“Why?”
“I know why she is here, Severn Handred. I do not yet know why you are. Perhaps I will never know; an oracle, once given, is only truly understood after all events that concern it are out of reach.” He turned, again, to Ybelline.
Her eyes were green now. Almost the exact shade An’Sennarin’s had been when they had entered his presence.
“I will guess, as you have asked,” Ybelline said. She lowered her chin, as if in thought. “But answer a question before I do.”
“Any question I can answer, I will truthfully answer.”
“This request—this game of guessing—did not originate from you.”
He laughed then, his eyes clearing until they had become almost as green as hers. “No. It wasn’t my idea. If I’m to tell you—and I will—all that occurred from my perspective, I can’t see that having you guess has any use to us.”
“It was Adellos who asked you to ask me.”
“Yes.”
The silence was thick. Severn wished he had been allowed to leave the table, to join Elluvian and An’Tellarus, although the latter guaranteed that the meeting would be dangerous in ways he couldn’t yet predict.
“He still wants to know what your guess is,” An’Sennarin said, when Ybelline did not speak.
She exhaled. “You sought the water when the burden of fear proved too great.”
He nodded.
“You went to the harbor?”
He nodded again.
“And what you touched, when you reached—what your shouts raised—was not the small elementals of your past.”
“No. It was—” he shook his head. “It was wild, loud—the difference between summer showers and bitter storm. I heard the voice of the water, and it heard me. And it rose from the ocean like a wall of death.”
“That death was not your death.”
“No—I think, if I had not somehow caught the whole of its attention, it would have walked all the way to the High Halls. My death, should that happen, was not guaranteed—but the same cannot be said for much of the population of the High Halls.”
She nodded. “But the water heard you.”
“It did. And when it paused to listen, when it rejoined the ocean from which it had drawn its form, it heard my loneliness and fear. I could not summon an elemental in this place to keep me company—”
“You already had.”
“Yes, but—unintentionally. The water itself would have stayed by my side, but to reach the High Halls I would have had to walk from the harbor through the city streets. And the rules that govern use of unsanctioned magic in this city are strictly enforced.”
“When it is recognized, yes.”
“I did not know how to summon water, not consciously; I had gone, always, to the water when I wished its solace. I had never used water as a weapon—and I believe that was the intent of my admission to the Arcanum.”
“That was not what you wanted.”
“It’s not what I wanted. I know that the water does, at times. To drown. To destroy. But that is not all water wants.”
“No.”
“Because of you. Because of your people. The water is where the Tha’alaan resides. Itisthe Tha’alaan.”
She stared, then. “Adellos told you this?”