Cast in Honor (The Chronicles of Elantra) (17 page)

“They are there,” her familiar said, appearing by her left shoulder. “They are a microcosm of this place. You can see them only because you are entwined with Gilbert’s consciousness. You cannot touch them.”

“Can you?”

“Not as I am.”

“Am I—am I doing the right thing?”

“I cannot answer that question. There are too many variables.”

“Will this heal Gilbert?”

“Ah. I do not know, Kaylin. I do not know what you are now attempting to do.”

She looked at the flat, bright marks on her arms. “...Neither do I. I’m just thinking of all the old stories.”

“Stories?”

“The Barrani. The Ancients. The True Names. True words.”

“They are more than just stories.”

“I didn’t say they were just stories. But...they
are
stories.” She hesitated and then added, “A lot of our actual experiences become stories. Things we tell other people. Things we don’t tell other people. It’s not just about the words. But...sometimes words are what we have. They’re not everything; they have to be enough.”

“Even the words that you don’t understand?”

She looked at her arms. “Even then. Because these words are part of me. Maybe if I use them enough, I’ll understand them so well I can say what I really mean with them.”

“What do you really mean, Kaylin?”

Kaylin blinked. “I’m not talking about right now. But—in general. I can’t always say what I mean. No, that’s wrong. People don’t always hear what I thought I was saying. I mean, they hear what I actually say.”

“Ah. So you feel you choose the wrong words?”

“I must. If I’d chosen the right ones, they’d understand me.”

“I do not think it is ever that simple.”

“It would be if I could speak true words.”

“Ah, no. Because anyone with whom you might converse so earnestly wouldn’t hear them. But the words that you seek are here. You cannot see them; there is too much flicker, too much movement.”

“Can Gilbert?”

Silence. To her surprise, Hope broke it. “Your instincts have always been good. No, Kaylin. What he could perceive before you entered this chamber was even less than you yourself now see. You breathe. You live.”

“You once ate a word.”

“Did I?”

“Yes. Could Gilbert do the same thing?”

“I do not know. What you see in Gilbert, I do not see—except through you. It is similar to what you now see when you speak with your Severn.”

“What I see?”

“You see what is here where you are standing—but also, because of your bond, where he is standing. You feel what his hands touch. You see what his eyes see. And he sees the inverse. I do not know how you intend to utilize this. Both are, as you suspect, real.”

“Why am I not where he is? I can hear his voice—”

“Because you have moved aside one or two steps. Not all beings can see all realities. Mandoran and Annarion are aware of many—but not all.”

“Why are there—why is there more than
one
? No, never mind—answer that later.”

“The answer, of course, is that there is only one. But you were not created in a way that allows you to see and retain it all. You are like a fish. If you are born in air, you will die; if you are forced to spend time out of the water, you will also die. What you see in the water can be seen—if the water is clear—from the air, but it will not be seen in the same way.

“Gilbert is a creature who can be at home in either the water or the air—as are your two friends. But sometimes, he carries pockets of air with him, and if your Severn is caught in one, being a fish, he will die. There is no malice involved, but that does not make the danger of death any less real.

“You are trying, in your fashion, to allow Gilbert to survive in the water without the benefit of the air that will kill you. I do not know if that is healing in any precise sense of the word.” He hesitated.

She marked it.

“Is the body that Severn can see Gilbert’s actual body?”

“Choose, Kaylin. You are not a bird. You must return to the water, soon.”

* * *

Kaylin lifted her right hand to her forehead. This mark was
not
one of the marks granted her by Ancients who’d never asked permission; it was a True Name. It was a name she had gathered and placed onto her own skin to preserve it.

It belonged to the Barrani. She knew this.

But it was the only True Name she had. She could not return to the Lake of Life to capture another word from its waters; not in time. She very much doubted that she would be allowed to do so even if time weren’t an issue.

She lowered her hand. The word had not left her forehead.

Grinding her teeth, she lifted her hand again. Her breath—because she’d continued to breathe—filled the air in front of her. As if she were a Dragon on a bad day, it had filled the room like smoke. And yes, she could now see the ghosts of words lingering in its folds.

This was what she needed, but it was only part of what she needed. The rest? Attached to her. Now that she knew this, the words were flat and dimensionless, of course.

This would not be the first time she’d tried to pick them off. But the last time, she’d been a terrified child.

Keep your hands where they are
, she told Severn.

He nodded; she felt it. She lifted her hands again, but this time she tried to remember what it felt like to find a word in the Lake of Life. The Lake had not appeared as a lake; it had appeared as a...a desk. The surface of a desk. A place upon which words were written. Yet her hands had slid below that surface—

She did not want her hands to slide beneath the surface of her own skin. In her own reality, that would be impossible. But in Gilbert’s?

In Gilbert’s reality, the rules were different. Inhaling, she focused on her memories. Her hands had fallen below the hard surface of the table, and she had—eventually—found a word whose shape and weight seemed right. Here, there was no search. She only had one word, of the many, that could function as life.

This time, she felt her hand dip beneath the surface of her own forehead, as if her skin were liquid. She had to try three times; the first two attempts were disturbing enough she froze. But the third time, she felt the pinprick edges of something against her fingers and palm. She cupped the word carefully and withdrew it, and it expanded to fill her hand, gaining dimension and weight.

The names were not sentient—not in a way that Kaylin understood sentience. But she felt, holding it, regret and worry. She silently apologized for not visiting the Lake to take it home. If she’d said it out aloud, Teela would smack her when she could finally reach her. Teela, after all, forgot nothing.

She lifted the word.

The cloud parted. The word didn’t leave her hand.

It wasn’t enough, she thought. Yes, she carried it, the way she carried the other marks—but in the end, it had a place that wasn’t a patch of Kaylin’s skin. It wasn’t
of
her. Or rather, it wasn’t part of her duties as Chosen. Duties that she had never understood.

She understood them now, but not in a way she could easily put into words. Ironic, really. Severn should have been Chosen. He made a lot less noise, but when he spoke, it meant something.

Maybe the words were given to you because you can speak so freely
, Severn pointed out.

Fine.
But I can’t choose words
well
.

Why do you have to choose one?

Because there’s some part of the story that’s incomplete.
This made sense to Kaylin.

How do you know that
?

I don’t
know
, Severn. I just... It’s just...

A feeling. It was just a feeling. It was intuition. She raised her right arm; her right hand held the only True Name in the room that wasn’t already occupied. Her left hand was free, and it grew colder. Her cheeks stung, and the air drew the breath out of her lungs, froze her nostrils. Only the hand that held the name felt any warmth at all. Kaylin did not consider this a particularly good sign.

She glanced up at a cloud of translucent words, made from her own breath and the bitter cold.

* * *

Kaylin.

I’m moving as fast as I can—

The body is getting colder.

So was the room. Her arms were shaking enough that it was harder to see the brighter, closer marks on her skin; her hands were curved in loose fists that wouldn’t hold anything competently. Her right hand still held the name because it was the only source of warmth in the room.

But even that warmth was fading.

Kaylin—

She touched her arm; her own marks stopped their slow traversal of her skin. The rune she slid her shaking fingers over felt almost brittle to the touch. For one long, held breath she was afraid that she had waited too long. It was frozen. It would not move.

“Kaylin.” Like the words of breath and mist, her familiar was all white, an ice that implied endless cold and death. She couldn’t see his eyes. “I do not know why you were Chosen; were it not for my presence, you would be lost here.” He gestured at the mark on her arm; it rose. It rose and expanded, becoming dimensional as it hovered above her arm.

“I cannot touch you here,” he said, voice quiet. “It would destroy you.” He looked at the words that weren’t hers in the darkness, as if reading them. “Do what you must do, but do it quickly.”

“Can you—”

“No, Kaylin. I can touch neither you nor the tale that is told; what was written here was not of me; it is not mine. I could destroy it. I could refashion it—but then it would be a different story, and not the story of the one you call Gilbert.

“And if I did that, you would also perish. You will perish, regardless. You are not Barrani, not Dragon, not any of the older races; you will age and you will die.” He spoke now, as if to himself.

Kaylin reached out for the word he had freed from her skin.

“But time, to you, is a prison from which there is no escape, except one. You do not feel its immediacy.”

He was wrong. She
did
. She knew better than anyone what
too late
meant.

She listened as she moved. Gilbert’s words, revealed by breath and cold, were an arm’s length away, no more, but they seemed to remain inches in front of her, no matter how hard she strained to reach them. The shuddering didn’t help.

She had never been so cold in her life.

There was warmth waiting for her—and food, and family—if she could complete the pattern in front of her. She
had
a home now. She had a place to go. She cursed in quiet Leontine and lifted the rune that had come from her skin into place; it took four attempts.

She knew when it had successfully joined the mass of the words of ice because gold spread across white, seeping into it as if it were ink on a tablecloth. It spread. What had been mist and ice became, at last, true words as she understood them.

Sadly, they didn’t make the room any warmer.

There was only one thing that could do that. She held it in her hand: life, in the paradigm of the Ancients. It had to go to a body she couldn’t see or touch herself.

Think, damn it. Just...
think
.

The name in her hand had been created
for
the Barrani, but it was the only name she had to offer Gilbert.

She had never asked the Consort how names were transferred to the babies that straddled the boundary between life and death, as all Barrani newborns did. The Barrani were understandably protective about the Lake of Life. Any mention of it caused Barrani eyes to darken by several shades, and the resultant blue was uncomfortable. Or worse.

She had a suspicion, though. It involved being able to touch the body. She had no idea how to do that here; she couldn’t even
see
it.

She needed to be where Severn was. She closed her eyes and returned her awareness to him; to his vision. He was looking at the body that was not a corpse, but not quite a statue; his hands remained gently spread across its chest.

She could feel ice and stone. She could feel them as strongly as she could feel the True Name in her own hands. She could see his hands clearly, but she couldn’t see her own. She didn’t try. Instead, she apologized to her partner and tried to move his.

She lifted his right hand. She flexed his fingers. Curved them into a fist. Opened the hand again and examined the scars across his right palm. Cupped that palm and held it steady until it felt like her own hand to her.

“Corporal?” Tain’s voice.

Severn didn’t answer.

Severn?
Severn!

I’m here. It’s bloody cold.

Severn was where Kaylin was. She felt a moment of pure panic; both of his hands clenched in involuntary fists.

Come back. Come back to you.

Silence.

Severn—come back
right now
.
She was terrified; the fear was sudden and sharp and too visceral to be cold.

He didn’t reply.

She looked up at Teela, at her familiar blue eyes, at the subtle shift of her brows. “Severn’s not here,” she said.

Teela’s eyes narrowed into perfect edges. “Kitling, what are you doing?”

“I’m here—Severn’s where I was. He won’t—he won’t come back. How do I make him come back?”

“Ask and hope he agrees.”

“Tried that.”

“If I understand what’s happening, you’re not the person who gets to make that decision—you can fight, but it will cause you both immense pain at a time when you cannot afford it.” Teela exhaled. “You’re here for a reason. Please tell me you’re here for a reason.”

Teela’s irritation was so familiar, so normal, it steadied the younger Hawk. “Yes.”

“Then do whatever it was you came here for. Do it quickly.”

For one heartbeat, she couldn’t remember. Severn’s hands unclenched; Severn’s lungs took in air, held it for a beat and exhaled it. She lifted her right hand, cupped it; lowered her left. She meant to place it squarely in the center of the figure’s chest, but it drifted up, toward its closed eyes instead.

“I think I need three hands.”