27 #2
Annarion cleared his throat. “Androsse suggests that you attempt to use the Erenne mark to reach my brother.”
Kaylin had no idea how to use the mark. A slave mark—or so it had been called—didn’t generally go two ways. But the mark bled
periodically, and had since Nightshade had been attacked. She assumed he was—somehow—trying to reach out to her.
“Ask Androsse if the more powerful person in this arrangement can unconsciously reach out to the person bearing the mark.”
“Yes. There should be some hint of subconscious, some hint of actual intelligence, in the attempt; the binding can become attenuated, but the connection persists until the mark is released. He adds that this was true of Immortals of disparate power; he is uncertain that the rules that govern the mark’s use even work in a situation in which a mortal is involved.
“Given that caveat, Androsse believes you should never have lost contact. The binding isn’t a binding based on True Name.
It’s a binding of a more personal nature, if the spell was properly executed. The nature of the mark applied would change
depending on the person who applied it, but the essential nature of an Erenne should be preserved.”
Silence. Annarion bowed his head; Kaylin couldn’t see his expression. Yet another argument was in progress.
“Yes,” Helen said. “Arbiter Androsse informed Serralyn that the problem may be you. As the historical significance of the
Erenne mark was lost, the application of that mark lost power; it became a symbol of ownership, but not a symbol of communion.
It is clear to Androsse that Lord Nightshade held you in some esteem, or the mark could not be activated at all.
“You did not accept the weight and the truth of it, or of what it once was. He believes the reason the mark causes your cheek
to bleed is your resistance. Annarion does not wish to pass this on; the mark is the cause of much conflict—and it was not
applied as it once was by its creator. It is a simple brand, as Lord Nightshade used it. I believe it was meant to warn Barrani of your value—and the consequences of
harming you.
“But Arbiter Androsse is disgusted by that notion. Or perhaps angry. He is surprised that it functions at all. Serralyn adds
that surprise is perhaps not his primary emotion. But he believes that you can reach Nightshade because of the Erenne mark
and binding. At the moment you are on the outside of the barrier that prevents communication through the namebond.
“If you make proper use of the Erenne mark, you will be on the inside of that barrier rather than the outside of it. Or at
least, that’s Androsse’s theory.”
Annarion paled. Clearly, Androsse had had more to say. He repeated none of it.
Helen took Mandoran’s role. “Arbiter Androsse is uncertain what effect Nightshade’s death would have on you, given the Erenne
mark. As you haven’t fully accepted it, he thinks you might be safe.”
Might. What an awful word. “Did he explain any of that?”
“Not in so many words. In the best case for you—not for Nightshade—you will not be able to utilize that connection, and his
death will merely cause the mark to disappear.”
“When is my life ever best-case? What’s the worst case?”
“You will die with him. He doesn’t think you are in that position now. You are left with two choices: accept the mark properly
or reject it utterly. But in the latter case, Nightshade is almost certain to die.”
Kaylin fell silent. She understood the theory. If she could make contact with him at all, she could heal him. She couldn’t
reach him through the namebond, but the connection from the Erenne mark persisted. If he were awake, if he were healed, he
might be like the Consort; there would be no obvious, visible sign of the interference at all.
But the Consort’s decline had been subtle. Nightshade’s had been instant.
Annarion wouldn’t even meet her gaze; his shoulders were almost bunched up around his ears. He couldn’t ask her to do what
Androsse said was necessary. She wasn’t even certain she could. She felt she’d accepted the mark’s existence; she didn’t even
think about it anymore. Barrani with whom she interacted were familiar enough with it that they also ignored it.
An’Tellarus had barely lifted a brow, and Yvonne hadn’t seemed to assign significance to it either.
Kaylin lifted a hand to her cheek. It wasn’t bleeding at the moment, but it was warm where the Erenne mark lay.
How much more could she do to accept it?
If Androsse’s research was correct—and she was absolutely certain it was—the spell had been created by an Ancestor who wished
to form a lasting bond with a person he loved. His power was such that the namebond was overwhelming, and the person he loved
likely to be absorbed by it, changed by it, devoured by it.
Why he couldn’t just love the person, she didn’t know. Why did there have to be a mark at all? Why did there have to be visible
proof of that bond? If love was what was felt between two people, why did it involve others at all?
But the Ancestors were basically Barrani to start—with longer, more complicated names. Ownership, claim, elements of power
were things it might not occur to them weren’t necessary.
“Some cultures have wedding bands,” Helen said, possibly attempting to be helpful.
Kaylin didn’t really understand those, either. Why was it necessary? Why did someone else’s claim matter so much? Was it always about power and ownership? Ugh. Her cheek was warm. Possibly the rest of her face had warmed up as well because she was flailing.
Asking all the questions, but not in a way that would actually get useful answers.
What was acceptance?
Did it mean that she had to somehow love the fieflord? She cared very much for Annarion, his brother, but she’d hated life
in Nightshade, especially after she’d seen what Tiamaris had begun to build. Her life in the streets, her hiding from Ferals,
her scrounging for scraps of food—that was a function of a lord of territory who considered the people living in it like any
other form of wildlife. They survived or they didn’t.
She even understood it on some level.
But the Emperor’s Elantra and Nightshade’s fief were so different.
It wasn’t that people on the right side of the Ablayne were somehow richer—Kaylin had struggled to make ends meet before Helen—it was that they were safer.
There were orphanages. There were doctors in their large medical buildings.
There were Hawks and other officers of the Halls of Law.
There were laws, and people like Kaylin were meant to enforce or uphold them.
They were paid for their allegiance to those laws.
Nightshade hadn’t cared. He barely saw the fieflings as people at all. Before Kaylin met the cohort—and Annarion in particular—she
would have said Nightshade was incapable of what she herself called love. He saw power—all Barrani did. He had power. But love existed outside of power, didn’t it?
The foundling hall was run by a Leontine who treated the orphans as if they were her children. What did she gain from that?
Kaylin at least got paid.
It was impossible to accept the Erenne mark as a symbol of love, because there was no love involved with its placement. Not on his part. Not on hers. But there was attachment or maybe hope. She was Chosen. Annarion
had been trapped in the West March. She’d suspected, since meeting Annarion, that the purpose of marking her, of staking that
claim, was to bring the Chosen under his control, or at least into his orbit.
She’d never asked.
“Serralyn,” she said to thin air, “I understand what Androsse thinks he’s asking me to do—but I don’t think it’s relevant.
If he’s saying the mark itself was placed one-sidedly, and the bleeding I’ve been experiencing means that it was placed there
as an act of love or communion, he is totally, utterly wrong. If there was love, it wasn’t something I recognize as love. And maybe that’s how the Barrani operate—but the cohort is what I would consider loving, which is proof that it’s possible
that not all Barrani do.”
Think. If it weren’t for Annarion, would she care what happened to Nightshade at all? He would be like most of the High Court
to her: irrelevant to her life, her work, and her job.
Except she was here, trying to figure out how to use a mark she’d never asked for and didn’t understand. Maybe because of Annarion. Maybe because Nightshade had saved her life, possibly more than once. Maybe because he’d given her his True Name, but he’d never tried to use it to control her.
Did it matter why?
She wanted to save him. She’d wanted that on the day he’d been attacked. She’d brought him to Helen, where he’d be safe, because
she wasn’t certain she could get him to his Tower in one piece. He was here, in her home, his brother hovering over him.
“I need to know how to accept it,” she finally said. “I can’t love him the way the Ancestors loved. I don’t think I could
love anyone the way the Ancestors loved. And I can’t love him the way I might, in theory, love someone in the future. But he didn’t love me when he marked me, either. If Androsse is right, there’s
no way the Erenne mark should work in either direction.”
“Serralyn says Androsse finds the question upsetting. He is not impressed by either your ignorance or Nightshade’s. He is,
however, willing to allow that Ancestral love and possessiveness were almost inseparable. In the absence of love, one might
call the result slavery; in the presence of love, one might call it exaltation.”
“There was no exaltation, believe me.”
“But no slavery either?”
“If Androsse is making the argument that Nightshade actually cared about me as a person, he’s clearly been stuck in the fiction
section of the library for too long.” She hesitated. “I’ve seen the fate of those who love him. They’re living statues. Sometimes
he lets them out to breathe—but otherwise they’re stone. Whatever I felt, whatever I accepted, would lead to that fate.”
“Are they mortal?” Helen asked.
Kaylin nodded.