Cast in Wisdom (Chronicles of Elantra #15) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,165

control would be possible. Robin?”

The boy hesitated. But Dragons—even silver and slightly translucent—were clearly nowhere near as terrifying as giant hairy spiders, and as he was now comfortable with the latter, he stared at Kavallac. Starrante bopped the back of his head—but gently. “You may speak with her when we are done, but we must be done soon—this is far too taxing.”

Robin then looked at the strands that led to the space that most of Kavallac occupied. He frowned. “I think,” he finally said, “that it has to be done all at once. This part,” he added, pointing to something that was invisible to Kaylin’s eyes from this distance, “and this part—there has to be a third repetition.”

“I will cheerfully strangle Larrantin the next time he dares to set foot in my library,” Starrante then said. “The third is echo or reflection.”

“I think so—I think that’s what Larrantin meant—but she’s not trapped in an echo, right? I think you’ll hurt her if all of the parts don’t come together at the same time.”

“Be patient, mortal child. This is new to me, as well. I have never seen the library in this state; had you asked me, my theory would have posited an entirely different outcome. What your eyes see is not what my eyes see—and perhaps situations such as these are the reason two very physically different sets of eyes exist at all.”

Kaylin turned back to the portal.

It had now expanded, its shape uneven and splotchy—like a very badly blown piece of glass.

“Be ready!” Sedarias shouted.

“Corporal,” Emmerian said, “stand back.”

“Don’t!” Kaylin shouted. “It’s not safe! You’ll be too tall as a Dragon!”

“I understand that,” Emmerian said without looking back.

Kavallac roared, her red eyes very much centered on Starrante. Kaylin didn’t understand native Dragon, but she knew a shut the hell up and get moving when she heard it.

They were almost out of time. Starrante had not yet finished. He was pushing his body—and spitting up even pinker webbing—as fast as he safely could, where safety in this case relied on having a healer attached like a barnacle to his hairy, heaving sides.

Kaylin turned, once again, to look at the blobby, misshapen portal. Bellusdeo was standing directly beneath a growing outcrop, and at her back, his hands deformed into the longer claws of his people, stood Emmerian. To Kaylin’s eye, it looked as if he had attempted to transform, and had been stuck at a midpoint; it wasn’t comfortable. His skin was a gray-blue shade, his claws the blue of his Dragon form.

The misshapen portal didn’t shatter. It melted. Bellusdeo moved—quickly—to avoid the possible splash, but there was no splash; it dripped its way to the floor, and as it did, Candallar finally emerged.

He was robed in light and shadow; his eyes at this distance were black, and seemed too large for his otherwise regular features. His hair was a nimbus of moving color.

Bellusdeo’s breath struck him full in the chest as he placed his feet firmly on the ground that Starrante had cobbled together. He took a step back at the force of the flame, but it might have been hot air for all the effect it had otherwise; his cape seemed to undulate in a way that put the flames out, reached around either side of his rib cage to do so.

In his left hand, he carried the rod; across his chest, a medallion shone harshly white. He also now carried a sword, as if he meant to close with his enemies. Kaylin shouted a single word as Bellusdeo tensed to leap; it was Emmerian who pulled her back.

The sword struck the path that Starrante had built, and as it did, the path cracked. The crack traveled slowly toward the Arbiter. There was nothing that any of the three—Sedarias, Emmerian, Bellusdeo—could do to stop it. Nothing Kaylin herself could do, either.

But Annarion became visible. He stood astride the path, watching as the singular crack approached them all; he knelt. Kaylin couldn’t see his eyes, but she was certain they weren’t his normal eyes. He carried something in his hands—a dark strand, something that did not look at all like rope.

It was the magic that Candallar had used to attempt to break through Starrante’s webbed pane, but Annarion held it in both hands. It moved as if it were a snake. Annarion drove it into the ground, into the crack that had started to form.

To either side of Candallar, in the lee of his cape, stepped two men: Illanen and