Tiamaris did fly in; Kaylin could see him as a glint of red that hurtled toward the fief—and its attackers—as if he were a ball of fire. He was, to her knowledge, the only other fieflord who could take immediately to the sky to deal with threats to his fief.
Or to Candallar’s, apparently.
Bellusdeo’s hand twitched. “Tell him to turn back,” she said.
Karriamis did not reply.
Bellusdeo turned. The Avatar was no longer in the room. Kaylin had enough warning to clap her hands over her ears as the gold Dragon roared.
There was no answering roar. But the stairs had apparently vanished with the Tower’s Avatar. Kaylin kept her hands firmly in place while Bellusdeo roared in outrage; she thought she could hear Leontine roll over her shaking hands.
The problem with angry Dragons was their size. While size didn’t necessarily imply strength, in the case of Dragons, it didn’t matter; the subtleties of stronger or weaker were only relevant to other Dragons. Kaylin had no physical way of restraining Bellusdeo if she chose to go full Dragon.
There was enough room in the Tower that she could, and Kaylin suffered no illusion; she moved away as Bellusdeo’s physical form began to shiver in place.
She had words. “Don’t! It’s you he wants! It’s always been you he wants!”
Bellusdeo’s roar was caught between a mortal throat and the expanding depth of a Dragon’s. Kaylin lost voice for a moment as Emmerian’s breath lit the sky with a cone of fire. Most of the Aerians were flexible enough—fast enough—to drop or rise to avoid the flame’s heat; the heart of the fire was met with...fire. The outcaste’s fire.
It was red and purple, to red and orange, but the core of both cones was almost white.
A glint of sword could be seen, but Teela hadn’t summoned the power of the blade, not yet.
From the ground, however, Nightshade did. Lightning leaped up, and up again, clipping the outcaste’s wing before he could withdraw it; he was pinned in place by Emmerian’s fire and his own. Four of the Aerians peeled off instantly.
Kaylin had watched Aerian maneuvers at every opportunity during her tenure at the Halls of Law. She was impressed. They moved as one; even the fold of wings as they dived was synchronized. They were armed, although the Aerians could do a great deal of damage with their wings.
Nightshade’s experience with flying enemies was largely draconic. He backed into an alley made of the buildings the cohort had not yet emptied. She saw a glint of flying blades; Severn had unhooked his weapons and set the chain spinning. Never a good sign.
She turned; the single advantage of Bellusdeo’s almost transition was that she’d been forced to let Kaylin’s shoulder go. Kaylin went immediately in search of the damn stairs. “Karriamis, you son of a—”
“I would not say that, were I you,” the disembodied Dragon said. “I understand that you are not responsible for your thoughts, and I therefore tolerate a certain lack of necessary respect.”
“Respect is earned.”
“Respect is a necessary element of survival.”
“What are you even doing? Where did the damn stairs go?”
“I am waiting,” he replied, in a tone that the Arkon—the former Arkon—might have used.
“For what?”
“She was Empress. Queen, if you will. She ruled. It is hard, watching her reactions, to understand this, or even to believe it; I believe it because I have seen some of her memories.”
If Karriamis were in front of her now, Kaylin wasn’t certain she wouldn’t have tried to stab him.
“Yes. You might. I would not, however, kill you in response. You fail to understand what she was—you see what she is, what’s left in the wake of loss. I wish to see some proof that what she was has not been utterly destroyed by loss.”
“Why?”
“Because she is, regardless, the future of her race. She has just commanded Tiamaris to withdraw.”
As if she could hear Karriamis, Bellusdeo once again resumed her human form; the lines of transformation that blurred body and allowed for the change had once again hardened. Her back was to Kaylin, her gaze on the sky itself.
Tiamaris, however, was now hovering.
“Why does she want him to go away? The outcaste is a danger to all of you.”
“You refers to the Towers?”
Kaylin nodded.
“She understands that his power is in part dependent on the power of his Tower—and he will not have that, here. She is not wrong, in my opinion.”
“She didn’t tell Nightshade to go away.”
“No. Nightshade, however, has been fieflord for centuries; Tiamaris for less than a year. Lord Nightshade understands the limitations of the Tower’s power and his own. And he wields one of The Three. To Bellusdeo—perhaps incorrectly—the weight of The Three is almost mythic; it dwarfs the weight of the Tower.
“She also understands that Lord Nightshade will simply fail to hear her; Tiamaris will not.”
Probably why she hadn’t told the cohort to get lost, as well.
“Ah, no. That is different. She acknowledges Sedarias as the leader of their flight. The analogy is not perfect, but it is surprisingly solid. Sedarias is ally, here, but allies control their own forces; they do not obey. She has not joined her friends,” he added.
“Is that why you kept me here?”
“No. Had you chosen to depart with Emmerian, I would not have stopped you. But I told Bellusdeo—you were there, and mortal memory is not that inefficient—that she had chosen her friends well. You are one of them. But the cohort in concert is another.”
“And Emmerian?”
“He is too young,” Karriamis said, in a familiar—and annoying—tone of voice. “He would not be my choice, were I to be given one—but it is not my choice. It is not, as you discovered, entirely hers, either. The weight he commits to carry, however, he will carry; he sees her clearly.”
“And Bellusdeo?”
“She has made no choices,” he replied. “Since her arrival, she has made no choices. Yes, yes,” he said, as Kaylin opened her mouth. “She chose to come here. But she was drifting, Lord Kaylin. It made sense to her that she become captain of this Tower, her hatred of Shadow is so strong. She was looking for a... I do not have the word for it. She felt that our purpose would match exactly, and there would be no conflict.”
Kaylin snorted.
“Respect, remember. Even coming here was not a choice; she drifted on currents of events. But now? Now, Chosen, she makes a choice.”
She was just standing in the window.
“Yes. She can leave at any moment she desires to leave.”
“Does she fail, if she leaves?”
“Fail?”
“Your stupid test.”
“Mortals are clearly cut from different cloth than they once were. And the answer is, it depends. I can feel her rage and fury from anywhere in the Tower, it is so visceral, so loud. The outcaste betrayed her,” he added, the words softer. “She trusted him, in a long-ago world; that world is gone, and she will never trust again.
“Nor should she. But she ruled. And a ruler cannot be ruled by hatred; it is almost as bad as fear.”
“You’ve said she’s not in command of the cohort. She’s certainly not in command of the Dragons, and if she had any ability to tell you what to do...”
“Yes?”
Respect, she thought. “She’s not the ruler here. She doesn’t exactly have an army; she doesn’t have a squadron. She’s—”
“Tiamaris has withdrawn, at her command. You do not understand our tongue, and that is fair—but it was a command, not a request.”
Bellusdeo roared again. This time, there was less rage in the voice, but more volume. Emmerian veered instantly to the left as spears of shadow skittered off his flank. The outcaste’s fire wouldn’t hurt him.
“You are wrong,” Karriamis said, in an entirely different tone. “And now, you will stop speaking.”
He was gone.
Bellusdeo once again began to shimmer in place, but this time, she was silent.
Emmerian was not; the outcaste’s fire clipped his right wing, and the wing burned; the fire seemed to cling to it. The blue Dragon shifted, mobility now impaired; Kaylin could see the flash of light, of blade, of something that might have been lightning if lightning moved in circles.
From the right, the Aerians—the shadows—moved. Teela’s lightning struck all but one from the air; the one did not skitter off Emmerian’s side, but pierced it.
“Kaylin,” Bellusdeo said, voice a rumble of sound, a distant thunder to Teela’s lightning, “climb.”
Outside was where Kaylin wanted to be; she instantly climbed up the gold Dragon’s back. She didn’t know what kind of test Karriamis intended this to be; she had no idea if, by making this decision, Bellusdeo was failing, or had failed. She didn’t much care, because Bellusdeo didn’t.
But as she settled on a back that wasn’t really meant for riding—not that Kaylin had mastered horses, either, although her initial attempts had amused the hell out of the Swords—she heard a very familiar voice. It was raised in a cry of pain or warning, and it guttered in the middle like a doused candle’s flame.
She tightened her legs, head bent to break the wind, and shouted a name as Bellusdeo leaped through a window that served as portal.
“Mandoran!”
He’s alive, Severn said, before the bulk of the gold Dragon had cleared the window. Sedarias says he’s alive.
What the hell hit him? I didn’t even see him!
The Aerians. Sedarias says they’re phased—what we see isn’t all that’s there. The parts we can’t see are growing. I don’t think they could have left Ravellon had they been what they are now. But now is what we’re facing.
If she’d remained in the Tower, she was certain she would strangle the damn Avatar, she was so angry. “Hope!”
Her familiar came instantly to her shoulder and lifted a wing to cover both of her eyes.
With Hope’s wing in place, she saw what Sedarias meant. For one, the Shadow that rode them was larger—taller, certainly, but also longer; it extended past the natural length of their wings, and it lengthened in tendrils from all four of their limbs.
The spears that she’d seen thrown were...still attached to their bearers, even after they’d unleashed them. Nor did they seem to have only one—the spears seemed to grow and solidify from the shadows that surrounded the Aerians, like a slow refill.
She turned in the direction Mandoran’s voice had come from—but it was harder to see past Bellusdeo’s head and neck, as Bellusdeo had immediately leaped toward the cutoff scream.
“Move over,” Terrano said.
She could see him clearly with the aid of Hope’s wing. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to help the idiot before he gets cut in half.” He raised his voice. “Bellusdeo—when I ask, give me five seconds of cover. I need you stay in one spot when I shout ‘stop.’”
She didn’t ask him why.
What Bellusdeo could see was clearly not what Terrano—or Kaylin, vision augmented by translucent wing—could see. What she couldn’t see at all, even with Hope’s wing, was Mandoran. She couldn’t hear him, either.
“Relax,” Terrano shouted in her ear. “He’s still alive.”
“Where?”
“We’re about to find out. Stop!”
Terrano jumped off the Dragon’s back.
“He better know what he’s doing,” Kaylin said—before she, too, came off the Dragon’s back. Bellusdeo hadn’t moved. Terrano had.
This time, Kaylin did shriek—but in Leontine.
“I need my ears—bad enough all the Dragons are shouting in their native tongue. Pay attention; I don’t think we’re going to have long.”
“To do what?”
“Grab the idiot.”
“I can’t even see the idiot!”
“That’s harsh,” a familiar voice said. Mandoran. Free of Bellusdeo’s back—or the large parts of her body that weren’t transparent—Kaylin could finally see Mandoran.
Terrano had wrapped both arms around her midriff; he was holding her tightly enough it was almost difficult to breathe. On the other hand, down was a long way away. Her arms were free; she could see Mandoran, but only barely, even with Hope’s wing plastered to her face. He was almost the storybook definition of a ghost, and she could only see his upper body. The rest was enmeshed in the overlapping strands of Aerian-carried Shadow.
“Why is it always me?” Mandoran asked, the words almost, but not quite, a whine.
“It’s not always you,” Kaylin snapped.
“It was in the Aerie.”
“True.” She reached out for his arm. Her hand passed through it. She cursed.
“Impressive,” Mandoran said, grimacing. This close, she could see that he was in pain. “Sedarias is starting to tilt.”
“Tilt?”
“Over the edge—I don’t want to rush you, but can we get me out of here before she falls off it?”
Shadow spears flew toward where Kaylin and Terrano now hovered. Toward, Kaylin realized, Bellusdeo, who remained in position just as Terrano had asked. She spared one quick glance, saw the body of the outcaste grow larger as he approached, and turned all of her attention back to Mandoran.
And then she closed her eyes.
She could see her marks clearly, as she’d always done with closed eyes. They were glowing with a gray, steady light; none had risen. None would rise.
Her skin was the same luminous gray as the marks, as if they were all of a thing. She could see her skin. Mandoran had said that this was her way of phasing; this was her paradigm. She accepted that, although she had a few questions about seeing her own skin when her eyes were closed.
She let that go, because one of her hands was not gray—or not entirely gray. It was covered in what looked like a badly made lace glove. This was Shadow, as Karriamis had divined, but it was like...dead Shadow? Shadow separated from whatever force controlled Shadows from Ravellon.
And it was what she needed. She reached out for Mandoran with the gloved hand. His hand, beneath the glove, was solid. When she reached out with her right hand, it wasn’t.
“We’re running out of time,” Terrano said. His voice was audible; the rest of him was invisible. She didn’t open her eyes. If Terrano wasn’t precisely where Mandoran—and Kaylin herself—were, so much the better.
“I’m trying.”
“What exactly are you trying?”
“Can you see him?”
“Yes.”
“Can you touch him?”
“No, duh. Look—we need to pull him out of there before—”
She almost lost Mandoran. She’d gripped his hand, his fingers interlocked with hers. If Terrano hadn’t been holding on to her so tightly, she would have fallen; Mandoran suddenly gained weight. She met his eyes; they were entirely black, and the flecks of livid color they contained were both familiar and almost terrifying.
She tightened her grip as she lost feeling in the one hand that Mandoran could actually grasp; she was surprised she hadn’t dislocated her arm. She opened her eyes.
Kaylin was grateful that Mandoran was holding on so tightly. What she held with her left hand, she could now see. None of it looked like Mandoran. Not even through Hope’s wing.
“Tell the rest of the cohort what’s happening here—they mustn’t close in combat!”
“We didn’t—”
“Let the others handle it!”
“Kaylin?” Bellusdeo said, voice a rumble.
“It’s all Shadow,” she snapped. “Something’s grabbed Mandoran and I’m trying to—to pull him out.”
“What? What’s grabbed him?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure if he caught a spear—”
“I’m not deaf,” Mandoran said. His voice was slurred, difficult to hear; there was an odd echo to the words.
“Fine—you tell us. Just don’t let go.” She closed her eyes again. Eyes closed, she could see Mandoran, or at least the top half of him; the rest was enveloped in something. To Kaylin’s eyes, that something didn’t have the visual characteristics of Shadow, not here; eyes opened, it was Mandoran himself who looked like he was slowly transforming, or slowly being transformed.
She prayed as loudly as possible that Bellusdeo couldn’t see him. Mandoran in this state might be able to survive Dragon breath; she was almost certain it would pass harmlessly through him.
Kaylin was more certain that that wasn’t going to be true of either her or Terrano.
Free me. Kaylin blinked. Kill me.
The voice sounded like Mandoran’s; the words overlapped each other. She could pick apart overlapping sentences when she was in the middle of a crowd that might, at any moment, transform into a mob, and she applied that training now.
“Say that again,” she told Mandoran.
“Say what?” Terrano shouted in her ear.
“Not you—Mandoran, say that again.”
“Say what?”
She wanted to shriek. The pressure of time was becoming an almost unbearable weight—worse, by far, than Mandoran. Her hand was numb. Mandoran’s voice, wrapped around the same two words Terrano had spoken, was once again an odd, echoing sound, filled with words that he hadn’t spoken.
Words.
Language.
She understood them. She understood them because both Terrano and Mandoran were speaking her mother tongue. But the overlapping words, the eddies, the echoes...weren’t Elantran.
Free me.
Kill me.
The words were clearer. The texture was clearer. They weren’t Elantran. She couldn’t identify the language—but she understood it. Understood, in the end, what it must be. She wasn’t surprised when the skin on her arms, her legs, her back, began to tingle.
No, she was surprised, because the “allergy to magic” problem rarely occurred when Shadow was involved. This tingle became pain, as it usually did—but pain implied magic in the here and now, magic cast with intent, by people nearby.
“Hope!”
I have you.
“Someone’s casting something—”
An’Teela. And Sedarias. It will not hit you.
“No—it’s different!” she shouted.
Hope did not reply. No one did.
She opened her eyes. Hope wasn’t with her. Neither was Terrano; she could no longer feel his arms around her. But she didn’t need them to prevent a very messy fall; she was standing on firm ground. The ground itself was stone, not dirt; there was no grass here, although she could see the hint of weeds that implied dirt beneath the stone.
The weeds, however, were purple.
To the side were buildings—or what might have been buildings; there seemed to be an organized structure to them but they certainly didn’t look like the streets of Elantra, high or low. She was certain magic must have been involved in the building—and the maintenance, if any was still being done—because normal buildings would have collapsed in all kinds of disastrous ways otherwise.
But the weeds were strange, too. Almost everything was; it was like reality but slightly off. And as she gazed down the street, it was much more than slightly off.
She clenched her fist, and felt—although she couldn’t see him—Mandoran’s hand. She couldn’t feel Terrano’s arms, couldn’t hear Bellusdeo or Emmerian’s roars. Wherever she was now was not the same place that she had been. But Mandoran was here.
Mandoran was almost here.
She shifted her stance, bent into her knees, and pulled. There was no resistance: Mandoran immediately fell into the street. So did Kaylin. She didn’t let go of his hand.
“I don’t think we should be here,” Mandoran said as he looked at his surroundings.
“Tell me what you see and don’t let go of my hand.”
“Why not?”
“Just tell me what you see.”
“We’re standing in a...street. There’s something like stone beneath our feet and most of the buildings look like they’re about to collapse on our heads.”
She nodded. “Okay, so we’re mostly seeing the same thing.”
“Weren’t you supposed to get me out?”
“Shut up. Can you hear the cohort?”
He nodded, but hesitantly.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“It’s a yes but...their voices are less distinct.”
“Blurry? Fuzzy?”
“Not clear. Or not as clear as they normally are. Why exactly are we here? Where is this?”
Kaylin had a guess. She didn’t want to say it out loud because she wanted it to be wrong in every conceivable way.
Mandoran grimaced. “How are we going to get out?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
“How did you get here in the first place?” the Barrani cohort member demanded.
“I don’t know—I was trying to listen to your voice.”
Both brows rose in the center.
Kaylin tried again. “I could hear you—but you were fuzzy. It’s like...like your words were caught in some kind of tiny space and the echoes made it hard to distinguish individual syllables.”
“And now?”
“Now I can hear you easily.”
“Which...doesn’t tell me how you wound up here.”
“Because some of the blurry words I heard, some of the echoes, weren’t actually from you. They weren’t your words. You weren’t speaking them. I needed to hear them more clearly than I could hear you.”
“And?”
“So I closed my eyes and listened. And when I opened my eyes, I was here.”
“Fine. What exactly did you hear?”
She hesitated again, and then she said, “Free me. Kill me.”
“What?”
“You didn’t understand that?”
“No. What language is it?”
“Mine.”
“I think I understand yours pretty well, I hear so much of it.” He frowned. “I’m saying the wrong thing, aren’t I?”
“It’s fine. I’m used to it. Can you hear anything?”
He listened. Barrani ears were better than mortal ears in the city streets; she had no idea whether actual ears were involved in this, because she had no idea where their physical bodies were. Admittedly, hitting the ground had probably bruised her left shoulder—but she’d have to check that when they got out of here.
If they ever did.
“Yes.”
“Good, because I can’t.” She lifted their joined hands. “Lead on.”
“Where’s Hope?”
“Not here. I notice Terrano didn’t come through, either. Is he still holding on to me?”
“He says no. Bellusdeo is not happy. But to be fair, Teela is really unhappy.”
“It’s not Terrano’s fault.”
“Like that’s going to make any difference.”
“Tell her it’s your fault.”
“Uhhh, I’ll give it a pass.” He began to walk down the street, avoiding the overhanging buildings, inasmuch as that was possible. Kaylin noticed they cast no shadows; if there was light here—and there must have been, as she could see—it wasn’t the type of light that cast shadow.
But there were shadows here, against the ground; they didn’t follow the formation of the buildings or the weeds, but she could see them. She looked at her arms; tingle had become pain. Her attempt to roll up a sleeve with one hand attached to Mandoran took time; it was clumsy enough that he chose to help. In this case, two hands were better than one—but not, honestly, by much.
However, sleeve rolled up, she could see the marks; they were, and remained, flat against her skin, but they were glowing.
The glow was a livid purple, very similar to the color of the weeds. Similar, she thought, to the purple fire that some of the Mellarionne-aligned arcanists had cast.
Kaylin. Two voices. Nightshade’s. Severn’s.
It was Severn she answered. Still here. I have Mandoran, but we seem to be stuck someplace else. Does Terrano still have my body?
No. Not that I can see. Annarion says—
Annarion’s with you?
He is. He says that Terrano is holding on to something. He’s not entirely sure it’s you. Hope is here, he added.
Well, he’s not with me. Where is he?
Beside Bellusdeo. He’s not small.
What’s Bellusdeo doing?
Fighting. Sorry; I can’t look up for any length of time, because some of the Aerians chose to land.
Why?
Because they’re trying to kill the fieflings who are close to the Tower.
Got it. Shutting up now.
She did shut up. She turned to Nightshade, metaphorically speaking. He could, and did, look up; the view on the ground was blurred by the light of Meliannos. He was aware of the mortals who had entered the street in a panic, but they were not his concern.
What she wanted to see was not what he wanted to see. He spoke Severn’s name, and leaped, sword in hand, to the Aerians.
Be careful of the spears—they’re Shadow.
I know. The reply was terse; he was irritated. Kaylin understood this was not the time to tell him something he already knew. But it wasn’t clear that he did know; certainly Mandoran hadn’t. She glanced at Mandoran.
“I’m not speaking to the cohort,” he surprised her by saying.
“Why not?”
He shook his head. “Are you talking to Nightshade or Severn?”
“Both.”
“Normally?”
She nodded.
“There’s...interference when I try. And I’m not sure that the interference isn’t somehow attached to the attempt. I don’t think it’s safe for them to talk to me the normal way.”
Since the normal way had an entirely different meaning for Kaylin, she nodded, but she was now disturbed, and as the street didn’t seem to be ending anytime soon and there were no obvious enemies lying in wait, she said, “Why do you feel it’s unsafe?”
Mandoran hesitated for one long beat, and Kaylin tightened her grip on his hand, as if hesitation might cause him to vanish. “I don’t know. It just... You heard something else. You heard a different voice, different words, when I used my own voice.”
Kaylin nodded.
“I could almost hear it as well. I don’t want to share it. I don’t know what it means.”
“This,” she said quietly, raising her free arm. “This is what it means.”
“Do you know where we are?”
She’d been avoiding it. Avoiding saying it. Avoiding thinking it. She hesitated, and then punted. “Do you?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I knew, but...”
She nodded. “Don’t say it. I don’t think it’s safe to say the word.”
“So you’re thinking what I’m thinking.”
“I’m trying hard not to.”
“Is it working?” He hesitated again. “I think something injured me and entered me—and if I were Severn or Nightshade, I would have become like the weird Aerians. But...it’s not physical.”
“It is physical.”
“It’s not.”
She started to argue and stopped. Mandoran was here. She could grip his hand tightly. She reached out and punched his shoulder with her free hand, and this time, it didn’t pass through him.
“Does that mean you can let go of my hand now?”
“Absolutely not.”
He didn’t seem to resent this but reached out to pat her on the head. His free hand was also solid. “So...where are we going?”
“How should I know? I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t tried to reach you!”
But was that even true? She wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t tried very hard to hear the secondary voice that had caused Mandoran to fall silent with his cohort. She was right; something was attached to him—in the best case, because attachment implied removal—and it was that something she had followed.
Because she had understood the words.
Because they were True Words.
The marks on the one arm she exposed continued to lie dormant across her skin, but the pale, livid purple was distracting. “Do these look purple to you?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen them that color.”
“Great. Me neither. Are the weeds here the same color?”
“Weeds?”
“Those things that are growing up from the ground?”
“I don’t see weeds there.”
“What do you see?”
“I don’t know. I’d almost call them rips or tears in the air. You want to investigate?”
She nodded. Hope wasn’t here. There was no wing to look through, no way of seeing things that were otherwise hidden or, as Mandoran had once said, out of phase. Whatever she could see here would have to do. Mandoran said the weeds looked like holes—but in what, exactly?
She knelt awkwardly; having a hand as an anchor made normal movement surprisingly difficult. If she’d had a better way of tying their hands together, she’d have taken it—but she didn’t trust the cuffs that came as part of her kit to do the same job.
As she knelt to examine what she’d seen as weeds—in a landscape that made no sense, although it looked almost familiar enough everything was disturbing—she saw what Mandoran meant. What she’d assumed were stems or stalks were tendrils of Shadow that seemed to surround the tear.
She readied herself to leap back, to leap away, as she inched closer to it.
The marks on her arms—which had been painful—seemed to rear up; the purple of the marks and the purple of the what she had assumed were awkward blossoms were the exact same color.
Severn, in the distance, was worried. Nightshade was worried, but as he was in combat, he had less thought to spare for it.
Mandoran shouted; Kaylin was yanked back from the weed. Whatever he saw, she couldn’t see. But the light from this rip intensified and the shadow that framed it shuddered, darkening as well.
Light erupted—purple light—as if in attempt to escape the confinement of Shadow. Kaylin, pulled to her feet, didn’t avoid all of it; it hit her stomach, her legs, and her free hand.
It was the hand that was going to be a problem. Although she was accustomed to the pain that random magic seemed to cause, this was different, and she knew it; her palms weren’t marked in the same way her forearms were, but it was her exposed palm that felt the blast of light as searing heat, as if she’d shoved her palm into the center of a white fire.
The pain of burning remained as the light vanished.