(eng) Michelle Sagara - Elantra 1-3 by Cast in Shadow Courtlight Secret

Author:Cast in Shadow, Courtlight, Secret [Cast in Shadow, Courtlight, Secret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

The world folded, twisting around them as they fell.

Or as they should have been falling. Except that they weren’t. They hung suspended over nothing, as torchlight and stairs and brass shattered and blended, re-forming around them as if they were the center of the universe.

The center of a different universe.

Kaylin looked up at Severn’s chin. She would remember the underside of his face clearly, because it was the first thing she tried to see. “Can you see this?” she asked him softly. And then, when he didn’t answer immediately, “Are you all right?”

His hand was still around her waist; her hand was clutching it. He moved slightly, changing his grip. It was sort of an answer. It wasn’t a good answer. He said, each word distinct, “For a person who hates magic, it doesn’t bother you much.”

“Meaning?”

“You’re not hysterical.”

She shrugged, or tried to. “Would it help?”

He laughed; it was a low sound. “It might help me,” he told her. “It might not.” He let her go. She did not, however, reciprocate.

Looking at her hand for a moment, he said nothing. And then he straightened his shoulders, and he was Severn again. Because he had become aware that she needed him to be Severn. She let him go, then. Thinking, as she did, that need was a funny thing; you were never sure if you had it by the tail or the jaw. Being needed forced her to find strength; being needed too much forced her to confront failure. Not being needed at all?

She shook her head.

They stood in a long hall. There were no stairs here, and the brass work that had been the railing was now a green set of lines that clung to walls, shadowing them with the green of summer leaves. The hall itself was perhaps ten feet tall, but the ceilings were rough, and suggested dirt rather than rock. The walls, however, were smooth beneath the creepers, and hard.

She looked at Severn, and then beyond him. In either direction, the hall seemed featureless; it was an improvement over the stairs, but only theoretically. “Flip a coin?” she finally said.

Severn dutifully pulled out a silver talon. Kaylin called, and he caught; the coin rested on the back of his hand, beneath the flat of his palm.

“Well?”

He removed his hand. The coin was completely blank.

“Really hating magic,” Kaylin told him.

“Not as much as I will if the coin stays this way. I should’ve used copper.”

Kaylin shrugged and began to walk, and Severn fell in beside her. There were no torches here, but a diffuse light peered out from the sparse gaps between leaves; it was enough to see by. They walked in silence for some time.

“What are we looking for?” Severn finally asked her.

“The way out.”

“What does that mean here?”

She started to answer, but flippancy evaded her grasp. “I’m not sure,” she told him slowly. “I’m not sure where here is.”

“What does it mean in the Castle?”

She shook her head, and her hand brushed her cheek. “Nothing,” she told him.

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