Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(137)

Teela intended to fight.

What she intended to fight wasn’t clear—at least not to Kaylin. She couldn’t see it. Maybe the Arkon could. Maybe Mandoran and Annarion could. She could take care of herself in most of the fights her job made necessary—but this wasn’t one of them. Let the immortals do what they did better.

To the familiar, she said, Hide me.

It is already done, but, Kaylin, be wary. What you face here is not a Feral or its distant, more powerful cousin.

She headed directly for the three men, who were—as Gilbert had said—not dead. Something whistled past her theoretically invisible cheek. She felt the sting of a cut and raised her hand; it came away bloody. She didn’t swear—she headed straight for the center of the triangular formation and stopped.

There were three stones where the three living men were standing. They existed in the same place as the men, although the men didn’t appear to be made of stone; the effect was disturbing. The men seemed to be breathing, but slowly, as if air was scarce. The stones appeared to be faintly pulsing in time to their labored breaths. Kaylin didn’t have time to examine them more carefully. Or at all; something struck her arm, her right arm, and this time she could see the welt that crossed it, and the blood that followed.

She couldn’t dodge what she couldn’t see. And clearly, whatever attacked her could see her. The advantage in this space was not hers. The Arkon breathed fire; Bellusdeo did not. The fire didn’t appear to hit anything; even the stone that made up the basement—and stone was not generally proof against focused Dragon fire—failed to melt or char.

And yet, the female Dragon’s sword hit something; Bellusdeo could sense what Kaylin couldn’t see.

Yes. She is not you. See what you can see.

I can’t—

And her eyes opened.

Her eyes, that was, if she’d had a hundred of them.

*

It was not like being trapped in the maelstrom that had greeted her on the Winding Path. For one long moment, she could see, and she could process everything. Every iteration of Bellusdeo, of the Arkon, of the rest of her companions, fit together, overlapping in a way that felt right and made sense. Each image was distinct; there was no blur.

Yes, Kaylin. Gilbert’s voice. It was a whisper of sound, a thin thread; it belonged to no one in the room.

I...cannot do more. It is here, it is in these layers, that you must find the aberration.

You can’t?

Silence. Bellusdeo’s sword flashed. The Arkon breathed again. Teela threw something—two dozen times—that looked like a spell. She could see Annarion and Mandoran; unlike every other person in the room, they had a certain solidity, a singular, uniform presence; their movements, their actions, were perfectly in line, perfectly synchronized, as if they existed across all possible slices of time in exactly the same way. There was no flickering; there was absolute uniformity. The only thing she couldn’t see in the room was herself.

Mandoran turned toward her. His eyes widened as they met hers, and narrowed as he spoke—and she could hear his voice. She might not have been trapped in this strange state at all.

“Move it, Kaylin!” He was armed with daggers; Annarion had a sword.

So did their opponent, who might have been a ghost, the visual impression of his existence was so vague. She could see the pale, luminescent form of something that might once have been Barrani; it was amorphous, but sharply lit and strangely compelling. The only thing about him that appeared solid at all were his eyes. They were Barrani eyes, except in one regard: they had no whites. Where whites would have been, there was Shadow and the edge of chaos.

“Kaylin!” Annarion’s sharp, clear voice.

Kaylin turned once again to the three men, to the stones and to the center of the triangle they formed. Like Annarion and Mandoran, the men were sharp, singular; they did not have the range of motion or action that anyone else displayed. They didn’t sit or stand or slump—or bleed. She walked into the center of the triangle, hoping to find the answer to the problem there. It was just stone floor. It didn’t glow. It didn’t contain some sort of magical pillar.

It did contain the faintest trace of a caster’s identifying sigil. She adjusted her vision, effortlessly looking out of different eyes. The sigil grew brighter and clearer as she worked her way through each viewpoint. Each eye offered a slice of event, a moment in time. She only had a hundred. She could have had a million. More.

The sigil grew brighter, and brighter still. She stepped slightly back, glancing again at the three men. And she realized that there were not three men. The three she recognized were the strongest visual image—but superimposed on them were other faces. Bodies she hadn’t seen and didn’t recognize. This was not the first time men had been laid in this circle. Not the first time this had been attempted.

But the other faces were made...of stone. They were somehow anchors for the person who had cast this long and complicated spell.

Gilbert said, I cannot do what must be done without destroying everything this room contains. If I do what must be done, I will destroy you, this building, the entire mirror network.

“And what about your rooms? Kattea?” Kaylin was afraid for the child.

Severn, by remaining behind, had given her a singular gift: he had lessened the one fear he could lessen. It wasn’t a gift that he could have given so many years ago.

And he said, You would have stayed with Kattea. But, Kaylin: you’re the one with the marks. I’m just...