History:
Kaylin was born Elianne to a woman known as Tara Averneya (this is not explained well as she tells a tree her mother was named Averneya, and tells Tara earlier that her mother's name was Tara...) in the fief of Nightshade. Kaylin has no memories of her father and may have never met the man, even as an infant. When she was very young, she met an older kid named Severn, and Severn understood what she couldn't back then. Tara was dying.
Severn took her away when her mother died, and they found a room for the two of them. He taught her to steal. She learned. He tried to teach her to fight. She resisted learning.
Then one day, in Winter, they found and saved a sick little girl named Steffi. She argued with Severn, and he agreed to let Steffi stay with them, until they found her another place. Kaylin saw Steffi as hers. Her little sister. Her doll.
A year after Steffi joined them, they found another girl. Again in Winter. Jade. They saved Jade from the Ferals that were hunting, as well as the man chasing her. The man was eaten by the Ferals. They took Jade in.
Steffi was pleased not to be the baby. Kaylin transitioned from seeing Steffi as a sister to seeing Steffi and Jade as her children, even though they were only one and two years younger than her respectively. Kaylin stopped when Severn wanted to teach her to fight, but didn't let the girls learn to fight. She wanted to protect them.
Winter. Again. When she was ten, the marks appeared on her arms and legs. They watched them being written there by magic, and thought she was going to die.
A month later, a child was found dead with the same marks. Benito. A month later, another child. Tina. This happened for YEARS. Every month, another marked child dead. Never Kaylin. But she knew every child. And they were all between ten and 12.
Meanwhile, Kaylin learned to heal. We get two different stories as to when she healed for the first time. She tells the Hawklord it was a kid that fell off his father's cart. Later she thinks about how it was a scar of Severn's, and how if she did it "today" she wouldn't have left a scar. Since there is no reason to think she lied, the odds are this was a writer's glitch, and I keep with the cart kid as the first.
Severn had made her keep her marks hidden, he made her hide her healing, but didn't stop her from healing. He scared her saying that if people knew about the healing they would take her away. She started daydreaming that she could swim through time like it was a river, find the marked children in time and heal them, that they were all healers like her. Wishes, fishes, and still she starved.
With the healings, the marks started changing. Severn noticed. One night he told them he had to go away, he went away overnight, and Kaylin, Steffi, and Jade thought he had died, maybe. There was still some "he can do anything" hero worship in Kaylin at that point. When he came back the next day, he was grim and hurt, but wouldn't explain where he had been or why.
Just before the longest night on the Winter when she was 13... (My presumption is her birthday is Nov/early December, and they had a fluid sense of Winter. Presumption based on how MUCH happened when she as 13. This, 6 months in Barren, crossing the river, joining the Hawks...) Severn gave her money enough to go to market. Sent her out. She suspected nothing. His overnight sojourn was all but forgotten. When she came home... the small room was washed in blood. Severn was standing there, covered in it. Steffi and Jade were dead, throats slit by the blade he still held.
Kaylin ran.
She ran from Nightshade, and crossed a barrier between fiefs (a thing she would later learn should have been impossible) and wound up in the fief called Barren.
In Barren she found a gap in a fence around a tower, and hid. The Ferals didn't seem aware of where she was and she hid in the grass.
In the morning, someone spotted her, a mostly bald woman named Morse. She told Morse she wanted to learn to kill a man. Morse was amused enough to take her in. Morse worked for the lord of Barren, also named Barren. (That's how the fiefs work, and yes it gets confusing in the books too). Since Morse worked for Barren, so did Kaylin. She was there for six horrible months. In that time she learned to fight, she learned to kill. She was assigned to kill. But much to Morse's disgust, Kaylin always wanted to know WHY the person had to kill and investigated. One time - a man who had killed the man who raped and nearly killed his baby sister - she learned and refused to make the kill. Barren sent Morse out to take care of the job, killing not just man but the sister and their old grandmother as well. Whole family, dead, because Kaylin didn't do what Barren told her to. It is strongly implied that Barren raped Kaylin to teach her her place, that she belonged to him, at this point - and that he did so potentially more than just the once as a reminder - but not actually said. She was still 13 at this point.
Finally, Barren sent her on a mission to redeem herself. She was to leave the fiefs, cross into the city proper where they had law and law enforcement agents - Hawks, Swords, and Wolves - and kill the lord of Hawks, because Hawk patrols along the river border were discouraging foot traffic from the city, and it was from the city that money came in to the fiefs. Kaylin was still 13 as she crossed into the city for the first time, studied the halls of law, and scaled the Hawklord's tower.
She planned well, slipped in one time the dome was open, and hid, waiting for him. She tried to kill him. She failed. He held her with magic - which HURT - he discovered the marks on her arms. He questioned her. He called in one of the Tha'alani - one of the race of mind readers who worked for the Emperor. The Tha'alani agent extracted the relevant memories and showed them to the Hawklord. And he made his choice. He reported everything to the Emperor, meanwhile, he told his Hawks to take care of the child.
She was taken in by the Hawks, and learned eventually that what she always wanted to do... to help... that was what they did. They solved crimes and helped save people. And... it was nothing like the fiefs. She was like a pet at first to the Hawks, occasionally people still call her the mascot when they feel masochistic. She spent time with Sergeant Marcus Kassan, his wives and his kits, learning what family means to Leontines - essentially upright sentient cats - and was absorbed into their pridelea. She was taken under the figurative wing of Caitlin, the human who was Marcus' secretary, and Caitlin helped her find her own apartment and learn to live on her own in the city. The winged Hawks were all at some point bullied or badgered into taking her flying. She LOVED flying. Teela and Tain, two of the immortal Barrani who worked for the Hawklord found her interesting and would drag her around. She found a home and a family with the Hawks. She took a new name - Kaylin Neya - and tried to forget her past.
Despite being a child, legally, she was taken along on cases as young as 14, while taking lessons. She HATED lessons and was horrible at most of them. But the cases... were fascinating usually. But one time she was with Teela and Tain when they were on a missing children case... that turned out to be a child prostitution ring, and as bad as that was... it was even worse, as some of the children were being taken apart for various magical rituals. Being maimed as they were slowly harvested for parts. It was the first time that Kaylin lost control of her magic. The first time she learned that she could do more than heal, she could kill. And with the first death, she lost control, and lost herself. He died too quickly, so she killed the next one more slowly, flaying him with her magic, layer by layer by layer.
Teela and Tain were able to stop her. And she didn't know this also had to be reported to the emperor. An artifact was taken from the hoard of the Arkon and loaned to her. It was a bracer, a sort of shackle. When it was on she couldn't use her magic, any of it. But the Hawklord broke imperial decree. He... gave her the code so she could remove it. He trusted her with that power. And he always knew when she took it off, because no matter where she left it, it returned to him. And he made her justify it, every time. She took it off to heal. And... he couldn't ever tell her not to heal. No one could.
She made a life for herself. The midwives guild mirrored her (her world's communication network) when a birth was going wrong. She spent time at the foundling halls. She became a full fledged Hawk, though her constant lateness due to her "nocturnal activities" - working as a healer in secret - and her own issues with waking up and punctuality, her pay was often docked, and she never got promoted above private.
And then, when she was 20... her past came back to bite her. (aka this is where book 1 starts)
There were new deaths being reported. Despite them happening in the fiefs mostly - where the Hawks had no jurisdiction because the fiefs technically are not part of the empire - they have been reported to the Hawklord, and one of the fieflords was willing to let certain Hawks come in and investigate. The fief was Nightshade. Kaylin was the senior Hawk on the team. One of the other two was a Dragon named Tiamaris - who she would later learn was one of the ones who argued that she should be killed at thirteen, and argued it again when she lost control of her powers - who had joined the Hawks just for this case as an expert on the marks (explained below) and as the most trusted member of the Dragon Court who knew the most about the fiefs. The final member of the team was a man with a face full of scars who had been a Shadow Wolf. the Wolves were the ones who hunted down the most dangerous criminals and made the arrests when the Hawks found out the who but did not find the criminal while investigating the crime. Shadow Wolves were the ones with authorization to kill. The Shadow Wolf... was Severn.
After Kaylin tried, and failed, to kill Severn in the Hawklord's tower, she was told to chose... work with him on this case, or give up being a Hawk forever. Which was how she wound up on a case to investigate dead children in the fief of Nightshade who were all marked the way she was marked with someone who had spent 7 years studying the marks and arguing for her death, and the man who killed her children.
On their first foray back into the fief of her childhood, they met the fieflord, The outcaste Barrani Nightshade himself. Nightshade was nothing like any of the Barrani she had ever met before and one of the first things he did was to put an ownership mark on her face. No warning, she had no clue what he was doing or why, but nearly every Barrani who saw it either wanted to kill him - if they were Hawks and were upset on her behalf, or wanted to kill her - for being a mortal who had the audacity to bear the Erenne mark of an outcaste. He said the mark would keep her safe in his fief from all but stupidity. That any who attacked her in Nightshade would have him to deal with. And his men... did seem to defer to her, and it let her move freely through the fief and investigate corpses that might have otherwise been kept from the City's law.
She learned that the corpses were sacrifices... being made to her. There was exactly one Outcaste Dragon, and he was using ancient and forbidden death magic to try and create a god of death and destruction that he could control.
(We learn later that the marks on her are the Marks of the chosen, and he was being opportunistic to jump on the chance, but there is the possibility he somehow influenced the choice. This is as of yet unknown. We don't learn until much later that she was not, in fact, the first Mortal to be chosen.)
The sacrifices were being made...to Kaylin. To the one who bore the original marks. The children were being killed to imbue her with death magic. But she had been using the magic to heal. She had been using the magic of death to give and preserve life. And that made the magic more hers, and made it harder for him to control her.
Nightshade had told Severn, in that night when he was missing, that whoever the sacrifices were being made to, there would be two on the longest night, and one or both would be close to her, emotionally and/or physically. Severn was too old to be one of them. But he knew it had to be Steffi and Jade. He killed them to spare them a worse death, or so he thought at that time.
Deep within Castle Nightshade, she discovered quite by accident, that the bracer that stops her magic also protects her from some magics, as it could not pass a magical barrier that an Old One tried to drag her through. She also learned Lord Nightshade's True Name.
In the middle of all of this, one of the foundlings had been hurt. Catti. She fell, and broke her back and neck. Kaylin rushed over and healed her. And that healing potentially doomed the child and Kaylin both.
When she had left the fiefs at 13, the deaths had stopped. They had restarted when they did because the window for the spell was closing, and he had to make one last attempt or give up any chance of controlling her, forever. They went from one a month to one every three days. And, unfortunately, Catti was a gift to the Outcaste. Kaylin had poured so much of herself into the healing, that he could use Catti to finish what he started.
He had his undead Barrani minions kidnap the child from the Foundling Halls. When Severn showed up, Kaylin again tried to kill him. The Hawks came in and separated them, Kaylin was put on report and taken off the case, but Kaylin's punishment was cut short. Tiamaris figured out that the link between Kaylin and Catti could work both ways. Kaylin was needed to find Catti before it was too late. He seconded her back on the case, called Severn, and they followed Catti's connection back into Nightshade.
They were running out of time. Kaylin could feel on her own skin as the marks were written on Catti. Tiamaris ripped a deeply moored fence out of the way, but it was Kaylin who used magic to blast a hole in the wall of the guard tower where Catti was being marked and prepped to be killed. They fought the undead Barrani, and Kaylin got to see Severn standing astride Catti's bound form, not killing her to steal the chance at using her for power, but defending her.
They rescued Catti, and they returned to the halls of Law. Where apparently a Barrani Lord, Lord Evarrim was waiting for her; despite having been told that she was on report and not expected in for at least a week. He was determined to wait until she arrived.
But arrive she did, with Catti. Kaylin lost her temper and snapped that unlike the Barrani, at least mortals had the sense to stay dead when they were killed, and suddenly Lord Evarrim had something more important to attend to. She was informed soon after by people who did not witness the interaction that she was not to mention the dead Barrani to anyone. And apparently Evarrim counted as anyone.
The Tha'alani had to be called in, because they needed to learn what Catti had seen. Because of Kaylin's hatred for the race of mind readers, and in deference to how much Catti had gone through, the Tha'alani brought in was Ybelline, the Castelord of the Tha'alani. She was brought in because she is gentle, kind, and almost impossible to hate. She was careful with Catti, and for the first time, Kaylin saw that the memories the Tha'alani took hurt them, saw some of the pain they suffered, and the first layer of her hatred and racism against them sloughed away. When Ybelline stumbled, Kaylin was the one who moved to catch her. Kaylin who once said she would sooner die than ever allow one of them to touch her again. While making their report to the representatives of the Dragon Court - her first meeting with Sanabalis and Diarmat and Emmerain - Kaylin's hatred of the Tha'alani thawed into her ability to start to like Ybelline, and Sanabalis became almost intrigued by Kaylin - both things that would strongly impact her life in the near future.
They took care of debriefings, and then realization hit. They had been able to save Catti because the timing to kill her wasn't right. That timing... was that day. Despite their injuries and exhaustion, Kaylin, Severn, and Tiamaris raced for Nightshade again.
Getting help from the Fieflord - and speaking with an Old One that added to the marks on her body - took time they could ill afford to spare, but gave them assistance they would much need. They left, with back up on their heels.
Lacking one connected sacrifice, the Outcaste was going to kill as many children as he could within the required time frame. Severn moved to protect the kids, not kill them. Again.
Then Kaylin came face to face with Makuron the Black - the only outcaste Dragon. With the Bracer still off, she faced off against him. She became lost to the magic screaming through her, and she sent it against him, used it against him, like a firehose, stripping away scales and flesh, just with the sheer intensity of the amount of magic she was streaming at him. Stripped bone and muscle until she saw the Word that was at the heart of him. A True Word, like the marks on her skin, the core and life of all immortals of her reality. She saw the word, she could have destroyed it... and thus him.
Except Severn stopped her. Because with her power flowing unchecked, she wasn't just killing the Dragon. She was killing the children. She could have killed Makuron and been free of him forever, but the kids would have died. And Kaylin would rather die a thousand times over than ever hurt a child. She let Severn stop her, haunted by the fact that she hadn't seen or heard them, hadn't even remembered they existed. But Severn had saved them, saved them all... from her. The Dragon got away. The other Hawks came and took the other children to the foundling halls, and to a better life than they ever had in the fiefs. It had been made clear the Death Magic could no longer bind or control her. What she had done with her powers, and her strength of will had made it impossible for Makuron to ever control her. So while he was still a danger, this particular threat was over.
And she slept for three days after. Fighting a Dragon, and channeling that much power took its toll on her overtired half-starved body.
When she returned to work after five days, she was given a choice. She would decide if Severn remained a Hawk or returned to the Wolves. The Hawklord let her make the choice. Because Severn had requested that the choice be hers. For all the pain and confusion, for as much as she told herself it was better if he went back to the Shadows and the past, curled in the warm hug of the Hawklord, crying into his tabard... she chose.
Severn remained a Hawk.
End of Book 1.
Book two brings us very shortly after the events of the first, Kaylin back on duty despite her injuries. Unfortunately, the Emperor has decided that her magic is too dangerous to leave untrained, and has assigned her magic lessons. Kaylin who hates magic, doesn't want to be reminded of what she almost did, and is terrified that becoming a mage will mean she'd no longer be a Hawk went from a sullen student to a resentful and actively insulting one. She chased off imperial mages rapidly, some simply by her failure to treat their experience and age with respect. Also, one time when told to light a candle, she cut it in half.
Marcus put her on desk duty, because of the mark she bore from Nightshade, the fact that Lord Evarrim was trying to get to her - and had been denied by the Hawks three times already - and the fact that the Barrani Castelords had called High Court during the festival. Marcus was trying to keep her safe, which chafed. And Teela had been called to Court and was possibly in trouble for failing to inform her Lord and Lady that Nightshade had marked Kaylin.
Kaylin resented all this protection. Resented more when Nightshade all but kidnapped her, claiming he did not want her anywhere near the High Court. Told her she would be free to return to her life if she wished when everything was over. He claimed it was not a kidnapping, but she was given no real choice, and he altered her mirror so her calls would go to his castle.
The call came late in the night, the Midwives. She ran for the delivery, one of the fieflord's guards - Andellen - in toe. He was somewhat awed by the birth, and by the infant, and after got her back to her apartment so she could sleep off the efforts. She was too tired to survive the trip to the castle. Severn was waiting there, and Andellen left her with him. She passed out before she could ask anything else.
Work the next afternoon - because she overslept and was late again - started with her new magic teacher. Lord Sanabalis of the Dragon Court. Who she quickly learned, was difficult, if not impossible, to intentionally annoy. Against her own determination, she even began to almost like him. They discussed her transcripts, her potential future, the fact that her bracer went to Severn now, instead of the Hawklord when she took it off. But before the actual lesson could actually progress, she was saved, as it were, by an emergency.
The Hawklord was waiting for her in his tower, and he wasn't alone. Teela was there, dressed in finery and standing in such a way that even after having spent the last 7 years being taught to look, spot, and notice - to watch like a Hawk, Kaylin failed to recognize her. At first.
There was a crisis at the High Court. A Barrani Lord had been poisoned. Not atypical, and not usually a cause for a crisis, especially not one that would ever involve a human. But the High Court had gathered for a ritual called Leoswuld, the changing of hands of the leadership, and this was the younger son of the current High Lord. Kaylin went to heal the Lord of the West March. She, Severn, and Teela were almost killed in the High Halls of the Barrani on their way, and only Kaylin's magical affinity made her realize there was a trap in time to stop Teela from running face first into it. She tried to do the healing on the Lord of the West March, but she could find nothing actually wrong with him.
And then... she fell INTO him.
Deep within the mind if the Lord of the West March was a forest, and eventually Kaylin realized the only chance she had of either finding him in his own mindscape, or leaving, was to plant something of herself. She planted her tabard, the Hawk, in his forest. A tree with golden leaves grew, and it drew him to her. He awoke, bringing her back to her own body. He named her Kyuthe - chosen family - and as such she was to be considered protected. This mostly outweighed the offensive mark on her face.
After she had left, she was brought back to meet the High Lord and the Lady of the High Court. She had Lord Andellen with her, and only her standing as Kyuthe to the son of the Lord of the High Court kept her, and him, from being killed for daring to set foot on the grounds - both belonging in some means to the outcaste Nightshade.
She wound up taking the test of name - which should have been impossible for a mortal, as mortals have no True Names. Also she took it with Severn, and taking it with someone else was likewise impossible. By the end of the test she had her own True Name and part of another. She learned during that test what Severn had done after she ran away seven years prior. He had buried her girls. He had gone alone, in winter, with corpses, protected their bodies, and buried them.
She got drawn into the situation unfolding. The Lord of the High Court was going to hand the control of the High Court to his son. Since his eldest son, the Lord of the Green was indisposed, by rights it should have gone to the Lord of the West March. But in an atypical situation, the brothers actually loved each other dearly, and the Lord of the West March was certain that his brother could still be saved. He planned to refuse Leoswuld, and that refusal would potentially end the world. Both roles had to be turned over during the ceremony, or the creatures under the High Halls - what was left of the Barrani who had failed the test of Name, and their beasts - would be free to decimate the city.
But the Lord of the Green had failed his test, and the Lady in her weakness, had done what no one should do and had gone to save him. Kaylin learned what Names meant to Barrani, and that the duty of the Lady was to go to the Source of True Names, and draw one out for each Barrani born, that the babies would not truly live until gifted with these Names. That the Lady had been ambitious pulling a name for her eldest son, and had failed to gift him with all of it. That had left him weak against the creatures below the halls, and one held what of his Name he had. The rest of the Name Kaylin had taken from her test went to him, and whole the name was too much to be held against him. He and Kaylin rushed through the worst of the fighting to the thrones so he could take the power offered.
Kaylin had come in the end, not as a Hawk or a Healer, but as a Midwife, helping with a life that had been waiting centuries to truly begin.
But the Lady, the Consort, she had been injured in the fighting and needed help completing her part of the journey. Kaylin and the daughter of the High Lord and the Consort helped the woman to the Source, where she offered herself, granting her power onto her daughter, the new Consort.
Kaylin, a Lord of the High Court, was named Kyuthe to the new Lady as well. Despite the mark of Nightshade. And despite the fact that by that point she was wearing the crest of Lord Sanabalis. She was granted one favour, ask what she would. She asked that Andellen be allowed to have the rest of the festival welcome in the Halls on his own. He was granted a hundred years. And with that, she had Andellen's loyalty forever, second only to his loyalty to Nightshade and the Castelords.
Thus ends book two, more or less.
Book three:
With the Festival ending, Lord Evarrim forbidden her, and the end of the world averted, Kaylin was assigned a new beat. Elani street. The place where a few genuine purveyors of magic sold their services alongside "Fortunes told!" and "Love potions here!". As actual magic is physically painful to Kaylin most of the time, and the frauds ticked her off, this was not her favorite beat.
There was exactly one person on the whole of the street she actually liked. - Evanton. He was a querulous old man who used a sort of magic that for some reason did not make her arms itch or hurt, and he liked her - as much as he liked anyone. Neither of them cared much about the other's almost intolerable rudeness, and that helped. Evanton made sure a report got to them about a theft, while insisting he didn't actually file the report himself. A reliquary was stolen not from his shop, but from the Garden within. For the first time, Kaylin got to see what it was that he really did for a living, following him through his cramped and messy shop, down a narrow hall, and through what looked like an old warped door... into the Elemental Garden. A place larger on the inside that managed to exist outside the Empire despite being firmly inside it. There were no ceilings, and she would come to learn that this is where the heart of the Elements live. The Elements for ALL worlds. She was warned to touch nothing, to not even look at anything for too long.
At a pool that looked small but was infinitely deep she saw what seemed to be the bruised face of a child. And it called out to her.
So they had a missing item from a room no one should have been able to get into without the Keeper - Evanton - and a missing child, neither officially reported. And then a message came to Kaylin. Ybelline wanted to see her. Ybelline had seen from Catti's mind how much Kaylin loved children. So it was to Kaylin she reported that one of their children was missing. Cut off from the Tha'alaan. Somehow.
All Tha'alani, Kaylin learned, were mentally linked through something called the Tha'alaan, which was actually a sentient portion of the core of Water. This book was huge for character development for Kaylin as she learned the history of the Tha'alani and became protective over them - seeing them as very childlike and innocent, and as she met the Oracles for the first time and discovered she had been wrong about them as well. They too were very like children. One, a young boy named Everly - who did not speak, but painted the future. In this case, her future. Her with all of her carefully hidden marks, in a dress she never owned, in the Elemental Garden.
A trip to the Archives which left the Arkon less than pleased with her ended with her laying a dead Dragon's soul to rest as she agreed to accept his burden - a reliquary with the name of Water.
With the burden, she could not enter Castle Nightshade the usual way, and had to take a more convoluted and dangerous route. It was below Nightshade that she met Elemental Water for the first time. It was Water she had seen in the pond - taking the appearance of a young girl to get her attention. Water begged for her help, as the man who has stolen the reliquary was trying to use it to control Water. Which would kill the Tha'alani and possibly wipe out the city. Kaylin agreed to help.
Everything wound up tying together in the end, including a murder of an older couple found drowned in their apartment, nowhere near a tub. The man who had kidnapped the child was one of the Tha'alani, but he had been born disabled and could neither read minds nor touch the Tha'alaan. He was being controlled by a man named Donalan Idis. Idis had been one of the people experimenting on the Tha'alani, trying to replicate their power for the Emperor. When the Tha'alani agreed to serve the emperor as his interrogation squad, the torture and experiments were halted. Idis had Grethan - the deaf Tha'alani boy - kidnap the child - Mayalee - to continue his experiments. For some reason Grethan could get into the Garden as well, and Idis had used him to steal the reliquary, having figured out that Water had something to do with their abilities.
Kaylin and the others rushed into the Garden to face Idis who had returned there. Kaylin was wearing the Elemental Dress gifted her by Water as protection - the dress in Everly's painting. She called upon Fire, telling it stories in exchange for Fire's assistance getting to Water as the Garden had rearranged itself and they were in a rush.
They fought Idis, and Kaylin, in a move she was sure was suicidal, managed to dive for the reliquary while Grethan - turned to their side - and the others had distracted Idis. She knocked it from his hand, and it - and her - fell into the Water.
Kaylin connected with the Tha'alaan, and saw that the Tha'alani were standing on the port walls, hoping to calm Water by their presence, hoping that as Water refused to kill who they were once, that they putting themselves there could get it to back down again.
Kaylin was able to close the reliquary, finally, with the strength of the Tha'alani focused on her, aiding her. And Water able to be fully in control of itself again, receded. The city, and Kaylin, were safe.
Idis did not survive, which was just as well as he was slated for execution. Grethan, because he could get into the Garden on his own somehow was made to be Evanton's apprentice and eventual replacement. She left the burden she took from the dead Dragon in the Garden. They took Mayalee home, but stopped at the Foundling Halls first because Mayalee had asked if Kaylin had any children and while Kaylin was saying no... Severn had said yes. This lead to taking the Foundlings to the Tha'alani quarter when she brought Mayalee home.
Thus endeth book three.
Book four...
Man on the street knew that the Tha'alani came out of their quarter en masse - which they never do - and stood on the port wall, hands joined, and a wall of water large enough to wipe out Elantra rose to meet them. Like Kaylin used to, most of the common folk feared the Tha'alani. They were different, and their mind reading abilities were nightmare fodder. So knowing nothing of Idis or the stolen reliquary or the fact that the Tha'alani had gathered to save them all, people thought the reclusive mind-readers had tried to kill them all.
Kaylin, having gotten over her bigotry was beyond furious and impatient with the people who hadn't, and the city was in riot. The Emperor had enlisted the royal playwright - Richard Rennick - to write a publicity piece about the Tha'alani that made them look like the good guys, without actually being allowed to mention Idis or the Empire's part in their tragic past. And Kaylin and Severn, having been in the Garden, and having a long list of things they're not allowed to actually tell Rennick, were sent to advise him.
Unfortunately, life rarely gives people one crisis at a time, and that was no different for Kaylin and the other Hawks. Marcus, their Leontine sergeant was arrested for murder by the Leontine Caste Courts. As they chose to keep it a Caste case, and as there was no one involved that was not Leontine, legally the Hawks could do nothing for him.
In his place, as acting sergeant the Hawklord assigned Constance Mallory. He had been vying for Marcus' job back in the day, and resented Marcus and how he ran his office. He especially had it out for Kaylin and was determined to see her fired. Her assignment to the Palace tending to Rennick was the only thing that saved her job at all. Severn even came in the mornings to make sure she made it to work on time for check in. But since Rennick kept hours like Kaylin prefered to, after check in, they had their mornings free, and used them to investigate Marcus' case unofficially.
Rennick wound up a little too fascinated with Kaylin's part in the prior crisis and trying to keep to Mallory's hours, and Rennicks, and trying to investigate Marcus' case, while also coming under personal attack... Kaylin was not as careful as she should be and let things slip that she shouldn't. Including taking him to the Tha'alani quarter to see for himself how they lived, and healing several dying Tha'alani adults in front of him.
While dealing with Rennick and Mallory and Marcus, Kaylin had gotten a call from a Leontine woman she had acted as a midwife for in a previous book. The birth had been odd, because there had been only one kit, the mother had an abnormally hard time of the birth, and none of the other wives had been present. Given the lack, Kaylin had, in addition to healing the mother and birthing the cub, acted as a wife and helped lick the baby clean. (Gross, but actually plot crucial, not that she knew it would be important. She just thought it was an honour she couldn't figure out how to decline.) The baby was even named for her, Roshan Kaylarr. Roshan's mother mirrored, asked her to come quickly and alone, that there was a problem with the baby. Kaylin went, but Severn went with her. They were attacked. The mother turned into some sort of horrible monster, and there was a whole lot of magical fire. Leontines, racially, didn't have mages. None of this made sense. But Kaylin got the baby out and safe, and took him to the only place she could think to take him. She took him to Marcus' wives, certain that the Pridelea could not only protect the infant, but could also clue her into what was going on.
The Pridelea explained what was going on. The mother - Marai was her real name - was sister to one of Marcus' younger wives, Sarabe. Sarabe and Marai had both been born red-furred, and in the wilds that would have been a death sentence. In the city, they were allowed to live, but forbidden to bear sons. Kaylin was horrified to learn that had they had any male cubs, the kitlings would have been killed. And of course, Marai... had a son.
Makuron wanted a son born of two redfurs, he wanted Roshan. He told him a story made of True Words that had changed him. Oogrim told the story as best he could to Marai, which is what had changed her. Kaylin begged Kayala and the others to keep the baby safe. They agreed reluctantly to try.
Kaylin approached Marcus in his cell about the situation, and got more of the story from him. He did kill his friend, but something had been wrong, off. He had kept it to himself, because it stunk of mage-craft, and if it was, he was afraid the elders would demand the death of Sarabe. He was protecting his wife. Kaylin got Sanabalis involved. Sanabalis told the Loentines a story, in the Old Tongue, using True Words, and calmed many of their fears. Kaylin saw the story as runes in the air as he spoke. They exhumed the corpse, and proved that the friend had in fact been possessed, Marcus had been acting in self defense, and would probably be free to go. Once the matter of Sarabe was decided. And they wanted the cub, to kill him, of course.
Meanwhile, Oogrim attacked the Pridlea trying to get to his son. Sanabalis granted them shelter in the Palace for a time, and compromised with Kaylin, promising to spare the child - for now.
Kaylin and Severn and some others chased Oogrim and Marai to the fiefs, and Kaylin called out to what was left of Marai. She claimed the right of Pridlea, claimed at as she was there for the birth, and licked the cub clean, she was one of Marai's wives, and one of Roshan's mothers. Her words got to Marai, and Marai begged her for a story to help her remember who she was. Not knowing where the Words came from, Kaylin told her. And Marai was herself enough to take down Oogrim, but not enough to survive it.
Rennick, going back to him, had learned that Kaylin had taken the foundlings to the Tha'alani Quarter when Mayalee was saved, and decided to use that. Because if ten year old orphans weren't scared of the Tha'alani, he predicted that grown adults would feel pretty silly taking up arms against them.
Kaylin tried to convince the Arkon and Sanabalis to spare the baby.
The Arkon finally offered a plan. He would tell the baby a Story. If Kaylin could convince him that the Story did what it should, if it would keep him from being like Oogrim, the baby would be allowed to live and grow until he gave them cause to change their minds. if Kaylin convinced the Arkon, the Arkon would convince the emperor. So the Arkon spoke, and Kaylin saw the words, she touched the ones that felt right to her, and lifted the baby to them. When she touched them, they turned blue, and that blue drained into the eyes of the infant. Blue was not a Leontine eye colour. But in the end the Arkon was satisfied, and the baby was Kaylin's.
But as much as Kaylin loved children, she knew her life was not suitable for one, she couldn't be the mom the baby needed. So she brought him to Marrin - the Leontine who ran the Foundling Halls because after her sons were killed for red fur, she had decided never to have kits of her own again, but had always wanted a family. So the foundling hall got its first non-human child. Roshan. Kaylin's son.
So ended book four.
Book Five:
This book mostly dealt with the rest of Kaylin's past, specifically her time in Barren. While working her Elani street beat with Severn - Marcus reinstated - there was a commotion at Margot's fortune telling shop. Thugs had broken a window, and when Kaylin went to arrest them, one of the thugs turned. Morse. The woman who had taken her in and taught her to kill when she was 13. Morse was there to deliver a message from Barren to Kaylin. Blackmail. Come back to Barren and serve him again, or he'd tell all her new little law abiding friends in the city why she crossed the river in the first place. Tell them everything.
Teela and Tain took Kaylin and Severn out drinking to weasel the story out of her and made it bluntly clear that they knew enough to know that it didn't matter what Barren thought he had over Kaylin. She had earned her place, and they and the rest of the Hawks who knew her would fight to the death if need be to defend her place among them. Except as they were Barrani, it was far from being sappy or reassuring.
In the end, Kaylin decided to go see what Barren wanted, but not alone. Severn and Tiamaris went with her. Morse cursed her for all kinds of an idiot for showing up when she didn't have to. But she took her to see Barren. Or rather... tried to. They were attacked on Capstone, halfway to the white towers where Barren lived, right at the inner edge of the fief.
Kaylin had been learning throughout why the fiefs existed - at the center of them, where there had once been one more fief, was a Darkness that threatened the whole of the world. The destroyed fief was called Ravellon. And it was Makuron's base of operations. The fiefs each have a special building that stands as defense against the shadows, such as Castle Nightshade. The person strong enough to be fief lord takes the fief, and the building, and they use their power to hold the border. Barren's hold was failing. The monsters and other Shadows were appearing more and more often, and if Barren fell, the city would also fall.
A chaos storm hit while they were investigating the odd Tower where Kaylin had sheltered her first night in Barren, and Tiamaris, Kaylin, and Severn were drawn through the storm and into the past. A past before the fall of Ravellon, where the fiefs were a rich part of the city. And in the past...they met Nightshade. Before he was outcaste. Long before Kaylin and Severn had ever been born. Seeing his mark on a mortal intrigued him. Feeling that she held his name fascinated him. He decided to tag along, and it was very very hard to tell him no.
They investigated the tower once again, and they were there when energy struck it, when it "awoke". When it went from being a tower to being The Tower. It was not where Barren ruled in her time. The border was falling because he didn't hold the Tower. But that was in the present. Back in the past, the Tower invited them in. And something about Kaylin and the marks of the Chosen on her skin awoke the Tower in a way none of the other buildings had woken. And the Tower... tried to communicate with them. Badly.
It tried to show that it understood Kaylin by showing her a nightmare landscape of her past, her dead. It read her mind and used what it found to try to communicate with her. It... did not go well.
The four of them finally found the heart of the Tower. When Tiamaris touched the wall, Kaylin could see words left in his wake. No one else's touch activated anything, and only Kaylin could see the words. They worked together to read them. They found the heart of the Tower, and the Tower took on the form of an avatar to try and speak with them more directly. She looked like Kaylin, but Kaylin with the one thing she always wanted. Wings. And without the marks that she hated. Kaylin came to realize that for all her power, the Tower was like a newborn, like a small child. It didn't understand. She and the others spoke to it. Kaylin named her, called her Tara, after her mother. She wasn't ever going to call any sort of child "it". They spoke with Tara for a while, and then Tara helped them get home, even though she would be lonely until they found her again. Or... so they all thought.
Kaylin now knew why Nightshade marked her and gave her his name when she first met him, because she had those things when he first met her. He was preserving the timeline by doing that, and by never letting on what he knew until she caught up to him that way.
They learned that before Barren the fief had been called Illien, and the fieflord of the same name had been a Barrani. By all accounts... Barren should not have been able to kill him.
They went back to Barren, learned that he was a human who had an imperial writ out for his death. He fled to the fiefs where the Wolves had no jurisdiction to hunt. There didn't seem to be a fieflord, the fief was falling. So he flung all his magic into the border, and called himself fieflord. But Barren was a name he took for himself, and for the fief. Because that was what the fief was, since he didn't hold it properly. It was Barren.
They returned to the Tower and found Tara and what was left of Illien. He had been fascinated with the buildings in the fiefs that anchored them, and had accepted her, taking the power of a fieflord for himself. But she had been so lonely for so long, and he was the first one to find the Words at the heart of her, the first one to reawaken her. And she refused to let him leave. She held him by his Name. He tried to divest himself of his name, he was that desperate to escape her, and he thought he could manage it thanks to his studies. He failed. He was determined to use what power he had left to destroy her. He had done a lot of damage to the Words at her heart. He tried to attack Kaylin and Tiamaris and Severn when they tried to repair her, and she attacked to keep them from killing Illien - he was HERS.
The problem was, once they killed Illien... the fief had no lord at all. Someone had to take the fief to keep the Shadows back. Tara turned to Kaylin. But it was Tiamaris who claimed the power. Having been allowed to take his true form several times while helping save the city and the world, he had decided he could no longer handle being told when he could fly. He claimed the fief as his Horde. Tara accepted him. They became each other's master.
Tiamaris went to go inform Barren and Barren's cronies that the Tower, and the fief were his now. He offered Barren to Kaylin, pointing out that if she killed him, it wouldn't be a crime because she was in the fiefs where the law wasn't in effect. Kaylin wanted to, but refused, insisting he should face justice for what he did, but that she couldn't be the one to deal it. She wasn't a killer, not any more. She chose not to be.
Tiamaris nodded, accepting it, and was going to hand Barren over to Severn as a former Wolf to bring back to the empire... when Morse sprung, killing Barren, spitting on his corpse.
Tara and Tiamaris got to work at once remaking the fief - now called Tiamaris - into the city writ small, and a place Kaylin would always be welcome.
So ends book 5. More or less.
Book 6.
Cast in Chaos. The title says it all. The Mirror in the Hawk's office that told the time had been altered by Mallory during his tenure to remind Hawks to clock in and out properly. It had never been changed back. And... it started acting oddly.
More odd things started happening around the City. The Mirror in the palace spun wildly out of control. Door Wards acted up oddly... and there were strange births. A baby born with a third eye, another born fully lingual. The rain of blood was the most useful, though, because it let them map the boundaries of the space of weirdness.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the epicenter was Elani street. Where the charlatans were suddenly performing actual feats of magic. And no one was more surprised than they were! Margot accidently informed a noble lady that her father was under investigation by the Hawks for embezzlement. Unfortunately, that warning gave him time to go to ground, making a difficult case nearly impossible. The Garden was a mess as the Elementals expressed their displeasure over whatever it was that was happening.
Magic use was banned in the affected areas, except for in the most heavily protected part of the Arkon's library, where he was authorized to use it sparingly. He had a large flat alter that served as a scrying mirror that gave them some information. A painting Everly had started was also helping.
The clues started to come together. Kaylin went to go find Evanton in the Garden to find out if he knew anything...and she fell off of the world. She was in what looked like the Garden at first but felt dead and empty to her acute magical senses. She turned for the door to leave, and it started to recede, the more she ran the faster it fled her. Soon even the illusion of the Garden fell away and she was running through a grey featureless nothing.
After trying everything else she could think of... she called out to Nightshade using his True Name. He heard her. So did something else. Nightshade was able to use the portal of his castle to rip open a passage for her in the fabric of reality, but whatever had heard her - which should be impossible - followed her. It grabbed her legs. Nightshade grabbed her arms. A tug of war ensued, and when it was clear Nightshade was ready to cut off her legs to free her, she managed to kick free. The rip in reality closed behind her, trapping whatever monster had grabbed her in the space between worlds. But where it had held her, the marks on her legs were faded. In some places, they were gone all together.
With that experience, they had a focus for their clues and did a lot of dangerous studying.
They learned that the place she had been was the path between worlds. The Arkon's multiple world theory was all but proven. It was all but confirmed that humans had started on another world, which was why unlike every other sentient race on that world, their eye color did not change with their mood, and why they seemed so limited in so many ways compared to the other races.
And she learned that the beast that stalked between the worlds was called the Devourer and that he ate worlds, and was the reason almost no one traveled the roads between anymore, because traveling attracted him, and he would devour the travelers, and if he could, the world they arrived on.
The chaos storms seemed to be the heralds of a portal between worlds opening, that there were people, Kaylin discovered, from another world, fleeing the Devourer or the Shadows - ambiguous as to which, and heading for her world. The portal would, if Everly's painting was right, open out over Elani street - the epicenter for the magical anomalies. Other than Evanton and Grethan who could NOT leave without risking the safety of the world by leaving the Elements unattended, Elani street was evacuated.
In an unprecedented move The High Lord of the Barrani and the Consort agreed to meet with the Dragons to work together to figure out a way to save the world. They needed to figure out how to keep the rift from opening. Kaylin disagreed, wanted to save the lost people. It led to a huge fight between her and the Consort, the kind of fight that were there not a crisis probably would have seen Kaylin dead.
Kaylin consulted with Evanton who agreed that they shouldn't be trying to keep the portal from opening. Not that he was taking sides on if they should doom the strangers or not. He just thought it was a waste of precious time and resources as he felt it was impossible. And the Elements explained to them what the Devourer was. He was one of them.
Kaylin convinced a few key others that they wouldn't be able to keep the rift from opening. Mostly by telling them Evanton said so. Sanabalis, Ybelline, and the Arkon went with her and Severn to the Garden. Ybelline went to Water, the the Dragons went one to Fire one to Air. Evanton tried to calm Earth. Kaylin and Severn went back to the road between worlds to guide the travelers, in hopes they could get there before the Devourer caught up to them, but Kaylin was also plan B.
She fed the Devourer words, she spoke to him, merged with him. She became him and he became her. She learned of his sadness, his loneliness. He wasn't trying to eat the worlds, he was attracted to the True Word at their cores, and he was trying to learn, trying to find a way in, and unmaking them accidently in the process. She brought him back to the Garden, and she and the others reunited him with the other Elements, helped him find his home. Renamed him the Maker, as now that he was with the others again, rather than unmaking Words, he could use their help to MAKE Words, and thus worlds. Even if the Old Ones were no longer there to populate the worlds they made.
The People, as the strangers called themselves, they knew of the marks Kaylin wore, the marks of the Chosen. But to them the Chosen was revered, not hidden and secret, and they saw her as a leader.
After some fast politics, some drums that revealed the Shadows at the heart of the fiefs, and a flight of Dragons... the People moved into Tiamaris to help fight the Shadows. Those too were known to them on their world, and the People had spent countless generations at war with them. They were horrified to find their new home also infested, but determined to succeed here where they had failed before.
Kaylin did her best to help them settle in, but there was no rest for the weary....
Right before the chaos ended and the portal opened, there was another odd birth - a woman laid an egg. She and her husband didn't want it, so Mydra dropped it on Kaylin figuratively and told her it was her problem.
Magic lessons with Sanabalis resumed, and lessons in etiquette with Lord Diamart. It had been decided she was going to have to see the Emperor sooner rather than later, and with her inability to hide her thoughts from her face, her swearing, and her casual attitude, it was pretty much agreed that if she met him, he would be forced to eat her. Since the Emperor would rather that not happen, she had to take lessons.
When Tara learned that, she threw herself into helping, much to Kaylin's chagrin. Thankfully, in a sick sort of way, a crisis came up that meant that Diamart's desire to increase her lessons was deferred as Sanabalis requested that she be seconded to him for an unofficial investigation. Tiamaris had requested assistance in his fief investigating an odd crime, since he did not yet have a police force, and even Tara who could see everything was stumped.
Two things seemed to be happening at once. People were going missing - and since one was from the city, but went missing in the fief, the jurisdiction got grey, - and a murder victim had turned up. Several of her. They had found multiple of the same exact corpse, dressed the same way, in various places.
Investigations showed that these cases were not directly related to each other, but that the dead lady was somehow connected to the new Shadow Lieutenant attacking Tiamaris' border.
Being her usual stupid self, and following her instincts, Kaylin reached out for the fiend...and found a person. Trapped and bound by his name, but a person. She was able to win his temporary freedom, and he crossed the border into Tiamaris. He was one of the Norinar - The People. He was one of their "Ascended" which basically meant that he was a special warrior with a special duty that no one could quite explain, and a magical sword. But when they showed the Norinar an image of the dead woman, they reacted and tried to keep the memory crystal that held her image. They seemed to almost revear it.
And things only got more confusing from there. Like Maggeron - the Norinar from the Shadows - obsession with his sword, which he demanded Kaylin take because he was no longer worthy to keep her safe or wield her. Like the odd ripples in space around the disappearances. Like the odd places the woman would keep turning up dead.
Eventually, however, they got an answer of sorts. There were nine identical women, they were Dragons, and had shattered themselves to escape Makuron.
In the end, Kaylin realized that the women didn't each have a name, they each had part of one very complex name. She was able to reconstruct it, and ran it through with the sword that was part of one of the women, which sealed the final piece and freed her from the Outcaste. She saved one of the women and one only. But once again there was a female Dragon in the world. Bellusdeo.
When the Emperor had taken the throne, Bellusdeo and her sisters had already been long gone. All the dragons present had been given the choice to accept his rule and serve in his court, or take the long sleep. It is unclear if any who chose to take the long sleep were female. But there were no females in the court. This left Bellusdeo in a very odd position. Because Tiamaris kept his ties to the court, she was the only Dragon awake who hadn't sworn fealty to the Emperor. Being the only female, there was an expectation that she would join the court, and start breeding. She rather resented that. She also resented going from a warrior Queen who was practically a Goddess to the Noirinar to being told she had to be protected. The final straw was when she was informed she would be living at the Palace.
She decided she wasn't having any of that, she was going to live with Kaylin. In Kaylin's one room apartment. Kaylin wasn't given much choice. At all.
Things went from bad to worse when a rogue Barrani who was old enough - as many Barrani were - to remember the Draco-Barrani wars wanted to kill Bellusdeo. He threw an arcane bomb into Kaylin's window.
By rights, Kaylin and Bellusdeo should have been dead. But the power from the bomb hatched the egg that Kaylin had been sleeping curled around, and the familiar that hatched from it shielded them magically. It then proceeded to eat two of Kaylin's marks and then fall asleep around her shoulders.
No one quite knew what the familiar was, but the Dragons were all insulted when she said it looked like a baby Dragon. It was the size of a cat, and to Kaylin's eyes, looked transparent, except for the dark opal eyes and the glittering teeth. Other than saving them when it hatched, it seemed content to just chew on her hair sticks, her hair, her ears, occasionally her nose. Other from that, it seemed like a lazy housepet that could fly.
Kaylin was forced to move into the Palace - it was safer for Bellusdeo - while looking for a new home. But the Emperor wanted them to live somewhere safe, Bellusdeo wanted a place large enough for Maggeron to live with them. Kaylin wanted something that was HERS that she could afford.
It didn't help that Kaylin was getting less sleep than usual due to all the roaring that could be heard from anywhere in the palace as Bellusdeo argued with the other Dragons.
Furthermore, things were going from bad to worse with the case that Margot blew open. Apparently the corruption ran deeper than anyone realized. But they were hitting dead ends all over the place. And they still hadn't solved the missing persons cases in the fiefs. Though they were pretty sure that they were happening more in Nightshade than in Tiamaris. And that Nightshade was complicit. Or at least he told Kaylin that his people were his, and if he wanted to sell them, that was his business.
Disgusted, she swore never to go to his Castle again, no matter how badly they needed information.... so of course he countered by sending a message to the Hawklord. He had information that could close the embezzlement case and wrap it up with a neat little bow. And he would trade.
The Barrani High Court was making a sojourn to the West March for a ritual telling of a Story. He intended to go. His deal was simple. They wanted the information, Kaylin went with the caravan to the West March.
The Hawks couldn't refuse the deal. But as Severn had been named Lord when Kaylin was, and Teela was a Lord of the High Court long before she was a Hawk, they both had rights to go as well and did. And so did the Consort, who was still livid with Kaylin, even though she had been proven right. Or perhaps because she had been proven right.
Despite being Outcaste, apparently they could not stop Nightshade from attending, and he was an old friend of the Consort's from when she was still just next in line.
Kaylin learned that this story was some sort of massively big deal, and like the Story told to the Leontines, it can change or alter Barrani. It is why only Lords are allowed to make the journey, because they passed the Test of Name and are secure in their Names.
Along the way, they stopped at the Barrani version of wayhouses. Halliones. The Halliones are, much like Tara, ancient, aware, highly magical, and sentient buildings. They decide who sleeps in which rooms and with whom. One of them led Kaylin to a room one night where a dress was waiting in the cupboard for her. As her clothing had vanished when she had bathed, she pulled on the dress. And was met with dead silence when she joined the Barrani.
The story does not always have a Teller and a Harmoniste, but when it does, it portends an epic telling, and a very effective and complex - and dangerous - story. Kaylin's dress was the Blood of the Green. The garb of the Harmoniste. The Hallione had chosen her. Nightshade was to be the Teller.
The Hallione were more awake this journey than on most, which could be the fault of the familiar, no one was quite sure. But some of them actually spoke to Kaylin, and others rotated her into different rooming situations, leaving her on different nights, sharing a bed with the Consort, with Teela, and with Severn.
Most of her time in Wake was spent at this point. Due to game mechanics, she of course remembered none of that when she went back for a canon update, so I will finish her canon history here.
The trip was not... uneventful. They were attacked at one point by a man who looked Barrani, but seemed not to be, called Terrano, and his creatures of
Shadow and chaos. Kaylin wound up healing a number of Barrani that would have happily seen her dead for the insult. Teela went off with Kaylin's familiar to chase Terrano down while the rest of the party moved on as rapidly as they could. Kaylin was ****ed off at having to leave them behind, but wasn't given a choice.
One of the Hallione they stayed with was Bertolle. He led her into a graveyard within himself where there was a copy of her old apartment, and more..., where a number of his "Brothers" lay not quite dead, but something more than just dormant. Kaylin's familiar managed to revive them
Kaylin got to sleep in a replica of her own bed, after which Bertolle's brothers, whom Kaylin named with banal mundane human names like... Wilson... led what was left of the party though secret way known as the Outlands. It was, in theory, safer than the forest paths where the forest ferals and worse were hunting for the Consort and didn't much care who they killed to get to her.
A lot of things happened on the portal paths (the Outlands), I will be as succinct as I can with most of them. Evvarim summoned Elemental Fire which then promptly ignored him to focus on Kaylin, which was apparently NOt how things were supposed to work. Wilson and the others used their rather... flexible.. ideas of form to create a path for them to try and keep them together. They were attacked anyway (spoiler alert: Terrano, as we learn over the course of various books, can be in both the physical plane and the Outlands at the same time....). Kaylin finds a True Name inside one of the beasts and healed it. The beast, which had once been Barrani, vanished, leaving her the Name. It made itself at home on her forehead. She confronted Iberrienne, who was the one behind the arcane bomb that destroyed her apartment - and was meant to murder Bellusdeo - as well as being the one who was the primary one behind the kidnapping of the mortals.
Those mortals were found in the Otherlands. They formed a morbid ring that looked to the naked eye like a path, until seen through the wing of the familiar 9who had, like Teela, rejoined them by that point). Further investigation found sickly distorted runes that looked like a bad attempt to write True Words, and turned out to be the answer to a question Kaylin had asked "What happens if someone tries to lie with True Words?". It was... nightmarish. The false Words and the mortals were being used as part of a plan to assault Hallione Orbaranne and capture the Consort.
Kaylin helped save the Hallione, but the sacrificed humans had to remain with her. The Lord of the West March reunited with his sister, the Consort, and led them the rest of the way to the West March, bringing us to the end of book 7.
History continued here 
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