Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(91)

And the water rose.

*

It formed not a wall, but a pillar, and as Kaylin watched, the pillar refined its shape, until it was no longer a standing column of water from floor to ceiling. Kaylin was prepared to see the watery figure of a woman: this was how the water spoke to Kaylin when it chose to speak.

She was not prepared to see the water take the form and shape of a child—although this would not be the first time. Nor would it be the first time the figure had looked solidly, profoundly mortal. A mortal girl. Young enough to be Kattea, and hurt enough, bruised enough, to be Kattea as she would, no doubt, have become.

No, Kaylin thought. Kattea’s fief was not Kaylin’s fief; her life, not Kaylin’s life. If it was true that her father had once been a Sword, it meant that others—like Kattea’s father, and not Kaylin’s long-dead mother—could be living there, too.

Liar, Kaylin thought. Gilbert found her in the streets at night. Near Ferals.

And again, that didn’t matter. Not right now. What mattered now was the water.

“Kaylin.” The name was spoken by a bruised mouth, distorted by swelling at the corner. The water, as it manifested itself in this room, was shorter than Kaylin, and skinnier. Slender was not the right word: she was gaunt.

“I’m sorry,” Kaylin said. She looked at her hand. Held in it was the child’s. Beneath the child’s feet lay soaked carpet; it was dark enough to be black, but Kaylin suspected it would be blue when dry. Beyond the child, seen through the door frame, which would not, without repairs, house a door again, the runner in the hall was also soaked. But the floor was no longer a wading pool. “I didn’t know that having Gilbert here would upset you.”

“Gilbert?” The child’s eyes narrowed in a way that children’s eyes seldom did. “Is that what you call him?”

“It’s what Kattea calls him. And yes, it’s what I call him, as well.” She hesitated.

“I can hear the Tha’alaan,” the girl whispered. Her expression shifted; she looked anguished. “I—I’m afraid I’ve broken it.”

Ah. This, Kaylin could understand. There wasn’t much the elemental water and a mortal woman had in common—but the fear of accidentally destroying something beloved? That was clearly universal. “Why? Why do you think it’s broken?”

“There are things in it that should not be in it; there’s a bend, a break. I didn’t—” She swallowed as if she were breathing, as if she needed the air she fundamentally hated.

“The Tha’alaan is not that fragile. Ybelline is there. Ybelline understands, now, what this fracture means.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No,” Kaylin agreed, gentling her voice without thought. “But I don’t need to understand if Ybelline does. They will listen to her. They’ll hear her.”

“They hear her now,” the water whispered. “They hear her fear. They hear her death.”

Kaylin stiffened. Blanched. Forced herself to continue. “Yes.” She didn’t argue because there was no point. If one of the memories the Tha’alaan now contained was Ybelline’s death, it would be known, examined—and terrifying. The fact that Ybelline was demonstrably not dead would not be the comfort it might be to anyone who couldn’t access the memories and emotions of every member of their race who had come before.

It was comfort to Kaylin, though. Comfort—and fear.

“I don’t understand how you came to know what you know,” Kaylin said. “I came to—to ask you.”

“Ask Gilbert. Gilbert knows.” This was said with a sullenness that bordered on resentment.

“Gilbert doesn’t know. Or if he does, he can’t explain it to someone like me. Neither could fire or air or earth,” she continued. She was not above using truth as flattery. At least it made her better than most of the residents of Elani. “Only you can, because you are the heart of the Tha’alaan.

“Kattea—you haven’t met her, but you can see what I see if you want to look—said that it was the water that brought her to Elantra. Gilbert didn’t even realize that he was crossing through time. I don’t think it was enough time,” she added, trying to be fair. “The water of the time he was in carried the boat he was also in to our time. To us.

“I wanted to ask you how.”

The water was silent.

“But actually, how doesn’t matter.”

“What matters?”

“Why.” Even saying it, Kaylin thought she knew the answer now. Ybelline’s death. No, not just Ybelline—because Ybelline would not die alone.

“And now?”

Kaylin tried to smile and failed miserably. The water’s fear was a fear Kaylin herself had lived with, on and off, for her entire life—or for as much of it as she could remember. People would abandon her—by dying. Because that was what people did.

She tightened her free hand and considered smacking herself, hard. Not the time for this, idiot. Not the right time. Ybelline wasn’t dead yet. In some future, she was—but it hadn’t happened, which meant there was time.

Kaylin had daydreamed about going back in time. She’d never really considered all the effects this would have on everyone—anything—else. But it had all been idle; she couldn’t.