Hope flew Kaylin to the ground, where a path of stone formed beneath her feet.

He then dwindled in size and took up his perch on her shoulder, lifting a wing to smack it across her face. She noted that the wing, for the first time, trembled as it lay across her eyes. The wing didn’t change anything she could see. The ground-side vantage, however, made the being who had emerged seem even larger than it had from the air. It—he?—was beautiful. Barrani beauty, so envied by the merely mortal, was a pale, pale shadow of the beauty of this creature, which was odd: fiery tendrils for hair, fire for eyes, wings that looked far more Draconic than Aerian, and skin that looked like gold lit from within, wouldn’t normally have implied beauty to Kaylin.

“Did he just call you Chosen?” Terrano whispered.

Kaylin nodded. The marks on her arms still rotated at a distance from her skin; she imagined the other marks were also active, but less visibly so. Whatever power she’d used to heal what she could touch hadn’t dimmed their radiance at all, but she was uneasily aware, as she began to walk down this path, that that radiance was the color of the person who’d summoned her.

He stood, arms by his side, eyes upon her progress; she began to walk more briskly.

By the time she reached him, he had dwindled in size, but not in presence; he towered over her, but she could actually meet his gaze without toppling over backward making the attempt.

“Chosen, welcome,” he said, before she could speak. Which was good, because her mouth was dry and words had deserted her, probably for her own safety. “You may speak without fear of giving offense. I owe you a great, great debt, and the ability to cause offense is not in you; you might even stab me and be forgiven.” As he spoke, his eyes kindled briefly; Kaylin didn’t believe him.

“You have done so,” he said. “And my blood has fallen—as it fell before—upon the words you bear. You are a very, very fragile vessel; were the choice mine, I would not have chosen you to contain them. But those who know life know change and error; I would have been wrong.”

He didn’t ask her why she’d come, why she’d stabbed him, or even why she remained.

“No, but it is not necessary, in this space. I know. And I understand what it is that you seek; I understand—far better than you know—why you do so. Come.” He held out a hand. Kaylin found herself walking toward it, her own left hand raised as if to take it, before she could even consider movement.