“Uh, no.”
“Gilbert was of Shadow to me. Everything about him proclaimed him Shadow. He himself didn’t deny that he was from, and of, Ravellon. But—you were right about him.” She exhaled puffs of flame. “Understand, kitling. I lost everything to Shadow. Shadow that mimicked life, Shadow that was clever, subtle. We all made mistakes—because we hoped, or because we took risks that we should not have taken. It made me very, very risk averse, the costs were so high. And it’s possible—barely—that I destroyed people who might have been like Gilbert.”
“And that bothers you?” Orbaranne asked, which surprised Kaylin. The Hallionne had been silent enough that she could forget she was in the room. Her Avatar materialized in such a way that she, Terrano and Teela formed the points of a triangle.
“No one wants to think of themselves as a murderer,” Bellusdeo replied. “I could justify it. If I think about it now—and I do—I mostly do justify it. But there’s a reason Kaylin Neya is a private and not a queen.”
“My risks don’t have the same cost.”
Orbaranne said, “you are Chosen. Some of the risks you take might be very, very costly.” The Avatar bowed her head, and when she raised it again, her eyes looked like normal human eyes. “But some of the risks you’ve taken have saved us before. I...would like to be able to take risks.”
But she couldn’t, Kaylin thought. Because she was what she was made to be; she was what she’d promised to be.
“Yes, Chosen. You see Shadow in my eyes, but I am not a scion of Shadow; it was not Shadow that created me. It might break me, in some future. But it is not what I am.”
“Is it part of what you are?”
“Not in a way I understand. But...I see some of what you see because you see it. And Lord Bellusdeo, I...cannot think you are wrong.”
16
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here,” Kaylin told Terrano, hands on her hips.
“I’m not thrilled about it, either. Everything feels heavy and confining. All of the sound is wrong. I feel like I’m trying to speak around a mouthful of water.” Terrano’s eyes were a surprising shade of Barrani blue. He looked pensive, his smile absent.
There was no water—no living water—in the Hallionne. There was water in the heart of the West March, and Lirienne had invited them, for a value of invitation that made the word equivalent to command, to his home.
Kaylin had suggested they take the portal paths. She wanted to investigate them, and she wanted to begin a practical search in earnest.
She received three instant refusals. The only person present who thought it was a reasonable idea was Terrano himself. Orbaranne had been willing to have Kaylin inspect the portal, and the foot of the pathway itself; she was unwilling to let Kaylin actually walk it. Bellusdeo considered it a terrible idea, given the continued absence of the cohort, and the Lord of the West March looked at her with blue eyes above an impatient grimace.
So: no portal paths.
Terrano offered to meet them at the Hallionne Alsanis, as he had investigations of his own to conduct.
It was Bellusdeo who said, “Weren’t you driven off the pathways? Isn’t that why you disabled the Hallionne’s protections?”
“I didn’t disable them. I found a way past them.”
“Which you implied you needed.”
He was, of the cohort, most like Mandoran; if he hated Dragons, the hatred was impersonal and almost theoretical. “Is she always like this?” he asked Kaylin.
“No. Sometimes she’s actually angry.” Kaylin was surprised at the interaction between the two, and wondered if Bellusdeo privately missed Mandoran.
The four—Dragon, Hawk, Barrani ruler and uncertain—were stuffed inside a Barrani carriage which appeared to have magic wheels or something, because a road that should have jarred and bruised the carriage occupants felt smoother than expensively laid city streets.
The overland journey, on the other hand, was not short. Terrano lasted maybe two hours, judging by sun position, before he swung himself through the window and out onto the roof.
“He reminds me of Mandoran,” Bellusdeo said. “Did he really try to kill you?”
“Not personally; he sent Ferals to do us all in, instead.” She hesitated. “Well, not Ferals exactly.”
“What were they?”
“I think they were Barrani. Some were. Or at least one was.”
“He transformed them?” The Dragon’s eyes were orange.
“I think—I think they might have transformed themselves. Look, it was confusing, chaotic and noisy. I don’t actually know what happened. But Terrano was working with—” She stopped and stuck her head out the window. “Hey!”
“I can hear you perfectly well. You don’t have to shout.”
“You were working with Arcanists, right?”
“So?”
“Do you know how many were involved? I mean—was there more than one?”
“I didn’t count.”
“So, more than one. Or Barrani education is even worse than the education I received. Did you pay any attention to names?”
“If I couldn’t even be bothered to count, why would I know names?”
“Because someone is responsible for the disappearance of your friends, and the sooner we discover who, the better.”
Terrano shrugged. “I think it’s more important to find them.”
“That’s because you don’t live here. But they want to.”
Terrano muttered something under his breath. Bellusdeo caught it; Kaylin didn’t. Probably just as well.
*
Barrani carriage or no, by the time Kaylin stumbled out of the door she was sore and tired. Sitting still, or sitting as still as a moving cabin allowed, took a lot of energy; Terrano hadn’t bothered. Although the Lord of the West March was in the carriage and obviously a witness to his antics, his boredom had grown, and he ended up trying to fly. This had caused two stops, because his first attempt would have broken bones had anyone else tried it. His second attempt was only a little better.
But his third attempt was very Mandoran-like. “Don’t look at me like that. This is harder than it looks.”
Since to Kaylin it looked impossible, she rolled her eyes. She tried to remember that Terrano had almost been responsible for the death of a Hallionne, that he had attacked the Consort, and that he had no loyalty whatsoever to his own people. All of these things were true, but it was hard to put them in the right context when she watched him; his excitement made him seem almost like a foundling who has finally come to understand that he’s safe.
But foundlings couldn’t kill people. Except maybe each other.
As if she could hear the thought, Bellusdeo said, “There is a reason it is not unwise to fear them.”
“But you like them!”
“Yes, I do. But I have the luxury of being a displaced person—something I never thought I’d say. I can like them. I can let that influence my decisions. I am not responsible for the well-being of everyone else. Were I the Consort—”
The Lord of the West March cleared his throat a touch too loudly.
Bellusdeo inclined her head. “I do not believe I would take the risk.”