11
We need to talk. Kaylin began to pace. Had Teela been here, there would have been words; had An’Tellarus been with her, glares. Teela had never
liked it when Kaylin paced restlessly either in circles or straight lines; it reminded the Barrani Hawk of a caged beast,
trapped in an enclosure too small and too constraining.
“You need to speak,” the Avatar agreed. “But I counsel against panic. You yourself have encountered an odd form of Shadow
in the very recent past; it does not taint you in a fashion either I or Helen can perceive. Were I your friend or associate,
I would suggest you pay a visit—in person—to Lord Bellusdeo. Her Tower was built to war against Shadow, and the Tower’s attention
to detail is far, far more granular.”
“Can I take Yvonne with me?” Kaylin countered.
“I am not Yvonne, and I cannot speak for her. She will not speak of her history; if she remembers it clearly at all, it is
as nightmare, and those nightmares stopped plaguing her months after she arrived. Lord Severn’s caution is not without merit.”
“But you think it’s not necessary?”
“I am uncertain, Lord Kaylin. But it is true that the Barrani do not understand the nature of the many tests that lead, in
the end, to the duty and responsibility of the Lady.”
“I didn’t get tested.”
“Is that what you believe?”
Kaylin grimaced. “If I did, it was so subtle I missed it, what with everything else going on. Giant Shadow in the basement,
trapped souls, that kind of thing.”
“I wish to remind you that the Giant Shadow in the basement, as you call them, is now a guest in these Halls. Terrano has spent much time with them.”
Kaylin had an idea where this was heading, and she didn’t like it.
The Avatar’s smile was reminiscent of Teela’s—when she was involved in training in the Halls of Law. “Indeed. I would like
you to return to the Tower of testing before you depart for the day.”
Kaylin exhaled. She could say no, but didn’t see the point. If she said no, the Avatar would speak to Teela. Teela would encourage her to say yes.
Maybe.
I doubt that, Severn replied. I’ll go with you if you go.
I think you’ll need permission. Or an invitation.
If I get neither, I’ll ask Terrano to escort me.
“Does this invitation involve my partner?”
“Yes. I do not wish to antagonize An’Tellarus, so I will not extend the invitation to Yvonne at this time. But I will, before
she meets in person with the Lady.”
“Do I have to be there when the two of them meet?”
Yes, Ynpharion snapped.
“I believe it would add a level of comfort for both of the other participants.” The Avatar’s voice was gentle.
Kaylin wanted to know why it was supposed to be her job to make two other people comfortable when it was so uncomfortable
for Kaylin herself. But she was whining and knew it. She actually liked Yvonne, from what little she’d seen, and of the Barrani,
with the exception of some of the cohort, the Consort was her favorite.
But the Avatar was right, and she knew it. Maybe because she was mortal and born to be, always, an outsider, no matter what titles she’d been granted. Maybe it was because nothing
she could gain by being political in the High Halls would ever change the inferiority her birth as a mortal imposed on her.
She had nothing—but her life—to lose.
“It is not just that,” the High Halls said. “But it is fact: you are not as they are, and you will never be what they are.
But you have more power than most of the Barrani who dwell here, and you are afforded far more respect because the consequences
of that respect are far less costly if it is misplaced. I believe An’Teela and An’Tellarus are finished for the moment.”
“And Severn?”
“You may ask him that yourself.”
Severn didn’t pass on the contents of what Kaylin thought of as negotiations. Not yet. She wouldn’t ask him here, either.
Maybe when they left. Maybe not ever. She was almost certain that his own past was now entangled in this, and she’d always
been careful not to make demands of that past because she didn’t want to have to discuss her own.
They’d been separated for years—for a third of her life—in part because of his choices, and in part because of her own. Those
choices, made in ignorance, were bounded by actual events; it was just the interpretations that had been wrong. But two children
were dead, and that didn’t and couldn’t be changed.
He didn’t talk about them. Kaylin didn’t, either. But the memory was their wall, their personal hells. How much of Severn’s
memories were like that? How much of his past had now sprung from seeds Kaylin might never have seen?
She wanted to know.
And she didn’t. Maybe ignorance was her best protection. She hated that. She had yearned, since she’d chosen to live as a Hawk, to see clearly. To face facts—as if facts were immutable.
“Severn will join you when he can—but I suggest you accompany Terrano and me now, if you wish to avoid further argument.”
“Teela will want to come as well. Is there a problem with that?”
“Terrano does not feel she will add to any possible conversation that arises from the meeting.”
“You want me there because of what happened with Terrano.”
“Because of what you carried away from that encounter, yes.”
Kaylin grimaced. “You better come up with a good excuse for Teela; she’ll have my head if you don’t.”
The Avatar smiled. “Terrano does not believe that to be the case.”
“I’m sorry,” Kaylin said to Yvonne, whose eyes shifted from wider than normal to narrower as she absorbed parts of the conversation.
Her face was expressive; time among the Barrani hadn’t yet destroyed that. Kaylin thought it wouldn’t. The Consort had spent
far longer among her kin, and she, like Yvonne, could be open.
“For what?”
“I have to leave—quickly—and you’ll be stuck with An’Tellarus; I’m guessing she won’t be happy.”
“I’m not sure she’s ever happy,” Yvonne said, her tone removing the sting from the criticism her words carried. “But maybe
that’s the price for living as long—and as well—as she has. People would cry for joy were she to die, but they don’t have
the power or the cunning to cause that death.
“I know she seems harsh to you,” she added.
“But she’s been as kind as she can be to us.
We wouldn’t have survived as long as we have without her intervention.
” Yvonne hesitated, and then said, “If Ollarin could, he’d abdicate and return with me to the West March.
But he can’t—they’d just hunt him down after the formalities were over.
He knows. Unless he keeps the seat, and displays his power prominently enough, neither of us survives, either. ”
“Have you spoken to anyone from Mellarionne?”
Her eyes instantly darkened.
“I mean, in the past month?”
“No.”
“I think you should try. Or maybe An’Tellarus should. An’Mellarionne—the new one—is a friend.”
“Of yours?”
“Of mine. She lives in my house.”
Yvonne’s jaw fell, and it took her a few seconds to shut her mouth again. “She lives with you? She doesn’t live in the High
Halls?”
“. . . I guess that’s not widely known.”
“It’s more or less known,” Terrano—still unseen—said. “But by the ambitious and the political.”
“But—it’s your house, not hers?”
Ugh. “It’s complicated. You know that the High Halls is sentient? It was always sentient, but recently it’s produced an Avatar—this
guy—and it’s more active within its boundaries than it once was.”
Yvonne nodded, a small grin lifting the corners of her lips. “A lot of the older lords hate it.” Which was why she found it amusing.
“My house is like the High Halls, but a lot smaller. It’s why An’Mellarionne chose to stay with me, rather than taking up
residence in the quarters Mellarionne owns here. The High Halls can’t interfere politically; Helen doesn’t have to care about
politics. She just cares about keeping her occupants safe.
“But . . . she’s had a lot of unusual occupants in her time—some mortal, some Barrani, and some we have no name for. I think
you’d like her, if you were ever allowed to come visit.”
“I’d be allowed,” Yvonne replied, but hesitantly.
Kaylin exhaled. “You’d be allowed if An’Tellarus also visited?”
“Something like that. If it’s your house, would that be all right?”
“It’s my house—but that bit about the comfort of occupants is true. I’m really not informed about the Barrani politics currently
unfolding. Most of my housemates think I’m a fragile mortal who shouldn’t be involved.”
Yvonne frowned. “But . . . you’re Chosen. And the house is yours.”
“Yes. But I’m also an officer of the Halls of Law, so I’m out of the house, and its protections, a lot.”
“And you have him.” She raised her arm to indicate Hope.
Hope made a happy noise that sounded nothing like the squawks he shared with Kaylin, and then he pushed himself off the perch
of Yvonne’s arm and came to rest, once again, on Kaylin’s shoulder, where he flopped into his usual shawl position.
Yvonne laughed, a bright, brief sound.
Hope lifted his head and snorted.
Kaylin watched Hope and Yvonne. Her reaction to the familiar made her seem—for a moment—younger than Kaylin had ever felt.
“If you want to meet Helen, I think she’d really like you,” Kaylin told Yvonne.
“I think I’d like that. Right now I almost never leave the High Halls, and I think—if Severn could come to escort me, Ollarin
would consider a visit safe.” But she hesitated, and then added, “An’Tellarus and Ollarin don’t always agree on what’s safe.”
“You mentioned that if you could visit, she’s likely to come with you.”
Yvonne nodded, fully aware that An’Tellarus was the concern.
“I probably won’t send an official invitation—I think that might attract too much attention.”
“If your Barrani friends deliver an invitation, that’ll attract attention, too.”
“Not the one I’m thinking about. Do you stay in An’Tellarus’s quarters?”
“Officially? No. I stay with Ollarin. It might be safer to send a message to Ollarin—but messages are more likely to be intercepted
there.”