The Emperor's Wolves (Wolves of Elantra #1) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,64

at all. No hurried warnings, no information supplied within the Halls themselves were likely to serve Severn well, and even had they, they would have done Elluvian no good. He was almost certain she would hear of the words, their tone, their implications.

But Severn had not once asked, either.

The flowers were a simple matter of curiosity. Their creator was not; he clearly understood the difference.

Stepping into these halls was like stepping into the past; the centuries fell away. Mortals oft envied the days of youth that had passed them by. Barrani seldom did. Age implied wisdom, the ability to survive, the knowledge one accrued if one did. Survival was implied, and the ability to survive considered a sign of strength.

Elluvian had survived. He would survive. It was not his death An’Tellarus sought. Death would have been a form of escape, after all.

* * *

Severn’s gaze was far less focused here than it had been in Corvallan’s apartments. He noted the arches, the open spaces carved into halls that invited inspection. He did not stop; nothing that drew his eye caused him to linger, and if he had questions, he now kept them to himself.

Within the lion’s den, Elluvian did not speak of what they passed, although he could have; he was almost certain that Severn’s questions mirrored his own in the youth he had no desire to relive. He did not hurry past it; as no doubt intended, he fell into introspection instead. The weapons on the walls in this hall were encased in glass or suspended in the air above them, with no obvious anchors to support their weight. An’Tellarus had always had an eye for symmetry; she found it more pleasing than what she deemed visual chaos.

Some of the weapons displayed were illusory—the equivalent of paintings. These had been lost to war and death and the literal fracture of earth in bygone years. They were remembered down to the small nicks and obvious wear in leather; they would be remembered thus by any who had seen them in life. The ability to romanticize the past was one the Barrani did not possess; where they desired it, they remembered everything. Where they did not, they oft remembered everything as well. The trick to survival of a different sort was not to desire it, not to be trapped by those memories.

But while all of the weapons were significant to the line, there was a gap at the end. Severn appeared to note this but did not ask. He had not spoken a word since they had entered the hall. Elluvian hoped he would not be required to break that silence before they left it.

It was always hope that stung.

* * *

They came at last to a set of doors as tall and forbidding as those they had first entered, if not taller. Severn, in silence, studied the double doors; they were smooth, the wood gleaming but otherwise unmarked. No section of door implied door ward, and indeed it would have been unusual to ward one’s inner sanctum—but An’Tellarus was not known for her traditional tastes or behaviors.

Elluvian simply waited. The voice that had invited them in, in a manner of speaking, did not emerge from the stillness or silence of that wait. One could infer that she was not pleased with Elluvian as the minutes passed, but again, that would have been the traditional snub.

Severn’s head was slightly bowed, as if he were listening.

Elluvian was surprised—completely surprised—when the boy drew both of his daggers and wheeled instantly to face what appeared to be empty air. He heard, again, the clang of mortal steel against blade, but this blade he could not see.

“Enough.” The word was Elluvian’s; it was a crack of lightning in a thunderstorm. Light, harsh and unmuted, instantly flooded the halls, washing color and substance from the rest of An’Tellarus’s enchantments.

Robed in a blue that was almost black, a single long knife in her hands, was their host.

* * *

The sudden light, the loss of whatever allowed her to remain invisible, did not discomfit her at all. Her long knife was locked in the intersection of the two daggers Severn wielded, just as the sword of her armsman had been. Elluvian was almost embarrassed; he was also almost enraged. It had been at least a century since she had humiliated him this badly.

But her gaze seemed fixed to Severn, the Wolf cub; her intent lay there, her eyes an odd shade, seldom seen in Barrani. Elluvian could not