Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(102)

“If he wasn’t, the fiefs wouldn’t be standing in the aftermath. The fiefs are part of our world, right? Whatever happens here—or to the rest of the city—doesn’t destroy the fiefs. They’re still standing.”

Kattea cleared her throat.

This caught Kaylin’s attention immediately.

“I was alive when the city across the bridge disappeared. I don’t remember any of it—I was too young.”

This caused a predictable fuss, but in keeping with the Tha’alani, it was a muted fuss, and it was resolved in relative silence. Kaylin wished she could be on the other side of that silence, but held her peace. All eyes in the room turned to Gilbert, and from there, found Kattea.

Forehead stalks bobbed, eyes shifted color, people rose.

Ybelline, who had not yet taken a seat, seemed to stand at the center of a silent storm. Kaylin wanted to be her umbrella, but knew she didn’t actually need one. “Gilbert,” Ybelline finally said.

Gilbert nodded, his eyes slightly narrow, as if he’d followed the entire silent discussion. He probably had, but didn’t yet know what to make of it.

“If it is acceptable to you, Scoros wishes to communicate more directly.”

Scoros rose as Gilbert nodded. He apparently had some questions of his own to ask. Gilbert was silent, however, and became as still as he had when Ybelline had made contact with him the first time.

Because Scoros was prepared, he didn’t collapse the way Ybelline had, but he stiffened until he appeared to be almost as rigid as Gilbert, and when he withdrew, he was visibly shaken. He didn’t turn to Ybelline; instead he turned to Kattea, who had surrendered Gilbert’s arm. She made no attempt to take it back—she couldn’t. She’d taken an involuntary step—or three—away from Scoros.

Scoros immediately raised both of his hands, palms out, and stopped moving. “I do not intend you harm,” he said quietly, “and I will not touch you at all without your explicit permission or a direct command from the Emperor.”

“They don’t particularly want to read our thoughts or know our secrets,” Kaylin told the younger girl. “They find our fear suffocating and our lives difficult. If it weren’t for the Emperor’s commands, they wouldn’t interact with us at all—not the way they interact with each other, anyway.”

Kattea said nothing.

Scoros stepped back, found himself a chair and sat heavily. He looked at Kattea. “Please. Tell us what you remember. Or tell us what you were told.”

*

Kattea left Gilbert standing to one side of the room; he was, once again, unaware of his surroundings, his two eyes blinking rapidly, his third staring at nothing anyone in the room could see. The familiar on Kaylin’s shoulder lifted his head, looked at Gilbert and snorted. He then lowered it again and closed one eye. Kaylin thought he would sleep, but he lifted his head once more, grumbling, and stretched his wings, smacked Kaylin—possibly accidentally—on the cheek with one and pushed himself off her shoulder.

He flew to Kattea and hovered in front of her pale face. He didn’t land; he did squawk—quietly, for him—while he hovered.

“Put out your arm,” Kaylin told the younger girl, gentling her voice as she realized Kattea was rigid with fear. Kattea blinked. Her eyes widened as she looked at the familiar, and some of that fear—though not the bulk of it—lessened. She put her arm out, and the familiar—complaining quietly the entire time—landed on her forearm, then inched his way up to her small shoulder.

She giggled. It was part nerves and partly the effect of his small claws; he didn’t dig in, but they tickled.

“We will not touch you without your permission,” Scoros said again. “Fear,” he continued, in a very conversational voice, “is difficult for any of us to deal with. You think adults don’t feel fear—but you are wrong. We all feel fear. It is part of being human. Secrets are harder for my people. Children don’t have any; they have not yet learned how to keep things from their kin. But because they can see the experiences of the rest of us, they understand that their fear, or their sense of shame, is not unique—it is natural. For your kin, the shame and the fear grow far deeper roots; they become larger and stronger.

“It is not so with the Tha’alani. There is nothing that you have felt that we have not felt. There is nothing new in it, for us; it is new to you because you have nothing to compare it with. But we understand that your secrets are necessary to you and the way you think and live.

“In your world, which is our world in the near future, almost everyone who lives in the city has died. In our world, which is our present, that future has not happened—yet. It is to prevent that destruction that we ask you now to consider allowing us to see parts of your life. We don’t know what destroys the city. Any clue—any information that your parents might have given you, anything that your neighbors might have said to your parents when you were too young to understand the words—might help us.”

The small dragon nuzzled her cheek—and then bit her hair.

“No,” Kattea said.

The small dragon squawked.

Gilbert failed to notice any of this. Kaylin wondered what he had heard in the Tha’alaan; he didn’t hear what she’d heard, to be so frozen in place by it. She wondered, briefly, if all thought had...dimensionality; if there were parts of thought itself that she couldn’t grasp, even if they were her own thoughts. She didn’t particularly like where this was leading.