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The most disturbing thing about the cracks that spread across the opalescent surface of the orb was their color. They were
red and glistening in the light as if they were blood.
She tried to put the orb down but wasn’t surprised when it wouldn’t leave her hand. She’d been carrying it ever since she’d
healed Terrano. It wasn’t the only Shadow she’d carried; it wasn’t the only Shadow bound—as Marks were—to her skin. It wasn’t
even Shadow as she understood it, now.
She’d never healed two different things at the same time. She didn’t even feel like she was healing the orb, because to heal
something, it had to be alive. By feel alone, both of her hands were touching Helen, and only Helen, even if reality disagreed.
Hope squawked. She didn’t recognize the tone: it wasn’t angry. It wasn’t irritated. It wasn’t the near croon the familiar
sometimes offered when Kaylin was at her lowest. Hope lifted his wing from her eyes. Nothing changed. Kaylin could see the
orb; it was now the color of blood as the red that peered out between cracks expanded. She could see the stone floors etched
with True Words she couldn’t read. She could see her Marks, far dimmer now, as if the enormity of the healing was draining
them of their very essence.
“Helen?”
“I am here, Kaylin. I will be here until the end.” Helen’s voice was stronger, more resonant. “Yes. You are healing me.”
“And the orb?”
Squawk.
“The orb is trying to heal itself; it is reaching for whatever power it can consume. Some of that will be yours. But some
will be the Shadow the Barrani invaders rely on. The path upon which they stand is becoming thinner and more attenuated,”
Helen said. “I . . . am better able to defend myself, now. In the healing, I have seen how the invasion was accomplished,
perhaps because of the orb you carry. I can see its tenuous connection to . . . everything. I can cut off the almost unseen
anchors that are binding their pathway to me.
“Let go of me, Kaylin. There is danger to you should you continue.”
What she will not say, Hope squawked—and she could hear the squawks as a kind of punctuation—is that there is danger to her. Mortal bodies are not beings such as Helen. When she chose to damage her own core for the
chance of freedom of choice, she broke things. If you continue, you will remake what was broken at such risk.
Hope had risen from her shoulder and fluttered in front of her face as he spoke.
“Helen—is Hope right?”
“The Marks of the Chosen are the will of the Ancients,” Helen replied. “I cannot say for certain that he is—but I can say
it is a fear. There was a chance—there was always a chance—that even with my knowledge of myself, I would die. The harmonies
between the many words at my core are interlinked in ways I could not discern precisely. I chose, but a wrong choice, a wrong
word, might have shattered the core.
“If you heal me, if you bring my body back to its initial state, I will have far more power—but less freedom, in the end, than I have had. I trust you,” she added.
“As tenant. As lord. But you are mortal, and I cannot be certain to trust those who come after. Cannot be certain to trust visitors from long ago who knew the words of command.”
Kaylin stilled. Helen was speaking of An’Tellarus.
“Yes.” Helen’s confirmation was chilly as she glanced at the Barrani Lord.
Kaylin changed the subject. “But the attackers aren’t gone.”
“No. But I am not alone. My tenants are fighting alongside me, and you are here, protecting my heart. Let go, Kaylin.”
She could still see tiny cracks in the stone.
“They will always be there,” Helen told her.
Kaylin took a deep breath and lifted her palm from stone that didn’t feel at all like stone when she touched it. She stumbled
immediately; she’d been on bent knees for the duration of the healing.
It was more than that. Helen had provided an anchor against the growing weight of the orb.
Hope continued to flutter around it, tilting his small head from side to side. When he opened his transparent jaws, the only
part of him that had color was revealed: the interior of his small, but effective, mouth. His teeth glittered with light that
had no obvious source as he bared his fangs.
She wasn’t expecting the genuinely draconic roar that emerged from his throat.
She wasn’t expecting the orb in her hand, reddened as if with blood, to vibrate at the sound. She’d half expected Hope to
eat the orb. He’d eaten words before.
But no. He continued his roaring, which would have made her laugh out loud at any other time. It was as if a tiny lizard was
trying its earnest best to prove it was a dragon.
“Hope—I don’t think it’s got ears. I don’t think it’s listening. And the rest of us would like to be able to hear in the near future.”
As if in response to her comment, his roar grew loud enough she could feel it in her jaw and shoulders. The arm that held the orb trembled, not with sound but with weight; the orb had grown heavier.
She wasn’t surprised when he breathed on it; she would have leaped to the side because his breath was the fine spray of glittering
silver mess that panicked Barrani who knew anything about ancient familiars.
Helen spoke. It was hard to recognize her voice because she spoke as Hope had been speaking—in a roar so loud it made of sound
a sensation.
Hope replied in kind. Kaylin couldn’t tell whether it was meant for Helen or the orb he’d been screaming at.
“He says what he does is necessary,” Helen told her.
“And you believe it?”
“I believe he believes it, and Kaylin, something has happened to the intrusion.” She hesitated. When speaking with Kaylin,
Helen seldom hesitated, and when she did, it was because she was trying to find the right words to express her thoughts. “I
think the orb has absorbed much of the power required to assert the path they’ve taken. Annarion believes that the attacks
have lessened because the path has become unstable. Someone will have to stabilize it.”
“And they’re trying?”
“Yes—but not from the inside. Nightshade has mortally wounded a dozen people and killed two. An’Tellarus has killed four.”
“And the invaders are using magic.”
“Both sides are using magic, yes. Hope must finish as quickly as he can. I have slowed time in this space, but I cannot stop
it—it requires too much power, and I am attempting to keep track of everyone within my domain.”
“Did they come in through the outlands?” That was how Hallionne Alsanis had been breached. She grimaced. “And can you do anything to help me with the orb’s weight? I don’t want it to touch the floor.”
“To help you, I will have to touch it. Everything created, everything affected, within my boundaries is me. If I help to lessen
the orb’s weight, it would be my power exposed to it.”
Hope squawked in fury.
“Damn it! I already know that’s a bad idea or I wouldn’t care if the orb touched the floor. Whatever you’re doing, hurry.” Her arm had fallen; the trembling was worse. She could lift
and carry almost anything for short distances or small periods of time. The orb’s weight, when it had first come to her hand,
was as substantial as smoke. Now it was heavy—heavier than its size implied and becoming heavier as the seconds passed.
Hope roared again. This sound was loud but short, a bark with an earthquake behind it.
The orb—she’d avoided calling it an egg with effort—began to open, the tiny cracks widening to reveal blood and darkness.
And eyes. If she could have dropped the egg, if it weren’t attached to her palm, she’d have thrown it as far as she could.
The eyes were open, and they were looking at her. They were red-irised, but the pupil was a pale gold—so pale it might have
been white.
The eyes belonged to a face; the face rose out of the broken shell, although pieces clung to its cheeks and ears. It had a
lizard’s head; it reminded Kaylin of Hope. It was the wrong color—it had some—but the right shape; the problem was its weight.
As she watched, red eyes fastened onto her gaze as if to hold it forever. The rest of the shell cracked and fell, becoming
white ash before it touched the ground. Wings of silver, red, and ebony shot out. What emerged from the egg looked very much
like an oddly colored version of Hope. She only wished it weighed as much.
It didn’t squawk. It didn’t have Hope’s voice. But even its newborn wings were the length and shape of Hope’s. It didn’t look friendly; it bared its teeth at Kaylin.
Hope squawked.
The newly hatched creature didn’t seem to hear him. Kaylin didn’t need to understand Hope’s words to know that Hope was about
to lose his temper. What she didn’t expect—what was almost horrifying—was Hope’s jaws. They opened—they had to when he was
complaining—and then just kept growing.
The hatchling turned, opening its jaws; Hope got a face full of fire. The wings, still wet and red, shot out as it rose to
face its attacker. This was not what Kaylin had assumed would happen. Some small part of her had assumed she’d have two familiars,
or at least two tiny winged lizards.
Hope clearly had always had other ideas.
The newborn hatchling breathed fire. The flames were purple. Hope breathed silver mist. Where the two collided, they seemed
to seep into each other. At least the roaring diminished.
The hatchling hopped onto Kaylin’s left shoulder—and wound its tail around her neck as if to balance itself. Hope roared at
it.
The hatchling’s croaking roar was its reply. Its tail tightened. Hope swooped down, far more agile than the newborn, and fastened
its jaws to the tail as if to remove it. Predictably, the tail tightened. She didn’t understand what Hope wanted, expected,
or needed from this—but the hatchling, dark and red and utterly unlike Hope in anything but shape and size, turned its head
toward her, closing its jaws as she attempted to pull Hope off its tail.
“Helen—what are they doing? What are they trying to do?”