Cast in Wisdom (Chronicles of Elantra #15) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,140
the only person present he could see—and the only person present who could see him.
She revised that now. He had given it to her because she was Chosen. And because he understood what the book represented. Starrante had been removed from the library.
She turned her thoughts to Nightshade as she looked at the book in her hands. Ask Killian, she began.
Ask him yourself.
Fine. “Can the interim chancellor grant access to the library?”
“Indeed. The interim chancellor has most of the powers granted to the chancellor himself, when someone is willing to take on the burden of that role.”
“Most?”
“Most. There are some permissions that cannot be granted to someone who does not serve fully.”
“Are there qualifications to be interim chancellor?”
“Yes. They are the regalia of the office; the external trappings.”
“And they’d be found in the office itself?”
“Yes.”
“Can they be removed?”
“Not easily. But if the Arbiter has been removed, it is possible the regalia has likewise been relocated. Location is not of relevance, but the regalia is required for rudimentary control of the Academia.”
“And that rudimentary control includes control of you?”
“Some elements, yes. But I am, as you guess, far more awake than I was when Karriamis’s Lord first contacted me. The interim chancellor has provided a very modest student body. The Arbiters Kavallac and Androsse have been awakened, and they are whole: I can hear their voices.
“They are not...pleased,” he added softly. “Regardless, Starrante is not visible to me. I would suggest that he is not within the remit of my current existence.”
“You think he’s outside the Academia?”
“I believe he is in what you would call the border zone.”
“But...”
“Yes?” This was a sharper word; it implied annoyance at the continued interruption.
“You’re in the border zone.”
“I would suggest, instead of plaguing the class with questions that do not pertain to the subject I am attempting to teach, that self-study might be of value.”
* * *
Her attention was caught by a plume of white-gold, which also happened to be fire. The Arkon stiffened, his eyes red; his arms tightened around the two books over which he’d kept stewardship. But he didn’t—although this took visible effort—shout commands of any kind at the Arbiters. He had chosen to trust them. They were guardians of this library. Their fire would not harm it.
Belief, however, was a struggle.
Only when the fire splashed to either side of the spokesman did he relax; the fire didn’t harm the books at all.
“I think they pulled us into whatever phase the intruders are in,” Kaylin helpfully offered. “And I’m not sure they can harm the library itself in that phase.”
Clearly condescension of any kind was only acceptable when it was coming from the Arkon, given his expression—and Kaylin had intended no condescension whatsoever. “You asked for that book for a reason. I suggest you see to it.”
* * *
The rune was bright; it looked like the words on Kaylin’s arms—and probably the rest of her body, as well. But its color was not quite the same gold, and it seemed, as she looked at it, to be carved into the cover, rather than engraved or painted on it.
She frowned. The marks on her arms had shifted color until they were the same as the word she now thought of as Starrante’s. Not his name—never that—but the word that might wake him, invoke him, summon him. She touched the surface of the rune on the book’s cover.
As she did, the marks on her arms began to lift themselves off her skin. She was now aware that this was a visual signal that only she could see; she’d never worried about it because the lifting didn’t shred her shirts or tunics. Or pants, if it came to that.
The surface of the word wasn’t flush with the cover; it was farther down or in. She had to reach to contact the word, and her fingers dipped below the surface. Her hand did, as well.
The Arkon’s silence was loud. His attention was torn between the literal fight that was now occurring between three Barrani and the two Arbiters, one a very loud Dragon, one a silent...something else, and Kaylin’s handling of the object he had never seen as a book.
Had he, he might never have surrendered it.
When her hand dipped beneath the outer surface of the cover, he cleared his throat. Given Kavallac’s roars, she shouldn’t have heard it.
“I’m trying to reach the word on the cover. It’s there, visually—but it’s not there physically. And it seems to have taken the actual physical dimensions of the