“I found the High Halls...difficult. Where the High thrones stand there are trees, but they are almost silent, and elsewhere nature is caged and forced to conform.”
“And the West March is left to grow wild?”
“Not all of it, no. But much of it. The High Halls were not my home. In truth, I had no desire that they become so. But the test was mandatory; the only way I could escape it would be to flee in the middle of the night. I knew—we all know—that one passes simply by surviving. But great are the number of my kin who do not pass. They enter the Tower, and they never emerge.
“Children are children,” he said, his voice lower. “And childhood fears, writ large, make the test a terrifying thing. Thus I was terrified. I was young.”
“You are still considered young by your kin.”
“An’Tellarus is ancient,” he replied. “We areallyoung to her. Young, and foolish with youth.”
“How did you meet her?” Severn asked.
“She spent centuries in the West March, and she is known to be unusual in her choice of social companions. She can be. She might befriend the lowest of servants, the most humble of guards, and no one looks askance. Approaching me would have raised no brows at all; I was sponsored by An’Sennarin, and therefore of interest.”
“Did the An’Sennarin of the time encourage this?”
“He could not discourage it,” An’Sennarin replied, with the hint of a smile. “He could attempt to order her not to interfere with his kin—but he was not a man who gave orders he knew would not be obeyed; it would force him to act if he did not wish to be perceived as weak. It is why An’Tellarus has always felt free to come and go as she pleases.
“She guessed, I suppose, that I was terrified of the Test of Name. I had two weeks of terror to go, and she attempted to distract me. She failed, of course. I was younger. I did not believe that my life had no value if I was not a Lord of this court. If failure did not mean death, I would have gladly failed. But An’Sennarin wished me to join the Arcanum; he wished to train the talent that existed as potential.”
“What talent?” Ybelline asked, something strange in her tone.
“Can you not guess, future castelord?”
She closed her eyes. “You are an elementalist.”
“Yes. I am a summoner. I am a summoner with a very strong affinity.”
“For water,” she whispered.
“For water. In the West March, if I touched the water meant as defense and shield, I could hear its voice. If I asked it to become my playmate, it would. It did not ever seek to harm me; it was more home to me than the home into which I was born. As a child, I did not understand that this took power; it took effort, at times, to make myself heard, but I did not consider such effort magic. It took as much effort to make myself clear to the adults that surrounded us. Possibly more.
“But it did take power. And when that power was discovered, I was severed from the West March and brought to court. To this court, with its stone and its poisons and its lack of any familial structures that I could understand. It was anhonor, you understand. My success here would lend my family prominence.”
Ybelline was pale. “You found a way to speak to the water in Elantra.”
“There was so much of it, in comparison. The Ablayne. The harbor. There was no living water in the High Halls—not to begin with; there was one fountain that would have worked perfectly, but to approach it without invitation was, and is, death. I reverted to my early childhood ways; I felt trapped and the horror of the test grew and grew until there was no way out from beneath it.” His hands were shaking as he spoke, although they lay flat in his lap. “I am sorry,” he said, lifting his head. “I am a terrible host when the servants are sent away. Are you hungry at all? Would you drink if drinks were offered?”
“I am not hungry,” Ybelline said. She glanced at Severn; he shook his head.
An’Sennarin nodded, as if he expected no less. His hands stilled. Blue-eyed now, he held Ybelline’s gaze. “You are castelord, now? Or you will be.”
“Yes.”
“You understand what happened?”
She shook her head. “I have made what the Halls of Law would call educated guesses. They have shifted with this meeting, but no—they are still guesses.”
“Then guess, for me—share that vulnerability with me. I will not think less of you if you are wrong.”
Severn stood and moved away from the chair he had occupied.
“No,” An’Sennarin said, voice soft. “This concerns you. I believe it must. I have held this sketch since my only visit to the Oracular Halls, and I have waited.”
“For what?”
“You. You and Ybelline.”