He nodded and held out a hand. Kaylin stared at it, almost confused. But in the end she took it.
“Hold on,” he advised her.
“To what?”
“Me, and anything you don’t want to lose.”
* * *
She’d expected Mandoran to lead her back down the series of halls to the open landing area in which they’d first arrived. Mandoran, however, had other ideas. The “hold on” part developed urgency with the first step Mandoran took, because he wasn’t precisely steppingonanything. She remembered that he had managed to get stuck in a wall—a concept which had been both boggling and hilarious.
It was a lot less funny now.
“You can do this,” he whispered. “Severn couldn’t. Teela can’t. But you can.”
“How do you know that?”
“Instinct?” He grinned. “You’re the Chosen. You can carry the familiar on your shoulder—and frankly, that would break mine. Or Annarion’s.”
“He doesn’t weigh anything.”
“That’s what you tell yourself. You can open your eyes.”
“I’d really rather not,” Kaylin told him. She could feel that he was in motion. That she was in motion, as well. But she couldn’t feel anything—anything at all—beneath her feet. “You’re sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Funny, Teela’s screaming that in my other ear. The figurative one.”
Kaylin’s lips twitched. She opened her eyes a crack. She could see the walls of the Aerie. The halls, the height of the ceilings. They were a lot closer than they had been on the way here. And they were colorful. The heights were illuminated, but not with what she thought of as natural light, that being sunlight; they glowed. She could see a thread of multicolored light above her and beneath her. The beneath part was a long way down.
“You’re following the light?”
Mandoran nodded. She glanced at him; his face was set in concentration. She thought about getting stuck in a wall again. She’d thought it was funny because he’d clearly survived it. She was not at all certain that she would, or could. Whatever Mandoran was, she wasn’t.
“I’m not sure you’re going to be able to get through to the Dragon,” he said. “They seem to have the outcaste cornered.” The way he said this was bad.
“What do you mean, ‘seem’?”
“It’s hard to see the way you do,” he replied. “It’s hard not to see what you can’t see. They see the Dragon form—and he has that. But I think theyonlysee the Dragon form. He’s like us,” Mandoran repeated. “Like me and Annarion. The Dragon formisthere, and it’s bloody dangerous—but it’s not the only danger here. Not even close.”
She heard the outcaste roar.
She knew it was the outcaste, because while some of that roar had the timbre of Dragon rage—or triumph, which was more disturbing—there wasmoreto it; she heard it as a chorus of voices. The Dragon was, no surprises there, the loudest of that chorus—but there were other voices blended into it. She could pull Leontine out of it; she could pull something like ancient Barrani. She could hear the screeching battle cry of the Aerians. She could hear something that sounded a lot like her own voice.
And they overlapped; they existed in one space, at one time, in harmony. A command.
She felt the air grow cold. Or maybe that was just her.
“You heard him?”
“Did you understand a word that he was saying?”
“Yes. All of them. We’re trying to get the Aerie evacuated.”
“Who’swe?”
“Moran. Moran ispraevolo, and she’s sending the warning out to her people.”
She wanted to ask him why they needed to evacuate the Aerie—but she knew. At heart, she knew. The outcaste had summoned the Shadows, and the Shadows—in the distant heart of Ravellon—had heard.