Page 115 of Cast in Atonement

Kaylin had forgotten how much physical contact with someone real eased portal passage. She was immediately disoriented as she entered—she expected that—but because Teela was an anchor, she could close her eyes. Portal space wasn’t one thing or the other; it wasn’t consistent. Had it been, she thought she could have trained herself to endure it. But no. Sometimes it was very much like the gray, roiling clouds of the outlands; sometimes it was like walking into the chaos of Shadow; sometimes it was like a blurry landscape, where every single element was subtly wrong.

It was the almost real objects that were always the worst; they held the outline of a familiar shape—a building, a road, a harbor—but not the constant solidity; outlines blurred, or worse, the interiors of the shape, as if they were bleeding their essential nature onto the path she had to walk. They moved, unanchored, coming to rest before leaping away; she became instantly dizzy. At best.

Is this taking longer than usual? she asked Severn, her eyes closed.

Severn’s reply felt fuzzy, and attenuated. It seems to be. He didn’t ask how she was holding up; he knew. She clutched Teela’s hand tightly.

Chosen. Chosen, come. I have been waiting for your return.

That wasn’t Severn. It wasn’t any of her namebound, most of whom had been remarkably quiet in the past weeks.

Severn? Severn—did you hear that?

I heard it because you heard it. I did not hear it myself. “An’Teela, hold on to her. Something is speaking to her here.”

She heard the words echo, reverberate, become sharper with each iteration.

CHOSEN.

Kaylin stumbled; the ground beneath her feet became suddenly, treacherously soft; she sank into it up to her knees. Teela didn’t sink beside her; the angle of the hand crushing Kaylin’s rose as Kaylin fell. Leontine followed as Teela pulled Kaylin up—or tried.

Severn would have grabbed her free hand, but he could no longer see her.

She opened her eyes. She could see Teela, but Teela seemed to be spinning in place; she was shouting in slow motion, but her words were so distorted, Kaylin couldn’t make sense of them.

Squawk! Squawk!

The marks on her arms were glowing and rising through the cloth that habitually covered them. She closed her eyes to better study them; she’d always been able to see the marks with closed eyes. She couldn’t pronounce them; couldn’t discern their meaning without the combination of pressure and effort. But when they were spoken, she could recognize the language.

She heard it now: loud, deep, a throng of deliberate syllables. It took her a moment to realize she also recognized the speaker’s voice: Emmerian. Emmerian was intoning syllables of a True Word.

The ground released her; Teela pulled her up, and she found her footing, but had very little chance to steady her feet. Teela began to sprint, pulling Kaylin, stumbling, behind her.

Emmerian roared again, draconic voice enwrapping syllables that she felt almost as a physical blow. Teela put on a burst of speed that Kaylin thought would dislocate her arm, and then she landed on solid ground.

She opened her eyes immediately. Emmerian had transformed; he was a blue Dragon, his head raised. Larrantin hadn’t transformed, but he was glowing faintly; his eyes were so dark they looked black. Tain and Teela sported the regular variant of dark blue. Severn offered Kaylin a hand up; when he did, Teela let go.

Kaylin’s hand was numb.

“What,” Larrantin demanded, “were you trying to do?”

“Walk through a portal,” Kaylin replied, the words a bit clipped.

“That is not what you were doing!”

“It is what she believes she was doing,” Teela said, before Larrantin could continue. She turned to face the Dragon. “I believe your intervention allowed her to complete her passage.”

Emmerian nodded, lowering his head to look down at Kaylin.

Squawk.

Or to look down at Hope. Emmerian roared in his native tongue; Hope replied in squawks, which clearly meant more to the Dragon than they did to Kaylin.

She turned to Hope. “Talk to him farther from my ear.”

Hope bit her ear, but not hard enough to draw blood, as Kaylin’s vision finally cleared.

To Kaylin’s surprise, the rough shape of a hall had been maintained. She could see what she thought of as a foyer in the distance; the hall was wide, the ceilings intimidatingly high. Beneath her feet, however, the floor had given way to dirt, and the half pillars of marble that punctuated alcoves had been replaced by trees. Trees the color of marble, although to touch, they were bark.

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