let Severn take the lead, but her eyes shaded to orange when Hope lifted a translucent wing and smacked it across Kaylin’s eyes.
Kaylin called a silent halt; Severn stopped. If True Names had done nothing else for their partnership, they’d allowed communication across distances that raised voices wouldn’t penetrate.
For the first time, Kaylin could see the border boundary. It wasn’t a line on the ground, but a transparent wall. Perhaps double her height, it extended in either direction. Her gaze followed the line of that wall, first to the city that was her home, and second, to the heart of the fiefs themselves: Ravellon. There, the wall was not wall, but dome.
Hope didn’t lower his wing.
Sorry, Kaylin told Severn. There’s nothing dangerous that I can see—but I’ve never looked at the border like this before.
He nodded and continued to move. When he sent an all-clear, Kaylin followed, Bellusdeo by her side.
* * *
Dragons weren’t naturally stealthy creatures. Although Bellusdeo didn’t make any noise, she radiated an almost aggressive self-confidence. Kaylin was fairly certain she could walk on her own and go unmolested in Nightshade—or Candallar. The tabard of the Hawk couldn’t grant Kaylin that aura of certainty or confidence.
Crossing the border of Tiamaris didn’t feel different. It looked different because of Hope’s wing, but she could step through it without the pain and nausea caused by portals or other forms of protective magic. The world rippled as she did, but it was the same ripple a stone might cause if dropped into a still pond.
Reality reasserted itself, but in doing so, seemed to have lost some of its color. This she’d experienced before. The street beneath her feet felt the same, but it seemed to her eyes like a faded replica—as if someone had taken white and blended it with everything present to soften the vibrancy of distinguishing color. This was, on the other hand, what the border zone always looked like, even without Hope’s wing.
Kaylin looked to the right as she crossed the weed-strewn lawn of the building directly to their left. From this vantage, she could see a two-story building opposite a three-story one. It looked unlike any of the other buildings on this street; for one, it seemed new. It also lacked windows and doors. She frowned as Severn turned toward it.
“Roof?”
“Flat, at least from this angle.”
The Dragon glanced at Severn. “Investigate?”
“Leave it,” Kaylin said, regretting Bellusdeo’s presence. It was harder to take calculated risks while in the company of the future of an entire race.
Hope squawked.
“...or not.” Kaylin turned back to the windowless, doorless building.
* * *
“Have you seen something like the border zone before?” Kaylin asked the Dragon as they approached a street-facing solid wall.
The Dragon shook her head. “There were no Towers, no protective ring of fiefs around the Ravellon that existed in my world.” She stretched out a hand to touch what appeared to be a stone wall. “This feels solid to me. It smells solid. It would not surprise me if people were living in the buildings here. If they can enter them.”
It had never occurred to Kaylin to live in the border zone.
It is not safe, Hope said, the squawks that formed syllables far quieter than they usually were this close to her ear. It is not a land that was meant to be inhabited by your kind.
“Why does it exist at all?”
I do not know. But it is possible that the Towers and their responsibilities cannot overlap without danger to those responsibilities. Each Tower knows its own lands; each Tower must. Here, between those defining borders, they are absent.
“And the Shadows can’t come through the border territories?”
Look to Ravellon.
She did. Ravellon, enclosed in a translucent, faintly shining barrier, could no longer be seen. She moved, then, to attempt to see past the squat, featureless building; Ravellon didn’t exist. She then turned in the direction they’d come. The street was clear, and it continued—pale and faded—into Tiamaris.
“Can either of you see Ravellon?”
Severn shook his head. Bellusdeo said, “No.”
“Neither can I. Hope, what is this place?”
I have already said I do not know, the familiar replied. But I see what you see. And I fail to see what you fail to see. These lands are not malleable in the fashion of the outlands and the portal paths of the Hallionne. They do not take commands or suggestions with regard to their shape. I believe they are as you see them now.
I do not believe they are always as you see them now.