Cast in Flame

“We require one,” Teela continued. “And the one is drawn from the Lake, by the Lady. Without it, the vessel of our body never wakes. When our ancestors were created, there was no Lady. There were Ancients.”

“Were you like the Dragons, then?”

“In what way? I am not aware that Dragons require two names.”

“They don’t require it. But I think they can contain more.”

“That is a thought you will keep firmly to yourself. Forever.”

“The Dragons were supposed to be made of stone and imbued with life.”

“Yes, well. It’s probably true of the first Dragons. We are not entirely certain that it’s true of the first Barrani. You think of stone as something that can be chiseled into the desired shape; it is why the word stone is used in these tales. The Ancients were not so limited in their building materials. Flesh could be—and was—shaped and changed.”

The Leontines.

“Flesh could be merged and combined, while both living creatures somehow remained alive for the process. But flesh was perhaps a later concept, for the Ancients. You think of them as large, powerful people. Perhaps that is how they appeared to us, when they still walked the world—or the worlds. But it was only a facet of what they were in total, and they couldn’t show us most of their faces. We couldn’t perceive them; couldn’t interact with them.

“It’s my belief—and I am not a sage—that they could speak to us and we could not hear them unless they chose a form with which we could interact. We could not see them, unless they chose to confine themselves or diminish themselves in a similar fashion; we were too slender, too fixed, and too small.”

“I’m guessing that’s not the popular view among the Barrani.”

“It is accepted as probable history. Popularity has very little to do with it. The earliest of our kin were not concerned with keeping records for their possible descendants.”

“Did they have descendants in the traditional sense? Like, children, grandchildren, that kind of thing?”

“Not most of them, no.”

“Then why are they even called Barrani?”

“Because we lived in the cities they built. They were not like us, Kaylin. You hate Arcanists. You wouldn’t have a word for what the ancestors were. But it is believed that they were not possessed of single, true names, but complex phrases. When the ancestors were bored, they had options to alleviate that boredom that are undreamed of by the rest of my people now.

“One of them historically involved destroying the rest of us.” At Kaylin’s sharp intake of breath, Teela shrugged. “They did not see it as destruction; they wished to take control of the words that gave us life, and to remake them in some fashion.

“They attempted to do the same with the Dragons; if I am fair, they attempted to relieve the Dragons of their names first.” Teela began to walk again, taking the hall to the right because the hall to the left ended abruptly in a lot of wall.

“I’m going to assume that failed, since we still have Dragons.”

“It was not notably successful, no. It caused some difficulties with the Dragons.”

“Were there Dragon ancestors, as well?”

“You will have to ask your Arkon,” was the stiff reply. “The Barrani are not keepers of Dragon lore, except where it involves war.”

Kaylin was silent for another long beat. Dragons did not require names to wake. They didn’t require names to live. They just required true names to become their dual selves. She decided that if Teela didn’t know this, she wasn’t about to inform her. Then again, Nightshade was probably listening. Ugh.

He was diplomatic; if he heard, he said nothing.

“If they were that dangerous, how did you kill them?”

“We formed the war bands,” she replied. When Kaylin failed to respond immediately, she added, “You didn’t think they were created just to fight Dragons, did you?”

Since the answer was more or less yes, Kaylin said nothing. “We don’t have a war band here.”

“No. You said there were two?”

Kaylin nodded.

“I’d really like to strangle Nightshade.”

“How would Annarion feel about that?”

“At the moment? Sanguine. He doesn’t, on the other hand, feel it would be easy.”

“Easier than meeting the ancestors head on?”

“Definitely easier than that.” Teela stopped. “Corporal? The halls have not materially changed since we entered them, and I dislike being roped together like human foundlings.”

Severn nodded and unwound his chain. To Kaylin’s surprise, he also released her. He didn’t sheathe his weapons, and the visible scar on his jaw looked whiter and more pronounced than it usually did. The talk of Barrani ancestors had clearly raised the stakes.

Not that they were insignificant to begin with.

Nightshade, are the ancestors still guarding the Long Halls?

Yes.

Are they awake?

I am uncertain, Kaylin. The Castle is in flux.

Where are you, damn it?

I am at the heart of my castle.

And where is Annarion?

He is also at the heart of the Castle. Before you ask, we are not in the same place.

Kaylin hated magical buildings with a loud, multisyllabic passion. Can you come to us?

Not safely—for you. I am attempting to keep the Castle’s defenses at a minimum.

Given the existence of Barrani that even Teela feared, this didn’t seem like a great idea.

If the Castle’s defenses are fully mobilized, it will attempt to exterminate all intruders. This is unlikely to harm the ancestors. It is, however, likely to damage you.

You don’t seem that concerned.

No? I am unlikely to perish here, no matter what the outcome. You, however, are not guaranteed to survive. Do not look for me; look for the runes of the Ancients. It is there you will be safest.

She was silent for a beat, watching Teela’s tense back. The runes are in the heart of the Castle. We’ll need to enter the Long Halls to even get there.

In theory, yes. But remember: you are in a fief Tower now; geography bends to the dictate of will.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The dimly lit hall seemed to go on forever, something Kaylin definitely didn’t remember from her first visit to the statuary. She had been by Nightshade’s side while traversing the halls; he had made it clear that she was not to leave him if she wished to move safely within the Castle.

This wasn’t something Tara, the Avatar of the Tower of Tiamaris, had ever enforced. But Tara was awake, in a way that the Avatar of Castle Nightshade wasn’t. She’d asked the fieflord once why his castle didn’t speak directly to her; he’d replied that living within the folds of a sentient being was not one of his life’s ambitions.

What his actual life’s ambitions were, he’d never made clear.

“Teela, is Annarion talking to anyone? I don’t think he’s speaking to his brother at the moment.”

Teela replied without looking back. “I believe he is speaking with...something. He isn’t speaking a language I recognize or understand.”

“Would he know if he was speaking to your ancestors?”

“We prefer the ancestors, if we must speak about them at all; it’s not considered wise.”

“Probably wiser than walking into a sleeping, sentient building that’s having nightmares.”

“If the building hears us, it is not guaranteed to end our lives.”

“It might help preserve them,” Kaylin replied.

“No, Kaylin. Your Tara—and I am making assumptions on hearsay, because I have not visited the Tower in Tiamaris—was, in some ways, emotionally corrupt. You cannot assume that the other Avatars are likewise compromised. If their mission was to halt shadow and its contamination, we are—in the best case—irrelevant.”

Squawk.

“Can you hear Annarion?” Kaylin asked the small dragon.

Squawk.

“...Can he hear you?”

The small beast tilted his head to the left. All the way to the left; by the time he stopped, it was almost upside down, which made it hard to meet his eyes. He whiffled.

She would have pursued the line of questioning, but the ground beneath her feet—stone, and at that, rather plain stone—began to rumble. She looked to Teela and Severn; they’d both stopped walking. They hadn’t stopped moving; they were now on alert, and they scanned the halls and the walls that enclosed it, hoping to see danger before it dropped on their heads.

The small dragon wilted. So did Kaylin, as the walls to the left and right began to recede. The stone beneath their feet didn’t, but it expanded to fill the growing space. The ceiling above, however, faded from sight. In its place was something that didn’t resemble normal architecture in any way.

It looked a lot like sky, if sky were full of storm clouds and edged in flashes of luminescent light that refused to remain one color. The clouds were gray-green; they weren’t the roiling darkness of the shadows at the heart of the fiefs. Kaylin frowned; something was wrong—if you didn’t count the disappearance of ceiling and the sudden enlargement of the halls themselves.

The clouds weren’t moving; they were fixed. She revised her opinion of their composition; they looked like they were made of stone. She hoped there were support beams somewhere that kept them off the ground.

“Forward or back?” Teela asked, dragging Kaylin’s attention away from the heights.

Kaylin shrugged. Reaching into a pocket, she flipped a coin, caught it, and laid it against her forearm. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the result. “Forward.”

“What’s wrong?” Severn asked.

She grimaced and handed him the coin.

He held it up to Teela, trusting Barrani vision to show her what he could see up close. The coin had two sides—which anyone expected from a coin. The two images, however, were not the usual Palace and Emperor; they were the profiles of two familiar men. Nightshade and Annarion.

“Nightshade was forward?” Severn asked, as he handed the coin back to Kaylin.

“Nightshade landed face-up. There’s no way he was responsible for changing the coin,” she added. “Having his face on money is probably beneath him. If I had to guess, the Castle is making its opinion known.” She glanced up. “In more ways than one.”

* * *

Wider halls meant they could walk three abreast. Kaylin drew a dagger, although moving her arms made her skin ache. The small dragon was making his usual quiet noises; the rune that was glowing between his teeth didn’t seem to inhibit his version of speech.

“You’re thinking out loud again,” Teela said.

“I’m just trying to remember how Tiamaris took the Tower in the fief.”

“And you have to work that hard?”

“Very funny. The heart of the Tower in Tiamaris was covered in words. Very like the words on my arms—except that Tara could read them. I think, in total, they were meant to be the governing commands of the Tower; I’m not sure all Towers have identical words at their heart.

“But...there was one room—and room is a really bad description—that was also adorned with words in Castle Nightshade. It was where I first heard the word Chosen.” She hesitated again.

Teela’s exhalation was sharp enough to cut. Or should have been. “Out with it.”

“I—does Annarion know that I know...”

“No. I am not a child; I understand how to maintain privacy of thought and action from those with whom I’ve shared my name.”

Clearly implying that Kaylin didn’t. “I would have been lost in that room if I hadn’t had Nightshade’s name as an anchor. I didn’t take his name. I couldn’t see it. He offered it to me.”

“Why exactly did you require an anchor?”

“I don’t know, Teela. I just—I’m not sure I could have come back from wherever it was I got stuck. I couldn’t really see the Castle or the rest of the world clearly. I could see his name.”

“That is far too much information. I’m amazed Calarnenne isn’t screaming his lungs out.”

I have some concern for my dignity.

“You weren’t likewise trapped in Tiamaris.”

“No. But Tara was there. She was trying—inasmuch as she could—to guide me. I had to choose the words that would reaffirm her existence as a watchtower without the benefit of actual understanding.”

“But you don’t own the Tower.”

“No. I didn’t get a chance to fully finish whatever it was I was trying to do. Tiamaris kind of threw me out of the circle.”

“And Nightshade is likely to do the same?”

“I don’t think the situation’s the same. We’re not under attack here. By shadows,” she added. “The Tower defenses kick in on their own in emergencies; they’re open to suggestions— or commands—if the emergency isn’t the one they were built to handle.”

“You’re still hesitating, kitling.”

“I’m not sure we can all get to the heart of the Castle without passing your ancestors.”

“The ancestors.”

“Whatever.”

* * *

She hadn’t had to walk through the Long Halls to get to the forest at the heart of the Castle. Nightshade had opened doors which should have led to halls in any sane building; they’d opened to trees, instead. Kaylin had thought—for one long moment—that she’d stepped outside. She hadn’t. The forest grew within the Castle.

She’d been afraid of Nightshade, that first time.

It was not fear, he told her softly, but caution. Caution, when dealing with my kin, is not only wise, but necessary.

A stray memory of Teela stretched, catlike, across Kaylin’s narrow bed passed by; she made an effort not to grab it.

Even An’Teela. Perhaps, in her current situation, especially An’Teela.

I don’t understand why you can’t come to us.

I am not entirely mobile; the Castle itself demands most of my concentration.

Is Annarion aware that we’re approaching him now?

He should be. If he is not, consider why.

Kaylin exhaled. We need to bypass the ancestors.

Yes, sadly, I believe you do. Be cautious, Kaylin. It is not in your nature, but try. I think the possibility that they remain bound to the Castle’s environs during this upheaval is low. There is nothing in the Castle that presents more of a danger to you now.

She thought of him. He laughed; she could feel the warmth of his surprise and amusement. Yes, he replied. But I am only a danger to you should I decide that your death—at this moment—suits my purpose. It is your preservation that is proving more challenging—but that is oft true of mortals. The humor dimmed. If An’Teela can communicate at all with my brother, she must make the threat the ancestors pose clear.

I can’t imagine she’s not trying. Teela was unimpressed. Annarion would likely be less so.

Yes. But it may be enough to focus his fury; to narrow it. He...is still my brother at heart, but we have both changed in inexplicable ways—to each other.

* * *

“I do not think it wise,” Teela said, when Kaylin hesitantly asked her to tell Annarion that danger times two was likely to pop up at any time.

“I know. But we don’t have Nightshade with us. We can’t circumvent the ancestors—if they’re still standing guard at the doors at all.” Kaylin slowed. She’d bypassed the ancestors on the way into the forest, the first time. They had had to walk through them to leave it.

Clearly it was easier to find one’s way into the heart of the Castle than to leave it, even for Nightshade.

“I know you don’t like the chain line,” she began.

Teela waved her, imperiously, to silence. “I’ll accept it. You think you can take us to where we have to go?”

“Yes. I should warn you that if I can, it’s a one way journey; we get back the long way. Severn?”

He was already winding links of chain around Teela’s waist. Kaylin was surprised: she’d meant to use the chain as a rope line. It didn’t look like he could fight while they were bound together.

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