Читать книгу Cast In Secret - Michelle Sagara - Страница 12

Kaylin was silent on the walk home. She didn’t even try to lead; she followed Severn as if she were his shadow, a part of his movement, impossible to separate from it.

“Kaylin?”

She shook her head. “I’ll go,” she said quietly.

“Alone?”

“I think it—I think so.”

“I despise the fieflord,” Severn said in a flat and neutral tone, “but his taste has never run toward the mutilation of children. Not her age.” He paused, and then added, as if it were dragged from him and he was unwilling to let it go, “I do not think, even if it did, that he would pursue it while you lived. There are some things that you do not forget.”

“Did Nevaron give you all of Grethan’s memory?” She felt almost dirty asking. Like a gossip, but worse. And she hated herself for it; she was doing what she herself feared might be done to her. Hypocrisy and Kaylin were not close friends.

“No,” Severn replied. “It was not his to give. He is Tha’alanari. He understands why barriers must be placed, and where.”

She nodded. The answer was both a frustration and a comfort. “Just an image?”

“More than an image, but not a whole story,” he replied. “The image of Mayalee is not the same as the description of the girl you saw in Evanton’s … shop. I do not think they are the same child,” he added, “although neither have been reported as missing. As neither have been officially reported,” he added quietly, “I’m not sure we’ll be allowed to officially investigate, either.”

She nodded absently. “Subsection of the human rights code v.8 states clearly that—”

“Those who are incapable of stating a case are still protected by the dictates of law.”

“It was meant to make provisions for—”

“Abused children, or those sold to brothels by their parents, often for transport to the fiefs.”

“You’re good,” she said with a half smile.

“As are you, which is probably more surprising given your general academic history.” His smile was fleeting, but genuine. “But the first case almost certainly involves magic.”

“And the second?”

“It involves Nightshade,” Severn said quietly. “What do you think?”

“Magic.” She said the two syllables with the emphasis she usually reserved for Leontine cursing. “Gods, I hate magic.”

“Don’t start, Kaylin.”

“All right. I won’t.”

“And speaking of magic—”

“Yes, damn it, I know.”

“You’re late.”

“Did I not just say I know that?”

“Have you ever been on time for one of your lessons?”

“Once. I think it almost gave Sanabalis a heart attack. If,” she added darkly, “Dragon lords have hearts.”

“I believe they have four.”

“Probably because they ate three.” She started to run because Severn had begun to jog.

“I have a few questions to ask the sergeant,” Severn said. “I’ll meet you after you’ve finished.”

Lord Sanabalis of the Dragon court had that aura of aged wisdom that had not yet declined into dotage. She found him both comforting and frightening—but then again, she’d seen a Dragon in its serpent form, so that was understandable.

He was also, in his own way, kind. The day she had been on time, he had been late. In fact he had taken to arriving about half an hour to an hour later than their scheduled appointment, probably to put Marcus at ease. It was not something she thought other Dragons would do; even Tiamaris, technically still seconded to the Hawks, would not have condescended to show that much consideration for the merely mortal.

Especially not when it was Marcus.

Today, Sanabalis was waiting for her in the West room, in the chair he habitually occupied. It was the largest chair in the office, and it was made of something so hard you could probably have carved swords out of it and they would still have maintained a killing edge.

Dragons were not exactly light.

She bowed when she entered the room, her hair askew. She had, as usual, flown through the office at a run, and paused only to let Caitlin fuss a bit.

But she sagged slightly when she saw her nemesis sitting on the table: a pale candle with an unlit wick. Grimacing, she took her seat opposite Sanabalis.

“Good of you to come,” he said. This was code for I’ve been waiting half an hour. She had thought she would only be half an hour late, and revised that estimate up by about thirty minutes.

“I was delayed,” she said carefully, “by a request from Ybelline of the—”

He lifted a hand. “It is not my concern.”

He waved toward the candle, and Kaylin said, without thinking, “Instead of trying to get me to understand the shape of fire, can you teach me the shape of water?”

His utter silence was almost profound, and his eyes had shifted from calm, placid gold to something that was tinged slightly orange. Red was the color of death in Dragon eyes.

Orange just meant they might pull an arm off for fun.

“It is very interesting that you should ask that, Kaylin. You will of course amuse an old man by telling him why.”

Kicking herself was not much fun, but she did it anyway. “It’s—”

His eyes shifted shades. His inner lids began to fall. Certainly made his eyes a more vibrant color. “Why water, Kaylin? Why now?”

Because she was either brave or stupid, she said, “Why do you care so much?” She didn’t tilt back in her chair; she couldn’t affect that much nonchalance in the face of a concerned—she liked that word—Dragon lord. But she did try.

It wasn’t the answer he was expecting. She could tell by the way he blinked; the last few weeks had given her that much. “Water is pervasive,” he said at last, and his eyes had shaded back to gold, but it was a bright and fiery gold, unlike the normal calm of Dragon eyes. Too keen, and too shiny.

“All of the elements—and that is a crude word, Kaylin, and it conveys almost nothing of their essence—have faces. They are death, if you discern that shape, but they are life, if you discern others.”

She thought of the shape of fire. Looked at the candle. It wasn’t life or death she had been struggling with. It was just lighting a damn wick. “Fire burns,” she said at last.

“Yes.”

“And without it, we die in the cold, if we’re unlucky enough to live there.”

“Yes.”

“There’s more?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to explain it, are you?”

“No. But I am not unpleased, Kaylin.”

“Why is that, exactly?” She didn’t often say something right to her teachers, and she thought it might be useful if she ever wanted it to happen a second time.

“Water,” he said. “Tell me what you think.”

She knew she was chewing on her lower lip. “Well,” she said at last, “you can drown in it.”

“Yes.”

“And the storms at sea—”

“Yes.”

“But if you don’t drink it, you die.”

“Very good.”

“And so do the plants, in a draught.”

“Indeed.”

“And there’s more.” But this wasn’t a question. Water is deep. “Water is deep,” she said, musing aloud.

“Yes. Those are the words of the Keeper.”

“The who?”

“You met with him today,” Sanabalis added softly.

“Oh. You mean Evanton?”

His brow rose at the tone of her voice.

“Well, he’s just an old—” And fell again as her voice trailed off, remembering him in his elemental garden.

“He was one of my students,” Sanabalis said quietly, “but he does not visit, and cannot.” He looked at her carefully. “He showed you his responsibility.”

She nodded slowly.

“And you saw something in the water there.”

She nodded again. “A girl,” she said quietly. “Bruised face. Dark hair. Wide eyes. She called me by name,” she added softly.

“Did you recognize her?” His gaze was keen now, sharp enough to cut. Had she been a liar, she would have fallen silent, afraid to test that edge. But she was Kaylin.

“No. But I—I need to find her, Sanabalis.”

“Yes,” he told her softly. Where in this case soft was like the rumble of an earthquake giving its only warning.

“You know about this.”

“I don’t, Kaylin. Or I did not. But water—it is the element of the living. It is the element to which we are most strongly tied, or to which you and your kind are. It is the element that speaks most strongly to the Oracles.”

Kaylin failed entirely to keep from grimacing.

“You disdain the Oracles?”

“They speak in riddles when they speak at all, and afterward, they tell you that whatever gibberish they said was of course true.”

“It is only afterward that the contexts of the words have their full meaning,” he replied patiently.

She stopped. “You’ve been talking to the Oracles?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“The Emperor desired it,” he replied, carefully and slowly. “And in truth, they came to him, and they were ill at ease.”

“How ill?”

“Perhaps a week ago, perhaps a little more, they were woken from their sleep by a dream.”

“All of them?”

“All of them. Even those who are mere apprentices and have not yet earned the right to live in the temple and its grounds.”

“It wasn’t a good dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream at all.”

“A—what do they call them?”

“Vision.” His momentary impatience was clear.

“Of what?”

“Water,” he told her.

“Water.”

“Yes. The waters are deep,” he added, speaking almost exactly in the tone and style of Evanton. “And things sleep within those depths that have not been seen by even the living Dragons, save perhaps two.”

She froze. “Something is waking.”

“In their dreams, yes.”

“What?”

“They’re Oracles, Kaylin,” he replied.

“So you don’t know.”

“No. They’re certain it’s not a good thing for the city. Which has a port. The Sages have been poring over the words and symbols,” he added, with just a flicker of his brow.

“And they get what anyone sane gets, which is confused.”

He actually offered a slight smile. “It is not yet clear to them, no.”

“Something big is going to happen.”

“Big enough to wake the Oracles—all of them—no matter where they lay sleeping.”

She was silent for a moment, candle forgotten. “And did they have any sense of timing?”

“Time is not as concrete for people who see into possible futures,” he told her quietly.

“That would be no.”

“That would indeed be no—but there is urgency. And I cannot think that it is coincidence that you came to me today to ask me about the element of water.” He paused. “The Keeper summoned you.”

“Well, no—” She stopped. “Maybe.”

“Then the child is someone connected to the water, I think.”

Kaylin nodded. “I have no idea where to start,” she added. “But … Ybelline also invited me to visit her … at her home in the Tha’alani quarter.”

Dragon brows rose. “And you accepted?”

“It wasn’t official,” Kaylin replied. “And … yes. Because I was in Missing Persons.” She trailed off. “Dragons don’t believe in coincidence, do they?”

“Not in this city,” Sanabalis replied. “They do, however, believe in lessons.” He stared at the candle.

“If the world were ending—”

“You’d still have work to do.”

The contempt in which candles were held by Kaylin could not safely be put into words in front of a Dragon lord—but it was still a close thing. Sanabalis, however, did not lecture her. He was quiet during their lesson, and his lower lids flickered often as he studied her face. At length he stood.

“Perhaps,” he said, as if grudging the word, “you require a slightly different approach, given your remarkable lack of success. Very well, Kaylin. The day after tomorrow, we will look at the shape of water. Be prepared,” he added softly. “There are many reasons why water is not the first element we approach. And why, in some cases, it is better not approached at all.”

He rose and left, and she sat in the West Room, staring at the plain surface of a nearly invulnerable table, seeing her future. Which would be in Nightshade, where so much of her past had unfolded.

It was well past midday when Kaylin made her way across the Ablayne, idly watching its banks for trouble. Almost hopefully watching the banks for trouble. It was a safe trouble—in as much as people trying to kill you or beat you to a messy pulp could be called safe