The Arkon then led Bellusdeo and Kaylin to the far end of the many, many rooms in his possession. This was one of the theoretically safe rooms; it had no actual doors until the Arkon approached it, whereupon a door materialized in a stretch of unadorned wall. Kaylin’s arms ached in protest, but she expected that; she’d been both surprised and grateful that the library’s large doors had been open when she’d arrived.
The Arkon did not ask questions. He didn’t speak at all until they were safely ensconced in the room and the door had been firmly shut.
“You will now explain,” he said—to Kaylin. Of course. “The comment about Shadow.”
“I didn’t make the comment!”
“I did not say you did. I did, however, say that you will explain it.”
Bellusdeo chuckled. If Diarmat had said something similar—and it was exactly the kind of thing he would say—she would have been orange-eyed and threatening fire with each breath she expelled. She seemed to expect it, and even to treasure it, from the Arkon.
Kaylin found it difficult to do the same, and reminded herself that she actually liked the Arkon. Sometimes it was harder than others. “You know,” she told him, “it’s not that I mind answering your questions, but when I’ve answered them you come up with a hundred more, none of which I can answer.”
“I will endeavor to keep that in mind. Your explanation?”
“The bomb was, in theory, an Arcane bomb—but tiny.”
“It destroyed the infirmary.”
“Yes.”
“It damaged the bearing wall.”
“Did it?”
The Arkon threw a significant and slightly accusing glance at Bellusdeo, who shrugged. “I have learned with experience,” she told the Hawk, “that the Arkon is certain of his facts. He does not make statements of that nature frivolously.”
“Fine. It did. At the time, I was focused on Moran.”
“Continue.”
“You know I’ve often been called in for investigations where magic is a suspected part of the crime. And that I’ve had some experience with the aftermath of Arcane bombs.”
“Indeed.”
“This one was, in theory, far too small to do the damage it did. The magical signature heavily implied—to me—that unless the bomb had been ingested, it wouldn’t cause death, let alone the destruction it did cause. But the signature of the mage—and before you ask, no, I didn’t recognize it, it wasn’t familiar—wasn’t the only aftereffect of the bomb’s explosion.”
“Continue.”
“There was Shadow spread unevenly across most of the room. It follows the magical splash patterns, and it’s strongest where we believe the bomb was planted.” Now, she hesitated. She looked to Bellusdeo.
“I’m not a Hawk,” the gold Dragon replied, “but regardless of your answers, I intend to continue to guard Moran.” A thread of defiance bound the words of that sentence together.
Kaylin very much feared that any goodwill generated by the Emperor’s informal dinner was going to be ash very soon. The Emperor was not going to be happy. “The Shadow wasn’t sentient. At all. I’m not a mage—I can only barely light a candle—but I’d guess, given the splash patterns and the presence of Shadow, that the actual force of the explosion was provided by the Shadow the bomb contained.”
“You’ve seen Shadow magic before,” the Arkon said, voice flat.
Kaylin frowned. “Yes.”
“Was it similar?”
“No.”
“The differences?”
“The first time I saw what I’d identify as Shadow magic, there was a sigil. It was composed of black smoke with a little too much solidity, but it was a sigil.”
“You do not consider the sigil or signature of most magic innately intelligent.”
“No.”
“You consider Shadow to be innately intelligent.”
She nodded, still thinking, still frowning.
“What is the difference?”
“I’ve seen elementals summoned. The small ones are the ones that light candles. Summoning elementals doesn’t leave signatures the way Arcane bombs do. The fire is the magic, but it’s also fire. The same is true of the water or the air; I assume it’s true of the earth, as well.”
The Arkon nodded.
“This...is more like that. The first time I saw Shadow used for magic, there was a signature. I’m not sure I understand why the two are different. I can sense when someone is summoning elements; I can feel it as magic.” Her hesitation was still thoughtful. “But mages who create Arcane bombs can also summon. Well, some of them. I don’t really understand how magic works.”
“Not even the Arcanists understand all the ways in which magic does—or does not—work. You are certain of the presence of Shadow?”
Kaylin nodded.
To Bellusdeo, the Arkon said, “Did you see the room after the explosion?” He tactfully did not mention that she had pretty much been blown into the wall opposite the infirmary door, and she didn’t mention it, either. “Did you notice the Shadow?”
“No. Did the Imperial mages?”
“The Imperial mages are notably tardy when delivering anything other than verbal reports.”
“Meaning no?”
“Meaning I do not know yet.” He exhaled a puff of smoke.
“Can I ask a question?” Kaylin asked, before Bellusdeo could speak again.
“Demonstrably.” The Arkon waited.
Kaylin fumbled with words in the silence, trying to put smart sentences together. She didn’t have many in place when Bellusdeo snorted. “She is wondering if the Illumen praevolo’s magic is of the Shadow.”
* * *
The Arkon did not immediately become orange-eyed, although there was a faint, almost copper cast to his eyes. His inner membranes rose. “Why would you ask that question?”
Kaylin hadn’t, but felt no need to point this out; it never got her anywhere where the Arkon was concerned. “The story of the praevolo, and the presence of Shadow magic—with the assassins the first time, and with the mortal agent the second time... Aerians apparently require a world that has strong magic if their wings aren’t meant for anything other than decoration. The story is that the praevolo was somehow created or born at a time of great need, and he led his people across the endless space between worlds.”
“I am aware of the variants of praevolo myths and legends.”
“I don’t know a lot about the death of whole worlds.”
“You know more than most, and I include mortal scholars among that number.”
“Bellusdeo’s previous home was lost to Shadow. It was lost to the Shadows at the heart of Ravellon, because Ravellon existed on her world.”
“Ravellon is believed to have existed on many worlds before the fall.”
Kaylin nodded. “If the ability to use Shadow as if it were normal magic—or elemental magic—was known, maybe worlds wouldn’t have fallen. The thing is,” she continued, “if you summon a big-enough fire, all it wants to do is burn things. Anything. All the things. If you summon too much water, it’s the same—except it wants to drop on things or drown them.”
“Indeed.”
“But there’s part of the water that doesn’t want those things. And when I’m in the elemental garden, the fire doesn’t try to burn me.”
“It’s probably too terrified of Evanton,” Bellusdeo pointed out.
“Fair enough. The Shadow wants to devour things—to alter them, to change them, to absorb them somehow. What if the Shadow is like the fire or the water?”
“Fire and water are necessary to life. They are part of the natural order.”
“Yes, but—”
“But?”
“What if Shadow is part of the natural order, as well?”
Bellusdeo, who had lost most of what she valued in life to Shadow, did not bite Kaylin, but it was probably close.
“What if, on the original Aerian world, Shadow was simply used the way we use fire or water? What if Shadow was the only power they could call upon that could carry them across the sky, or the emptiness between worlds?”
“You are asking very dangerous questions.”
“I’m trying to understand what we’re facing. I’m trying to understand how it works. Even the Shadow that inhabited our human criminal wasn’t transformative in the way Shadow normally is. What if that is the power?”
“It would be forbidden use.”
“What if they don’t understand it as the source of their power?”
“Ignorance in this case is not an excuse.”
“It’s an explanation.”
“It is, and explanations often displace accusations of high treason.” He exhaled. “The questions, while dangerous, are also somewhat perceptive. The dangers, I believe, outweigh the possible benefits in the use of this kind of magic. If Shadow is, indeed, an elemental force—”
“The thing is, Gilbert was Shadow. I’d swear he was. But...he wasn’t like the one-offs we fought in the fiefs of Tiamaris. Or anywhere else. And I’m now wondering if that’s because he has Shadow as power, the way maybe the praevolo did, but the power doesn’t control him; he controls the power.”
“Have you asked Moran dar Carafel about this?”
“Not yet.”
“I would be interested in her answer, if you do ask. I believe that your Helen would be aware of the presence of Shadow within her own boundaries; has she mentioned any danger?”
“No.”
“You understand that if this becomes a commonly asked question, it will doom the Aerians in the city.” It was almost a question, but didn’t rise at the end. “You are an officer of the Halls of Law, one-third of which is committed to keeping the peace, such as peace is.”
Kaylin nodded.
“You understand that there will be no peace if even a whiff of this rumor reaches the general populace?” The Arkon frowned. “Clearly, the answer is no. I invite you to spend some time in thought. Fear makes humans incredibly unwise. Shadows—for good reason—breed fear in the populace of Elantra. I am almost certain that the Aerians do not use Shadow as their locomotive force.”
Kaylin nodded.
“What now?”
“What if the Aerian mages—and there are rumored Aerian Arcanists in the mix—do use that power now, even if they don’t completely realize what it is?”
The Arkon’s eyes were burning a steady orange.
“I mean—what if they do? Or did? What if the Aerians that want Moran gone are somehow entwined with our version of Shadow?”
“Meaning?”
“If they summoned their power and got more than they could control. Fire elementals have reduced their summoners to charred flesh—or worse—before. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”
“You believe that something other is now driving the Aerian Caste Court.”
“I believe that it might be. We know what happens when the other elementals are too much for the summoner to control. It’s obvious. It involves corpses. But...what if that’s not what uncontrolled Shadow does?”
The Arkon rose. “I have much to consider,” he said. “I will see you out.” This was a very polite way of saying get lost. Probably because Bellusdeo was in the room.
* * *
Only when they had crossed the fence line of their home did Bellusdeo choose to speak. “Lannagaros was upset.”
“I’m upset, as well.”
“Ah. I do not think he faults your reasoning—neither do I, if it comes to that. I think he hadn’t considered it before. Not in the way you put it. He’s right, however.”
“About the cost to the Aerians?”
Bellusdeo nodded. “People always try to simplify their lives. Most humans do not interact with the Aerians—and of the ones that do so regularly, most are merchants or members of the Imperial Palace staff. They think of Aerians as people with wings who live outside of the city. And as Hawks.
“If rumors spread, the only thing most people will know is that Aerians are infested with Shadow. Nothing will balance the fear.”
Kaylin slowed, as she sometimes did when she was thinking. “It’s like me.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s like I was about the Tha’alani.”
“You seem to like them.”
“Now, yes. But I hated them for years. All of them. I identified them by their forehead stalks and their racial ability, and I hated them because I feared them.” She squirmed, saying this out loud; squirmed thinking about that younger self and how stupid she’d been. It made her wonder how many other things she was still being stupid about without realizing it. This was not a comfortable thought.
“You learned,” Bellusdeo quite reasonably pointed out.
“Yes—but that was almost a fluke. And that kind of fluke isn’t going to happen to every other person who believes what I believed.”
“No. People are always fearful, dear,” Helen said, although they hadn’t even reached the door. The door did open, and her Avatar stood in the frame, but her voice was much closer than the rest of her. “I have always thought it unwise to let fear be your personal guide.”
“Which one would you prefer? Love has its problems as well, if you listen to old stories.”
“Ah, but I would argue that that is not love—it is fear. It is fear of the loss of love. But we might spend idle hours arguing the definition of the word love, and I have dinner prepared. Moran,” she added, “has been waiting for you.”
“For me?”
“You are, I believe, to visit Evanton’s shop tonight. With her.”
Damn. “I forgot all about it.”
“Well, the loss of the infirmary and its attendant difficulties would probably drive less pressing needs out of your thoughts,” was Helen’s very charitable reply. “But you don’t have a lot of time before you have to leave.”
* * *
Moran was nervous. Her eyes were shifting color with every second step she took. She wore the robes and the bracelet of the praevolo. During the day, she wore them as if they were a suit of armor. If she took no personal comfort from the act, the rest of the Aerian Hawks did. In a weird sort of way, it was a command decision.
Lillias, however, was not. She was part of Moran’s history, and entwined with the severely unhappy bits at that. But she had saved Moran’s life. And in all probability, that decision had cost Lillias her literal wings.
There were a lot of questions Kaylin wanted to ask about that. A lot. How did it even happen? The wings were physical; they were like arms and legs. There existed no spell that Kaylin knew of that would allow someone to magically remove said arms or legs from anyone who had them. That said, swords and axes generally did the trick—they just didn’t do it instantly or cleanly.
“Thank you,” Moran said, as they reached the start of the Elani district.
“For what?”
“For coming with me. It’s been a long day—I was afraid there’d been some sort of midwives emergency, and you weren’t coming back.”
“There was an Arkon emergency,” Kaylin told her. “But at least it didn’t involve fire.”
“The Arkon was the older man I met at dinner?”
“Older Dragon, but yes. Bellusdeo insists that he actually likes me, but on days like this one, you wouldn’t know it.”
“How did you meet him?” Moran asked. Kaylin answered, realizing that if the discussion wasn’t important for the information it contained, it was important for other reasons.
She was still talking about the Arkon when they reached Evanton’s front door. Light could be seen through the windows. “Evanton wasn’t certain she’d come,” Kaylin reminded Moran.
“No. I guess we won’t know if we don’t knock.”
* * *
Grethan met them at the door. In general, Kaylin approved of this because Evanton took a long time to reach the door, and he hated it when people either pulled the bell a dozen times or, worse, pulled it once and assumed he wasn’t in when he didn’t immediately answer.
Kaylin had once suggested that maybe, just maybe, magic be used on that door or that bell that would allow the visitor to recognize when Evanton was, or was not, receiving guests, which got her a long lecture, but changed nothing. She’d long since given up trying. If she wanted to see Evanton, she had to play by his rules.
Grethan, however, was not old; he was young enough that walking to the door and answering it wasn’t at all taxing. He didn’t despise interruptions; he didn’t resent them. He smiled up at Kaylin’s familiar as he saw who stood on the other side of the open door.
The familiar squawked and leapt off the Kaylin perch and onto the Grethan one.
“Is he in?”
“He’s in the kitchen,” Grethan replied. “But I think he intends to move to the garden when you’re here. You’re a bit on the late side,” he added, half-apologetically.
“We had a bit of a day.”
“It’s you,” Grethan said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You always have a ‘bit of a day.’ Whenever I think it’s hard being Evanton’s apprentice, I think about being you instead, and it helps. Um, sorry.”
The small dragon squawked.
“People destroyed her home once. She had to face the Devourer; she had to save the elemental garden from—from a mad man. She has an angry Leontine as a boss, she has a Dragon as a friend—and even that friend came only because she almost died in Shadow. I mean, seriously—she has a really stressful life. I only have to deal with sulky wild elements and a really grouchy Evanton—and he’s not grouchy all the time.”
Moran chuckled. “He’s not wrong.”
* * *
Lillias was waiting in the kitchen, her eyes a martial blue.
Evanton’s eyes didn’t change color; he had the rest of his very lined face to make up for the lack, and it did. She was late, yes, and clearly, at the moment, late was an almost unpardonable capital crime.
“I’m sorry we’re late,” Kaylin said before Evanton could speak. “It’s entirely my fault; Moran was waiting for me. But I had a Dragon to deal with, and while you’re like the Dragon in temper, you can’t reduce me to ash without the fire’s permission.”
“The fire is not notably reluctant to burn things.”
“No, but it would upset your guests.”
Lillias had been watching Moran, and only Moran; the social dance of apology, groveling and possible forgiveness meant nothing to her. Her eyes were a complicated shade of purple and the deeper gray that was the Aerian norm. She rose from the chair she’d occupied, and froze, standing by the table.
Moran understood what had happened; Kaylin didn’t, but could guess. Some greeting to the praevolo involved the spread or movement of actual wings, and Lillias, without them, couldn’t perform the proper gestures.
Moran caught Lillias’s hands before Lillias could fall to her knees. “I thought you’d died,” the Aerian sergeant whispered.
Lillias bowed her head. She raised it again when Moran’s hands tightened. “No, Moran.” She didn’t use the title.
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“I did not know how. I was stranded, grounded. Were it not for the kindness of another Aerian, I would have remained in the Southern Reach, in a cave that was once used for the outcaste and other criminals; I had no way of reaching the ground. But I could not return.”
“But—I work on the ground—”
“Yes. I was not aware of that. I was given very little information about the Aerians.” She spoke the word as if it no longer applied to her. “And I had to adapt to life here. I almost didn’t,” she added, but the words were spoken with a wryness that bordered on affection. She shook herself. “I wouldn’t have recognized you, if not for the wings. You are a grown woman now, not an angry young child.” She hesitated. “Evanton says you wished to speak with me?”
“Of course I did. I had no idea you were alive until Kaylin said she’d met you.”
“We are going to the garden,” Evanton declared, rising. “The kitchen is crowded enough that it feels cramped; the garden is quite pleasant at the moment. Come.”
* * *
The elemental garden was, as Evanton had stated, pleasant. The breeze was gentle. The water was entirely contained in a pond that was deeper than the Imperial Palace was tall. Moss had grown across stones, but the earth was calm, and the grass that took root in it was lush and green, if a little unkempt.
Lillias had clearly seen this garden before, judging by her utter lack of surprise, but Moran had not. Given the cramped, rickety hall and the narrow closet-size door that led to this space, that wasn’t surprising.
“You’ve been here before,” Kaylin said to Lillias.
“Yes. Not often. Evanton is a busy man, and I don’t like to intrude.”
Moran was flexing her wings, although the injured one was slow to respond.
“How did you find out that Moran was here? I mean, on the ground?”
“Because I saw her,” Lillias replied. “I saw her on the night the Dragons came out to fight. I saw her in the air, with the rest of the Hawks.”
“You could recognize her from the ground?”
Lillias looked genuinely surprised by the question. She glanced at Moran, who was speaking, for the moment, to Evanton.
“I’m sorry if that was rude—it wasn’t intentional.”
“No. No, I forget myself.” Lillias’s smile was old and careworn. “We can see her, when she flies. She could be miles off, and if we could see her at all as more than a speck in the sky, we would know, instantly, who she is. She is praevolo.”
“You saw her get injured.”
Lillias bowed her head. “Yes.”
“That’s why you had Evanton make the charm?”
“It is not a charm,” Lillias’s voice was even quieter. She stiffened and looked over her shoulder. “It is part of the voice of the wind here. Can you hear it?”
Kaylin couldn’t.
“The wind knows its own,” Lillias said in Aerian. It was a phrase Kaylin knew because the Hawklord sometimes used it. But he’d never meant it literally, and it was clear that Lillias did. “I have no wings,” she continued. “Which you, of course, noticed. Most people don’t.”
“But your eyes—”
“Most people don’t. They are not Hawks, and they are not accustomed to judging mood from the color of eyes; they look at expressions, and listen to tone of voice. Now hush, and listen.”
“To what?”
“The wind.”
* * *
The wind did not speak to Kaylin, not in words she could recognize. Sometimes she spoke to the wind, in this garden, and it did respond, but not often. And clearly not the way it responded to Moran and Lillias. As if aware of what was to happen—and how could he not be?—Evanton came to stand by Kaylin’s side.
Lillias lifted her arms; Moran lifted both arms and wings, although the injured one twitched. Kaylin looked at the sergeant, and then looked away from what she saw in the Aerian’s face. In both of their faces.
The breeze grew stronger, but it didn’t gather debris in its folds, and in truth, it felt gentle. It sounded almost like a gale.
Lillias was the first to leave the ground. As if she had wings, phantom wings, she rose in the air, her feet breaking all connection with the grass beneath them. She moved as if those wings had never been lost, and she rose, looking up, always up, into the endless sky of the Keeper’s garden.
Moran didn’t appear to be shocked; she, too, rose. She had wings, but they could not carry her weight—not in the world outside this enclosed space. But in this space, it wasn’t wings that were required. Kaylin’s hands curled into fists, not because she was angry, but because she wanted instinctively to hang on to something.
The air didn’t hold her. The air didn’t lift her. It had never been her element.
She watched. She watched the wingless woman turn and spiral in the air, rising and plunging deliberately in a dive. She watched Moran join her, weaving complicated, tight circles around her. The Aerian Hawks practicing their drills would never, ever have been able to keep up with her. She looked...younger. Joyful.
Lillias laughed, was laughing, and Kaylin wondered then how hard it would be to lose both of her legs, because that was the only comparison she could make. And yet Lillias had made a life for herself here. It wasn’t the life she’d once had, and she didn’t live without regret—but she did live.
* * *
“I met her,” Evanton said, “some years ago. I recognized what she was, as you did. What she said, however, was not wrong: people do not notice. It is possible for Lillias to live as you live—but it was very, very hard.
“You do not think of the fiefs as a particularly pleasant place.”
“I like Tiamaris.”
“Yes. But Tiamaris was not the fief of your birth or your childhood, such as it was. Nightshade was. You think of it as disadvantageous, and primarily it was. You had neither a normal childhood nor a normal life; you had no certain sense of safety. But I will argue that your life there did provide you with one or two advantages that Lillias did not have.”
Kaylin opened her mouth to protest and shut it again.
“You’re getting better,” Evanton said. “I had almost begun to despair. You were about to ask me what the advantages to you now are.”
She nodded.
“You had no home, Kaylin. You had no family. You had no sense that survival was certain. In every possible way, you lived on the edge. Because you did, you have no sense of society, and your place in it. Lillias was not powerful. She was not born to a significant flight. But she had family, and home. She had a place she understood. She knew what the rules were, and she had a job that she took some pride in.
“All of these were lost to her the minute she made her decision. It was,” he added mildly, “the right decision, in my opinion—but it was enormously costly. Sometimes, when the costs never end, the rightness of the decision is called into question. She lost what she had, when she fell.
“You found what you’ve built. You were not mired in the loss; it did not destroy you. You expected far, far less than Lillias had, until that moment, expected. Every comparison you made to your previous life was a good one. You did not pause to think that people were rude or graceless, because your sense of manners, such as they were, were very primitive. For Lillias, it was much harder. She had more to lose, and lost it all. She could not, at the time, see what she had to gain, because the one thing she wanted, she could never have again.”
Kaylin thought, without resentment, that Evanton was right. “If it’s all the same to you,” she added, “I’d rather no other child ever had to live with my so-called advantage.”
“It is a silver lining, Kaylin. It is not one to be desired, and where you survived, many in your position—and I have no doubt there are many—do not. But your entry into Elantra was vastly less painful and less complicated in the end than hers.”
“Did Moran always fly like that?”
“I have no idea. Like Lillias, I saw her in flight only once.”
“You saw her?”
“Yes, Kaylin. I am the Keeper; I am aware of many things that occur within the city itself, and so close to the heart of Shadow.” He looked up at the two women flying in the folds of elemental air. “Do you understand what they’re saying?”
“Not all of it. Some. My Aerian’s not as good as my Barrani. This is what the bletsian was supposed to do for her. For Moran, I mean.”
“Yes. It was what I gifted Lillias, when we first met.” He shook his head. “It is hard, to make sacrifices. Harder when none of them seem necessary or relevant in retrospect. Lillias needed to see Moran as she is now.”
Kaylin was frowning. “But...”
“But?”
“You said Moran wasn’t allowed to see Lillias as only one thing—in this case, a tragedy, a cause for guilt.”
“I did.”
“But...Lillias doesn’t really see Moran, does she? I mean, she sees the Illumen praevolo. But Moran as she is?”
“You know, there are days when I despair of you. And there are other days—like this one—when I realize that being a groundhawk is your calling. Yes, Kaylin. She sees the praevolo. She could hardly see anything else; Moran was a child when Lillias was made outcaste. She did not interact with Moran at any time; she did not visit her at the Halls of Law. She was only peripherally aware of the fact that Moran—no, that the praevolo—was still alive.
“But she gave up her life—as an Aerian—on the day that she saved Moran’s, and she did it for the praevolo. And for the child. You would like Lillias, if you had met her in other circumstances. But she sees only some small part of what Moran is.”
“And she didn’t get the humiliating lecture.”
“Ah. No. But I don’t know her quite as well as I know you.”
“You didn’t know Moran at all, and you lectured her.”
“True. But there is a type of self-aggrandizing guilt with which I am all too familiar, and I dislike it intensely.” He had the grace to redden. “I may have been a bit too harsh.”
But watching the two Aerians—neither of whom could take to the skies by their own power—Kaylin shook her head. “No,” she said, a smile hovering across her lips. “You were exactly harsh enough.” She looked at Evanton and added, “But don’t feel a great need to repeat it anytime soon.”
He laughed.