Healing was the only power granted by the marks she instinctively understood. Sometimes she caused pain; sometimes she had to. But none of that was meant to destroy. None of it meant to kill.

Her fingers froze; she couldn’t close them into fists.

She’d killed before. Once, in the distant past, she’d flayed the skin off slavers. She couldn’t at this moment remember how; their deaths had been the product of her endless, driving rage. Azoria would kill all of them. She knew that. But the rage that she’d felt on that single, long-ago day had marked the end of childhood. She could not summon it back.

Power filled her palms regardless, and she understood only then what she was meant to do. She poured that power—healing power—into the remnants of what had once been a Barrani name.

Azoria screamed in rage—the rage Kaylin couldn’t summon for herself. Beneath that rage was fear and pain, and perhaps that’s all rage ever was: fear and pain writ large. Azoria renewed her frenzied attack on the barrier Hope had erected; she spoke broken Barrani—or Barrani interspersed with words that were never meant for Barrani use.

Kaylin, Hope said, hurry. She is more powerful than she appears.

Kaylin nodded; behind Azoria she could see the glint of a sword—no, two. Teela and Sedarias harried Azoria from behind—if behind was the right word. Azoria’s extra limbs appeared to be omnidirectional.

They are, Severn said. She’s losing control. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.

Mrs. Erickson?

Holding up surprisingly well. She’s distraught about the children, though—whatever Azoria did to them, it’s upset her a lot.

Good. Keep close to her. I think we can end this immediately with her help.

Immediately.

As soon as I finish what I’m doing.

He didn’t ask her what she was doing. But she knew now; the word, small and porous, was almost like a body to the touch; a miniature body. Unless and until transformed by Shadow, bodies knew their correct shape, their ideal health.

Azoria had done something to shift and alter the word at her core—but clearly she had done the work very carefully over the passage of centuries. It still supported her life. Had she tried—and failed—to repair it? Was that what she sought the power of the living for? Or was she a very broken form of Barrani vampire?