“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. Therewaswater 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’tdisablethem. 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?”
“Ithinkthey 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?”
