“We weren’t attached to our names when we first attempted to escape; we’d drifted from them, but we didn’t intend to desert them. Our ability to speak to each other the way we do is the name bond. When I refused to have the name fully returned to me, I couldn’t hear the others anymore. I liked the peace and quiet, but...I missed them. Their voices and their opinions had been part of me for so long it felt as if I’d lost something essential. What did my name look like?”

“Almost transparent; it was small and diminished—but it was still a True Name, a True Word. The thing that you were changing—the thing that changed—was you.” Her frown deepened. “I think your name might have become different had you not relied on the name bond. And I know there are things you can’t do because you accepted it. It defines some essential part of the physical you. Just...not as clearly as it does for people who weren’t subjected to the green, the regalia, and centuries of captivity.

“You think I’m looking for something like that.”

Terrano nodded.

“I wouldn’t have found your names had Alsanis not preserved them. You were his captives, yes—but you were his guests. I think he grew very fond of all of you, like a foster parent. She doesn’t have Alsanis—and frankly, I don’t think he could have grown fond of her in the same way.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s not like the rest of you. You’re all different people, and I really only know half of you at all—but you’re all capable of loving.”

Terrano grimaced, as if he were a teenager at that awkward age. Kaylin recognized the expression because she’d been one herself.

“What Azoria wanted wasn’t that, in the end. Look, if I’d met Sedarias under any other circumstance, I would have assumed she was the usual cutthroat Barrani.”

“She is.”

“Yes, she is—but she’s more than that. I think, if she had to choose between the cohort and being that typical Barrani, she’d choose the cohort.”

“Never let her hear you say that.”

Kaylin laughed. “Hope, I need to approach that being.”

Hope failed to move.

“You heard what Terrano said, right? I think, if we don’t get that word out of him, we’re never going to be free of Azoria.”

I think you have nothing to fear now. If that word is foreign, They will remove it themselves. There was a reason that you were forced to heal that being; Azoria simply took advantage of it.

“Will it make her stronger, if her name is somehow part of him?”

You have a very ghoulish imagination.

“I’m a Hawk. We tend to see a lot of the worst people can be. Will you let me take this risk?”