Cast in Ruin by Michelle Sagara

rune was shifting and changing. Not the word itself—the parts didn’t bend, split, or fold. But it was, once again, losing solidity. She knew that when it became permeable enough, he’d be gone.
    Sanabalis had given her warning. As usual, he had mastered the art of understatement. If she’d plastered her entire body—both sides, bottom of feet and top of head—against the most extreme door ward in the Imperial Palace, it would have tickled in comparison. She bit something—her tongue, her lip—and her mouth filled with the familiar and unpleasant salt of her own blood.
    It was followed by the worst Leontine phrase she knew; it was all she could do not to drop the sword and the damn name simultaneously.
    Sanabalis didn’t seem to be particularly concerned—at least not with her. But he studied Maggaron’s face, and as he did, Maggaron’s eyes began to shift colors in a rapid cycle. She’d never seen anything like it before, and had she, she would have immediately assumed the person possessing those eyes was dangerously insane. But Maggaron’s expression didn’t change at all; he continued to stare at Kaylin. It was very disturbing.
    “Sanabalis,” she said, forcing the syllables through gritted teeth, “is this entirely necessary?”
    “It is.”
    “Will-it-be-over-soon?”
    “Yes.”
    She didn’t even ask him what he was doing because his answer might have prolonged the casting. But her eyes began to water, and her vision began to blur; she saw two or three of Maggaron begin to separate as she watched. The blood in her mouth did not help. People began to speak—shout, cry, babble, and hiss —in a way that destroyed the actual weight of syllables. She bent slightly into her knees to brace herself, and then bent slightly more, because if her legs were too stiff she’d probably topple, and folding usually left fewer bruises.
    She could barely see Maggaron now; she could see—and feel—his name, and she clung to that, tightening her fingers into rigid claws. Unfortunately for Kaylin, her suspicion that the sensation of hand-on-rune was a metaphor that didn’t actually involve her real hands was proved correct. It didn’t hold her up.
    Nothing did; she felt as if she were walking—slowly—through the portal in Castle Nightshade. Or rather, that Sanabalis had uprooted said portal and had dropped it, in one go, on her head.
    Kaylin. The single word was cool and clear, and none of its syllables—all two—clashed with anything else. Even given the source, it was a relief.
    Nightshade?
    Where are you? In Tiamaris.
    You are not in Tiamaris, was his edged reply.
    I am —she stopped. I’m less than ten yards from the border of the fief.
    Return to the fief. Now.
    So much for relief. We have a bit of a situation here, she said as tersely as she could, given that she wasn’t actually speaking any of this aloud. I’m leaving the heartland as soon as Sanabalis stops—
    Stops what?
    Whatever the bleeding hells he’s doing.
    What is he doing? Kaylin—what are you doing?
    I’m falling over.
    Nightshade had never had a sense of humor. He did, however, have a temper. He also had the universal condescending arrogance of the Immortal everywhere. She felt his frustration and his annoyance.
    Tell Lord Sanabalis to stop whatever it is he’s doing. Tell him to stop now. There is a danger.
    She couldn’t even see Sanabalis by this point, and what she’d had of breakfast was threatening to revolt; telling a Dragon Lord—even one as tolerant as Sanabalis—what to do was so far out of the question it hadn’t even occurred as a possibility. The frosty and furious arrogance of the Barrani wasn’t Kaylin’s by birth or inclination.
    She started to think as much—saying it was beyond her—but the flow of defensive thought was interrupted by something a lot less pleasant: thunder and the flash of something that looked like black lightning.
    She heard Nightshade curse, and she understood the meaning. The