14 #3
“Does Terrano strike you as the type of person who can calculate anything?”
In the darkness, Mandoran’s grin felt bright. “He didn’t appreciate that question.”
“He can’t really argue with it, can he?”
“He’s not trying.” Mandoran’s expression darkened. “We have to go back. Terrano’s making noise, and he’s arguing with not
only Helen but Sedarias. I can barely hear myself think.” He grimaced. “. . . Sedarias said I can’t hear myself think because
I hardly ever do.”
Kaylin thought this was unfair. Mandoran and Terrano appeared similar in their approaches to their lives, but Mandoran was
far more aware of other people, and the way his actions might affect them. Terrano was almost entirely without malice—but
so were tidal waves and earthquakes. “Is Teela joining in?”
“No. But that’s also causing a bit of friction.
We all know she went with you to the Consort; we don’t know what was actually discussed.
Sedarias is making guesses—but Teela is the only one of us who’s good at shutting people out.
We’re terrible at it; we never felt a need to do so.
” He winced. “Teela is now telling Sedarias to leave you alone. Meaning: don’t bother Kaylin. Helen has just joined the discussion.”
“Is it really a discussion?”
“Barely.”
“Are you sure we should go back right now?”
“Annarion isn’t part of the fracas. He’s listening with half an ear. He trusts that if the Consort’s discussion was relevant—somehow—to
his brother, you’ll do everything you can to act on it. It’s better if you close your eyes.”
“I can’t afford to miss anything that might give us a bit more information about the current situation.” She kept her eyes
on Nightshade the entire time. Not on herself, not on Hope—although technically he was closest to her because his wing covered
her eyes—but on Nightshade.
Mandoran began to move her out of the space they now occupied. It wasn’t seamless; she could see the jerkiness of the movement
in the way Nightshade’s unconscious body flickered briefly around the edges. Her Marks remained steady, a golden light that
implied warmth in a darkness that radiated cold. She could feel the air shift across her skin.
“Could you tell Serralyn it’s an emergency?”
“She already knows. She says there’s a bit of a line to visit the library because the library has been shut down a number
of times in recent days. But she’s working on it. If you’ve got other questions, it’s best to ask them now.”
To Kaylin’s surprise, it wasn’t noisy in the room; it was dead silent. Annarion was seated beside her—and he had an arm around
her shoulder, as if expecting her to fall.
The sad thing was, she almost did. She felt as if she’d suddenly been dropped; it wasn’t the type of fall that could kill
her, but it did cause the butterfly-in-stomach feeling of a longer than safe drop.
“Sorry,” Mandoran said, as if he, too, felt like he was falling, even though they were on solid ground. “It was harder to concentrate because some people can’t shut up and let me think!”
Annarion winced and turned fully toward Kaylin. “Your cheek is bleeding.” His eyes were a dark, dark blue, and anger had joined
the worry that had been a rigid mask since Nightshade had arrived.
Right. Her cheek. “Is it the Erenne mark?”
“You really don’t know how to choose your words, do you?” Mandoran said, but he turned toward Sedarias and Teela, who stood
in the outer room, glaring at each other. Sedarias had Terrano’s arm in a tight grip, as if she expected him to flee without
warning before she’d finished. Fair enough. Kaylin expected the same.
“The Erenne mark didn’t exist on the path we moved to,” Kaylin told Annarion. She understood that the mark underpinned his
bitter disappointment with his brother, but it didn’t matter. The mark existed, now. Neither of them could change the past.
And it was a clue, a link, between Annarion’s brother and Kaylin, because the namebond didn’t work.
Annarion stood on the edge between disgust and desperation. Kaylin’s words pushed him over, to the right side. “It wasn’t
there?”
“Mandoran couldn’t see it. But my cheek was bleeding, regardless. It didn’t hurt. I couldn’t feel it. But . . . the blood
that fell here, fell there.”
Annarion nodded. “You think there’s a connection.”
“I think the Erenne mark isn’t based around True Words, True Names. But the Barrani don’t wake at birth without their Names. Look, I sort of understand
why the Erenne mark upsets you so much. And I get that maybe, because I didn’t understand how they were used historically,
it didn’t upset me.”
“It didn’t upset you because you didn’t want to die.” Annarion’s tone was flat. “You would have accepted it because you didn’t
think you had any other choice.”
“Does it matter? It’s on my cheek. I didn’t understand what it would mean to the Barrani until the Barrani Hawks saw it.”
“They were unhappy?”
“Teela was furious. The rest of the Hawks were just outraged. But I don’t think their outrage would lead to a concerted attack by a couple of
war bands.”
“It didn’t,” Annarion said, voice soft. “Maybe it’s because you didn’t know—but I can’t understand your lack of anger.”
“It’s saved my life,” she said, her voice as soft as Annarion’s. “I don’t live in the fief anymore. I’m not living at the
whim of hunting Ferals and Nightshade’s thugs. I have enough to eat. I have a roof over my head—and it’s a better roof, or
at least a safer one, than my first apartment. I have a job I love. I . . . haven’t really thought about Nightshade very much
for a while now. And when I do, there’s not a lot of anger unless I start comparing his rulership of Nightshade with Tiamaris’s
rule of Tiamaris.”
“Then you’re angry?”
“I don’t think I would have lived such a desperate, miserable life if I’d been an orphan in Tiamaris—and the fief of Barren
was worse than Nightshade when I first arrived. It made me understand that those streets, that near starvation, the possibility
of becoming just another meal for Ferals—those were all choices. I mean, Nightshade and Barren didn’t release the Ferals, but they made no plans to protect their citizens from them, either.
“They didn’t care if the buildings in the fief were run-down and dangerous; they didn’t care if people came to prey on those
too helpless to defend themselves. When I was in those streets, I didn’t expect anyone to care, either. I knew that I had nothing—and people with nothing have to figure out a way to fight, or cheat, or
steal, to survive.
“That was just the way it was. It didn’t occur to me that it didn’t have to be that way until I made it across the Ablayne.
Until I joined the Hawks. Even then, I thought the fiefs were just different—I knew they weren’t considered a part of the empire.
But Tiamaris is a fieflord, and his fief is nothing like Barren’s.
“The things I’m angry about—when I think about them at all—are things like that. I think about the life I could have had.
Would I have been guaranteed to be safe? Hells no. If people were trustworthy all the time, we wouldn’t need Hawks. But it
would have been better. And I don’t want to get angry with the cohort because, except for Sedarias, none of you—who were fed, and safe from weather
and Ferals and pimps—had a choice, either.
“But until you had no choice—” No. This wasn’t the time or place. “Look, I don’t want helplessness and misery to become a
competitive sport, okay? I do resent the life I lived after my mother died. But I hate the choices I made far more than anyone else’s. I hate the fief because I felt I could justify choices that . . . aren’t justifiable. They just
aren’t. They’re understandable. But . . . I hate that I made them.
“And that’s not on your brother. But if I could demand one thing from him, it would be that he view the citizens of his fief as actual people.”
“What makes you think he doesn’t?”
“Did I not just tell you?”
Annarion seemed genuinely confused. It was Mandoran who came to his rescue. Or Kaylin’s rescue; it wasn’t entirely clear.
“You know what Barrani consider political, right?”
She nodded. She was looking at the results of that.
“Barrani tend to view people as enemies, allies, or entirely irrelevant. The people in his fief couldn’t rise to the level
of enemy, and they had no useful power, so they couldn’t be considered allies. They were invisible because they were powerless;
they weren’t a threat. The idea that one protects the helpless and powerless does exist—but you hate it.”
“I don’t—”
“You hate the statuary. Some mortals like cats. Mrs. Erickson likes them. But they do not think of their cats as equals.”
Kaylin, having seen cat owners in the office, could have argued the point, but didn’t.
“If you wish Nightshade to understand the changes Tiamaris has made, you will need to convince him that those people have
value as people. And you will come up against the Barrani culture, over and over again.”
“You disagree with me?”
Mandoran shook his head. “I don’t. But I don’t see people as inherently precious, either. Nor do most of the mortals I’ve
met who have actual power. Maybe it’s just the nature of power. Those who have it. Those who don’t. We strive for power—well,
most of us—because it’s only when we have power that we have relative safety.
“Even Teela.”
Kaylin looked up. “But I didn’t even know Teela was a Lord of the High Court. For years. She protects me because we’re friends—but
being a Hawk isn’t about your friends or even your enemies. It’s supposed to be even-handed. It’s supposed to be about the
law.”
“Well, it’s run by people. It’s never going to be perfect.”
“Does that mean we shouldn’t try?”
“Mandoran,” Annarion said. Mandoran fell silent. Annarion exhaled. “To those who have pledged allegiance to my brother, he
is a good lord. Ask Andellen. But the people of the fiefs make no pledge to him; he makes no pledge to them. He protects the
fief over which his Tower presides. That’s his responsibility.”
“. . . and finding you.” Kaylin’s voice was soft.
Annarion’s expression crumpled.