Kaylin. It was Severn. Severn who almost never approached her this way. Severn who held her name. She realized, hearing his voice—the actual weight of it, the pronounced word, that she wanted him here. This was an investigation. If her partner were by her side, she’d feel like a Hawk, and not a floundering incompetent in dangerous, diplomatic waters.
Next time you go to speak with Evanton, I’m going with you.
She almost smiled. Have you been watching?
She felt his nod. Since you landed. I lost you briefly—that was bad.
Where?
I’m going to guess it was when you heard Sedarias. Orbaranne didn’t shut me out. His internal voice changed tone. For the worse. We have a problem.
We’ve got more than one. What’s yours?
The Barrani High Court. No, some members of the Barrani High Court.
Kaylin stared at the image of the Barrani Lord.
Possibly. I wasn’t there in person when a delegation was sent to the Emperor. And when I say delegation, I mean war band.
What?
According to the delegation, a Dragon has attacked the stronghold of the Lord of the West March.
Kaylin turned to stare at Lirienne.
Words are being exchanged; at the moment, no one is apparently ash. But the Halls of Law are a mess; the Lords of Law have been closeted away; the Imperial Mages are on alert. Technically, the West March is outside of the Emperor’s domain.
So...someone is saying Bellusdeo is attacking the West March. Kaylin folded her arms.
She hasn’t been mentioned by name. Just color. They’re mobilizing a war band in the West March. They intend to either capture or kill her as an act of war.
Kaylin’s Leontine was vehement, extended, and very, very rude. It caused the golden Dragon in question to raise both brows; clearly Mandoran had been teaching her.
The Emperor is...not pleased.
I’ve got the Lord of the West March here. And if he’s somehow responsible for this...
Don’t do anything stupid. But...if you’re in the Hallionne with Bellusdeo, do not leave it. Not by the doors.
She thought of the portal paths, which had swallowed Sedarias and the rest of the cohort.
“Is there a problem?” Lord Barian asked.
“Yes.” Kaylin folded her arms, trying to dig up High Barrani in place of her very inappropriate Leontine. Look—can you tell them it was a misunderstanding? My familiar kind of winged his way out here in very large Dragon form. Maybe—maybe they’re just confused.
You don’t believe that.
She didn’t. She wanted to, though. She really, really wanted to.
Alsanis was watching her; the stranger was watching her. Bellusdeo was now watching the two Barrani lords; until Kaylin’s loud outburst of Leontine, she had been watching the stranger.
“Lord Kaylin?” Lirienne said.
“Just one minute.”
Ynpharion.
Lord Kaylin.
Oh, cut the crap. I mean it. Just cut it. What in the hells is going on over there? What is the Consort doing? No, she thought, that was unfair. What is the High Lord doing? Bellusdeo is not attacking the West March in any way.
The Lady is aware of that, was the cool reply.
And the High Lord isn’t?
The politics of the High Court are not entirely in the control of one person, was the even more frigid response. There have already been upheavals due to the simple existence of your friends. The Consort’s planned visit to your domicile was an attempt to allay the fears that are the source of those upheavals. There was a very faint—and extremely unfair—hint of criticism in his reply. The Lady bids me tell you that the High Lord was not a member of the delegation sent to the Imperial Palace.
But he didn’t forbid it.
It is my suspicion—and the Lady has not confirmed it—that he did not know.
Leontine was becoming her new best language.
“While rudimentary exposure to foreign languages might, at another time, be informative, I believe this is not that time,” the Lord of the West March said.
“Fine.” The single word was Elantran. It was followed by more of the same, and Kaylin considered it a triumph that she did not sprinkle the whole with Leontine additions. “Apparently, a Barrani war band got together and entered the Imperial Palace.”
Silence.
“They informed the Emperor that Lord Bellusdeo—no, sorry, a ‘gold Dragon’—had attacked the West March. A war band is apparently being gathered in the West March as we speak with the intent to either capture or kill the hostile intruder.”
Lord Barian and the Lord of the West March exchanged a glance that could have ignited large bonfires. Neither spoke.
Kaylin then turned to the Hallionne. “If we don’t accept your hospitality—”
“I understand, Lord Kaylin.” The Avatar turned to Lord Bellusdeo. “While you are guest within my boundaries, no harm will come to you.”
Only, Kaylin thought bitterly, if she remained. And they couldn’t remain here forever.
Ynpharion continued. The Lady says the information arrived upon your arrival in the West March. It does not coincide with your arrival in the Hallionne Orbaranne.
Well, that was something. On the one hand, Kaylin was glad, because had it gone the other way, it would have left only two obvious suspects: Lirienne and the Hallionne herself. On the other hand, suspects were littered everywhere in the West March, and narrowing it down was going to take a lot of work, work that her lack of experience with both the customs of the West March and its general terrain would make extremely difficult.
Add to that the reason they’d been sent here was to find Sedarias...
I do not believe that was the water’s intent, Severn said. She reached for the words.
You spoke to Evanton.
Evanton sent Grethan to Helen; Helen used the mirror to contact me. I was, he added, with a hint of wryness, already on the way to Evanton’s.
Which meant Evanton had no apprentice to snarl at.
The wryness deepened, becoming warmth. Evanton’s concern at the time was the outlay of power the water used. That, and the fact that water used it in the fashion it did. It is his opinion that, had you not been in the doorway, the water could not have transported you; the enclosure of the garden would have prevented it. But the water—and he finds it difficult to commune with it at all at the moment, although he has been trying—acted entirely on its own, without any offered warning.
Ybelline said the same thing, but differently.
Evanton probably had better luck. The water didn’t send you specifically to find the cohort.
But—
She sent you because there was something in the fabric of the physical world that was, that felt, entirely wrong. She sent you because her own interactions with the world are limited by location. It’s likely, in my opinion, that what the water sensed on the periphery of her awareness is the reason the cohort are gone, but the cohort disappearing is ancillary to the water.
Ummm.
Yes?
The fire? The earth? The air? Do they not sense the same thing?
She felt his smile again; felt appreciation or approval travel through it. Yes, but to a lesser extent. The water’s interaction with the living has grown stronger because of the Tha’alani. But the earth, of the three remaining, was most disturbed.
I don’t suppose any of them offered any pointers, any advice?