The Chronicles of Elantra Bundle

by Michelle Sagara

  Ybelline was watching her face now, reading the expressions that passed across it in rapid succession. Marcus had always said that Kaylin was loud, even in thought.

  “Ybelline,” Kaylin said slowly, “the child—Mayalee. You said she was abruptly cut off from the Tha’alaan?”

  Ybelline nodded. Something in her face had grown sharper; perhaps the color of her eyes. It was hard to say exactly what it was. Maybe, Kaylin thought, it was the shape of fire, slow to fade. Her eyes had been burning.

  “Had she not been, you would be able to find her?”

  Again a nod.

  “Donalan Idis had some method of cutting the Tha’alani off. From the Tha’alaan. One of the Dragons mentioned it,” she added. “The Tha’alani themselves didn’t—”

  “Very, very few can, Kaylin. Had they the choice, they would have—but it is when we are most distressed that we reach for its comfort. Even if they could normally pull themselves away, what they suffered at the hands of the Imperial Service was not normal. Not even among your kind.”

  “I don’t understand something,” Kaylin finally said. “How did Idis manage what the Tha’alani themselves couldn’t?”

  Ybelline shrugged. “Magic.”

  The way she said the word would have made Kaylin smile on any other day. It appeared they had a few things in common. But any other day wasn’t part of the two weeks they had left. “Donalan Idis was never allowed to finish his experiments. Did he take the child in order to do so?”

  This time, the Tha’alani woman flinched. “That is now my fear,” was her quiet reply.

  And Kaylin thought, That was always your fear.

  “Do you understand why we cannot speak of this?”

  “Yes.”

  “And why, in the end, we chose to serve the Emperor, no matter how much he had damaged us?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. I don’t think I could have done it.”

  “I think you could have, Kaylin. Because the consequences to the young would have been very, very high, had we done otherwise. All of us, as we can, protect our young.”

  Kaylin wanted to argue the point, but didn’t. As a child in the fiefs, her experience spoke against the blank claim.

  “You had power like that—you have power like that—and you hide it. Forbid it.” She shook her head.

  “Using the power would not have saved us,” was the quiet reply. “Even had we won, even had we managed to survive, it would not have saved what we are now. You hide your own power. You are not as good at hiding it because were you to deny it entirely you would fail at the duties you’ve undertaken.”

  Kaylin’s frown was sharp. “How do you know?”

  “You are much spoken about, at Court,” was the evasive reply.

  Twenty-five. The city would be ash and ruins; the Dragon lords were also quite capable of summoning fire.

  “Don’t they want to use it?” Kaylin said at last.

  “The others? No.”

  “But—”

  “Were you to touch the Tha’alaan, Kaylin, you would understand why.”

  “I…”

  “You don’t want to.”

  She did, sort of. She wanted to see for herself what Donalan Idis had seen, however briefly. She wanted to know exactly what he knew, because if she did, she had some hope of understanding him, some hope of stopping him.

  “I want to see the Tha’alaan,” she said quietly, “but I don’t want it to see me. And I don’t know of any way to stop it.”

  “No. But in this case, I think you would find something you could understand in a way that most of my people can’t.” “Why?”

  “Because by our definition, the man whose experiences gave me fire was insane.”

  “What do you mean?” She paused for just a moment, and then said, “Like the deaf?”

  “Yes, Kaylin. Like your kind.”

  “But—he had the Tha’alaan to guide him. How could he be…”

  Ybelline again said nothing. “I cannot tell you more about water,” she said, “because we do not summon water. And more than the fire, I will not risk. It is felt,” she added, “when it comes.”

  “But you said you could keep it from the Tha’alaan.”

  “I can. But your mages sense magic, when it is done. If my kin are not mages, it is choice that compels them. They would know. And they would come to me,” she added, with just the hint of a wry smile.

  “I think Donalan Idis wants to summon water. And given the Oracles’ visions, I think he may well succeed.”

  “Stop him.”

  “We’re trying. We can’t find him. But…” She looked at Ybelline. “We did find the people we think were his last landlords.”

  “Where?”

  “Near the merchant quarter. They were dead,” she added, and then, “drowned.”

  Ybelline was silent, absorbing this information. “I assume that they weren’t drowned in one of your baths?”

  “No.”

  “And you think the Tha’alani would understand how they were killed?” “I didn’t think you would,” Kaylin said. “Until I came here today. I thought it was something only Idis would understand.”

  The hesitation that she would have said didn’t exist was picked up by Ybelline. “You have your secrets,” she told Kaylin.

  “I have my job,” Kaylin replied, punting. “The day I received your invitation, I had just returned from an investigation that involves another missing child. A girl. She’s older than Mayalee,” she added. “And I think, stranger.”

  “You’ve met her?”

  “No. But I’ve seen her. She knew my name.”

  Ybelline said nothing for a long time. And then she said, “It is time for you to leave, Kaylin. There are now matters I must discuss with my kin.”

  Kaylin nodded. Something made no sense to her. But until she could figure out what the damn thing was, she wasn’t going to be asking questions that would give her anything like a useful answer.

  Ybelline saw Kaylin to the gates. She did not speak as they walked, but every so often her face would lose all expression, and her eyes…Her eyes were like crystal, absent any wine to give it color. The color would return, slowly, but in any case, Ybelline did not stop walking.

  When they reached the gatehouse, Kaylin stopped. “Donalan Idis had a way of cutting the Tha’alani off.”

  Ybelline nodded slowly.

  “Maybe that’s what he did with Mayalee. We think—if she’s with him—that she’s still alive.” She wanted to offer more, but there wasn’t anything more she could offer. Yet.

  Squaring her shoulders, she left the quarter, which seemed so much smaller and so much less threatening than it once had—when she’d had the bird’s eye view, and the safety of distance. Funny, how things changed.

  The sun was setting by the time she reached the Ablayne, and the familiar bridge that crossed it. The banks were deserted, and the streets on the wrong side of the bridge had already started to empty. Which only made sense. The Ferals were waiting, somewhere, for night to fall. When it did, they’d own the streets of the fief. No fieflord had ever attempted to stop them.

  She toyed with the idea of removing her uniform, but she didn’t really have the luxury of time. Castle Nightshade wasn’t exactly at the edge of the fief, and she wasn’t in a carriage; she could walk there at a good clip before things got dangerous. But not if she stopped to change. Not if she dawdled on the bridge, as she so often did. It was a barrier, that bridge. And this river.

  Funny, how often she and Severn had come to the Ablayne, had stood on the wrong side of its banks, had stared with longing at the freedom that lay on the other side—all without crossing the bridge itself. No guardhouse protected the bridge; no guards patrolled it. They could just as easily have walked across it, to see for themselves how the free lived.

  But they had stayed in the fief. Had told themselves stories about what lay across the bridge. Dreams, she thought, as she crossed it, heading toward her past. The re
ality? Freedom took work.

  And if Nightshade had his cages, the Emperor had his Interrogators.

  No, she thought. It’s not the same. She imagined the Foundling Halls, the Halls of Law, the market—none of these things existed in Nightshade.

  In Nightshade the only law was the fieflord.

  But in Elantra, the only law was the Emperor. It hadn’t saved the Tha’alani. And if the Oracles were any judge, it wouldn’t save Elantra, either.

  And what will?

  Kaylin began to walk quickly. Sunset, liberal with pink and purple, began to turn buildings into silhouettes. Two missing children. Two.

  But…there had only been one child in the merchant’s quarter. A girl. If Donalan Idis was somehow involved with the other child, wouldn’t there have been another? Or was one of them already dead?

  She hated the thought, and she couldn’t dislodge it, so she walked faster, until she was almost trotting. The silhouettes, the skyline here, were easy to follow because Castle Nightshade was so distinct. It wasn’t as tall as the Imperial Castle, edict or no—but it was the tallest building in the fief.

  It was also guarded, this close to night. Two guards, armored, no surcoat in sight. She walked up the length of the path to greet them, and paused some ten feet away.

  One of the guards bowed low. She recognized him, even though the scant light robbed his features of sharp definition. “Lord Andellen,” she said as he rose.

  “Lord Kaylin,” he replied gravely. She hadn’t the heart to tell him to call her anything else. To Andellen, the title had a meaning beyond “let’s make Kaylin uncomfortable.”

  “Have you been to the High Court lately?” she asked him softly.

  “No, Lord.”

  “But you can.”

  “I can, yes. But it would not be wise at the moment. The Lord of the High Court is much occupied of late.” There was a question in the words.

  “I haven’t been,” she replied, as if he’d asked it. “But yes, it’s why I’m here.”

  “You come late.”

  “I always arrive late, in Nightshade. If the Ferals hunted at dawn,” she added ruefully, “I’d be here then.” She spoke low-caste Barrani, but given that she seldom spoke anything but Elantran unless forced, Andellen accepted it as the courtesy that it was.

  “Lord Nightshade will see you,” Andellen told her. “He has left word that you are to be admitted whenever you choose to arrive.”

  Kaylin nodded as brusquely as she could. Castle Nightshade was not a comfortable place to be, seen from the outside. From the inside? Worse. And to get there, she had to walk through a portal that looked like an ebony portcullis. She walked between the two guards and headed toward the magical entrance.

  And swore when she bounced.

  Light crackled off her hands, small bolts of flashing blue. She stared at them, and at the portcullis, before she tried again, with much the same results.

  “Andellen?”

  “I…have never seen this happen before.”

  “Could you fix it?”

  His dark brows rose a fraction into the line of unfettered hair. “Even if I thought it possible, I would not try. The Castle defends itself.”

  “And I’m a threat now?”

  He said nothing.

  Clearly, if Nightshade had left word with his guards, he’d failed to tell his damn home.

  Lord Nightshade greeted Kaylin from the wrong side of the gates. Kaylin watched his very slow arrival with a mixture of curiosity and irritation.

  The portal didn’t open. It thinned. The air between the fake bars began to shimmer, and the bars themselves seemed to slowly dissolve into that light. Although Kaylin disliked magic, she found this interesting; she had never actually seen the portal open or close, being on the inside of its magic.

  The fieflord was dressed in black and silver; he wore a sword, and hints of armor reflected light as fabric parted when he moved. His hair was pulled back, exposing the elegant lines of his face.

  As usual, that face gave nothing away. “Kaylin,” he said gravely. He did not offer her a bow, as Andellen had done—but Barrani hierarchy would have forbid it, anyway. “There seems to be some difficulty?”

  She shrugged. “If you call my inability to actually enter the Castle a difficulty, then yes, there is.”

  “Show me.” He stepped lightly to the side, and waited.

  Kaylin, not grudging the obedience if it would satisfy her curiosity, walked into the portcullis. And bounced back.

  “I…see.”

  “Good. Do you mind explaining it?”

  “Yes.”

  So much for obedience. “I don’t suppose there’s another way in?”

  His smile, more felt than seen, told her she wouldn’t like the answer.

  He led her around the Castle, leaving Andellen and the nameless guard behind with a few curt words. When they were out of earshot—when they were out of shouting range—he paused. “What exactly have you been doing in the past few days?”

  “Not dying,” she replied. “You?”

  He surprised her; he chuckled. “The same.” He reached out and touched her cheek, pressing his palm lightly against the mark he had put there when they had first met. She felt a sharp, sharp sting and took a step back. His hands were warm.

  “You have twice passed beyond me,” he said softly, lowering his arm. “Only places of power are that well guarded. You were not at Court,” he added. He began to walk, and she fell in step just behind him.

  “No.” It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “Not the Barrani Court, at any rate.”

  “The Imperial Court?”

  “Only the library.”

  “Someone took you to see the Arkon?” His eyes widened almost imperceptibly. It was the Leontine equivalent of a roar of outrage, and it made her laugh. Well, it made her want to laugh. Which, given the events of the day, was welcome.

  “I didn’t attract the attention of the Arkon,” she told him. “Lord Sanabalis and Lord Tiamaris were having a heated discussion, and the Arkon apparently doesn’t like noise in the library.”

  “I…see. This would not have anything to do with the Dragon’s cry?”

  “Which cry?”

  “Learn to dissemble, Kaylin,” he replied with a hint of disapproval.

  She had the grace to redden. “Yes,” she offered, by way of an apology. “I set him free. He was dead,” she added.

  One brow rose. “Dead?”

  She nodded.

  “But not free to fly.”

  “No. If that’s what dead Dragons do.”

  “You did not see him?”

  She hesitated for a moment, and when she chose to speak her voice was hushed. “Yes. I saw.”

  “And seeing, can you doubt?”

  “Not him,” she said at last. “But I don’t know if the others are like him. I don’t really understand Dragons.”

  “I often doubt that you understand mortals. It is no wonder that Dragons are beyond you. But this…dead Dragon—what did you do to free him?”

  Before she could think, she said, “I told him the end of his story.”

  Nightshade stopped walking.

  Kaylin managed to stop in time to avoid running into his back. She also stepped back, waiting, her hand on her dagger.

  He turned. “You told him the end of his story.” The words, coming from Nightshade, had a weight and a meaning that Kaylin had failed to give them.

  She nodded.

  “And how did you know that this…telling…would free him?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it,” she added. “I just did it.”

  “Very well. How did you know the end of his story?”

  She shook her head. “I wanted to help him,” she said. “I—I wanted to say something. He’d been waiting so long. I just—I just started talking.”

  “Given the amount of thought you put into your words,” was the cool reply, “it’s not a small wonder that you surviv
ed the attempt.”

  “I wasn’t in danger. He was dead.”

  “The dead are a danger. They have always been a danger.” He lifted a hand, palm out. “And where the restless dead are concerned, something binds them to the living. He was a Dragon,” he added. “What was his hoard?”

  She lifted a hand to her throat. To the empty space around her neck where a dead man had, for a moment, hung a chain. “Duty,” she told him.

  “And you accepted the responsibility that he failed.” It wasn’t a question.

  “He didn’t fail it.”

  “He failed.” Nightshade’s frown was thin. “And you hope to succeed.”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “I—”

  “You must learn to weigh the consequences of your power, Kaylin. But I understand now why you could not pass through the portal. What you carry—whether you see it or not—was too heavy a burden for a Dragon whose will was strong. Ignorance,” he added, “does not change fact. It is dusk now. If you do not wish to spend an evening fighting Ferals, you must either leave or chance the back ways.

  “Why did you come?”

  “To ask you about Donalan Idis.”

  Nightshade nodded grimly. “The back ways,” he told her softly. “In truth, I am surprised that it took you this long to return to the Arcanist.”

  “You could come to my home.”

  His brows actually rose. “Not, I think, while the Wolf prowls,” he said, after a very long pause. “Not while you live in mortal certainty that a home is just a place you call your own.”

  “And pay for.”

  “You don’t yet understand what that means,” was his soft reply. But it was not cold. “Come then, Kaylin. When Lord Tiamaris first visited this Castle, he did not enter through the portcullis. Dare what he dared.”

  “What will I face?”

  “In truth, I do not know. This Castle is as old as the oldest building in the fiefs, and like the others, it was not built by mortals. I was tested, when I first chose this as my abode. Tiamaris was tested,” he added, “although he arrived with no desire to rule.” He paused and then added, “The Castle, as you’ve seen from the inside, is not quite…fixed in space. The portcullis has never functioned as a portcullis to my knowledge. There is evidence to suggest that previous owners chose to decorate the grounds as they saw fit—and this, the Castle allowed. But to change the Castle itself is neither lightly done or completely possible.”