Michelle Sagara - Cast in Sorrow

“Don’t tell me that—tell him.”

“We have. He does not understand the concept. We will fly,” the eagle added. “We will search.”

The dragon roared, and the stone eagle, which was doing a good job of becoming a standing puddle, froze. It looked up—well, the head did; the wings had kind of dispersed into something disturbingly liquid—and its face changed shape. It roared back.

Kaylin was once again reminded of Bellusdeo and Diarmat, minus the outrage on either side. She covered her ears with her hands and rose. But she looked up at the dragon, and felt momentarily happy. Yes, he was larger, and yes, he had changed. But the gift he had given Bertolle, he had attempted to give to Alsanis.

“It is not safe,” the stone said, its shape at last settling into an almost-familiar one. No, not almost. She heard Nightshade’s breath stop—funny, that that was a sound. She recognized the Barrani who now stood before her with his opal eyes, although she had only seen him once. He was Allaron.

But the statue that now began to take on the texture—and color—of flesh shook his head; black hair gleamed in a drape down his back. “We are not. We are the brothers of Alsanis.”

“Why do you look like Allaron?”

“Do I?” He frowned. “Is it upsetting?”

“No,” Kaylin said quickly. “We’re fine with it. You don’t have to change your shape again.”

“It is small and confining, but—small and confined as you are, it is appropriate.” He frowned. “Alsanis is waking. The children are crying. Come.” He paused, and then bowed to the Consort. He appeared content to ignore everyone else. “Lady.”

The Consort inclined her head; her eyes were an odd shade of blue. “Will he hear me?”

“Yes, Lady—but they will hear you, as well. They are troublesome. They occupy us, they exhort us, they demand. Alsanis is...” He frowned. It was not a Barrani expression; it was too quick and too open. Turning, he lifted his arms; light bled from his fingertips like slow lightning. He chased it with the thunder of his voice.

The dragon roared.

The awakened brother roared back, and then turned, his eyes round with outrage. “You have not named him.”

“No.”

“Why? How can he be here without a name?”

“I don’t know his name.”

The brother—Kaylin considered calling him Roger—frowned. “Of course not. You could not contain his name; it would devour you. Did you not impress a name upon him when you summoned him?”

“No.” She wasn’t going to explain that she hadn’t summoned him. On the other hand, it appeared that the dragon was, and loudly.

One of the Hallionne’s distant walls cracked in response, the fault line spreading like fractures in glass.

The brother fell silent. “It is almost too late. Come, Lady. Come, Chosen. Alsanis waits.” He turned to Nightshade and the Lord of the West March. “Be prepared. There are too many stories and too little time.” He began to walk toward the shadowed, crystal building.

The eagles didn’t return. There were no other fallen shadows on the straightest path between their current location and the cracked wall, and Kaylin hesitated. She remembered the brothers of Bertolle.

“We are awake now, and we are here. We are not Bertolle’s kin, but Alsanis’s. More forms are not necessary.” He glanced at the Consort and shook his head. “Now is not the time. No song of awakening is necessary, Lady. He is awake. He does not sleep. He has not slept since the green was washed in the blood of the dying; he will not sleep until the tale is done. And until now, he could not speak with us unless he slept.

“But, Lady, when the time comes, if it does, you will know. Sing then.” He fell silent, his dark eyes narrowing, his frown etching literal lines in his face, his hair spreading down his back and his legs to blanket the ground at his feet. She had seen Bertolle’s brothers lose control of their shape, but still found the fluidity of something that looked almost natural disturbing.

“The children are awake. They are not happy.”

“Have they ever been happy?” Kaylin asked; it was a rhetorical question.

The brothers of the Hallionne did not apparently do rhetorical. “Yes, once. They remember. But it is thin, Chosen. It is an echo. A shadow. They hear Alsanis. They hear what he does not say. They hear his sorrow and his rage and they hear the echoes of us. He has not slept,” he repeated. “And he does not dream.”

Kaylin didn’t argue; they had reached the cracked wall. If she’d expected to see a door, or anything that implied door, she was doomed to disappointment. The brother placed one palm over the point from which the fractures had spread. “They mean to hold the door.”

Kaylin didn’t point out that there was no door.

“They speak to Alsanis now; they are loud.” He drew his hand away from the wall. Kaylin had time to throw her arms over her eyes before he slammed a fist down. She heard the crack of crystal. She didn’t, however, hear the tinkle of falling pieces that generally meant it had shattered.

He struck again, undeterred, with the same effect. Kaylin lowered her arms as he lowered his hand. He turned to face them, his brows a single line across a subtly changed face.

“Bearer,” he said, his voice grave. It was to Severn he spoke. It was to Severn’s blades that he looked.

Severn didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward, one blade in either hand. “They were damaged in the outlands. I do not know if they will succeed where you have failed.”

“You fail to understand the nature of the blades,” the brother replied. “And yet, you wield them. They were not damaged; they served the purpose for which they were forged. They must serve again. I cannot command you, bearer, but we will find no purchase in Alsanis if you do not surrender them to the wall.”

Severn nodded. He glanced, once, at Kaylin, and grinned. She felt what he didn’t put into words, and shied away from it. This weapon was part of his identity; it was as much his as the Hawk’s tabard was Kaylin’s. But he didn’t doubt Alsanis’s brother, and he didn’t argue or bargain. Instead, he pulled both blades back and thrust them into the wall, at the same spot it had been struck multiple times.

The brother spread his hands as the wall shattered, flesh becoming—in an instant—a thin, flexible shield. If the shards of former, crystalline wall were sharp, the brother didn’t bleed; he didn’t seem to notice. But he didn’t shed the bits and pieces, either; instead, the shield shrank, until it once again formed two separate, Barrani hands.

Beyond him, beyond them all, was a gaping, jagged hole. Kaylin was fairly certain that the edges were sharp enough to cut anything that wasn’t a multidimensional Immortal.

The walls were not the only thing that had shattered, though.

The blades had done so, as well. She could see shards of metal among the crystalline pieces, and hilts in Severn’s hands. They shook, briefly; he sheathed their remains in silence. He didn’t hesitate, and he didn’t mourn; he’d made the decision. He’d made the decision understanding exactly what Alsanis’s brother had asked—and what the cost would be.

That much she felt before she tried to avert her mental gaze. She settled on Alsanis’s brother as the safest because there was nothing mortal about him, and the building to which he was related didn’t generally respond to normal grief, rage, or fear as if they were emotions relevant to, well, being a building.

“Do not bleed in the Hallionne,” he helpfully told them. Lifting his face—or some of it, which was just as disturbing as it sounded—he roared to the sky; small pieces of wall shook loose as the sound reverberated.