“We don’t live forever. Minutes count.”
Severn touched her shoulder. “Can you see anyone else?”
“No.”
“Can you sense anyone else?”
“No.” She paused, and then said, reluctantly, “No.”
“He is here,” Sanabalis told them both quietly.
“Idis?”
“The Keeper. And Idis, yes.”
“How can you tell?”
“The garden has almost reverted to its true form,” he replied. “And if it has, the Keeper has withdrawn his power. He has either used it, or he hoards it. But he no longer spends it holding the elements to their quiet shape.”
“I think we’d better hurry,” Kaylin said. She looked to Severn for guidance, and he shrugged. “Sanabalis?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m not sure which way to go.”
“Forward,” the Dragon replied, and began to walk.
Kaylin very gratefully fell in behind him, Severn by her side. The problem with magic was that it dropped hints at its own convenience, not hers. She could rely on her training, on her abilities to fight—or to know when a fight was just death waiting to happen. She could rely on her ability to read, and occasionally, to make sense of the maps the Aerians had drawn for the use of the Halls of Law. She could even rely on her knowledge of the Laws themselves. But a few marks on her arms that occasionally itched—or worse—gave her nothing solid to stand on. They were like the window displays in the shops that only the very, very wealthy could enter. All that promise of finery, and none of where she wanted it to be when she wanted it.
Unlike Severn. Or Marcus. Or any of the other Hawks.
If they managed to do whatever it was they had to do here, it would be because of the solid, everyday people she could count on. Yes, even Sanabalis, who was walking so fast she had to sprint to keep pace.
The grass grew wild; Sanabalis flattened a path through it by the simple expedient of weight. Here and there, weeds had flowered, striking in their colors and chaos. These, too, he trampled underfoot. Kaylin did the same, cringing as she jogged. But the grass grew shorter and sparser as they walked, and the sun—if it was a sun—loomed larger and larger. No moons here, the full height of day. Not for the first time, Kaylin wished she’d brought a hat. It was hot.
“Yes,” Sanabalis said, as if reading her mind. “It is hot here. And the heat is dangerous for both of you. It is not humid. It is much, much warmer now than it was in the streets of Elantra.”
“We can’t get out of the heat. There’s no shade.”
Sanabalis nodded grimly. “None,” he replied. “But there are no fires yet. The Keeper still holds this ground, Kaylin. Some of his power lingers here.”
“How can you tell?”
“How can you not?”
She started to say something, bit back the words, and concentrated. What is the shape of fire?
Sanabalis smacked the back of her head, as if she were an errant child. “Do not think that here! Kaylin, it is a wonder to me that you survived to be a Hawk. In the safety of the West Room, it is impossible to get you to speak in complete, coherent sentences, let alone concentrate on your studies.
“But here, where it would be insanity, you suddenly become studious?”
Rubbing the back of her head—and the goose egg she was certain was growing there—she mumbled an apology.
But Severn caught the Dragon’s arm. “Lord Sanabalis,” he began.
“I don’t care if he hit me,” Kaylin said in a rush.
Severn raised a dark brow. “You clearly deserved it. I wasn’t about to defend you.”
“Oh. Then what were you about to do?”
“If you would care to stop interrupting the corporal,” Sanabalis said drily, “perhaps you wouldn’t have need of the question. Corporal Handred?”
“I think we should take the risk.”
His words clearly made no sense to the Dragon. They barely made sense to Kaylin.
“Risk?” she said.
“What you were about to do—do it.”
Sanabalis lifted a hand, and Kaylin stepped out of the way. But it wasn’t raised to hit her. It was raised to stop Severn’s words. “It is too great a risk here. You do not understand what the garden is, and what the Keeper is.”
“No. But I understand what Kaylin is.” He looked at her, and then added, “More or less.”
“Severn—”
“I was…with you.”
“When?”
“When you visited the Castle, Kaylin. I was with you. I didn’t see what you saw, I couldn’t hear what you heard—but what you felt, I felt. And I do not think,” he added, gazing at the cracked land that seemed to stretch out before them for miles, “that we have the time to walk through the garden, as Lord Sanabalis calls it.”
“I’m not sure that what I—what I was going to do—”
“Will make the walk shorter?”
She nodded.
But Sanabalis was now staring at her with unlidded, golden eyes.
“Let Sanabalis do it,” she said in her quietest voice.
“Because if he makes the mistake it’s his fault, not yours?” The scorn in the words was worse than a physical slap. She wanted to say something just as sharp, just as wounding—but she stopped herself because what he’d said was true. And if it was true, she deserved his scorn.
And the last thing she wanted from Severn was scorn.
“Kaylin,” Lord Sanabalis said quietly, “what is the shape of fire?”
Standing on the cracked, hard ground beneath the baleful sun, she knew. She knew what the shape of fire was. She could remember the feel of it, the heat inches from her open hands, her upturned face. She could remember the crackle of its voice, the way it waited before her, the way it danced, flames like sinuous tendons, free from the awkward confines of skin or bone. She could remember—
How to call it.
It was the easiest thing in the world.
There was the smallest place, the smallest space, between their world and fire, and the fire could be coaxed out, could be pulled out. It could not come without aid, and that aid required power and knowledge.
Kaylin had Uriel’s knowledge. Kaylin had lived Uriel’s life.
But she no longer had his hatred, his anger, or his guilt. She called the fire, and it came, and she could see it pouring into the world as if it were molasses. But where Uriel had stopped, Kaylin couldn’t. The fire, once it had her memories and her power as a guide, didn’t seem to need anything else.
It kept on pouring out of wherever it had been contained, and Kaylin began to fight it, to try to slow it down. Her eyes were closed, but she could still see the fire, see it growing, gaining width and height, gaining some sort of shape.
She shouted a warning—to Severn, to Sanabalis. She couldn’t later be certain what she’d said. Only that she’d been afraid for them. And fear was bad.
Uriel had never been afraid. But Uriel didn’t have to be. He could speak to the fire.
He could speak to the fire.
She took a deep breath and almost coughed her lungs out. The fire was so close. She opened her eyes, and saw flame, saw red and yellow, orange and gold, white and blue—a haze of color, of heat.
And, gritting her teeth, she reached out with her hand.
Was very, very surprised when a hand of flame reached out in turn, and pressed itself against her palm. The pain was instant, unavoidable—but she expected that much, and she bit back all sound. Because her hand was not on fire, and the fire did not blister or blacken it. She’d seen burns; she knew damn well what fire could do.
Dead fire.
Not living fire, not like this.
It had no face, no eyes—the hand was the only thing remotely human about it. It was enough.
It has been long, the fire said, inside her.
She wasn’t sure what to say in response; etiquette lessons hadn’t really covered large fire elementals. But as she hesitat
ed, someone came to her rescue.
Kaylin Neya, a familiar voice said, crackling like fire. It was Evanton.
She almost let go of the fire in shock, but the fire held on. Evanton?
You took your time, was his reply. And you don’t have much of it.
Where are you?
Crackle took the words.
Evanton—
Just get here, girl. You and that partner of yours. Oh, and the damn Dragon, and you can tell him I noticed he’s here. There’ll be words.
But how—
Oh.
“Severn, Sanabalis, we’re going now.”
“We’re—Kaylin!”
The fire, bending at her request, scooped them all up in its folds. They should have been ash. They should have been dead. Well, not Sanabalis—she suspected the fire couldn’t harm him—but she and Severn.
Instead, they were borne aloft by the moving flame, and if they felt its heat, that was all they felt. Even the pain of that first contact was spared them.
You are not Uriel, the fire said as they traveled.
No, she replied carefully. But she had chosen to be honest, because—well, it was fire. There wasn’t much reason to lie to fire; fire was outside of the human condition. I’m Kaylin Neya.
But you are Uriel’s kin.
I’m—She started to disagree, and then stopped because, after all, what was kinship to fire? What did it mean? Fire didn’t get married; it didn’t father children; it didn’t need midwives. Her arms and legs were tingling, and the back of her neck was so prickly it hurt. Yes, she said. I’m his kin.
Speak to us, Uriel-kin. Kaylin. Speak to us. Give us your voice.
What could she say to fire? She looked at Sanabalis, and realized that he couldn’t hear the fire. Wondered what he would have said, if he could. Probably that fire was dangerous.
And it was. She had seen what fire had done at Uriel’s command. But this fire, she thought firmly, would be different. This fire would save the world. Or at least the city. Or Mayalee.
Speak to us, the fire said again, and she thought there was something in its tone that was coaxing. As if she were the elemental, and had to be teased out of a small, small space in the worlds that separated them.
And maybe, for fire, she was.
So she did what she did when the foundling kits gathered round her—after they’d had their arguments over who got to sit beside her and who got to sit in her lap this time—and she began to tell it a story.
There were several false starts, because fire and children weren’t the same, and Kaylin, loving an audience, wanted a story that would mean something to that audience.
After a pause, some furious thought, and some editing, she said, In my lands, it is often cold. She expected interruption, but the fire seemed to take more from her than just the words, and she realized that Uriel had seldom spoken with simple words.
She imagined winter. Winter in the fiefs. The cold, the killing cold, ruled the nights, in this story, and even in the day the sun was chill. She felt the fire’s shock and ire at this, and smiled.
There were two children, she told the fire. A boy and a girl, some five years younger. They had very little warm clothing that winter (she had to stop to explain the concept of warm clothing and cool clothing). It was harsh, and their mother had died.
The enemy killed her.
No, Kaylin said softly. Time, and illness.
And on that cold day, they found an abandoned room—and it had one large window, but the window had no shutters, no way to keep the wind out. Still, the room had a roof, and a floor that was almost solid.
This was to be their home for the winter, and they were happy to have found it. But it was very, very cold, even in their shelter.
The boy left. He was gone for hours, and the girl huddled against the wall, where the wind through the window was weakest, holding her knees to her chest while she waited. The boy had told her not to sleep because sometimes sleep in the cold meant death, and she didn’t want to die. So she waited, awake, and when he came back, she saw that he carried several logs, cold with ice and snow.
As stories went, Kaylin knew, this one lacked almost anything that would please children. But she remembered that winter well. She remembered Severn. She remembered his clothing because it was too small or too large; she remembered the shape of his feet, the way they looked so red and raw in the cold. She remembered that he found some stale bread, that he pulled it out of a large pocket after he dropped the logs—it wasn’t enough to feed even one person, but it was so unexpected, it was a gift.
And her hands were so cold they hurt with it, and she could barely hold the bread he’d given her, and the bread itself was frozen solid. It had probably fallen off a wagon headed to the Castle, and had gone unseen in the snow, one small roll.
But while she worked at it, while she tried to eat, Severn put the logs in the grate, and he did something, and she remembered the sight of his bent back, his shoulders. He seemed like a giant, then. She stopped eating, although she was hungry; she wanted Severn to eat, too. Her mother had always made her share, and even if her mother wasn’t there—well, she was watching from somewhere, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she?
And then she heard Severn’s sigh, saw the breath mist out from his mouth and rise like a cloud. Relief. Even happiness. She crept over to his side, the half-gnawed roll in her hand, and she curled up around his left arm, pressing the food into his hand.
“I ate,” he told her.
Oh, she was such a child. Such a selfish, stupid child. She believed him. She was so hungry. She was so cold. But she wasn’t afraid, because Severn was there.
And in front of Severn, burning brightly, little flames dancing like angels amid the wood he’d carried in, was fire. She leaned too close, of course, and part of her hair got singed—she still remembered the smell of it—but the fire was warm.
And warmth was life.
She curled up in Severn’s lap, pulled his arms around her—child, child, child—and listened to him while he told her all of the things he could see in the flames. After a while, and because she had always interrupted him, she began to tell him what she saw, and they sat huddled there while the night passed and the fire burned.
It had been good hardwood, and it had burned a long while, and she had never asked him where it had come from.
She felt the ripple of movement pass through the fire like a sigh.
So, it said.
Fire was life, for the children, she told the fire. And then she added, You saved us, then.
She felt curiosity and confusion. But no anger. Uriel-kin, the fire finally said.
Yes?
What of your wars? What of your people?
Those wars are long over, she told the fire. But the small wars, the small deaths—those will never end. You took life, you burned.
Yes. And she felt its desire.
But you saved life. You saved my life. I ask you to aid us again, fire. One of my children is missing. She was taken by my enemy, and she is held here.
In this place?
It came to her, slowly, that he knew what this place was. This garden.
Yes. You are taking us there now.
But the fire had stopped moving. I can go no farther than this, Uriel-kin. I would burn for you. I would burn. But I can go no farther here.
The fire gently let her down, and she saw, at the edge of cracked, dry dirt, the shallows of a wide, moving river. The riverbank was hard, though, and she doubted that it would ever soften. No mud here.
I don’t want you to burn for me, Kaylin told the fire as Severn touched her hand.
But if you do not desire the burning, you will not call me. You will not speak to me again. Teller of tales, Chosen, will you not summon me?
I will summon you, she told the fire. I give you my word. I will summon you, and I will tell you the shapes I see in your heart, and you will keep the winter from me in the coldest nights.
And then she let the fir
e go.
She did not force it back, and it lingered there, near the water, steam rising in its wake. But she did not fear it, now. Maybe later. Maybe when she saw, again, the damage that fire could do, the burns and the ruin it made of flesh and shelter.
But now, she looked at the moving water, straightening the folds of her dress.
Severn’s hand was warm. Before thought caught up with her, before reticence kept her still, she turned toward him and curled her arms around his arm, as she had done when she was a child.
In turn, he lifted a hand and stroked her hair and said, just as he had said on that winter day, “It will grow back.”
Which made no sense, until she realized the familiar smell of burned hair had been so strong for a reason.
Sanabalis looked at her when she at last released Severn’s arm. “You’ve grown,” he said. “You’ve grown wiser. What the Hawks saw in you as a child, I will not guess, but they chose to trust you. And I will say that they were not wrong. They may be proved wrong in the future. Humans are capricious and known for change. But today, Kaylin, you have proved yourself worthy of their trust.”
“How? We’re not done yet.”
He looked back at the fire. “When did you learn to summon an elemental? You, who could not even light a candlewick?”
She looked at the ground. It seemed safest; she’d always been a terrible liar.
“Very well, Kaylin. The powerful have always had their secrets. But…I heard the story you told the fire. I heard the fire’s words. The time is coming,” he added, “when you will be called to Court. To the Imperial Court. You did not do well with your etiquette lessons,” he added, and for just a moment, he was simply a teacher, and not a Dragon lord, “but you will take them again, and this time, you will excel. The Emperor will not tolerate disrespect. He cannot.”
She nodded.
“And we have come to the most treacherous part of the garden, I fear.”
“What do you mean?”
“Water,” Sanabalis said quietly. “I would not counsel you to summon water, here. Not given the Oracles, Kaylin.”
She swallowed. “I won’t.” A thought occurred to her. “But—you can fly, can’t you? I mean—if you—”