“Yes. I understand his thought. And were she to arrive here without you as kin and sponsor, we would not accept her. It is not the way of the Hallionne to accept guests we intend to kill.” He nodded to Kaylin, then. “If you will sponsor Terrano—”
“Terrano can speak for himself!” Terrano was almost shouting.
Kaylin glanced at the young almost-Barrani man, and noticed he’d lost control of his eyes again. She exhaled heavily. “He knows that. No one knows it better than he does. Look—I’d rather you stay in the Hallionne than in the Lord of the West March’s residence. So would the Lord of the West March. You’re not being practical.”
“And you are?”
“Demonstrably. I’m staying as well. Look—what we want is to stay in the Hallionne. We’ve been given permission to do that.” She forced herself to switch to High Barrani. “We can mark that as accomplished and worry about more important things. Or you can argue with Alsanis, but my prior experience in arguing with buildings doesn’t imply you’re going to win.” She wished, fervently and briefly, that Annarion and Mandoran had come along with her; she thought they’d be able to influence Terrano in a way she couldn’t. Hells, even Teela would have been helpful. Angry, but helpful.
Terrano did look as if he wanted to argue. Alsanis looked serene and immoveable. It was therefore a bit of a surprise when Terrano abruptly exhaled. He said something in Barrani which she didn’t recognize and assumed was a curse word.
“It is,” Alsanis said. “And no, Lord Kaylin, I am not about to teach it to you.”
Terrano, however, calmed down. “Teach her what I just said?”
“Indeed.”
“I’ll teach you,” he said to Kaylin.
“You have more like that?”
“A lot more. You don’t?”
“I generally curse in other tongues.”
He brightened. “Maybe I should become a linguist.”
“Maybe,” Alsanis said, more severely, “you should go and retrieve the rest of your companions.” He gestured Terrano toward the cloister, and placed a hand on Kaylin’s arm when she went to follow.
“He should not have returned,” he said quietly. “He is not what he was.”
“We don’t understand what he was, never mind what he is now.”
“You are beginning to. My apologies for subterfuge.”
“You could have accepted him.”
“Yes. It would have been difficult; I did not lie. He attempted to harm the Consort, and there is no greater crime, where the Barrani are involved. Not even matricide or patricide comes close. But I am accustomed to being shunned by the Barrani; I have had centuries of experience with it.
“Were he, however, to be held responsible for his own actions, he would not attempt to confine those actions. He is now aware that you will suffer for what he does, and I believe it will—how do you say it?—rein him in. I am no longer a cage for Terrano—for any of his cohort, as you call them—but it would be best for you, and for the rest of the Barrani in the West March, if he at least made the attempt to cohere and interact as if he were one of them.
“As for your Dragon, you need not worry. While she is a guest in the Hallionne, she will come to no harm. I admit to curiosity, but she is not the first Dragon to have kept me company in my long existence, and if she is willing to stay, she does not appear to have the distrust most of her kind would have of my kind.”
“She’s practical.”
“Oh?”
“It’s you or the Barrani Court of the West March.”
He smiled, then, a flicker of expression on an otherwise serene face. “Stay here a moment, Lord Kaylin. Ah, apologies, Kaylin.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have something of a gift for you.” He faded almost instantly from view.
Beware of Barrani gifts, Lord Nightshade said softly. She felt the edge of his curiosity. You must learn caution, especially now.
He’s not Barrani, he’s a Hallionne.
Yes. But remember, Kaylin: Annarion’s friends—Nightshade did not care for the term “cohort”—departed from Alsanis.
Before Nightshade could continue, Alsanis returned. In his hands he carried a small, wooden box, into which had been carved both leaves and flowers. It was small enough to be a ring box.
“It is not a ring,” the Hallionne said quietly. “And it may be of no significance to you at all in future. But if it is, you will know when to use it.”
“What is it? Can I open this?”
“Try.”
She did. The lid would not budge. “I don’t get it.”
He smiled. “No, Kaylin, you don’t. It is a gift. What you call a home, some call a cage. Remember.”
She slid the box into the small pack she wore across her hips.
“It is time to go back to your companions. Terrano is not malicious. Nor are his friends. Even the harm they did—the great harm—they did for the sake of each other. If the Hallionne are both Immortal and all powerful within our boundaries, those boundaries are fixed and immoveable. You have a power that we do not have: the freedom to choose. To judge. Judgment is oft misused, as any other weapon. Therefore, use both wisely.”
*
Bellusdeo and Lord Barian appeared to be involved in lively conversation when Kaylin returned. Lively, even friendly, conversation. Although their eyes retained the racial hue that implied caution or danger, both the blue and the orange had lightened somewhat. Lirienne stood to the side in silence, but looked across the courtyard when Kaylin entered it.
What are they talking about?
The war, he replied. Or rather, the shape of the lands before the final war. The placement of Aeries. The appearance of flights that have long since ceased to grace the skies. She remembers some few of their number and name—and of course, so does Barian.
Weren’t they trying to kill each other, back then?
Ah, yes. But as is oft the case with those who stood on the front lines of war, they have more in common with their individual enemies than they have with those who were not affected by war at all. The Dragonflights were worthy of fear and respect, but so, too, the Barrani units.
I thought Barian was younger.
None of us are young compared to you.
She looked pointedly at Terrano, who appeared to be trying to catch a butterfly. Loudly.
The Lord of the West March smiled, but even as Kaylin turned to catch a glimpse of actual warmth on his face, it drained away, and not slowly, either. She felt the moment amusement gave way to alarm. Before she could speak, the familiar did: loudly, and in her ear.
Both the Dragon and the Warden stopped speaking; they turned toward the familiar and then away, to Terrano. And Kaylin realized then that her assumptions of immaturity were very, very wrong. Yes, he was chasing a butterfly.
And no, it wasn’t playful.
“Go,” she told the familiar, as she drew a dagger and started to move. “Alsanis!” There was no reply.