Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(59)

But she did not understand what healthy Gilbert looked like. Her power—if power had sentience—didn’t understand it, either.

Squawk.

Annarion was definitely here. Mandoran was probably with him.

“I need to heal him,” she told the familiar, without opening her eyes.

Squawk. Squawk.

“He apologizes for intruding,” Gilbert said, his voice so close to her ear, his mouth might have been plastered to the side of her face. “He feels you will need...help.”

“Did he happen to say what kind of help?”

“No, Chosen. I believe he expects you to understand.”

And after a long moment, she did. It did not make her day any better. “He’s here to help contain you. The other two are somehow with him because they need to be within range of him or...”

“Or?”

“I can’t explain it because I’m not them. You probably understand it, if he’s here.” To the familiar, she said, “I don’t know what he’s supposed to be when he’s not—not injured.”

Squawk.

“No, you don’t understand. I don’t usually have to know. The—the patient’s body knows.”

“And Gilbert’s doesn’t.” This was Mandoran. Kaylin didn’t open her eyes.

“No.”

“Do ours?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never been allowed to heal either of you. The only Barrani I’ve healed wanted to kill me for it.”

“I wouldn’t,” Mandoran helpfully said.

“Great. If you get mortally wounded or infected, I’ll keep that in mind. Annarion wouldn’t let me touch him.”

“That is possibly for your own safety,” Gilbert told her.

*

Healing went one way, in theory. Power flowed from Kaylin to the injured. Information—scattered and diffuse—also traveled, and that was a two-way communication.

What surged through Kaylin now was not information. Not as she understood it. It was not—quite—Shadow, but it was of Shadow. She pulled her hands away from Gilbert’s; she no longer had to be in contact with him to be aware of what he was.

She could, with her eyes closed, see Gilbert’s eyes. He had two of them, in the expected place. Not all Shadows did; many had multiple eyes, of different sizes, different shapes. Those eyes often occupied body parts that eyes normally didn’t, at least not in any race or species with which Kaylin was familiar.

But...he didn’t have two eyes now. The quality of the eyes, the harsh clarity, the solid physicality, remained. They were Gilbert’s eyes. They just weren’t attached to his face anymore, and there were a lot more of them. She stepped back—or felt as if she was trying to—but it didn’t help; the eyes ringed her, surrounded her, cocooned her. There was no way out.

She opened her eyes, her physical eyes.

Gilbert’s eyes remained, but the rest of the room returned. With it, she caught a glimpse of Mandoran, Annarion and her familiar.

Her familiar.

He was not in his small dragon state. He was not in his large, rideable state, either; he was somewhere in between. He had wings, yes, and he was slender, but he had lost the reptilian look that had defined his relationship with Kaylin. If what stood before her now bit her ear or stole her accessories, she’d probably try to stab him before she could override her instincts.

And yet, she knew him. The fact that she could now see Annarion, Mandoran and her erstwhile familiar was far less disturbing than it would have been at any other time. What was disturbing was the lack of Gilbert.

“What are you doing?” Mandoran asked her.

“I am trying to heal Gilbert.”

“Possibly not your brightest idea. Teela says you take betting to unacceptable extremes. She’s worried,” he added.

“This is not about a bet,” Kaylin said, through clenched teeth.

“Teela offers a wager.”

“Tell Teela to shut up. I need to concentrate.”

“On what?”

On Gilbert.

“Yes,” the familiar said. He stepped toward Kaylin. She recognized his voice, although she heard it seldom.

“I understand you.”

“It is a function of your state. You cannot maintain it for long; you will be absorbed. You are too thin an existence to avoid it.”

Kaylin shook her head. “Kattea has avoided it.”

“Gilbert has avoided absorbing Kattea—or anything else he has touched in this city. His efforts mirror those of Annarion and Mandoran, but he is not entirely as they are.”

Kaylin lifted a hand. Holding her breath, she placed her palm as gently as she could against the nearest eye. The eye closed. Until she’d touched it, it hadn’t appeared to even have an eyelid.

“What are you doing?” Mandoran asked.

“Thinking of strangling you,” Kaylin snapped at him. Even as she spoke, she reached for the next eye, the movement both deliberate and hesitant. This eye also closed. It made her feel vaguely better, but there were a lot of eyes. This was not at all like healing.

“Your feet, Kaylin.”

Kaylin looked down. She was practically standing on a bed of eyes. She could no longer see the stone floor. What she saw in its place was chaos. Opalescent Shadow; hints of broiling color that glittered and moved as if being disgorged. The eyes rested above it.