She felt Ybelline’s reluctance give way—and she expected that. That was Ybelline, all over. What she didn’t expect was the water’s frenzied response. The inches of water across the second-story hall reared up in a sudden wall, like a tidal wave in miniature. It dropped on Kaylin’s head—and the stair railing.
The railing snapped.
If she drowned here, Severn was going to be so mad.
* * *
The water did not speak.
It roared. It roared like a flight of Dragons, the sound a sensation that made Kaylin’s teeth—and every other part of her body—rattle. She lost the Tha’alaan; lost the comfort of Ybelline’s steady presence; she lost everything as the water swept her, and the very broken rail, down the hall and into the door at the end of it.
The door gave way as Kaylin crashed into it; she could feel it shatter, but couldn’t hear it. She couldn’t, for a moment, hear at all. There was water everywhere.
But it wasn’t high enough to instantly drown in, even if the only breaths she could draw were the ragged gasps that panic often caused. She had time to close her mouth; time to find her footing; time to see that the windows here were normal windows. Normal meant closed; in this section of town, it didn’t immediately mean barred.
Unfortunately for Kaylin, in this house, normal didn’t mean backyard and familiar city landscape, either.
She’d come here to talk to the water. She’d let Gilbert do it instead. Clearly, the water in the here and now didn’t agree with Gilbert’s presence in the here and now. She struggled for more air and less water, coughing the water out. The tide at her feet was strong, but the water itself wasn’t deep. Kaylin didn’t want to give the water time to regroup and try again, if it was even attempting to kill her consciously.
It wasn’t. She inhaled, coughing less. It wasn’t trying consciously. It was aware of her; it must be, to dump a wall of water in a way that shattered the railing to which she’d been clinging. But it didn’t see her as Kaylin.
She felt confident that if it could or did, she would be in far less danger.
There was only one way to get its attention, and she once again dropped her hand into the water. This room was not like the single room in the third story; it had furniture and waterlogged carpet. It had chairs. It had—ugh—shelves, and the books on them were going to be far, far worse for wear.
And none of that was relevant right now.
Only the water was. Kaylin’s arms stung; her wet, wet clothing chafed her skin. And she knew what that meant. At any other time, she would look for the source of magic; the water itself didn’t usually cause this type of pain. Today, she looked at her arms. She saw the faint blue glow of runes through the cloth plastered against them.
She saw the hand she’d plunged into the faintly rocking water.
If it had been natural water, there would be visual distortion. It wasn’t natural, and there was no distortion; the water might have had the same properties as air, except for the inability to actually breathe it. She heard roaring again—the same shattering roar she had heard and felt at her first contact.
She did not hear the Tha’alaan. She didn’t try.
As the light on her arms brightened, she tried to speak a single word. It took effort. The syllables—there were more than one—snapped on her tongue; they slid out of her mind and she lost them and had to start again. And again. And again. But the third time, in the warmth of water she could no longer feel, she held them all, forcing each out of her mouth, although speech wasn’t technically necessary.
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.
And yet, Kattea was here.
“Now I think I understand the why. The Tha’alani die, in the future. The near future. You brought Gilbert here to prevent it.”
“I have tried to explain it. To the Keeper,” she added, as if this were necessary. “I have tried for two of your days.”
“Rain isn’t likely to explain much.”
“He cannot hear.”
“Rain in his store is likely to be seen as its own emergency.”
“Kaylin—his Garden will not exist. It does not, in that time.”
* * *
“You’re partially from then.”
The water nodded, eyes darkening, bruises spreading. Kaylin suddenly wanted the “how.” Instead, she said, “Gilbert was trying to speak with you.”
“Yes. I am sorry. I heard him as...threat.”
“Why?”
“Because he will destroy that part of me, if he understands it.”
“He did not come here to destroy you—why would you think that?”
“Because it is what he is.”
“Did you understand what he was when you brought him here?”
“...Yes. Yes.”
There was only one obvious question to ask. Why? But Kaylin already knew why. “Please don’t destroy him.”
“I cannot destroy him.”
“Please don’t destroy the tiny part of him that’s here and now. And stop the raining. I understand enough to talk to Evanton.” She hesitated. “No, that’s not true. Do you understand what happens—or what did happen—to the Garden?”
“No. But it is gone, Kaylin.”
“I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him— Stop trying so hard to communicate with him.” She tightened her hold on the young girl’s hand. “Why can’t you talk to him the way you talk to me?”
“Because Evanton is not Chosen, and Evanton has not been adopted by the Tha’alaan. He cannot be the one, and he will not be the other.”
“Why?”
“Because it would break the Tha’alaan. Kaylin, I would kill him first.”
Kaylin doubted that this was possible. Evanton was Keeper. She didn’t tell the water this, because she tried not to tell people something they already knew, especially not when they knew it better than she ever could. It tended to make them angry.
“Then let me talk to him.”
The water nodded.
“Umm, in order to talk to him, you have to close the floodgates.”
This caused only confusion. Kaylin thought it funny that the words made no sense to water, because so much of a port city was constructed for, on or by the water.
“You need to stop raining and flooding the house. Evanton won’t drown—but I will if I try to reach him.” She was afraid to let the water go; her own knuckles were white. “Gilbert didn’t come here to destroy you.”
“No, of course not. But he will see the ripple. He will attempt to fix it.”
“Not right now, he won’t.”
“You cannot stop him. He is not like you or your kin.”
“He didn’t come to fix things. He came to find a way to a here that someone like me could survive.”
“Why?”
“Because he met Lord Nightshade, in a future time and place, and he wants to bring him home. To us.”
“You do not understand Gilbert if you believe this.”
This was a stupid conversation to be having with elemental water. It was also necessary. “I know. I don’t understand what he is. I can’t. But—I’ve healed him.”
“Impossible. He can no more be healed than we can.”
“Fine. I can’t say it felt like healing. He’s here, but he’s as trapped here as we are.”
Silence.
“He says he can’t see time here. It’s gone. For now, he’s part of us. The only thing that isn’t is the part of you that chose to bring him here.”
* * *
Severn.
I see her. And yes, if you drowned, I’d be...upset.
Kind of embarrassing that that was my first thought. I’m going to go find Evanton. And Gilbert.
“But we have another problem, and I think they’re all connected. Can you talk to Ybelline?”
“Ybelline is speaking to me now,” the water replied. As she spoke, her form began to shift; she grew up as she walked beside Kaylin, her hand still in Kaylin’s. Her voice became stronger, her words lost the shaky hesitance of uncertain youth. Her eyes lost their bruises, and her lips, the swelling. “It is difficult. I hear Ybelline now—but I hear her in the other now.”
“Can you speak to her in the other now?”
“Do not ask that of me.”
Which meant it was possible. “Ask my Ybelline if she understands what happens next.”
“She understands—” was the remote response “—that she dies. Kaylin—the Tha’alani quarter, all of it, perishes.”
“Does she—” Kaylin swallowed. “Does she understand what destroys it?”
A longer silence. “No.”
Leontine filled the hall. Kaylin didn’t bother to curse under her breath. Cursing didn’t bother the water.
“If this is too destabilizing, I’ll go to Ybelline directly. If I’m in front of Ybelline, it’s almost as good as being in contact with you.”
“You will lose my voice,” the water replied.
Kaylin nodded. “Tell me what Gilbert is—I mean, what he’s supposed to be.”
“He is ancient, which is irrelevant. He could be created tomorrow, or next year, or centuries from now, and he would be ancient. He is like us, and entirely unlike us; he is younger, but less raw. There is a purpose at his heart which was not our purpose. We are part of him, and separate from him; he sees us at the beginning and the end. He is present, always, everywhere.
“And he is dead.”
No, Ybelline’s musical voice said, before Kaylin could ask. That makes no more sense to me than it does to you. It is difficult, she added. We...die, I think...very quickly. There is some resistance. Where we have power—magical power, elemental power—we survive in small pockets. In those cases, our deaths are hours ahead, no more.
Did you—did they—see anything? She hesitated. She heard, beneath the calm of Ybelline’s words, a very real fear. And fear sometimes led to insanity, in the Tha’alani mind. Kaylin could investigate a death. But even she had trouble thinking about the deaths in her life she would not be able to prevent.
What she was asking was so much worse than thinking about it. She was, she realized, asking Ybelline to experience them all.
Yes, was Ybelline’s reply. But I understand why—it is to prevent them. Kaylin, I can do this. It is...difficult, but the alternative is worse.
“What I did,” the water said, “is forbidden.”
“Then how could you do it at all?”
>
“Because Gilbert and his kind are dead.”
“Not dead. Just...sleeping.”
“They do not sleep, Kaylin.”
“It’s how he described it.”
“Perhaps it is how you understand it.”
“But if you knew—”
“What would you have done to save your children if you knew what would happen?”
Anything. Anything.
“And if the only solution, if the only legal solution, was to let them die? I did not know but, Kaylin—had I, I would have done the same thing.”
“All right. All right, I accept that. I can’t judge it. I can’t disagree with it. I just don’t understand why you could do this now. I don’t understand why you knew to bring them to right now, and not tomorrow or ten years ago.”
The water rumbled. It spoke, but the words were sensation, not sound, and Kaylin could make sense of none of it. She headed down the stairs, her hand still paired with the hand of the Avatar. But she was thinking. Thinking and approaching the question from another avenue.
Ybelline said, I believe it is because this was the only time. No, that is not the whole of it. Earlier might have been better—but the jumps cause less friction if they are short; they are far less likely to be detected. There was no later time.
The water existed in Kattea’s time.
Yes, Kaylin. Yes, but—no. I do not understand it.
There’s no “No” here. If the water didn’t exist at that time, how could it bring them back to this one? Ugh. I hate time.
Ybelline, however, had not surrendered. I am sorry, Kaylin—I understand the urgency. I...cannot...explain...what I hear at the heart of the Tha’alaan; it is too foreign. Too large. There is something in this time, something like a rip or a tear. I do not think the water could move Gilbert to any other time. The attempt could be made only because of this fissure. I think.
Cast in Honor (The Chronicles of Elantra) Page 28