Page 70 of Cast in Atonement

“Yes.”

“The answer is yes. Yes, we do. I am aware that Wevaran biology is not well understood by most races, and certainly not modern races. But birth is complicated for both the child and the parent. The laying of...eggs, in your analogy, is not a simple act. It is not a compulsion to procreate or create, as it is for many living beings. We require words—True Words—to become. We require True Words to emerge.”

So did all of the Immortals. But the Barrani had the Lake of Life. The Dragons... Kaylin wasn’t certain what the Dragons had; she knew they had to achieve their full name to become adult, but she’d never carefully considered the how or the where; they had no Lake of Life in the fashion the Barrani did.

“True Words don’t just exist in the outlands, do they?”

“No, of course not.” Bakkon paused. “Tell me, Corporal—or any of you who are not my kin—what do you think the outlands is? We called it potentiality for a reason. You speak. You communicate. You use words. But True Words and your words are not the same. There is a power in True Words, a subtle tapestry of immutable essence and life itself. True Words are not alive.”

Kaylin glanced at Mrs. Erickson. Mrs. Erickson’s ghosts looked like words to Kaylin, like True Words.

“Bakkon, were True Words alive once?”

12

“I fail to understand your question,” the Wevaran replied, his eye color implying that Kaylin had surprised him. No one else was surprised; they knew what Kaylin had seen when she looked at Mrs. Erickson’s ghosts. But they knew, as well, that Mrs. Erickson didn’t see them that way.

“True Words are the source of life, of life force, for the Immortals. Things I’ve seen in ancient Records imply that they were the source of life for the Ancients as well—almost their literal blood.”

Bakkon stilled, but said nothing, waiting.

“Blood isn’t alive, but it’s part of being alive. I assumed True Words were sort of like that. Or like a heart. The heart doesn’t exist separate from us unless we’re dead—but at that point, it’s not beating. But did the Ancients once have a language that was actually alive? Were words sentient in some way?”

“Why are you asking this question?”

Kaylin opened her mouth and closed it again. “I think you should speak with Starrante,” she finally said. There were follow-up questions that Bakkon was likely to ask that she didn’t want to answer. And it was her own fault for asking the question she’d asked, for thinking out loud without considering possible consequences.

Ghostly words led to questions about Necromancy, which was fine, and possession—of Dragons—which was not.

“You understand that the purpose of True Words is communication. It is, among those who can speak and hear the language, a way of making meaning completely clear. These words exist outside of cultural contexts and the social enclaves that arise around them. Were these words to somehow have a sentience, a life, an existence of their own, how could they serve that function?

“What lives knows change. In the case of the Immortals, that change is slow and oft cumbersome—but life is change. Think: if you cannot change, you cannot learn; knowledge alters our views, our understanding, our grasp of the world.” His tone was slightly condescending, which Kaylin had to struggle not to take personally.

“The Ancients were not hoarders of knowledge; they attempted to teach their creations. Our ability to understand what they taught, to even perceive it, was flawed. Were Ancients to walk now, it would remain flawed; we are not what they were. We cannot be what they were; it has been tried. The results have never been good.”

“That is true,” Evanton said, cutting the conversation short. Or shorter. “If you have investigations to make that do not require our assistance, we have investigations of our own. We will leave you to your work and continue with ours.”

Serralyn looked to Kaylin, who shrugged. “Evanton’s always like that. Do you want to stay with Bakkon?”

She hesitated, her expression shifting at what was clearly an internal conversation. “Yes. I’ll stay with Bakkon.”

“Meaning we’re stuck with Terrano?”

Her smile was sunny.

Evanton, growing more impatient by the minute, led the way. Azoria’s front foyer was grand, the floors perfect gray marble, the ceilings very high; light was cast by the chandelier that occupied the ceiling’s height. If it fell, people would die. There were no paintings in the foyer. Evanton wanted to see the paintings, or what remained of them after Mrs. Erickson’s first visit. But he paused at the two statues, facing each other from the sides of the foyer. He frowned.

“You didn’t mention statues.” He turned to Terrano. “Were there statues present when you arrived the first time?”

Barrani memory was better—by far—than Kaylin’s, but it hadn’t been that long.

“I don’t remember statues,” Terrano replied, his tone utterly neutral. His quiet response chilled the mood in the foyer. Completely.

The statues appeared Barrani, although they were pale, almost alabaster, the color of skin and hair made irrelevant by the material the sculptor had chosen. Both had long, flowing hair; both wore robes that seemed almost rustic; both wore slender crowns of leaf and vine, not the jeweled tiaras of the powerful and the rich. The robes were voluminous; it was hard to determine gender. Both stood, hands by their sides, chins level, as if they were looking at each other. Or looking for each other.

Mrs. Erickson said, “Azoria is dead.”

This wasn’t much of a comfort. Mrs. Erickson understood that death wasn’t necessarily the end.

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