“No, Lord Kaylin,” Alsanis said, when Lord Barian failed to answer. “He is, even now, almost in the heart of the green.”
Bellusdeo, silent until that moment, turned to the Hallionne’s Avatar. “Would we be expected to join him there?”
“Ah, no, Lord Bellusdeo. We believe that would be materially unsafe for you at this time.” The Avatar bowed. “Forgive the deplorable lack of hospitality. Terrano has informed me of the possible weaknesses in my connections to the portal gateways, and I am attempting to repair them. If you would join me? Terrano’s friends are waiting.”
Kaylin glanced at Terrano. She wondered why he’d followed a Dragon and a human instead of joining his friends, and couldn’t come up with an answer. But he did follow Bellusdeo and Alsanis as they traveled farther into the Hallionne.
* * *
Kaylin expected the dining hall to be noisy. It wasn’t. Although the cohort were all seated—in various postures, most informal—around a large dining table, they didn’t speak at all. Their faces implied speech—or rather, reactions to speech—but no words followed.
“I think,” Bellusdeo said quietly, “that I would find Mandoran much more pleasant if he were this silent.”
“He can’t be,” Allaron said, looking past his cohort to the new arrivals. “If he were, he couldn’t interact with the rest of you.”
“And here I was thinking,” the Dragon said in Elantran, “that the house would be much quieter with the lot of you as guests.”
“Mandoran does not approve of that,” Eddorian said, grinning broadly. “I will not, however, repeat what he just said.”
“Can I?” Karian asked.
“No,” Sedarias told him, frowning. “It was inappropriate. My apologies, Lord Bellusdeo, but—”
“He lives with her—and they’re both still alive. How inappropriate can it be?”
Oh yes,muchquieter, Kaylin thought. The presence of two people whose names did not exist in the mental space the cohort occupied had instantly added color and sound to the Barrani cohort. Kaylin glanced at Terrano, and found the answer to the question she hadn’t asked him.
He stared at the table—at the cohort—his expression incredibly bleak. It was something she hadn’t expected to see on his face, he was otherwise so much like Mandoran. But...he couldn’t hear them, now. He couldn’t be part of their conversation, except in the normal way: by speaking out loud. By putting his thoughts, such as they were, into words—and at that, words that were well chosen enough to make the thought understood to the rest.
He hadn’t had to do that before.
He had come from wherever it was he’d so happily ventured because he had heard them in the wilderness of the pathways. He had come because he thought they needed his help—and they had. But he was no longer part of them. This, Kaylin thought, was the flip side of the freedom coin. He had desired nothing but freedom, and he had leapt into the unknown with both arms thrown wide to embrace it, almost literally.
He had seen things that the cohort had not seen; had done things that the cohort had not done. But he had come home when he had heard their cries.
Alsanis, however, was not Terrano’s home. They understood each other; their long struggle—the one to keep Terrano caged, and the other to be free of all cages—had bred the kind of affection and respect that only long rivalry could. Terrano was comfortable in Alsanis’s confines because he understood the mechanisms of the cage; he understood it better than any other Barrani.
But his home, she thought, almost pensive now, was not Alsanis. It was not a place. It was there, at that table, surrounded by Barrani who had been brought to the green on the whim of the High Court in a desperate bid for power. Where they were, home was.
And he was discovering that he could not come home. Home no longer existed for Terrano.
As if they could hear the thought that Kaylin did not put into words, one of the cohort rose—Allaron, the giant—and crossed the room toward Terrano. Terrano stiffened, staring at that giant as if he were thinking at him, as if willpower alone could force the words he didn’t say out loud to stop him.
Allaron reached out and cuffed Terrano on the shoulder, but caught him when he staggered. He didn’t let go, either. Instead, he dragged Terrano to the table, pulled out an empty chair, and pretty much forced him to sit in it. He then sat beside Terrano, and dropped an arm around his shoulder which he didn’t look like he was going to lift anytime soon.
Terrano flushed red. But Kaylin thought, beneath the embarrassment, he was pleased. Maybe.
“Now Ireallywant you all to visit,” Bellusdeo said, grinning. “I can only imagine what Mandoran would say if he were in Terrano’s position.”
“We don’t have to imagine it. Sadly.” Sedarias, Kaylin decided, was cut from the Annarion school of good manners.
Kaylin and Bellusdeo then joined the cohort at the table.
“We were just talking about what happened,” Sedarias said.
“Which part?” Bellusdeo asked.
“All of it.”
