“Good. Go home now. We’ll follow.”
He hesitated. “I don’t want Bellusdeo turning you to ash.”
Hope squawked.
“You have no idea how she reacts to even thementionof Shadow if you think that,” the Barrani cohort member snapped. He then winced; clearly his cohort had opinions.
“I lived with her, too. I know. Terrano—can you see where the Norranir are?” Kaylin’s hand wasn’t getting any warmer.
“You can’t?”
“No. I can see you and Mandoran and not much else. I can’thear the drumming here. I can’t hear the fighting, if fighting is happening.”
“Not much of it anymore—Bellusdeo literally brought down the house. Or whatever it was.”
“Great. Just... take us to the Norranir drummers. We’ll take it from there.”
Terrano led. Mandoran followed, dragging Kaylin with him. She could still see Terrano, but he was becoming murkier as he walked. She no longer held on to him, and Mandoran didn’t either. Terrano had been told to find his way back to Helen. She hoped he did but knew no one could tell Terrano what to do and actually expect obedience.
“You might want to close your eyes,” Mandoran said, voice very close to her ear.
She shook her head. She wanted to see what happened here. Shifting planes wasn’t something she could do—but Mandoran had once told her she did it subconsciously and naturally when she used, or reached for, the power of her Marks. The cohort wasn’t using that power. But every child that had been exposed to theregaliain the distant green could, with effort and will, do what Terrano did. It didn’t come easily or naturally to most of them; it did to Mandoran. And, sadly, Annarion.
She watched as the darkness began to shatter, cracks appearing in its surface—in its many surfaces, as if those surfaces were the facets of an enormous, and brittle, gem.
Light peered in through those cracks—and as each pane fell away, she could see a dizzying array of vistas beyond those surfaces.
“I am not going to forgive you if you throw up on my boots.”
“She probably won’t,” a blessedly familiar voice replied. Severn was here. He hadn’t spoken at all while she was standing in the plane where Terrano had gotten stuck—but he hadbeen aware of where she was, of what she was doing. Aware as well that worry or argument wouldn’t help her get anything done.
He was the first thing she saw as she emerged, the first thing that became solid as the world cohered. Sadly, he wasn’t the only thing, and the coherence of the world wasn’t as simple as it should have been.
The separate glimpses of light and scene and landscape began to move, to swirl, to blend together; she heard the buzzing of loud insects, the crash of falling trees, the hints of discordant song, saw the blend of colors she had no words for as they began to fly past her field of view.
She should have listened to Mandoran. “Does it always look this way to you?” Severn’s arm was around her waist to steady her.
“I don’t know what you’re seeing. You’re not normal, either—you’re Chosen. We’re almost there—I’m sorry. I had to really rush the fences to get here to help. There are probably better paths, better cracks between planes, to exploit—but I didn’t have the time to really listen for them. That’s what you’re feeling.”
Kaylin closed her eyes and sagged against Severn. It helped, but not completely; the sounds were almost as dizzying as the blend of visual colors had been. Hope squawked. His voice, perched as he was so close to her ear, was loud—but clean, clear. It didn’t blend into the aural chaos.
She focused on listening to Hope until she could hear the drumming; only then did Hope’s voice stop.
Her legs felt like rubber, but the ground beneath her feet felt solid in a way it hadn’t when she’d joined Terrano. She took the chance of opening her eyes and almost wept with relief: she was surrounded by Norranir drummers. If they noticed her—and they did—nothing broke the rhythm of their hands against stretched skins.
She’d come back. Mandoran stood beside her.
And her hand was both very cold—and empty.
The streets were thick with smoke. The drumming continued, but it was entwined now with other sounds: running feet, cracking stone, raised voices. She could feel a bonfire’s heat, pressed against her skin as if she’d strayed too close to the fire. There was no immediately visible flame. But above the clearing smoke, she could see two sets of mighty wings: red and gold.
Kaylin could see the ruins of the border zone building and raised her brows.
“If it makes it any better, Tiamaris helped with that.” Mandoran was too pale.
“Has Terrano gotten home yet?”
“Not yet—he’s taking a look around.”