But... the name had been a vulnerability. Maybe that had been his way of balancing the implications of the Erenne mark; the mark was his, but in return, she knew his True Name. Right now, she couldn’t call it. Any vulnerability was theoretical.
Maybe Barrani who were otherwise reasonable would actually appreciate the magic affecting Nightshade because it would protect their names from being used against them. But it didn’t prevent the affected Barrani from accessing the source of both their life and their power: their True Name.
And it couldn’t prevent Kaylin from accessing the source of her power: the Marks of the Chosen. It prevented her from using that power on Nightshade. But if Androsse had given the wrong advice, not all of it was useless.
It wasn’t Nightshade Kaylin had to change. The Erenne mark was on her skin; it was part of her space, part of a place her power could touch. It was the mark itself that had to be altered.
28
Kaylin had ignored the Erenne mark. It had become part of her skin, a tattoo. That’s how anyone who wasn’t Barrani saw it in the Halls of Law; it’s how people at the market stalls saw it. It’s how residents—and customers—of Elani street saw it as well. One or two had even asked her where she’d gotten it done.
She didn’t ignore the mark now. She didn’t accept that it was a passive statement of her power—or more specifically its lack. She knew a connection existed; she wasn’t makingherselfbleed. Power flowed toward that mark. Her guess was her inability toprocessthat power, that connection, caused the magic to disperse across that small patch of skin—which was what likely caused the heat and bleeding.
She should have thought about this before now. Maybe if she had, she could have untangled at least Nightshade’s fate. She didn’t understand how any of the rest of the interference worked; she accepted that it did. What she could do for Nightshade, she couldn’t do for the Consort—or anyone else affected by whatever magics had been cast.
But this Erenne mark had existed before the magic cast on Nightshade; it was already established. As was evidence of the continuing connection.
She lifted a hand to her cheek. Her skin felt cool; the bleedingand the heat had stopped. She closed her eyes. The power of the Marks of the Chosen couldn’t reach Nightshade—but she wasn’t Nightshade. She’d never really examined herself with that power; healing had been almost automatic, and she hadn’t caught so much as a minor cold since the Marks of the Chosen appeared on her skin.
She lived her life by instinct. What she was doing now wasn’t instinctive, and she was certain someone who’d been more deliberate in their life choices would have had a stronger sense of how to progress. But she was sensitive to the power of the Marks of the Chosen, and of the bindings of True Names. She listened for a long breath, but the Marks were silent against her skin.
They weren’t necessary right now. What was essential was the mark on her cheek. That had never spoken to her the way the True Words could; she had never heard it as if it were a word, as if it expressed thoughts through language.
The Erenne mark had been used before—by Nightshade. She had a sense that words had been conveyed at a time when she wasn’t quite in the same place and cursed mortal memory. Or maybe it was just Kaylin’s memory, honed in childhood in the fiefs. If it wasn’t a threat, if it wasn’t a danger, she didn’t think about it at all. Her focus had always been on survival, and the Erenne mark wouldn’t end her life.
She felt like she was always fumbling in the dark; there were glimpses of light here and there, and she tried to follow them—but she couldn’t see the actual destination. She could make choices. She could act on them.
This, then, was a choice. She could feel her cheek, could feel, just beneath the surface of the skin, the tiny roots of the spell, the magic that grounded the Erenne mark. She couldn’t feel Nightshade.
Why had he done this? Was it, had it ever been, about her at all?
Kaylin.Hope’s voice. She resonated with the sound of her name; it was a tremor that steadied her. Reminded her that even if she was connected to people, through their names or hers, she was still herself. Whoever that was. The person she’d been in the fiefs was not the person she was now. But that distant person, broken, angry, and afraid, had had dreams—and nightmares—that had led her to become Kaylin, Imperial Hawk.
The Marks of the Chosen, like the Erenne mark, had been outside both her intent and control. But the Marks of the Chosen had become part of the way she interacted with the world. They’d become a tool she could use.
But if she’d accepted the Marks because she had no choice, she learned to use them. The Marks of the Chosen didn’t make her feel like a victim; they didn’t make her feel like less of a person. In theory, they made her more powerful; among the Immortal, they made her worthy of a grudging, condescending version of respect.
They hadn’t changed who she was. They’d given her the opportunity to do more. To help more. To heal. Not all things that happened without her permission became terrible, unwanted things. Birth, for one. No one had asked if she wanted to be born. No one had asked herwhere. She would never, ever have chosen the fiefs if the choice had been hers to make.
Life was made up of things that weren’t her choice. But her choice still mattered. She wasn’t a god. She wasn’t an Ancient. She couldn’t have perfect control over her life and what happened in it.
But she had enough choice that she could clear the rest of her thoughts. She could focus on the subtle, tiny roots of power that seemed to rest just below the surface of her skin—the skin that bore the Nightshade. She could feel warmth in them, not heat—but even as she thought that, they grew warmer beneath the palm of her hand.
She couldn’t heal Nightshade—not yet. She could heal herself or at least reach her own body with her power. She did, examining the one element that wasn’t hers, although the Marks of the Chosen weren’t really hers either.
She could feel warmth, could feel it as a trace of magic, of enchantment. It had no sigil, no signature, no name—but it wasn’t that kind of magic. She was surprised it had power at all, but it did. Power was apparently required to maintain the mark. She wondered if Nightshade was aware of it. Beneath the visible tattoo lay small roots that were almost skin-deep. They were warm to the touch; her cheek was warm.
If it grew heated, she bled. But the bleeding was a result of the power that seemed to pulse into those roots, those traces of magic.
She’d assumed, from Androsse’s research, that the point of the Erenne mark was the connection itself. It was laid where it was both desired and accepted; it required that level of emotional communion.
Kaylin didn’thavethat level of connection. The reasons didn’t matter. If Androsse was right about the origins of the spell, he was wrong about its nature; the mark existed. It didn’t elevate her interaction with Nightshade. It didn’t change it. It certainly had a negative effect on Annarion—but Annarion’s understanding wasn’t the historical, Ancestral understanding: it was modern, for want of a better word.
Still, this was the only hope they had. These tiny filaments. Her eyes were closed; the Marks of the Chosen were glowing, which made it hard to see any other light. But she breathed slowly, inhaling and exhaling, balancing breath as if she were about to enter the training ring against a Barrani opponent.
She could feel warmth spread across that patch of skin. It wasn’t her own skin she needed to find. It was the source of the power that caused the bleeding. She’d used her natural ability to see magic—and the sigils left in the wake of powerfulspells—to examine spells, but none of those spells had been cast on the living. Nightshade had never cast a magic powerful enough that she could see his signature and recognize it. Or at least not where Kaylin could examine it.
This wasn’t a powerful magic. Had it been, she would have sensed it instantly. But it was a personal one.