“I’m not placing a burden on her—I’m making the request for myself.”
“That is not, sadly, the way it must work. I would accept you—and willingly—at any other time. But you tried to harm the Consort.”
“She was going to—”
Kaylin clapped a hand over Terrano’s mouth. “I’ll accept responsibility for Terrano as well as the Dragon. The Dragon is not a threat to the Hallionne. She’s not a threat to the West March or the Barrani.”
“No. But she is not as Terrano is; she lives in the same space, and under the same constraints, as you do. Dragons are not much loved by the Hallionne. But we were not, as you believe, created as tools in the wars between the Dragons and the Barrani; we are older than that.”
“Lirienne thought—”
“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?”
“Alotmore. 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?”
