13 #3
wild-eyed and pale, looked like he needed a week of it. And food.
“How?” he demanded; he’d clearly been listening. “How will it help?”
“I don’t know—I told you, it’s instinct. But . . . I met the being at the heart of the Tower today, and apparently she—”
“He,” Terrano snapped.
“She was a she to me. And it doesn’t matter, does it? They—there seemed to be a lot of her or him in the background—taught Terrano a bit about
places he could sidestep. One of them was difficult, or more difficult to learn. That was where Terrano was when he was almost
killed. I couldn’t reach him on my own—Mandoran?”
Mandoran winced. “It was more difficult than usual—as if there was some resistance. But I wasn’t paying much attention when
Terrano was eavesdropping in the High Halls.” At Teela’s expression, he added, “What? I don’t think either the High Halls
or its guest intended to teach chaos personified anything—they just didn’t think it necessary to get rid of him. They probably
don’t really understand how tenacious he can be.”
“Or they don’t consider him a significant danger to anyone but himself,” Helen added.
“We are not as you are, who were created by the Ancients for their own whims and purposes.” Her eyes, as she met and held Mandoran’s gaze, had become polished obsidian, with flecks of moving color beneath the surface.
“I have spent far more time with Terrano than they; I understand just how much trouble he can cause.
“Were it intentional, I would eject him or prepare rooms in the containment area for his use. He is either supremely lucky
or supremely unlucky.”
“I’m not dead yet,” Terrano said, grinning widely. “So I’ll go with lucky.”
“Oh, I think Abel understands Terrano pretty well by now,” Kaylin muttered.
Helen’s frown was slight, but genuine. “I believe that while Terrano has been given permission to call the Avatar a name of
Terrano’s choosing, it is wisest not to adopt it for your own use.”
“Why?”
“It denotes a familiarity a Lord of the High Court should not have when dealing with the most powerful entity within its confines.”
“But we call you Helen.”
“Helen is a name I chose for myself, and my mandate—which is also my choice—is not the mandate of the High Halls.” At Kaylin’s
expression, Helen sighed, her eyes losing their reflective obsidian appearance. “If things get out of hand in a truly dangerous
way, my guests may die. It is, and has always been, a risk. But should all of you—including my tenant—perish here, it will
not signal the end of an entire race. The weight of our choices and our responsibilities is entirely different.
“Sedarias, dear, you will injure your hands if you continue to clench them in such a fashion; your nails are impractically
long.”
No one else in this house would ever speak to Sedarias in that tone.
Not out loud. Sedarias, however, forced her hands to unclench.
She took audible deep breaths before speaking.
“Kaylin is correct. If we are to meet with An’Tellarus, it is far safer for us to offer hospitality here.
The Mellarionne rooms in the High Halls are, at the moment, somewhat vulnerable to vermin. ”
Annarion joined Mandoran, his eyes a dark blue, his gaze almost entirely focused on Kaylin. “What did you discover in the
High Halls? What about this visitor might help my brother?”
“I don’t know. But I feel like she’s entangled in this through no choice of her own. She’s one of the pieces we need to build
the bigger picture.” She changed the subject. “I’d like to visit Nightshade now—with Terrano in tow.”
Nightshade’s rooms hadn’t appreciably changed, and Nightshade hadn’t changed at all. If it weren’t for the faint proof that
he was still breathing, he might have been dead. Kaylin didn’t have to keep that thought to herself—another advantage of not
being part of the cohort group mind. She was far more familiar with the physiology of humans than of Barrani, having seen
far more human corpses.
But she’d certainly seen Barrani corpses, especially recently.
“I’m not sure how the spell was cast or delivered,” she said as she pulled up a chair beside Nightshade’s bed. Annarion stood
over her shoulder, a pale shadow. Kaylin liked Annarion. Of the cohort, he was the most considerate, his formality arising from that consideration, not some hierarchical
jostling for position.
She didn’t entirely understand the conflict between Annarion and Nightshade, but it didn’t matter. She had hated Severn for
half her life, but it would have gutted her to stand watch beside his deathbed if she wasn’t the one who’d put him in it.
Family was, had always been, complicated.
“Did you understand half of what Ariste said?” Kaylin asked—of Terrano.
“Probably? Ariste gives me a headache half the time. You saw, right? All the different Aristes? When they’re of the same mind, their voice is a concert.
But they’re not often of the same mind. If you listen carefully, you can hear the cracks; if you listen while standing with a foot off the plane, you can hear the arguments, the disagreements, the second thoughts. ”
“Ariste didn’t teach you this particular path.”
“Ummm, not directly, no. I was listening in. Look—we never know when we’re going to need to run, right? We don’t know when
we might be trapped in another Hallionne—or worse. Alsanis actually cared about us—he just didn’t want to let us loose on the world. Most of what I learned, I learned because I don’t like being jailed.”
“No one likes being jailed.”
“True—but we didn’t do anything to deserve it. We were the ones who were injured. We were the ones who were thrown away. None
of us had the choice, but as a consequence of everyone else’s decision, we were the ones confined. I hated it. I worked against
it. I even managed to succeed.”
And he’d tried to kill the Consort and her party.
“Yes,” Helen said. “And I believe it is time to discuss that. Bygones may be bygones, and the Consort does not seem to hold
the cohort responsible for their first encounter—or perhaps she feels her own subsequent actions against them balance those
scales. But Terrano acted as he acted for a reason. We know that reason—he wanted to free his comrades. He had already attained
a measure of freedom, but he did not wish them to remain trapped for eternity.
“But his attempt—from the outside—involved people of power. Arcanists. Barrani Lords. Mortal lords.”
Terrano was silent. Annarion was silent as well, but Annarion’s silence was different, and his gaze was now squarely on Terrano.
She wasn’t supposed to discuss anything the Consort said. At all. She had to be careful.
“You’re keeping Ynpharion out, aren’t you?” she asked Helen.
“I do not feel his presence will be helpful at this time,” Helen replied. “Practice as much caution as you can.”
Annarion and Terrano were now both looking at Kaylin; Kaylin was looking at Nightshade. She touched his hand; it was cold.
She attempted to contact him using the healing power the Marks of the Chosen had granted her. The result hadn’t changed. She’d
had faint hope that whatever it was she’d taken from Terrano’s injury might make a difference. So much for hope.
“Terrano, I want you to move me to the plane you were standing on when you were injured.”
“I don’t think that wise,” Helen said.
Terrano was never one to choose wisdom. He ignored Helen. “You think you might be able to reach him if you’re trying from
there?”
“Maybe. I don’t fully understand everything that’s happening—but there are too many damn coincidences.”
“Let me get Mandoran.”
“Why?”
“He’s better at moving people. Look, I can try—but I can’t guarantee that you’ll arrive entirely intact. Mandoran mostly can.
And this transition was way trickier than the ones we normally use when we want to evade detection or harm.” Terrano shrugged.
“I’m more flexible than most of my friends. Mandoran is almost as flexible, but he’s more aware of what they can—or can’t—do. If you insist, I’ll try—”
Nightshade’s door flew open. Mandoran stood in the frame, eyes a dangerous—and very uncharacteristic—blue.