Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(141)

Why?

Because Kattea was correct. Find a way.

*

Something hit her in the face. She didn’t lift her arms, because the stone was still vibrating; it was only the muffling that suspended or stretched the moment itself. Her cheek stung. It burned.

Yes.

It was Nightshade’s mark.

Your brother is going to be so pissed off.

He laughed. The laughter was wild, loud—it was almost the type of laugh she was used to hearing from Mandoran. You stand on the very precipice, and that’s what you think of? That my brother will be angry with me?

She thought her cheek would blister, and she held on to the sensation. She had always been, and remained to this day, afraid of Nightshade.

Yes, Kaylin. Nightshade understood the value of fear. I will not allow you to do this.

Don’t, she told him, weary now. Help me, or leave me alone.

Help you?

Yes. She could see the cold expression on his perfect face; she could see the color of his eyes. She couldn’t touch him, but...he was here. She accepted it. She felt the pain recede. She was right, too: her cheek was going to blister.

But she understood what she had to do. She called Ynpharion, the Barrani whose ambivalence was one part gratitude, one part disgust and three parts resentment; he was the only one whose True Name she held against his will.

Lord Kaylin!

I know. I know. I’m in the center of the storm, and I need your help.

He was instantly wary. Instantly cautious. The High Halls was mobilizing around him, but he had frozen, and when he moved, he moved toward the Consort. I am never far from her now. He said it with pride, with yearning and with—yes—a tingle of fear. The Barrani did not trust. What help do you command?

Just—stay here. Stay here. Speak to me.

He was confused. He was suspicious. He was, however, willing. He didn’t fight her at all.

She then reached farther, to the West March. Lirienne.

Kaylin? She could see, in the distance, the exterior of the Hallionne Alsanis. Yes. The Hallionne has summoned me. Sedarias is...concerned, and the Hallionne cannot calm her. What has happened?

Mandoran, Annarion and Teela are with me, and we’re—

She gave up on words; she let him see.

He didn’t ask what she wanted or needed. He didn’t ask what she commanded; if she held his name, it was, in the end, with his permission. All of the power she had over the Lord of the West March was theoretical, and they both knew it.

This annoyed Nightshade. For once, he kept his criticism to himself.

The Lord of the West March smiled; she felt the warmth of his expression. When, he asked, will you visit?

Not right now.

The smile deepened. She held on to it as she reached for the last of the names she knew, the last of the things that were true and prickly and binding.

High Lord. His was not a name she called. It was not a name she approached. On most days—good or bad—she buried the knowledge as far away from conscious thought as she possibly could. Lirienne had chosen—as Nightshade had chosen—to gift her with knowledge of his name. The High Lord was more complicated.

She felt his eyes open and look inward, and they burned like green fire. He did not seem surprised.

No.

She wanted to apologize for bothering him, even given the circumstances. She wanted to let go of what she’d touched and back as far away as possible. The only person who agreed with this choice was, of course, Ynpharion.

But it was too late.

Show me. The words were a command, and she obeyed instantly; had started to obey before she’d really registered the silent words. His touch was not gentle.

My sister will be angry, he told her, if I lose you. She saw him so clearly she thought he must somehow be here. In this room. In this fight.

Ynpharion was annoyed. Annoyed and awed. You feel the presence of the High Lord.

Yes. But she felt the pull of all of them. She felt their weight. It was a weight she had taken on in ignorance the first time; it was a weight she had required to save a life; a weight she had given, willingly; and a weight she had taken without permission.

She held on to all of them. She wove them together. They were her tether.

She turned to Mandoran once again, and she looked at the word that he carried. It was not part of him, but at the moment, it was not separate.

She listened.

She listened to the voice of the stone.

She listened to the sound of Annarion’s sword, of Bellusdeo’s sword; she listened to the crackle of the Arkon’s fire, the Arkon’s magical focus.

And then she cut herself off from each, one at a time, concentrating until the only sound that remained in the room itself was the quiet, constant hum of a single word. She strained to hear it, because she couldn’t move—and neither could Mandoran.

Her voice was thin, weak, when she lifted it. It was hesitant, which annoyed at least three of the people whose voices she could not—and did not want to—silence. She knew. She knew that hesitance was very much like silence; it was like the wrong word, the wrong language. She strengthened her voice. She began to struggle with syllables, with stringing them together in a continuous shift of sound. With speaking as if the spoken word had meaning.

And this annoyed only one man.

Shouting, he said, is not a sign of strength. It is a sign, perhaps, of bravery or foolishness—but not strength.

You say it.