Cast in Wisdom (Chronicles of Elantra #15) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,30
He had been quiet enough lately Kaylin had managed to forget his annoying condescension.
“It was like a portal to Bellusdeo. She has no problems with normal portals.” She grudged the use of the word normal in this context. “Portals from one place to another generally make me physically ill. This one...didn’t. And the only place that’s generally been true are in the sentient buildings. The Hallionne. Helen.”
“You feel the difference is the location?”
“Portals within one part of a building to another are all in the same place. This one felt like that to me.”
“You went from the outside to the inside in this fashion?” He glanced at Bellusdeo, whose nod was apparently worth far more than Kaylin’s words. “You feel that you did not leave the outside.”
“It would explain the state of the pristine building. If we had somehow stepped into territory or land that was part of a building’s domain, I wouldn’t feel the transition the same way I normally do.”
“You came across this building in the border zone.”
“Yes.”
“Why are you certain it has sentience?”
She hesitated. Bellusdeo, however, did not. The Dragon proceeded to recount their adventures there. The Arkon’s eyes shaded to orange when she spoke both of the wall that no one but Kaylin—with Hope’s help—could see, and the overlap, or suspected overlap, with Missing Persons’ reports. She skipped the parts in which she’d burned down doors.
If you wish to control the narrative, Ynpharion said, you would do best to speak first.
Says the man who isn’t standing in front of two Dragons who breathe fire when they’re cranky.
They would hardly breathe fire on you.
You know that I can be critical of myself without your help, right?
Yes. But you generally choose to fret about the wrong things.
“Corporal?”
“Uh, sorry. I was thinking.”
“A change that we all welcome, I am certain.”
“When I tried to change where the door led us, I touched the building. I tried to ask it to take us someplace else.”
The Arkon pinched the bridge of his nose. “That is not specific.”
“No. I didn’t get an answer. The Hallionne and Helen would know what I wanted without the need to...reach out. But the door did lead to a different hall after I tried. And this hall looked occupied, or recently occupied, so someone heard me.”
“You are certain that this change was in response to your attempt to communicate? You are certain you did not unintentionally utilize the powers granted the Chosen to move yourselves there?”
Was she? She frowned. “I shouldn’t be, but...yes.”
“I assume there is a reason for that.”
Exhaling, she said, “The Barrani man who claimed not to be lord or master of the building—I think he said it used to be a school?—had only one eye; the other was an empty socket. It wouldn’t fit an eye the size of the one on the back wall of the initial building we discovered—but. Eye.
“Second, the man did lead us to an exit, and while we were walking, he called me by name.”
The silence in the room was sudden and glacial. The Arkon turned very orange eyes on Bellusdeo; she shrugged. “She doesn’t have a name in any true sense.”
“How, exactly, did a stranger who claims he is not in command of the space discover your name?”
“I may have introduced myself when I said thank you to what was left of the doorway. I don’t think I said it out loud.”
“You may have introduced yourself.”
“I—wasn’t certain that anything could hear me, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to be polite. We’d already burned down a—Never mind.”
“Do continue.”
“It is irrelevant,” Bellusdeo said.
“But either someone heard me and passed it on, or some part of the building’s sentience still exists.” She exhaled. “The wall—the wall that we first saw—might be composed of actual living people. There were Barrani there as well, but much farther back. We don’t study esoteric magic or sorcery in practical classes—we leave that for the academics. But I’ve seen people who have been turned to stone before. In Castle Nightshade.
“I assumed that was Nightshade’s power. But now I think it’s the Tower’s. And I think this building might have somehow trapped the people I could see, with Hope’s help, in that stone wall. I mean, it could have been an Arcanist—but there’s no appearance of sigils, no magical traces, left behind. Just a blank stone wall, unless you look through Hope’s wing.
“Oh, and one other thing, but this isn’t building related.”
“Please continue.”
“The Barrani man we interrupted—who called himself Killian—couldn’t see or hear Hope.”