Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(61)

She had lost such marks before. The Devourer of Worlds had eaten the ones she had offered. But so had the familiar, when he had managed to struggle his way out of his shell. She hadn’t chosen which words she’d surrendered either time. She hadn’t chosen the word that had freed the trapped spirit of an ancient Dragon, deep within the bowels of the Arkon’s collection.

But she’d chosen the words that had freed the Consort from her sleep in the heart of the green. She had had the time to choose. She had had some understanding that she needed to communicate, somehow, with the heart of the green; that she had to show it an experience that was similar to its own. She couldn’t speak the words necessary.

She hadn’t needed to speak them.

Here, now, she could speak, and Gilbert could listen. She could make herself heard. The purpose of whatever word she chose was not the same.

It was hard to think while her arms hurt, but she had some experience with that. “Hope.”

“I am here, Kaylin.”

“Is the city safe?”

“Yes, for the moment. Yes and no. Gilbert came here for a reason, and I can now perceive it in the edges of his thoughts.”

“I can’t feel his thoughts at all.”

“Yes, Kaylin, you can.”

“I can’t—”

“You are standing on them, or above them, almost literally. You are—carefully—quieting some of them.”

“They’re not thoughts. They’re eyeballs.”

“...Eyeballs.”

“Yes.”

The familiar fell silent for one painful beat. He then said, to Mandoran, “That is what she actually sees.”

Mandoran’s eyes were attached to his face—which was probably good, because he widened them so much, so quickly, they might have fallen off, otherwise.

“What do you see?” she demanded, through clenched teeth.

“Not eyes. Why eyes?”

It was Annarion who answered, although he spoke without certainty. “Eyes may represent observation. You are an Imperial Hawk. Observation is an integral part of what you do, and what you do defines you.”

Kaylin wanted to laugh. She grunted, instead.

“Observation requires your presence. You can’t observe what you can’t see. Your observation is active. It does not—in your case—rely on vision alone. I would almost expect to see ears—”

“Please don’t. Just—don’t.”

“Gilbert can act and observe in a variety of ways that you can’t. I think he can do so in a variety of ways that we can’t.”

“Meaning your cohort, minus Teela.”

“Yes. We think—Sedarias thinks—that what you are experiencing as discrete instances of multiple eyes is a representation of the myriad ways in which Gilbert observes or interacts with your world.”

“Our world.”

“The world we are attempting to live in now, yes.”

“And he’s doing this because he’s injured?”

“We cannot clearly perceive any injury.”

“And the chaos? The Shadow?”

There was a longer pause. “We are uncertain. If you were, in reality, standing on Shadow as you perceive it, we would not be having this conversation. You are normally aware of some part of your patient’s thoughts when you heal?”

“If the injury is extensive, yes.”

“She suggests that the Shadow you perceive is some part of Gilbert’s memory or thought. If it hasn’t killed you yet.”

“And the Shadow I perceive in the mess of what is possibly a body?”

Silence again. “Sedarias says, ‘You’re the healer.’”

Which meant she didn’t know. The problem was that Kaylin didn’t know, either. She’d sent her power out. She’d touched the rudiments of the body’s structural components, and it all felt wrong to her.

And what if that wrongness was the very thing that allowed Gilbert to be in Elantra safely? What if she got it wrong, made a mistake, brought the rest of his Shadow to the fore?

She exhaled. She’d long lived under the principle that it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. But corpses didn’t have a lot of meaningful forgiveness to offer.

The power that she had attempted to send to Gilbert had not gone to Gilbert. It had, instead, turned back on itself. It had flowed into the marks of the Chosen, which were probably going to cook her alive if she couldn’t figure out what the hells she was supposed to do.

Words. Shadows. Ancients.

Words.

Shadows.

“Gilbert.”

“I am here.”

“Barrani and Dragons possess True Names. They require them to live. The name is part of their functional identity. It’s not a soul—not in the way most mortal religions define soul—but it might as well be.”

“Yes.”

“The Ancients created Barrani and Dragons.”

“Yes.” He sounded slightly confused.

“I’ve heard the Ancients called Lords of Law and Lords of Chaos.”

“Yes.”

“And the Lords of Chaos, in theory, created Shadow.”

“I fail to see—”

“Did Shadow not require True Names?”