Cast in Wisdom (Chronicles of Elantra #15) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,98
the building.”
“You couldn’t see him.”
He was clearly not a man accustomed to argument, even if the argument made sense.
“We’ve lost Sedarias and Annarion,” Bellusdeo said. “Can you see bodies?”
It was such a pragmatic question. Kaylin turned toward the open door. She didn’t borrow Severn’s vision; what she could see through Hope’s wing, he couldn’t see. Nor did she tell Hope to fly to Severn and allow him to look through the same wings.
Instead, she crossed a hall that suddenly seemed short and squat, it provided so little time to gather her thoughts, to center herself. Battlefields of any kind always contained corpses.
This one was no exception. She’d seen Annarion fight. She’d seen Sedarias fight—although that fight, broken as it was with fights of her own, was less fixed in her mind.
Kaylin could immediately see the injured; she could see the dead. Some had lost limbs, and the bleeding would probably kill them. Some had not. But neither Annarion nor Sedarias were among the fallen.
Did she care about the people no one else could see? Did she care about people who had intended to kill them? Was she willing to spend the power to try to heal those who might—just might—survive if she did?
No. Not now, and maybe not ever.
She exhaled and turned.
“Your color is terrible,” Bellusdeo said.
“Try looking in a mirror before you tell me that,” Kaylin snapped. “Sedarias and Annarion aren’t on the field. Candallar hasn’t come down, either. And if you are going to go full Dragon, inside is not the place to do it. If you break parts of the building, Larrantin is going to be upset.”
“You are speaking to Lannagaros?” Larrantin asked.
“No, I’m speaking to Bellusdeo. Lannagaros is less martial.” But not, Kaylin thought with a twinge, less desperate.
“I do not know this Bellusdeo. She was perhaps not a student here.”
Kaylin was silent for a long beat. “No,” she finally said. “Lannagaros wants to know why you’re here at all.”
One brow rose.
“He didn’t ask, but he does want to know. I think he’s hoping that he’ll be able to see and speak with you soon. You can’t leave this building.”
At this, a slender smile graced the Barrani man’s face. His eyes were blue. “No.”
“Have you tried?”
“I have opened the doors,” he replied after another pause. “What you see when you cross the common is not what I see. The area beyond the doors is nigh impassible.”
“Can you take a look outside the doors now? Without using magic that could level a standing army?”
“There are few demands on my time at the moment.” He walked to the doors and opened them. Candallar hadn’t returned; Kaylin was almost certain that he didn’t intend a frontal attack from the doors again.
“What do you see?” she asked.
“Corpses.”
He could see the corpses. “Bellusdeo?”
The gold Dragon shook her head. She’d only heard Kaylin’s half of the conversation, but understood where Kaylin was going.
“So you can see the people who were gathered here. The rest of my companions can’t.” Kaylin exhaled. “I think they’re like you. Except for the corpse part. How much do you know about the Academia?”
This was the wrong question, given the shift in Larrantin’s expression.
Kaylin.
She turned automatically in the direction of Severn’s voice before she realized that he wasn’t speaking out loud. Widening the arc of that turn, she realized that he wasn’t anywhere close enough to speak out loud.
Candallar?
I believe he’s trying to enter the building from the third story. You’ve lost Sedarias and Annarion?
Yes.
You might want to send Bellusdeo upstairs.
“Can these windows be breached?”
“You have already said that two of your companions left through the windows without breaking them.”
Kaylin cursed.
Bellusdeo, however, said, “I am not certain that Candallar has the flexibility—yet—to do the same.”
Larrantin sighed. Loudly. It reminded Kaylin of the Arkon—on a normal day. “I am unaccustomed to the building being quite so empty, but I assure you I am capable of defending it.”
“I didn’t notice that you were defending it from those guys.”
“They had not yet had the temerity to force entry; merely the temerity to try. I will deal with intruders here. You will deliver my message to Killianas.”
“I’m not sure it’s safe.”
“It will become less safe if what you fear is true.”
“What do you mean, what I fear?”
“You believe that the corpses that both you and I can see are somehow part of the student population of the Academia; you believe that I can see them because I am a teacher at the same place. We are bound here.”