“Oh?”
“Your sister, the Consort, has graciously accepted an invitation to dine at my home in three days. If we can’t use the portal paths—”
“There is no way that you will arrive in Elantra in three days. I suggest you avail yourself of the mirrors here to inform the Consort that you will have to reschedule her dinner.”
“Fine. I’ll also need to talk to Helen.”
“Your home.”
“Yes. She’s probably going to be worried.”
* * *
That was, of course, an understatement, if a hopeful one. Helen did answer the mirror call. She was standing in her one safe room, and her eyes were obsidian. Literally. She had also ditched the more maternal lines and wrinkles that implied gentle smiles from the corners of her eyes and mouth; her hair was pulled back from her face in a very, very martial way.
Her voice, however, was mostly normal. “Grethan carried word from the Keeper,” Helen said, after Kaylin had blurted out both an apology and a précis of their current location. “I should possibly inform you that the Imperial Court is also aware of what happened.”
Kaylin couldn’t help it. Her shoulders sagged. “Has the Emperor called?”
“No. Lord Emmerian, however, visited in person. I would suggest that you make contact with him. Or possibly the Arkon.”
“They won’t accept a mirror call from this source,” Bellusdeo unexpectedly said.
“I will endeavor to pass a message on, then. You are well?” she asked the Dragon.
“Yes. I have been treated as a guest, not a prisoner of war.”
“I don’t believe the Barrani took Dragons as prisoners,” Helen pointed out.
An unfortunate silence followed her words. Kaylin rushed to fill it. “I need to let the Consort know—”
“I do believe the High Halls will accept the message that the Imperial Palace will not. I should add that your familiar was somewhat agitated, and he is en route to you now. He asks that you not do anything foolish before he arrives.”
She looked past Kaylin to the Avatar of Orbaranne, then. “Kaylin,” she said, to the Hallionne, “is my Lord. She is mychosenLord.” As if one building that was immobile could threaten another building that was immobile.
Orbaranne, however, nodded as if she had expected no less. “Lord Kaylin saved my life,” she replied, voice grave. “I owe her a debt of honor.”
“And that is not a debt you owe to Annarion and Mandoran’s brethren.”
“No, Helen. The two are with you, then?”
“They are, indeed, under my protection. As is the Dragon who is currently your guest.”
“Helen—”
Helen, however, was not done. She spoke in a language that Kaylin did not know, but nonetheless felt she should. And Orbaranne responded in kind. The floor shook, rumbling as if the earth beneath it was about to break open.
The Lord of the West March looked surprised. Helen did not. Bellusdeo might have been carved of stone for all the expression she was willing to surrender.
“Kaylin,” Helen said. “Find the water. Find it while it can still speak. I will leave you now to speak with the Consort, if she is available.”
She is, Ynpharion said. His interior voice, usually so loaded with condescension and disgust it was a wonder it could be used to convey anything else, was utterly neutral.
The mirror’s image didn’t shatter; it swirled like liquid leaving a basin, taking the images with it in elongating streaks of color that no longer suggested Helen or the interior of the one room in which she allowed the mirror network access.
Bereft of color, the silver surface reflected the people in the room before it: the Lord of the West March, the Avatar of the Hallionne, Bellusdeo and Kaylin herself. Before Kaylin could speak, that silver faded, and with it the interior lights of the great hall. Instead, a shadowed darkness seemed to envelope the mirror itself, and it was slow to return even the outline of an image.
Kaylin almost stopped breathing as her eyes adjusted. This wasnotthe Consort’s room. Nor was it the cavern that was home in some fashion to the Lake of Life over which the Consort stood guardian, and to which she was servant.