Kaylin frowned. You’re sure it’s the weapons? You’re certain it’s not Azoria somehow attempting to feed on them?

I’m certain. He didn’t elaborate. Nor did she ask for more information. She trusted Severn to know himself. They want me to attack, but I’m uncertain what will happen to the power of the blades if they strike Azoria in this place. I think it’s what she wants at the moment. There’s something off about it.

You think?

“He can’t come. He’s holding steady instead of charging ahead—the weapons of the green apparently want to dice her into small bits. She can’t hear me, can she?”

“No. She is aware that you are speaking. And she is possibly aware of what I am to you.”

Kaylin shrugged. “She can’t get any angrier, can she?”

Hope didn’t reply. Not to Kaylin. But he lifted his head, retracting the spread of his wings as he gazed at Azoria, or at what she had become.

Her skin had spread, the shape of her face changing, the smooth regularity of Barrani arms bending in the wrong way. From those arms, hands that had appeared to be Barrani began to shift in shape as well, fingers melding together to become pincers, although they retained the color of, the implied texture of, flesh, not chitin. Her body remained more or less as it had first appeared.

“It will change,” Hope said.

“Will ours?”

“No. We are no part of this breeding ground. This was a space she entered as participant; she understood only half of its imperatives.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because sometime in the not-too-distant past, she attempted to summon me. I listened; she was close enough that I could hear her voice. But she could not offer me the sustenance I require. She was—she is—brilliant, but she has never understood the way knowledge and self must fuse.

“It is the weakness of being as she is: she is at the center of the universe, and she sees herself as unchanging; as the one essential element, the only actual truth.”

This didn’t make sense to Kaylin. “She does what Terrano does.”

“Yes, and no. Terrano’s goal when he began his divergence from the laws that governed the body of his birth, was freedom. He did not wish to deprive others of theirs unless it accomplished that goal. He did not see the cohort as a tool; he did not see it as an impediment. He considered it a responsibility. Had they not been imprisoned, he would never have become what he is.

“His is a bright mind, a curious mind; he will always seek answers to the questions that arise. But he is focused only on that. It is why the Academia itself both accepts his presence and rejects his inclusion.”