Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(113)

Mandoran walked around Annarion, who was stiff and wary, and presented himself to Ybelline. “This doesn’t hurt, does it?” he asked.

“Not unless you fight it, and even then, the pain is not physical.”

“I would not do that.” The Arkon had arrived.

*

If Mandoran was willing to listen to his cohort and the Chosen, he was absolutely not willing to take advice from an ancient Dragon—a Dragon who had, no doubt, existed at the time of the wars of the flights. He practically grabbed Ybelline by her shoulders and yanked her toward him. The castelord stumbled; Kaylin had to suppress the very strong urge to knock Mandoran off his feet.

Ybelline righted herself, lifted her hands and placed them on either of Mandoran’s shoulders—not his cheeks, as she had done with Kattea.

The Arkon exhaled smoke.

It was very hard to ignore an angry Dragon when he happened to be standing at your back. Kaylin managed, turning to face Annarion, as Mandoran was now busy. “The Tha’alani had an experimental magic that seemed to protect them from whatever it was that will destroy this city. I don’t know if everyone dies—but the Tha’alani quarter perishes. Teela is alive—”

“Is she anywhere near Bellusdeo?”

“No,” Annarion said quietly. “She is not certain where Bellusdeo is.”

The Arkon’s eyes couldn’t get any more red, but he seemed game to try. He glared at Kaylin. She didn’t take this personally because he was glaring at everything, at the moment. “She has Maggaron with her.”

“And Sanabalis.” The Arkon exhaled. “With luck, he will actually listen to her. Bellusdeo’s tone can be difficult, but she is not, in general, reckless. And she has lived with Shadow and its subtleties for centuries.”

“I’m not sure this is about Shadow.”

“And you feel it is not? Given the sigils and their similarities?”

Kaylin glanced at Gilbert. “I’m beginning to think that we don’t understand nearly enough about what we call Shadow. Gilbert lived in Ravellon. There are elements of Gilbert that we would classify as Shadow—but I don’t think he means to absorb, devour or transform us. Or kill us all,” she added, just in case this wasn’t clear. “Gilbert was the one who first warned us against mirror use. It was only when we spoke to the Tha’alanari that his warning grew teeth.”

Ybelline pressed her weaving stalks gently against Mandoran’s forehead. Ybelline knew Mandoran’s mind was not Barrani, although it had once been. She knew that he was not immortal in the way the Barrani and the Dragons now were.

Her eyes, which she’d closed, widened; her entire body stiffened. Kaylin was behind her instantly, set to catch her if she fell. Mandoran, however, caught her waist, bracing her. His eyes were blue—but it was not the shade that meant danger or death. It was a pale, sky blue.

She had never seen that color in his eyes—in any of their eyes—before. She had seen it in the Consort, in the West March. She glanced at Annarion and was surprised to see that his eyes, while the regular sort of blue, now rested in a face that was bordering on crimson. So. Sky blue meant what she probably thought it meant.

Ybelline did not blush. She forced herself, slowly, to relax. It occurred to Kaylin that this was something Ybelline had probably encountered in the Imperial dungeons, and the thought made Kaylin nauseous. Severn touched her shoulder; she jumped. But after a long, slow breath, she leaned into his hand.

Annarion frowned. Whatever Mandoran was passing on, he was listening. “Kaylin.”

She nodded.

“You said it was raining in the Keeper’s storefront?”

She hadn’t—to Annarion. Clearly, Ybelline was explaining everything that had led to this point.

“Teela wants to know why, or how.”

“Tell her to ask Evanton.”

“She wants me to smack you and repeat her question.”

“I don’t know. It makes no sense to me, either—the water, the force of it, is contained by the Keeper, in the Garden.

“Evanton was in a room upstairs,” she said, speaking—and thinking—slowly. “I think he was trying to contain the water’s spread in the store.”

“Confine it to the store?”

“No—not exactly. I think there’s got to be some sort of fail-safe there, some way of speaking to the elements when it’s no longer safe for even Evanton, the Keeper, to do so.”

“You are certain?”

“I can go back to Evanton’s—after we’ve at least got some idea of what’s going on in the Winding Path. Does Teela think that’s where she is? Yes, I know she said she doesn’t know. But Teela thinks in her sleep. There’s no way she’s sitting on her butt in the dark not trying to figure things out.”

“She thanks you for your confidence. And asks you to shut up.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Annarion said softly, “Ybelline is speaking now. She is describing the exact steps taken to cast the spell that might have preserved the Tha’alani for some hours before they were also destroyed.”

*

The Arkon was absolutely unwilling to join the Tha’alaan; he was not unwilling to listen to Annarion. Annarion, aware of the Arkon’s intent stare, spoke of the similarities between summoning and repulsion. Both required knowledge. Both required—to Kaylin’s surprise—an openness, an awareness, a centering of the elemental name. Repulsion was not, as Kaylin had first assumed, an act of destruction or rejection. It was a barrier erected with the complicit acceptance of the summoned element; it was a marker they agreed to overlook, in its entirety.