Cast In Secret (33 page)

And the fire was raging. She could see the way the heat distorted the air around its perfect shape. It was taller than either Kaylin or Ybelline – although that wasn’t hard – and infinitely more majestic. It carried a sword of flame, whose heart was blue, and no shield. It was almost a man, although heat blurred its features, the cast of its nonexistent bones.

But not the color of its eyes.

They were Ybelline’s eyes.

“So,” the fire said, and it spoke with her voice, “you understand.”

Kaylin did. “You could speak with the elements,” she said flatly. “In a way that none of
us
could.”

“Yes,” Ybelline said quietly. “There are perhaps twenty-five of the Tha’alani who could do what I am now doing – but not one of them has.”

“And you can… keep this secret.”

“It is because I can that I am willing to risk this at all,” Ybelline replied.

“And he saw this.”

“Yes.”

“And he wanted it. Not the Tha’alaan. He must have known that that was beyond him. But
this
– the ability to
be
the fire… ” She shook her head. “Can you put it away now?”

“Yes. But it is more difficult than calling it forth. I am not the fire,” Ybelline said, her voice slightly louder. “And the fire is not me. But it is living, Kaylin. In its fashion. It thinks, but not in a way that you or I think.”

Twenty-five
. For just a moment, Kaylin could imagine what a city at war would look like after twenty-five such mages had joined the battle. “Tha’alani are supposed to find Barrani and Dragons difficult to read.”

“They are
very
difficult to read.”

“But fire’s easier?”

“Yes.”

“Why exactly?”

“I don’t know.” She folded her hands, slowly, together, and as she did, the fire dwindled. But the heat remained in the air, distorting it. “Possibly because there is only
now,
with fire.”

Something about the way she said the last two words made Kaylin’s day worse. “And with the other elements?”

“Earth is slower,” Ybelline replied. “Air is very, very hard to touch this way, and therefore much harder to control. Water, we do not – did not – call.”

“Why?”

Ybelline said nothing. And looked very much as if she would go on saying nothing.

“Ybelline – have you heard the Oracles?”

The Tha’alani woman shook her head and spoke slowly, as if speaking were difficult. “We were summoned to speak with one of the Oracles. A boy who paints. The Dragon Court has been concerned with the Oracles. I have… had my own concerns.”

“They’re the same concerns,” Kaylin said urgently. “And I need to know about water. We have, according to the Oracles, two weeks of city left.” But something bothered her. Something Tiamaris had said…

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 reality? 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.