Page 113 of Cast in Conflict

“What? Me? I told you—it’s Sedarias’s space. It’s her.”

But Kaylin shook her head. “All of you are part of it. All of you. She’s angry right now. I get that. But you’re part of her space. You’ve got as much right to control it as—as she does.”

“Dangerous and stupid at the same time. Well done.”

“I mean it!”

“Obviously. It’s not that simple. There are things Sedarias can do that we can all forgive because we’ve seen her and we know who she is. But there are things she’ll never forgive.”

“Does she hate Alsanis?”

“What?”

“Does she hate the Hallionne Alsanis?”

“I know who Alsanis is. I can’t even make sense of the question. Maybe try it in Barrani?”

“I need you all to do something.”

“To do what?” The skies, as they approached, were a vivid green-gray; the clouds had rolled across a clear, blue sky.

“To change the shape of this place. She’s afraid—this is about one fear. We need to remind her—”

He laughed, the sound both reckless and wild. “What in the hells do you think we’ve been doing?”

Kaylin lifted her arms; the marks had lifted themselves off her skin, surrounded it in a moving nimbus of light. Terrano understood. Which was frustrating, because once again, Kaylin didn’t.

“I like Sedarias,” she said, and she felt the base of her throat swell, as if the words were song. “I want to smack her, but I want to smack Mandoran most days. And you,” she added.

“I won’t feel left out if you don’t.”

“I don’t know all of you. But I’ve liked all of you. I think I envied what you’ve built, what you’ve made—because I saw the outside of it. Until yesterday. Until today. I didn’t understand that it’s work, right?” The light her marks shed was blue, not gold. “But I love Helen. She’s my home. Sedarias can’t keep doing this to Helen.”

Terrano didn’t argue.

Helen remained silent. But Helen was doing something incredibly important for both Sedarias and cohort, and Severn.

“Hope,” she said, “drop me in the middle of the storm.”

There is a danger, Hope said.

“You think?”

You don’t understand the nature of the danger, Hope replied.

“Is this something you could do in my place without killing Severn?” Severn was the only thing here that might serve as a sacrifice—and Kaylin would die first.

I cannot do it at all, Chosen, he replied, with a great and almost distant dignity. Get ready. I will drop you as you’ve requested, but I will need to be closer if you wish to survive it.

“This isn’t reality.”

Is it not? For Sedarias at the moment it is the only reality. It is a reality that is not mine, Chosen. It is yours and hers. It is the province of the living.

“Wait—what do you mean?”

But Hope had reached the height of the storm. He turned over, and Kaylin fell. So did Severn.

The heart of the storm was, from Kaylin’s vantage, a long way down.

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