Michelle Sagara - Cast in Sorrow

“How lucky do you think you’ll be?”

“The Barrani seldom believe in luck that we do not make with our own hands.” He turned to the Warden. “She must join the Teller.”

“Understood.”

The Lord of the West March spoke with the gathered members of the High Court; the conversation—if there was one—was short. They had come to hear the recitation, setting out—in some cases—after news of the presence of a harmoniste reached the High Halls. But they understood what had occurred when Teela was a child, and they saw, as they filed out of the Warden’s Perch, what remained in the wake of that disaster.

Lirienne did not demand that they accompany him; he made clear that the Consort intended to enter Alsanis, but he also made clear that the gathered might of High Court and Vale had done nothing to retrieve her on either of the two occasions she had almost been lost. Lord Kaylin, he reminded them, had been solely responsible for her survival on both occasions.

“Lord Kaylin,” Ynpharion said, “did not preserve her life on the forest paths.”

“No,” was the grave reply. “And Lord Kaylin did not protect her when the Lord’s hall was attacked. But Lord Ynpharion, neither did we. I will not command. I will not demand. Lord Iberrienne will accompany us, at the Lady’s request.”

Kaylin didn’t understand Ynpharion. He had, over the course of a day—or two, depending—accepted what he had spent weeks raging against: she held his name. She had a power over him that even the High Lord didn’t have. His anger, his sense of self-loathing, was still present, but so vastly diminished Kaylin thought there was an actual chance she might be able to ignore it one day.

You saved the Lady, not once, but twice. She was angry, Lord Kaylin. She was angry with you; she is not angered now. I do not understand mortals, and I have lived far longer than you have within the confines of Elantra. But I understand my people.

You hold my name. But mine is not the only name you hold.

She said nothing, aware that her own ability to hide her thoughts was going to cause so much trouble in the future.

You do not command the dragon because you do not understand the truth of command. You only barely commanded me, and in so doing, returned me to myself. So I will tell you what I know of the transformed: they are not Barrani. They remember; in that, they are Immortal. But how they respond to what they remember, what they desire because of it—it is not what we desire.

And my desires changed, Lord Kaylin. I would call it subtle—but it was not. When you spoke my name, when you burned away the taint that it fed, I was instantly awake, and instantly what I had been before I acceded to Iberrienne’s offer. Yes, he added, before she could ask. I wanted power. You already understand why.

She did.

But the power he gave was not the power I wanted. I understood only yesterday that Iberrienne himself faced the same change, and I have seen what it has done to him. You hold his name, and you are afraid to even speak to him because you are afraid he will shatter. There was contempt in this last thought—for her—but also a very strong confusion.

I serve you because I have no choice.

Kaylin said nothing.

But I now understand that in serving you, I serve the Lady. I serve the Lord of the West March. I serve a sorcerer. I see legends walking—and flying. I see the twisted ruins of a Hallionne long lost to my distant kin. If disaster follows in your wake, it is not unmitigated. He hesitated, and then added, I remember what the transformed remember. Iberrienne would have drained the name that was released upon the death of my companion.

You preserved it.

You preserved it, and you wear it, but you do not destroy it in the wearing. The Consort believes that you will return that life to the Lake. And if you can, it means you have seen what she has seen, and you have survived. I know what she hopes to achieve. We all know. But if she fails, she believes that you might succeed. It is her highest duty. I will serve with what small grace I can muster. You live such a short time.

What do you remember? Kaylin asked Ynpharion. What did you think you were fighting for?

Freedom.

From the tyranny of name?

You understand.

No, I don’t. You still have a name or you wouldn’t be here. Was the name supposed to be transformed, somehow?

If we understood the form of our hidden selves, we could, with will and careful intent, revise it. If it became known, we could change it enough that knowledge was not a weapon that could be wielded against us. And we discovered that we could change more. The tyranny of form no longer bound us. We could walk the fixed lands—the world, as you call it. But we could walk the outlands, and we could walk the space between spaces. We could speak with the hidden and ancient things that live where the living cannot—creatures of which we had had no awareness before we were given the keys to unlock our cages.

He spit.

They were not cages. Had he been speaking out loud, his voice would have trembled with the intensity of his anger . They were the essence of what we are . The shadows bled the strength from the words, but they could not completely change them; they could change their meaning in the gray spaces where names do not exist.

Kaylin frowned. She turned to Barian, who walked by her side as they left his home. “When the Lords come to the West March to listen to the regalia, it is rumored that some are empowered by the experience.” She spoke in careful High Barrani.

His nod was cautious; it didn’t encourage discussion.

The advantage of belonging to a lesser race was the expectations it engendered; he had far fewer of her. “It is why the most promising of the young were chosen, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“How were the Lords changed?”

His eyes widened. They were blue; she didn’t expect their color to shift in any way. “I am not certain I understand the question.”

“How was change measured?”

He frowned.

“Lord Lirienne? Does it still happen?”

“Yes. It is not predictable, Lord Kaylin. It is not a dependable change, and there are no indicators prior to the recitation; men and women with great power are changed; men and women with almost no discernible power are changed.”

“Yes, but—how? The Barrani I know imply a lot of power but don’t demonstrate much of it. I’m certain I haven’t seen a tenth of what Evarrim can do.”

“That is a question that Lord Evarrim would be able to answer.”

“And not the Warden?”

“Very few of the Lords remain in the West March; it is rustic, and the Court of the Vale is less...active. Such changes would not necessarily be marked in a venue in which displays of power are less necessary.”

She thought of Lord Avonelle, and Lord Lirienne graced her with the slightest of smiles.

“Does the change involve elemental powers?”

“Elemental powers?”

“Does it strengthen the ability to summon?”

The Lord of the West March was silent.

“Does it give more insight into the between, the gray spaces, the outlands? Does it change the ability to draw wards and runes, to imbue them with power?”

The silence grew. At length, he said, “Yes. There are other abilities which are also strengthened. What do you now suspect, Chosen?”

What did she think? That something, somehow, was altering the base structure of a name? Nudging it, tweaking it, somehow pushing it into a very slightly different shape? The changes that occurred—where they occurred at all—didn’t destroy the person who received them. It didn’t do what had been done to the lost children, and what had been done, in turn, to the Barrani who had become Ferals.