Epilogue #2
I met him for the first time.” She swallowed. “I was Chosen. I had the Marks of the Chosen. No one knows for certain what
power comes with those Marks. Maybe he thought if he kept me close by, I could help you, somehow.
“And he wasn’t wrong. He never forced me to do anything. He never hurt me, beat me, or commanded me. And his thugs treat me
with respect.”
“The High Court doesn’t.”
“They wouldn’t even if I didn’t have the Erenne mark.”
“They might. You have Hope. You have the Marks of the Chosen.”
“The Erenne mark makes me seem lesser to them. Your brother is the threat, not me. On the other hand, it probably makes him
seem like more of a threat. He has the Chosen in his pocket. If he removed the Erenne mark—or if someone else did—it would make me more
of a threat, not less of one.” She grimaced. “But because it’s still on my face, people know he’s alive.
“Annarion, I made my peace with it. I don’t even notice it’s there on most days.”
“Except when it’s bleeding?”
“Except then, yes. But if it weren’t for this mark, I’m almost certain your brother would have died. We wouldn’t have been
able to reach him or heal him. Please—find another reason to fight with him. Hate him because he treated the citizens of his
fief like less than garbage, for instance.”
Annarion fell silent but carried Kaylin to her room. He didn’t stay to make certain she got ready for bed—but Helen was determined.
It wasn’t a fight Kaylin wanted to have. She did need sleep.
“You should be resting,” Annarion said as he entered his brother’s room. The door wasn’t locked, but even if it had been,
Helen would have opened it for Annarion. He would not have asked. He understood sentient buildings and their hospitality;
Hallionne Alsanis had been both prison and home for the majority of his life.
Calarnenne was not resting. He appeared to be talking with Helen’s Avatar. She was, to Annarion’s surprise, aiding his brother
in bandaging a wound on his right side.
“Your brother’s ribs protected his internal organs,” Helen told Annarion. “And your brother is far too proud to acknowledge
trivial wounds. But these blades weren’t poisoned in the same fashion as the weapons of his first assailants.”
“They weren’t?”
“Not when they were drawn in the foyer.” Helen exhaled.
“Did the attackers in confinement survive?” Annarion asked. The question was meant for either Helen or Nightshade, but it
was Helen’s answer he expected.
“Yes. But their survival requires suspension of time in a very, very localized way. It is possible Kaylin might heal them; your brother is against even the attempt, although he knows that the attempt comes with memories that might prove of critical import.
“Sedarias argued for the healing. Teela remained neutral. What are your thoughts?”
“You know what they are.” Annarion’s eyes were very blue.
Helen’s smile was harsh but genuine. “Yes. I have not asked Kaylin for her opinion yet. If we ask, she will make the attempt.”
Helen finished bandaging the wound that Calarnenne had refused to acknowledge when his own brother asked.
Annarion waited. His brother’s clothing was real; it wasn’t a courtesy or an artifact of the house; he had no attendant to
help him dress. Calarnenne had always been graceful, elegant, and effortlessly powerful. Solanace had enemies—any family of
note did. This much weakness he had never shown to anyone. Not even to Annarion.
Perhaps especially not to Annarion.
There was so much he wanted to say to his brother. He swallowed most of the words but found no way to soothe the anger, the
bitter disappointment. Annarion was the one who had vanished, but Annarion felt abandoned in place. That was the truth.
He felt abandoned by the brother he had respected and trusted.
But . . . had he? It was not Calarnenne with whom he shared his True Name; not Calarnenne with whom he was tied by the namebond
that Barrani were taught, from the moment they first opened their eyes, to fear and hate. He would never have taken that risk
before he was sent, by his elders, to the green. He understood—everyone did, except Sedarias—that they were disposable tools.
If they were fortunate, they would be powerful disposable tools. If, as people expected, they failed, their loss would cause
the least harm to the family.
The war had been waged across the continent. The Dragons had come far, far too close to the heart of Barrani life; the Barrani had responded in kind.
Calarnenne had not known of the plan. Calarnenne could not act—in time—to save Annarion. He had what Barrani had had for the
entirety of their existence: vengeance. Destruction of those who had wronged them. Calarnenne had that. He was a renowned
war hero. He was the master of one of The Three. He was the undisputed heir to Solanace.
He destroyed them all; only the sword he did not forsake. He never forgave their parents. He never forgave the extended family.
And he never surrendered the hope that Annarion could be saved. The family, he buried. His revenge was akin to Teela’s—maybe
it was no coincidence that they had both been chosen by the greatswords. They had not built their reputation on the swords;
the swords had chosen because they had already achieved power.
Annarion discovered the extent of the destruction—the extent of all the loss—only when he was free to leave Hallionne Alsanis.
He was not his brother. Had never been his brother. If he felt anger at being thrown away, it had never fully taken root.
Not to assuage that anger would he have killed whole family lines, branch and root, but his brother had done that—starting
with their own.
“I was alone for centuries,” his brother said, as if he could hear what Annarion did not say aloud. “I was not as you were.
We have never been the same. I believe you would have earned great renown in wars, if wars still existed. I believe you would
have brought glory to the Solanace name. But the family that occupied it did not deserve even the ashes of that glory.”
“I wouldn’t have killed them all,” Annarion said, voice low.
“No. But they had not finished. They desired power—glory for Solanace, and for themselves by extension. Were I to bring you
home after the regalia, you would never have been free.
They would not countenance my attempt. Had they left me to research on my own, they would not have died.
But we are not mortals, whose familial bonds need only survive paltry decades.
What affection I might once have felt could not be sustained.
“This was not the first assassination attempt. I wished to make certain there were few others. The fiefs were less approachable
for those who might seek my death. I might have chosen to take the Tower even had I not been made outcaste. Yet you have returned.
You have passed the Test of Name. You are a Lord of the High Court.
“You style yourself of Solanace. An’Solanace. It is an empty title. You must know it is an echo of your abandonment.”
“To you. To you that’s all that it was. But I am not dead.” Annarion turned away from his brother. “The brother I knew would
not have destroyed Solanace.”
“Then perhaps we did not know each other well enough,” Calarnenne replied. “The only kin I valued was you. Perhaps I was overprotective.
Perhaps what I sought was to preserve who you are. Your life within the Hallionne had very little of politics in it. You built
a family that was far more steady, far more true to you, than the family to which you were born.
“But you have not lived in the High Halls; you did not fight in the wars. You did not lose what few friends remained to you
to Dragons and treachery. You did not see them fall to despair; did not see them surrender to what they believed survival
required. You did not see them bow, bend, and even break. And perhaps you will not. What I have seen and what you have seen
are different.
“What I wanted was to have you back. You were my only weakness, and you could not be threatened, could not be used.
Not against me. But you are home, now, in a very changed land.
You are the child I remember. I am not the brother of your memories.
But that is the outcome of experience. You did not see my struggles; you did not evaluate my choices—my many choices.
You could not weigh the losses you could not see—but you could judge. And you have.
“And perhaps I even expected that.” The words were not bitter. “What I did, I did for my sake. But I find that having achieved
that goal, I am adrift. I am fieflord; I am not An’Solanace. I will never become that while I breathe. I have prevented anyone
from taking that title, and there were those in the early centuries who tried.
“Perhaps all my efforts were wasted in the end. It was the Chosen who freed you.”
Annarion was silent.
“But you are still the only person alive I would claim, willingly, as kin. What I wanted, I have achieved. Tell me, brother,
what you want. Do you wish to take up the mantle of Solanace? There are none, now, who would deny you. You will not have the
power of alliances that Solanace once boasted—but I see a future in which your friends will become those allies.”
What had Annarion wanted? What had he wanted to hear?
What had he hoped for? That his brother, separated from him for centuries, would somehow be exactly the same person he had
been when Annarion had been sent to the green? Why had he expected that? By the time he’d arrived in Elantra, he knew the
fate of Solanace. He knew his parents were dead, and his aunt, and his cousins.
He knew no one had stepped up to become the head of the family. No one had rebuilt it. And he knew that his brother had been
blamed for the destruction. Had he not believed it? Had he somehow hoped that his brother had been framed? His brother, who
had never joined games of murder and assassination just for personal power, personal gain?
No. It was Sedarias, not his brother, who answered because he hadn’t spoken the words aloud.
You believed it. But you believed in your brother; you believed that if he’d made that choice, it was the right choice.
And Annarion, we all agree. It was the right choice.
Had our own families made similar choices in our defense . . . I always envied you your brother.
And now?
I still do. Maybe I understand his choices better than you do—maybe I’m more like him than you are. But he’s never going to
fight against you with anything but words, and his words aren’t meant to wound. What do you want? What was Solanace to you?
There was only one answer to that question. One, and he had not answered anyone who’d asked. He had learned from observing
Teela how to compartmentalize his thoughts. He had never needed to until his return to this city in which the High Halls stood.
From which the High Court ruled.
But it was a question he had to answer. His brother waited. Calarnenne had survived. He’d survived because he had placed that
mark on Kaylin’s cheek.
“I will do anything in my power to support you, should you decide to revive the ancient Solanace fortunes. Anything,” he added,
eyes an odd shade of blue, “except harm the current High Lord and his family.”
“They’re the children of the people who sent us all to the green.”
“Yes. My enmity for the previous High Lord was bitter for that reason. But had his son assumed the mantle far earlier, you
would never have been sent to the green. I will not attempt to unseat them; I will not attempt to harm them. Anything else
I will do.”
Annarion had no desire to destroy the High Lord or his family. But that had not always been the case. He felt no anger when
he asked a single question. “Why?”
Perhaps because his brother heard no anger, he replied.
“The Consort was the only lord of note to argue against the expedition to the green.
She was the only person of power who refused to even acknowledge my status as outcaste.
Because she could speak to the Lake, and because the Lake accepted her, she was immune to the consequences of such an act of defiance.
“I will not repay that friendship by deposing her. I will not see her harmed.”
“And if that’s what we need?” Again, there was no anger. There was curiosity, and it was genuine, as if he was only now looking
at his brother as a person he did not fully know or understand.
This time, his brother smiled. “It is not what you need. Kaylin would never countenance it. You collectively need Helen. And
if you spent any time with the Lady at all, you would not countenance it, either. Strategy is theoretical, but the Lady is
not. Meet her, spend time with her, and you, too, will understand.
“What would you have me do? I failed to protect you. What you experienced—”
Annarion lifted a hand. “Enough. Solanace, to me, was you.”
Calarnenne fell silent.
“It was you. It was us. I believed that you would become An’Solanace and you would remake Solanace in your image, not our
parents’. I don’t know if we can become what we were. We’ve both changed. But if I could . . . I would rebuild Solanace.”
“I cannot leave the Tower. I do not believe I could become the family head if I remained fieflord; it has never been done
to my knowledge.”
“Then I will become An’Solanace. And I will have you reinstated.”
“That was not of concern to me.”
Annarion nodded. He knew. “But that was before I returned.” His exhalation was long, and as he found his words, he finally lost the sense of betrayal that had driven his interactions with his brother since he had first set foot in the city.
He reached out as if to touch his brother’s shoulder, but let his hand fall away.
“Solanace was you, to me. It was my home because you were its future. Join me. Build that home.”
“We have very few allies.” It was not a rejection.
“We have almost a dozen. And Lord Kaylin.”
“She is mortal. We will only barely begin to rebuild before her life reaches its natural end.”
Annarion’s smile was soft but genuine. “I think her influence will be felt for far longer than that. Will you help?” The words
hung between them, the injured wielder of Meliannos, hero of wars long ended, and his only surviving kin.
Nightshade was silent, his expression inscrutable.
“Will you come home?”
The fieflord closed his eyes. Eyes closed, he reached out; his arm trembled as his hand found his brother’s shoulder and remained
there until it steadied.
* * * * *