The outcaste glanced at Kaylin, at the familiar on whose back she struggled to rise.
“You are not wanted here,” he said. He flicked one wing in her direction. It knocked her off the familiar’s back.
Chapter 29
Kaylin fell.
She could feel gravity assert itself in the absence of her familiar; she could feel the familiar’s concern, could see the cloud of his breath as he turned to the outcaste; she could hear the sudden blurred rush of sound and voices as everyone watching reacted at the same time.
But she didn’t land. She didn’t hit rock. The familiar didn’t catch her.
The air did. The air, or something else. She rose, and she rose far more quickly than she had while clinging to the back of the familiar. The familiar, in response, dwindled in size, his shape changing as he once again became the small and squawky conversation piece that was so much a part of her life she could forget he was there until he shouted in her ear.
“You will not fall,” thepraevolosaid, “unless I desire it.”
“I don’t have wings, Moran.”
“No, you don’t. They are not, however, necessary—not here. Not when you are with me.” She spoke Aerian, but it was stiff and formal to Kaylin’s ear, and she had to really listen not to lose the words to the syllables. She wondered if there was a High Aerian, like there was High Barrani.
Moran then turned to the outcaste, her expression neutral. “You are supplicant here; you are not lord. Kaylin is of my flight. Harm her, and I will destroy you.” She spoke without any doubt at all; it wasn’t even a threat. It was a simple statement of fact.
The outcaste nodded in acquiescence.
His calmness annoyed Kaylin. “You told the Aerians you were thepraevolo.”
Moran glanced at her. The outcaste did not deny it. Kaylin glared at him; he looked down his nose at her, as if she were inconsequential. But his brows rippled, because the marks on Kaylin’s skin were beginning to gain dimension.
Moran didn’t ask him if this were true. It was, and she knew it. She seemed to know a lot that she hadn’t known a few hours ago. Above her, the Hawks flew in formation. They hadn’t changed. The air carried them.
“Do you even understand what thepraevolois?” he demanded—of Kaylin.
“I know she’snot you.She’s not yours. You wanted the power of thepraevolobecause you saw it as simple power. But that’s not what it is.”
“Kaylin,” Moran said.
Kaylin understood that she was being asked to shut up. But it wasn’t an actual command, not yet. “That’s notallit is.”
“You do not understand—”
“Neither do you!”
“Kaylin—”
“For you, it must have been a nameless, central power. Something you could siphon. Something you could divert or adopt or abuse. But that’s not what it is. It’s not what it was supposed to be.”
“And how would you know anything? You are mortal; you are only barely considered of age among your own kind. You lack knowledge; you obviously lack wisdom. You are not, and will never be, a power, because you cannot understand what poweris.”
“Power is a tool,” Kaylin countered. “A sword is a tool. A crossbow is a tool. A crowbar is a tool. It’s something we pick up and put down. People aren’t meant to be tools. Moran ispraevolo—whatever you think that means. But she’s aperson.She has a choice. She has will. She has goals of her own. She is not simply a tool you can take and use for your own ends.”
“Moran is not you. You are Chosen, but you were not born tobeChosen. You are an accident. Some might say you are an act of desperation or folly on the part of the dead. But you are not what she is.”
“Neither are you. And only one of us has claimed to be something we’re not.”
“Private.” Unlike the use of her name, the use of her rank pulled her up short. She glanced at Moran, closing her mouth.
“Without my presence,” the outcaste said, “without my planning, thepraevolowould never have emerged. She would have remained trapped in a cage of potential whose door she could not open.”
“And you’re telling me you did all this tofreeher?” The scorn in the question should have been lethal.