Page 116 of Cast in Atonement

She blinked several times and turned to her partner. Forgot what she was going to say when she saw he’d armed himself with the weapons that defined him in Barrani eyes. She never asked about the weapons and didn’t ask now. Severn thought they would, or could, be necessary. She didn’t really need to know more.

Hope didn’t relax; he hopped across her shoulder, neck stretched; she half expected him to jump off and transform. These halls were wide enough to contain the larger, draconic form—but maybe two would be pushing it. Emmerian was still a Dragon.

“I am astonished,” Larrantin said, as they began to walk toward what had once been a foyer, “that your companions treat this occurrence as if it were mundane, normal weather. Do you have no training at all?”

“Training in what?” Kaylin countered, annoyed. Teela wasn’t giving her the stink eye, but long acquaintance with the Barrani Hawk made clear she would have, if Larrantin hadn’t been condescending first.

“Magic,” Larrantin snapped, in the same tone of voice he might have said breathing. “As it is, you are a clear and present danger to any who happen to be in your vicinity. What did you think you were doing?”

“I told you—crossing a portal.”

Larrantin didn’t bother with the mask of professional Barrani neutrality; he was incensed. As Kaylin was clearly far too stupid to carry the full weight of his ire, he turned to Teela. “Could you not have offered warning to those of us who have some mastery?”

“Kaylin has always had difficulty with portals.” Teela did speak as if she were talking about the weather. Her tone was deliberately polite. “It is not entirely predictable, and I consider it a win that she is not now retching her last meal all over my feet.”

“An’Teela—you cannot be so ignorant as to assume that this is normal!”

“It is normal for Kaylin. We are uncertain that this difficulty did not arise from the marks of the Chosen; to our admittedly poor knowledge, humans have never been granted the marks before.”

“Mortals have not.”

“They have,” Kaylin snapped, thinking of the Tha’alani. Thinking, and keeping that exception to herself.

“Before the marks—”

“I lived in the fiefs. I was an orphan. Do you think there were portals just lying around that I could walk through?”

“You have never walked through a portal without the marks, then?”

“No.”

“Do you know what the marks entail?”

“No.”

Larrantin exhaled for a long damn time. “No more do I. But you were attempting to traverse something that was not the portal path.”

“Not on purpose,” Kaylin finally said.

“That is what education gives you: control.” His tone was supremely waspish.

“I heard words,” she told him. “My marks were active.”

“They are always active.”

“They don’t look active to me. But when they activate, they’re either gold or blue. They were gold on the path.” As Larrantin opened his mouth, Kaylin lifted a hand. “No, I can’t read them. No, I don’t know what all the words mean. The only conscious control I’ve always had over their power is healing.”

“Healing?” Her lack of respect didn’t bother Larrantin in the slightest, which made him different from almost every other teacher she’d been given.

“Healing.”

“That is a very rare talent.”

Kaylin shrugged. “It’s the power of the marks. I never had the ability before them.”

Kaylin, Severn said. Be careful now.

Of what? It’s not like everyone doesn’t already know.

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