Kaylin let Nightshade’s voice fade away; it was hard to listen to any thought that didn’t concern their immediate survival. She had assumed that whatever was chasing Winston’s brother was roughly his brother’s size; she revised that. It wasn’t; it had simply been much farther behind. Because the landscape was what it was, she couldn’t correctly gauge anything about the creature; it seemed, aside from literally eating up the ground, more like an empty space whose clashing colors didn’t hurt her eyes.
Terrano cursed. Loudly. He caught hold of Allaron. “Stick together!” he shouted, as if they needed to be told. Then again, given Allaron’s position—ahead of, and in front of, the main body of the group, at least one of them did.
Winston, however, shook his head, grabbing Terrano’s shoulder. “Let Spike act. Retain your current form.”
“But—”
“The only thing the creature can see is Spike. If Spike is willing to hold its attention, the rest of you can move out of its way.” He glanced at his brother.
“Spike’s not really made for fighting,” Kaylin pointed out.
“Why do you believe this?”
“He’s kind of like portable Records.”
This clearly made no sense to Winston, who glanced at his equally confused brother. In turn, they both looked at Spike. Or at least that’s what she thought they were looking at; they were craning their necks—one attached to the body of a hairless animal—up, and up again.
The familiar squawked, but Kaylin had already turned toward Spike. She understood why the two brothers were now gazing upward. Spike—at least seen through the familiar’s wing—was no longer all that small, nor was he particularly self-contained.
He was taller than most of the buildings in Elantra, and he didn’t appear to be slowing down. Everything around him, including the ground beneath his feet, was now a uniform gray, which is what she’d first seen. In the absence of color, she could almost make out a form. It was not particularly pleasant; it was like Shadow—flexible, shifting and decidedly not mortal. Nor was it draconic, although something that trailed around its back implied the presence of wings.
And when it spoke—and it did—its voice sounded like a swarm of locusts, except gigantic and not particularly focused on agriculture.
“He’s angry,” Winston said, almost conversationally. He turned to Terrano and added, “Stay in that form, and follow us.”
“But—”
“We’ve had to maneuver in the portal lands in these forms just to bring you safely to the Consort.”
“And if you have to suffer, I have to suffer?”
“Yes.”
Winston’s brother grimaced and turned to Kaylin. “Can you ask Spike to move off the path?”
“But we don’t want to lose him!”
Everyone stared at Kaylin as if she’d just grown two extra heads, both absent any actual brains.
“Spike—can you find us again? Can you find me?”
Is that what you desire? The voice shook the firmament, but sounded less insect-like.
“Yes!”
Something Kaylin could only perceive as absence lashed out. She felt a sharp pain down the length of her left arm, and realized that her shirt had been slashed open. And it wasn’t just her shirt.
Terrano shouted, and Winston turned toward Spike, but Spike had already started to move.
“Do not bleed here,” Winston told Kaylin.
Kaylin bit her tongue on the Leontine that often followed condescending and unhelpful advice. Winston didn’t know any better. Probably. It was Sedarias who tore a strip off the bottom of her gown; she brought it to Kaylin and bound that arm. “Teela is not impressed,” she said, as she worked.
“I’ve done worse.”
Sedarias pursed lips and said, “I’d appreciate if the two of you had this argument in person, rather than through me.” She finished binding the arm.
Spike began to move. Given his size, Kaylin had expected his movement to be lumbering; it wasn’t. She could track his movement by the dimming of color, but didn’t watch it for long. Winston retained Barrani form; his brother did not. The brother began to move as Winston marshaled the rest of the group. Winston watched the distant predator before nodding a hundred times. It was as if he’d set his head in motion and forgotten about it.
“Now,” he said. “Run.”
* * *
Running was part of beat training. The city streets were an obstacle course that generally impeded momentum. Stopping and starting, however, gave a person a chance to catch their breath; the current landscape didn’t provide that. Even if it had, Kaylin was certain Winston wouldn’t. But he appeared to be right: whatever it was that had caused Winston’s brother to flee back to the group in a panic moved toward Spike.
“Are there always predators like that here?”
“No. That was highly unusual, this close to the Hallionne spheres,” Winston said. He seemed to have dispensed with a need to breathe, and his syllables sounded exactly the same as they usually did. Kaylin’s were more labored, their beat uneven.
“You think they’re looking for us?”
“No. For your friends. Or for that one,” he added, nodding in Terrano’s direction. “Alsanis said you are aware that when your friends are careless they are easily heard, and easily found.”
Kaylin cringed. She hadn’t had this conversation with Alsanis, but was well aware that conversation—or volition—was not required. And it was true. She assumed, or had assumed, that Sedarias and the rest of the cohort had been learning the same lessons Annarion currently struggled with; that some of the cohort would be like Mandoran, and take them to heart more readily. And some would not.
“We were very lucky.”
“Lucky?”
“You brought Spike. You were right,” he added, without a trace of self-consciousness. “If we had left him with Alsanis, I’m not sure all of us would have escaped. They weren’t expecting Spike.”
“What is Spike, exactly?”
“You don’t know?”
“We found him outside of Alsanis and did something to free him.”
“Ah.”
“He came from Ravellon.”
Silence. Thoughtful silence. “When you say we do you mean you?”
“Yes.”
Terrano cleared his throat. Loudly. “When she says we, she means me.”
“Language is tricky. I see.” He spoke again, but this time, Kaylin didn’t understand the words.
Her familiar squawked. He had removed the wing from her face, and she could no longer see either Spike or the thing that pursued him, but she didn’t look; she was too busy running and trying to squeeze a few words out of increasingly overworked lungs.
“Lord Kaylin, we believe that the predator might have originated in Ravellon.”
“How? Something that size can’t leave the fief. Unless...” Spike was from Ravellon. And Gilbert. And the Dragon outcaste. “Never mind.” She asked the more important question next. “Why do you think that? What can you see that screams Ravellon?”
Winston’s answer was unintelligible, but he appeared to be speaking to Kaylin. She frowned.
“I didn’t understand a word of that.”
He tried again. And a third time. When enlightenment failed to appear on Kaylin’s face, he shifted his gaze to the familiar. Winston could run and rotate his head in a full circle, which was both disturbing and expected, at this point.
The familiar’s squawking response was longer and louder this time.
“He’s going to have to explain it to you later,” Winston said, raising his voice over the familiar’s. “But not here.”
* * *
They reached what Kaylin assumed was Hallionne Kariastos without further incident or pursuit. Kaylin recognized their end point because it was a shimmering, standing arch. That, and Winston’s brother had come to a full stop, finally condescending to change the shape of his body to better reflect the people he was escorting. Winston seemed relieved. He approached the portal and stuck his head through; half of his body seemed to disappear.
It reappeared more or less in the same place, but Winston’s face now sported a frown, and his eyes had lost some of the Barrani cohesion.
“Is this the wrong place?” Kaylin demanded.
“It is the right place,” Winston said, in the wrong tone. “The Hallionne, however, is not responding.”
“Can we enter the portal?”
“I am not certain it is wise.” He turned to his brother and spoke their unknown language, and his brother immediately returned to running form and headed back into the unknown.
Sedarias and the cohort were blue-eyed to a man, with the possible exception of Terrano.
“Do you think the Barrani could do to Kariastos what was attempted in Alsanis?” Kaylin demanded.
It was Terrano who said, “Yes. And they’d have more of a chance of success. Alsanis was accustomed to us. He couldn’t keep pace with me,” he added, without a trace of obvious pride, “but he was never that far behind. I’m not sure any of the other Hallionne would have the same experience.”
“Terrano, you are going to tell me exactly what was done to enter Alsanis. Now. The Consort is there.”
“The Consort will be safe,” Sedarias interrupted. “If the portal is still standing, Kariastos is not yet undone.”
“We need to do something—Winston thinks there’s something wrong.” She headed toward the portal, but Sedarias grabbed her by the shoulders, and met her gaze. “You don’t understand the Consort’s power. There’s a reason she came to the Hallionne in person. A reason she came to this one.” She turned to Terrano. “Can you find the way in?”
Since they were standing in front of the way in, the question made no immediate sense. Kaylin caught up with its meaning a beat after Terrano did.
Terrano did not look comfortable. Given Sedarias’s blistering glare, this was not surprising; Kaylin didn’t feel comfortable, either. “Kariastos isn’t Alsanis. There’s a reason we didn’t come here the first time.”
“And right now, that’s good. But something’s wrong, and we need to fix it,” Kaylin told them both. Terrano looked at Sedarias. Sedarias looked at nothing for one long moment.
“Mandoran was right,” she finally said. She looked at Kaylin as if she were an insect who had finally demanded her full attention. All of the cohort were now turned toward her, as if she were gravity and they were falling.
“Do not do that here,” Winston said, his voice sharp. “We are not yet safe.”
Sedarias laughed. In a bitter voice, she said, “There is no safety. Kaylin is mortal. If she can build safety, it only has to last decades. But you know, as well as we, that safety is an illusion. Trust is a lie we tell ourselves.”
“Why lie?” Kaylin asked.
“Because if we didn’t, we’d kill everyone in sight. If there is no safety, there are still variations on acceptable danger. Do you know what trust is, Lord Kaylin?”
Kaylin waited, lips compressing. It kept words from escaping.
“Trust is what we have when we believe the people surrounding us are harmless. It is the comfort we take when we are certain that we will survive anything they might do to hurt us. Do you understand?”
Winston looked confused.
Kaylin, however, was not. As if Sedarias were her thirteen-year-old self, she met the Barrani’s blue-eyed glare. “You’re wrong.”
“Decades. Only decades.”
“I’ve lived that way. I did it for the longest six months of my life, and at the end of that six months, all I wanted was death. Mine,” she added. “I had nothing to offer anyone except death. Or worse. I looked at the future before me, and all I could see was pain and isolation and fear. I told myself that if I survived, I could change my life—and only if I survived. I did things to survive that I will never, ever forget. And on the bad days, if I could go back in time and eradicate myself, I would.”
Silence. Sedarias finally broke it. “You’re a Hawk.”
“I went to the Halls of Law to assassinate the Hawklord.”
“Teela says you are lying.”
“She’s wrong. It happens.” Kaylin exhaled. “Fine. I went to make the attempt. I didn’t expect to succeed. I expected to die. I expected to die, and if I’d had the strength, I would have saved everyone the trouble and drowned myself in the Ablayne. I didn’t. I didn’t want to live, but I couldn’t end my own life.
“If survival were the only thing that mattered, I wouldn’t be a Hawk. I wouldn’t know Teela. I wouldn’t understand the laws. I wouldn’t understand that no one is perfect; that the laws can be both good and inadequate at the same time. I do my best. My best changes from day to day. But I want the Hawks. I want people who struggle to do more than just survive. I want people I can believe in.
“I always wanted it.” Kaylin inhaled. Held her breath for five seconds and exhaled. “I trust Teela with my life. According to your definition, I can’t.” She glanced at Winston, who seemed to have calmed down a bit. “But...you wanted it as well.”
Sedarias folded her arms.
“If you hadn’t, would you know the names of the cohort? The True Names?”
“I did that, you foolish, foolish child, because it was the only way I could render them harmless. I did it because my will is the stronger, the greater, will. If I knew their names, I could defend myself against any possible attack. I did it because I had confidence in my own power.”
Allaron placed a hand on Kaylin’s shoulder. She glanced at him, and he shook his head.
But no. No. “Then why,” Kaylin said, as Allaron’s hand tightened, “did you attack the green? Why did you attack us when we went to perform the regalia? You almost destroyed an entire race—mine, incidentally.”
“We did not—”
“Fine. Your advice and your plans almost allowed total idiots to destroy an entire race. Some of those idiots are part of that race. I’m not going to quibble specifics.”
Terrano held up a hand. “Please talk more slowly.”
Kaylin wanted to shriek. She wondered, then, what the inside of Sedarias’s head sounded like. Hers was unusually quiet. “Fine. Why did you attack the green? Have you forgotten? Has your stay in Alsanis these past months damaged your Barrani memory?”
Silence.
“Because if it has, I remember. You wanted to change the past. It was impossible. It was always going to be impossible. But you did it anyway. Do you remember why?” None of the cohort spoke. Kaylin therefore turned to Terrano, the only member on the outside. “Terrano?”
His glance skittered off the ice of Sedarias’s expression. “...To save Teela.”
“Teela who abandoned you and returned to her home?”
“She didn’t abandon us,” he snapped. “You know what happened—why are you even talking about this?”
“You wanted to save Teela. Teela who was cut off from you. Teela who was no threat to you, and could never be a threat again. Teela, who you’d known for, what, months? At most?”
Allaron’s hand tightened again. Kaylin turned her head and said, “I have no intention of shutting up. Give up. Or break my arm.”
He actually reddened, but removed his hand.
“I understand who you say you are. I understand who you think you are. But there’s more. You came back for Teela. You meant to escape—I don’t know to where—but you didn’t want to abandon Teela, the last of your number.” She exhaled. “Nightshade never gave up on Annarion. Iberrienne never gave up on Eddorian. You all know this. Iberrienne almost destroyed us because he could be approached, could be manipulated. Why? He wanted his brother back.”
“I am certain Nightshade is having regrets.”
Kaylin’s smile was almost a wince. “Possibly. He wouldn’t go back, though. I don’t know what family was to you,” she continued, once again speaking to Sedarias. “But you could not have built this cohort if you hadn’t desired more than the constant political struggle to survive. If the family you were born into was nothing but that, you wanted more. You made more.
“I trust Teela. She won’t do what I tell her. She doesn’t obey me. She doesn’t serve me. We’re not one person or one mind. But...neither are you. I know the cohort argues; Mandoran whines about it. I know that you’ve been arguing with Annarion at a distance. And I know that you’ve never even tried to exert the force of your will on his True Name. Could you? Yes. You could try.
“But it would break something, and you know it.”
Sedarias glared at Kaylin. She transferred the glare to Eddorian, and then bounced it back. No, Kaylin thought, Sedarias’s head was not a quiet place right now.
“I wanted,” she finally said, “what Terrano wanted. I wanted to leave. I wanted to find a place that was not this one.”
“But you stayed.”
“I stayed because the majority of us wanted to stay. I knew what awaited me, and you are right: I did not want it.” She exhaled and seemed to dwindle in size, although her anger was rawer and harsher. It would be. It was now pointed inward as well as outward. Or perhaps, Kaylin thought, it was always pointed in both directions. She knew quite well what that was like. “I was the one who suggested the exchange of names.”
“You weren’t,” Terrano said—because he had to say it out loud.
“I was.”
“You weren’t.”
“Who was, then?”
“Annarion.”
The silence that followed was obviously an argument, but again, it was inaudible to anyone who was not a member of the cohort. Kaylin glanced at Bellusdeo, who had withdrawn entirely from all conversation. The Dragon shook her head as she met Kaylin’s gaze; the motion reminded Kaylin of Allaron’s.
“I agreed to it,” Sedarias said, the majority apparently having gone against her, “for the reasons I stated. They were strangers, to me. We were twelve. We were meant to gain power, to become more useful tools for our families. In my house, we were not abandoned to the green—we were chosen for it. We understood the possible advantages. And we were people who desired power, because power was as close to safety as we could come.
“I won what was, in human terms, a very crooked election in my family line. And it was meant to be: we were meant to hone our power. We were meant to prove our worth.” Every word was bitter. “Most of what you call the cohort were abandoned. They were not chosen as I was chosen. They were sent because of the chance—but their families valued their children in some fashion; they therefore sent those who would not otherwise be missed should the regalia fail. As it did.”
Most, Kaylin thought. She wondered who the exceptions were, but didn’t ask.
“We voted,” she continued. “We had already started to form small alliances, but we had not yet hardened our lines of conflict. If it was not my idea,” she continued, “I was the first to offer my name.”
This, no one argued against.
“Why?” Kaylin asked.
“There are risks one takes. It was...a dare, if you will. I believed then—and believe, even now—that my name cannot be used against me.” Even saying it, Sedarias did not look entirely comfortable. “I was first. But everyone took that risk. Everyone was willing to take it.” She closed her eyes. “Yes. We came back for Teela. We knew what the regalia had cost her. I did not understand her mother. I did not therefore fully understand Teela. But I understood Teela’s truth.
“I know all of our truths.” Speaking thus, she looked to Terrano; he met, and held, her gaze. “I want us to be safe—and I don’t believe in safety. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Kaylin shook her head. “I don’t believe in safety, either. But I do believe we can build something better. I didn’t. For a long time, I didn’t. I was afraid of having something to lose. I’m afraid of losing what I have, now. But...I’m willing to fight for it. I’m not willing to destroy it by pretending it doesn’t exist.”
“Teela says you’re constantly willing to destroy it because you overestimate your ability to survive.”
“Tell Teela that I’m not dead yet.”
“She considers this proof of the miraculous.”
Kaylin nodded, but continued. “If you feel this way about the High Court and the Barrani, why are you going to the High Halls to take the Test of Name?”
“Because Annarion is going,” Serralyn said. It was the first time she’d spoken out loud, and her answer overlapped Terrano’s, but without his eye-rolling disgust.
“Annarion chose,” Sedarias said, confirming Serralyn’s words. “He was always more tied to this world than I. He wants his family line back. He wants his ancestral home. And he wants his brother free of the fiefs.”
“I don’t think his brother wants to be free of the fiefs.”
“Not noticeably, no. I didn’t say he was smart; I said it was what he wanted. It’s what he feels his duty is. His upbringing was faulty,” she continued. “He won’t survive in the High Halls, even if he passes that Test.” She winced. “I have not been idle since your departure from the green. My own contacts are a shambles, but I have sources of information; I have a better understanding of the current political structure, and I believe with our aid, he might survive.”
“You seem to be more of a target than Annarion.”
She inclined her head. “My sources will, of course, have other contacts as well.” Her smile was slender and cold. “The sister I killed was not the head of our family, as the family is currently constituted, but she was not working on her own. I did not expect that she would be foolish enough to willingly take on Shadow elements in order to increase her power.”
“For all the good it did her.”
“For all the good it did her,” Sedarias agreed. “We do not intend to disrupt the High Court; we intend to see Annarion through the Test of Name, and pass it ourselves. Becoming Lords of the High Court will provide us with options, should those options be required.” She held up a hand as Kaylin opened her mouth. “We are aware of the risks. With the help of Alsanis, we have been taking the same lessons Helen has been forcing Mandoran and Annarion to take. We’re aware of what happened with the ancestors; we’re aware of what happened with the Shadows. We have been trying, with very limited success, to hear what the Shadows hear.
“And yes, Lord Kaylin, we’re aware that whatever was sent into the outlands was sent hunting us. We believe they expected to find us as easily as they found Annarion and Mandoran. But Helen is a good teacher, if perhaps a bit too lenient; we could have walked these pathways without detection. We did not expect—I did not expect—to encounter either my sister or the High Court here. We did not expect to encounter a war band—I will confess that I am impressed.
“We certainly did not expect the Consort to come to the Hallionne. We did not expect—oh, many things.” She then turned to Terrano. “We didn’t expect to see you, either.”
He was silent.
“We were happy for you,” Sedarias continued, voice soft and almost—almost—pensive. “But there is a silence you once occupied that we cannot, quite, fill.”
“I heard you.”
Sedarias smiled. “You were listening. That would be a first.”
“I gave you my name,” he said.
She nodded. “And now, the risk is rendered irrelevant; you did not resume that name; did not choose to remain, bound and chained, to the world of your birth.” She spoke in a tone that implied envy or yearning. “You should go. We can’t take you with us. I didn’t resent your decision. I didn’t consider it a betrayal. What you wanted, you always wanted. We could see it. I can still see it now. It’s bright, Terrano. It’s shining. You at least escaped this.”
“You could.”
Sedarias shook her head. “Not anymore. Sometimes we are only offered one chance.”
Winston was fidgeting. In his case, that meant lengthening his fingers and tying them into literal knots.
“What will you do?” Terrano asked of Sedarias. Of all of them.
“We will go to Elantra. We will go to the High Halls. We will take the Test of Name. In as much as we can, we will live as our people have lived for millennia. I will take my family. Annarion will regain his. Mandoran will do the same.”
“Mandoran’s not going to like that,” Terrano said.
Sedarias raised a brow. “We will become what we were meant to become, before our lives were interrupted. And when it is time, Terrano, when it is time, we will turn our gaze and attention into the heart of Ravellon, and we will break it. We will reclaim what was lost to our people.”
Terrano’s brows had risen into the line of his falling hair. “How, exactly, do you intend to do that?” Clearly, this plan was a new one, made after his departure from the cohort.
“We don’t know. But the Shadows appear to be hunting us—us—and I intend to make certain that they can never do so again.”
He surprised Kaylin; he laughed. His laughter was almost joyful. He then crossed the distance that separated them, and threw his arms around Sedarias. Kaylin, even at her most comfortable, would never have dared. Sedarias was not a huggable presence.
“You really don’t change,” he said; she endured his embrace, but did not return it. On the other hand, she made no attempt to disengage, either. To Kaylin he added, “They didn’t originally intend to take on Ravellon. Sedarias is angry at the thing that’s hunting us, so it’s become personal. No one can hold a grudge as long as Sedarias. No one, ever.”
Kaylin didn’t personally consider this a good thing, but kept that to herself.
Terrano let his arms fall away. “What I taught the Barrani who were interested in forging an alliance with us, I taught here. Here in the outlands. It’s not something that can easily be done in your world. I’m certain it can be taught there—but in spaces that draw on, that rely on, the much more malleable and amorphous environment. Places like the Hallionne. Or possibly Helen. Without the outlands, those buildings couldn’t exist.
“Sedarias believed that without the outlands, the Keeper couldn’t exist, either. This place is tied to all places in some fashion.” His expression darkened. “The Shadows appear to be able to move here—but not all Shadows. They can’t as easily leave it, either. But there were buildings in Ravellon that were the equal of the Hallionne, or so history tells us; I’ve never seen one, but even I know to stay away from Ravellon.”
“You can see it from the outlands?”
“Yes. It’s not safe to approach—not for me as I usually travel. It’s a sticky web of strands and barbs, and it absorbs everything it can comfortably grasp.”
“What does it look like, here?”
Terrano shrugged. “What does anything look like, here? I can’t describe it to you because you won’t understand what I see—you can’t see it yourself, and you won’t have the reference points. But if you could, I think even you might recognize it as a city. A congregation of cages, some taller than the Towers. I can,” he added, “see the Towers that bind the fief of Ravellon in place.”
“Right now?”
“Not right this exact minute, no.”
“But you can see the Towers if you’re in a different location?”
“Yes, why?”
Kaylin bit her lip.
“Winston, can you?”
Winston was frowning. “I do not approach the dark lands. None of us do.”
“Because you might be lost?”
“Because we might be trapped and enslaved, or we might be contaminated. Bertolle is home to us; we have no other. That was the choice we made. But Bertolle would not have the flexibility of choice, were one of us to become infected. He would have to refuse us entry. In the worst case, he would be forced—by the words at his heart—to destroy us. We would not do that to him.” He then said, to Terrano, “You should not play games so close to Ravellon.”
“I didn’t know it was Ravellon to start with, and I never approach anything that big carelessly. And before you ask, no. I haven’t entered Ravellon. Had I, Alsanis would know, and I wouldn’t be here. I’d be dead.” He frowned. “Sedarias, don’t do anything yet.”
“Oh?”
“Winston is right. Something’s wrong.”
“That’s why we’re considering—”
“I don’t think Kariastos has been compromised, exactly.” His eyes began to spread across his face. Kaylin found such transformations acceptable in Winston and his brother, but found it disturbing in Terrano. And why should she? Terrano was not Barrani, now. He wasn’t trying to be.
“Winston?”
Bertolle’s brother was frowning as well.
And Sedarias said, “Everyone, be silent. Now.”
* * *
In the silence, Kaylin thought. And in the silence, the crowd inside her head took the opportunity to speak when it wouldn’t obviously distract her.
She is dangerous, Ynpharion said. The sentiment was echoed by everyone except Severn, who—as he usually did—said nothing.
Yes, but she’s ours.
You are so certain. It wasn’t a question.
Is Terrano right?
There was a glimmering of amusement. Terrano is correct. The Consort chose Kariastos for a reason.
All of Kaylin’s worry, all of her fear, took shape and form, transforming as it did into a bitter anger. She had led the cohort—or almost led the cohort—into a trap. Why didn’t you say anything? It was a stupid question. She knew it was stupid. But the anger had to go somewhere or it would overwhelm her.
Because she is not concerned about the cohort, as you call them; not in the fashion you are. If they are caught in a trap, it is unlikely that Kariastos will destroy them immediately. She can disentangle them afterward.
And me?
She did not—she does not—believe you are at significant risk. What Kariastos might build at her request will not harm you, because you have your familiar.
What is she trying to do?
Frustration. What do you think?
You do not wish to be involved in this, Nightshade said softly.
I’m involved anyway.
Limit your involvement.
I can’t—I live with your brother. And Mandoran. The Barrani are trying to start a war because we have Bellusdeo, who had no intention of coming here at all. If I did nothing at all going forward, I would still be entangled in all of it.
Sedarias is dangerous.
Kaylin did not reply.
Lirienne did not ask her what she thought the Consort intended. And that told her something that she needed to know, and conversely, didn’t want to. But that, she told herself, was life. You know what they’re doing, she said, not bothering to hide the severity of either her tone or the disappointment she felt.
Yes.
It’s beyond the political, now.
Nothing is ever beyond the political, kyuthe. Nothing about my kin.
Help us. Bellusdeo is with us. Bellusdeo isn’t part of the cohort; she’s a Dragon. If there’s—if something was planned, she’s going to get caught up in it, too. The Emperor will be enraged, and war is not in the interests of either of our people if Ravellon has somehow become involved. In fact, war is only of value to Ravellon; it’ll split our forces. And it seems pretty clear that Ravellon is involved.
Lirienne said nothing. Kaylin let it go. She held his name, not the other way around, but she knew that she was not equal to enforcing her will. Not now, and probably not ever.
Kaylin lifted a hand and exhaled. Using her Hawk voice, she said, “No one enter the Hallionne.”
“Oh?” Sedarias’s voice was chilly.
Ignoring this, Kaylin turned to Terrano. His expression made clear that he thought anyone who gave orders to Sedarias—and expected to be obeyed—was so far beyond stupid they might as well be dead, which was what was going to happen when Sedarias was finished with them.
The ground beneath her feet—beneath all of their feet—began to rumble in a peculiar way. It did not feel like a tremor, exactly; Kaylin thought that standing on Bellusdeo’s throat while she was attempting to roar would feel similar.
“Sedarias—” Terrano’s voice was sharper and far less calm, but when she lifted a hand, he swallowed. “We’re too close to the Hallionne, and I really don’t think this is a good idea—”
“What is she doing?” Kaylin asked him. Her arms had not started to ache; her skin felt normal. But Terrano’s queasy expression made clear that Sedarias, who seemed to be standing utterly still—as if she were a sword that had not yet been wielded—was doing something. Anything that could make Terrano nervous was bad.
“Sedarias—the Hallionne does not—”
Whatever she’d been about to say was lost to the sound of thunder, the flash of lightning and the buckling of the ground beneath their collective feet. Even Terrano’s.