The creature thrashing and snarling in front of her could answer that question, but she clearly wasn’t in a mood to converse. Kaylin closed her eyes. She couldn’t see Azoria, but she could see the marks of the Chosen. As she watched, as she poured the power of those marks into the thing she held in her hand, she could see the faintest of golden light begin to grow. She couldn’t see her hand, but could see what lay within it.

This wasn’t justice. Azoria deserved to suffer.

She suffers, Kaylin, Hope said. No happiness, no joy, could lead to what she has become.

Kaylin bit back her visceral, knee-jerk reply, knowing that Hope was right. But she destroyed so many lives.

Yes. And those people did not deserve the ending she gave them. But you will free those who remain trapped when this is done. You have killed. Those deaths destroyed lives. Yet you are here, and you have grown to believe in yourself. She will die. Do not ask more of her ending than that.

But if I heal her name—

It is not her name anymore. She is not the cohort; you cannot simply offer to return it to her. There is no place in her that could house it.

But I gave the names back to the cohort. And they’re not the Barrani they were born to be, either.

The cohort used—constantly—one element of their names. They spoke to each other through the name bond. They offered each other the knowledge of the names that give power; they knew each other. That knowledge was predicated on the names themselves; some part of what they could become remained what they were when they made their covenant.

Look.

She did. A word, a True Word, now rested where her hand would be. The marks that had encircled her arms retreated back to the base of her skin, but the light they shed remained gold.

She opened her eyes; the word, she carried. Beyond it, the woman who had once been blessed by the Consort at the Lake of Life continued her frenzied attack; she couldn’t see the word, and even had she, Kaylin was certain she wouldn’t recognize it.

But Kaylin could now see the tenuous connection between Azoria and the name that she had all but destroyed. She reached for it; it was as fine as spider silk, and as slender. Without a second thought, she snapped the thread.

30

The name that had once been Azoria’s life became weightless; it rose from Kaylin’s hand, spinning slowly as if it were sentient and needed to orient itself. It made no attempt to return to Azoria. Azoria cried out a single word then, her voice a Barrani voice.

Her name.