Page 132 of Cast in Atonement

Kaylin considered this. He had been calling her from the moment she had stepped foot into the portal. What had he expected of the Chosen? What did he want? He was, like Jamal and the rest of the children, aware of his state, aware that he was dead.

The light across the sleeves of her dress changed; she realized that she had lifted her arms and hadn’t lowered them. Evanton’s arms were by his sides, but his chin was slightly lifted and his shoulders fell straight down his back. This was what he must have looked like as a younger man, as if his internal sense of who he was had not yet caught up with reality. To her eyes, she looked the same as she did normally, with the exception of the dress she wore.

“Did you bring me here?” she asked, voice soft.

“Not I, no. But we both touched something in the mana surrounding the Ancient, and it has its strongest roots in this place. This is the green. This is possibly the heart of the green.”

She looked at her marks; they were glowing the same ivory-edged green that they had in the presence of the space the Ancient controlled. To her eyes, they were more widely spaced than they had been; the words that had traveled into the ground on which Evanton stood had vanished. She couldn’t be certain they hadn’t been consumed.

“Tell me,” Evanton said. “Does this look like a dead space to you?”

Given the profusion of greenery, it was an odd question. “No. Does it look that way to you?”

“To me? No. But I do not perceive the world the way the Chosen does. Or at least not the way Kaylin as Chosen does. I believe it is your perception that matters. You are not accustomed to power, except as a lack, or a severe lack, given your childhood. It gives you insight that the earliest bearers of these marks did not have.

“Had you been asked permission before you became Chosen, you might have refused it, or you might have accepted because the need for power was so stark. In either case, you would not be who you are now.”

Kaylin frowned. “How do you know all this?”

“I am an old man; I was always considered old at heart, even in my childhood. I have seen many, many people cross the threshold of my store; I have even allowed some of them to stay. You are not dissimilar to many of them; you wear your early experience on your figurative sleeve. You are prickly; you are afraid of—and angered by—being judged; you are certain that you are nobody, that you are worthless. It is why your office as a Hawk has meant so much to you.

“I find your youth tiring at times, but I do not entirely disapprove of you; you have been of great help in my tenure as Keeper, although you have been part of it for such a short time. I struggle not to blame you for blundering into so very, very many dangers. For the most part, I succeed.

“You have Hope, and such a creature as Hope has not existed in anyone else’s orbit for the entirety of my life as Keeper; I am aware that there are many who have attempted to gain a Sorcerer’s familiar within both the Arcanum and, more secretly, the Imperial order. None have come close—and I am certain those who are aware of Hope bear a great deal of resentment; you chanced upon him by accident; had it not been for the assassination attempt on Bellusdeo, you would not have him at all.

“But it is here that you named him: Hope. A difficult name, Kaylin. Many cannot bear the burden of it.”

“Evanton—how do you know this?” She took a step back and reached up with one hand for Hope. Hope sat on her shoulder watching Evanton.

Oh.

“You aren’t Evanton.”

Evanton smiled. “I am Evanton, Kaylin. But here, there is more. The garden was created long before any of the races you know. It was necessary; the races could not be born, could not flourish, in a world in which the elements warred. The garden exists so that the lives that were crafted, built, and set free could grow—or perish, if that was their fate.

“The green existed when the garden was created.”

“What is the green?”

“Tell me, Kaylin Neya, who are you?”

She blinked. “Pardon?”

“Tell me, in your own words, who you are.”

“I’m a Hawk.”

“There are many Hawks; are they like you? They share your sense of duty, if imperfectly. Try again.”

“I’m human.”

“So are most of the Hawks. What makes you you?”

She fell silent as she considered the question. Who am I? She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“You understand the difficulty. You are much better at understanding what you need. Much better—and this is as essential—at understanding what you can give, and still remain Kaylin. You know, by experience, what you can endure, but do not yet know what could, or will, break you. The answer in the now is the most you can give, but it will change. Living things change; they must.

“The green cannot answer a question you cannot answer for yourself, but even if it could, you could not contain or retain the answer, if you could even understand it at all. Before you take offense, neither could I.”

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