been, powerful in her own right. She is often bitter, and her resentment is undeniable. But she has, as she said, been forced to stand on her own feet and make her own way. In other circumstances, she would resent you—you are Chosen, after all. But I believe she has chosen to pity you instead.”
Kaylin would have found that infuriating in different circumstances.
“She has come to understand that being chosen is not the same as choosing, even if it has taken her centuries to fully accept
that truth. She will not harm you here.”
Kaylin had taken that for granted until this moment. Nothing could harm her when she stood within the safety of her own home.
But this wasn’t the first time Helen had been attacked. It wasn’t the first time the visiting cohort had had to defend themselves—and
Helen—from forces that were ancient before Kaylin had ever been born.
This time, it was Barrani. That should have made things easier, in theory. Theory was often garbage. She continued down the
stairs. She knew where she needed to be—but she wasn’t certain she could find it without Helen’s intervention. Helen didn’t
have a room in the hall where tenants lived. She had a table beneath an evening sky where she might meet and interview possible
tenants, but as she was meeting relative strangers, it wasn’t where she lived, if she could be said to truly live at all.
The heart of Helen was the words at her core, True Words, all.
What would happen to a sentient building if they couldn’t reach their own words? Would they die? Would the words sustain them?
Would they be like the Consort, whose True Name sustained her life, but in isolation?
“No, as you suspect.” Helen’s voice was soft. “It has not happened to my knowledge—but all living things can die; it is the
ability to die that defines life.”
“That’s pretty grim.”
“Is it? My tenants, as they aged, feared death less and less. Perhaps when it arrived, they greeted death with resignation, grace, and peace. Their only worry was that they would leave me behind—because to them, I was always the one being abandoned.”
Kaylin could follow the sound of the voice. It brought her, finally, to the end of the stairs, rather than a door that opened
up in the wall. The Yvonnes came with her, abandoning their positions as guideposts and railings.
Kaylin stopped. She realized that the Yvonnes intended to follow her, and she wasn’t certain this would be a good thing for
Helen. “Can you guys stay and wait for me here?” she asked without much hope. She wasn’t surprised when they failed to acknowledge
her words at all.
Would the real Yvonne have been able to reach them? Or would they have looked past her, the way they sometimes looked past
Kaylin? She didn’t know what they were looking at. But she felt a very real fear because she suspected they were seeing Helen.
Helen’s core.
The Barrani understood that this was the way to attack a sentient building. But reaching the words at the heart of that building
was almost impossible. Had she led the Yvonnes here?
“Yes,” Helen said. “But it is not the ghosts that I fear. Come, Kaylin. Quickly. Whether they follow or not, they are not
the gravest threat.”
Kaylin could see stone walls, stone floor; she could see the golden glow of her exposed Marks. She couldn’t see the connection
that bound her to Nightshade but suspected it was no longer necessary. Her eyes were open. She wondered if she would see the
Yvonnes at all if it weren’t for Hope’s wing; he’d spread it across both eyes as if he knew it would be necessary.
Kaylin Neya was the tenant Helen had chosen; in the parlance of sentient buildings, it meant Kaylin was master here, Helen servant.
But that wasn’t what Helen wanted from a tenant, and it wasn’t what Kaylin wanted from a home.
She wanted Helen to be Helen, to be as much of herself as possible, even if Kaylin didn’t understand all of it. Or even most of it.
But she was certain that the goal wasn’t to kill Helen; it was just a means to an end. Killing or injuring Helen would allow
the Barrani to kill Nightshade. She shouldn’t have brought him here. If Nightshade could be mortally injured by Barrani, there
was an unknown power in play, and it was a power that even Nightshade didn’t understand. She shouldn’t have assumed Helen
would be safe, that Helen wouldn’t suffer consequences.
Her choices exposed Helen to mortal danger.
“You did not command me,” Helen said, her voice much softer. “Had I refused, you would have found someplace to take him. Perhaps
you would have risked the Barrani in the fiefs. If your decision led to this, it was my decision as well. I was, perhaps,
arrogant; I assumed what you assumed. Come in.
“Come, Chosen.”
The Marks on her arms were glowing brightly; as Kaylin watched, they pulled themselves up, off her skin. This wasn’t the first
time it had happened, and it wouldn’t be the last—if she survived. If she didn’t, the Marks of the Chosen would depart; they
would, in time, be offered to some other person. Maybe someone who would understand what they meant. Maybe someone who could
use them properly.
Kaylin took one step forward and found herself in the heart of Helen’s power, the words now risen from stone as if they were
like the Marks of the Chosen. She saw no one here, no Avatar of Helen, no invaders. None of the cohort were here, either.
But Severn’s voice reached her; Helen hadn’t done anything to prevent it. We’re closer than you think, he said, the tone one that reminded her of speech that came from clenched jaws.