The Emperor's Wolves (Wolves of Elantra #1) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,106
spoken with Lord Marlin?”
Ybelline shook her head. “The sketch,” she added, voice low.
“The sketch spoke to you?” Severn asked Random.
“That one did.”
“And...the one of me in the ridiculous belt?”
Random nodded again. “You spoke to me as well.” Her smile was fey, too young for her face. “You remember them.”
She was speaking of Tessa, Jerrin, and Tobi.
“I don’t think Tessa would mind,” she added. “The Tha’alani don’t keep secrets.”
“Tessa did,” Ybelline said.
“Yes.” The word was sadder. “But that was only later.” She looked at Ybelline and added, “And you will. I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” Ybelline said, although she smiled at Random.
Severn was looking at the other two Barrani; they were dressed oddly, as well. “Did any of these statues speak to you when you made them?”
“Ollarin did. And the castelord. The three haven’t, yet, but Barrani don’t like to talk much, so it might take a while.” As if the figures were alive and reticent, not things of stone.
“I don’t think Master Sabrai will allow you to give these to us,” Ybelline said.
“Why not?”
The Tha’alani and the Wolf shared a glance, but didn’t fill it with words.
“There are too many secrets,” Random continued, brooding. “I think it would be better for all of us if we had none. Like you.”
“I have secrets.”
“Not because you’re afraid the truth will be known.”
“But Random, I am.”
“It’s not the same fear as his,” Random replied, a frown creasing most of her expression. His, Severn thought, was Ollarin, Elluvian, or the two Barrani he did not recognize.
“It’s still fear.”
“I like your fear better.”
Ybelline’s smile deepened, and for a moment her eyes were the color of pale honey.
Severn inhaled, exhaled, and began.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The question he had come to ask had been answered before his arrival: Random remembered the pilgrimage of the high-spirited Tha’alani children. She remembered them clearly.
“When Tessa, Jerrin, and Tobi came to visit you, you were expecting them.”
“I was expecting something. I wasn’t expecting them. No one here could have expected that.”
“But you refused to eat for two days so Master Sabrai would allow them entry.”
Her smile was an echo of her younger self’s gleeful pride. She nodded.
“Did they ask you any questions?”
“They didn’t have permission to ask questions.”
“No. They didn’t understand the rules that govern the Oracular Halls. They didn’t understand how Oracles work.”
“Not when they first arrived.”
“And when they left?”
Her glance slid away from his face. “They understood.” She looked down at their joined hands; hers were trembling. When she lifted her face, it was to Ybelline she looked.
“You were not responsible for their deaths,” the future castelord said, no doubt at all in her tone.
“I couldn’t save them.”
“You were trapped in these halls. We weren’t—they were our kin and we didn’t save them either.”
“You didn’t know.”
Ybelline said nothing for one long beat. “The blame, if blame must be assigned, is ours. Not yours. You gave them something humans seldom give the Tha’alani. You weren’t afraid. You were never afraid of them. You were curious, you were as excited as they were, and you accepted...everything.”
“But—”
“There is no but, Random. I know what they felt. I’ve seen it. I will remember it for as long as I live. I imagine Severn will do the same.”
Severn looked, with care, at the statue of Ollarin. As he’d done with the odd tableau, he leaned forward until his eyes were less than two inches from the figurine. Proximity made the details clearer.
This Ollarin was not the man Ybelline had glimpsed at the back of a crowd of mortal murderers.
“You can touch that one,” Random said.
“This one? But not the others?”
“I wouldn’t touch the new one yet. It hasn’t stabilized.”
He didn’t ask her what her use of the word stabilized signified. Instead, he retrieved one of his hands—the left—and lifted the figure of this Ollarin.
“When Tessa touched you,” he said, “you were given an oracle.”
Random nodded.
“Did you tell Master Sabrai?”
She shook her head. “...He would have been angry.”
“This,” Ybelline said, “is why we have secrets, or keep them. Tessa, Jerrin, and Tobi didn’t tell anyone they were going to come here, either—because their parents would have been angry. And they would have said no. But we’re not good at keeping secrets like this for very long; they just had to keep it hidden for long enough that they couldn’t be easily stopped.”
“What was the oracle you offered them?” Severn continued.
“She knows.”
Severn met Ybelline’s gaze. “Will you tell me?”
Ybelline was silent. After a long pause, she said, “Ollarin was some part of the vision.”