Can you guys see the Barrani?
We can see the forces of Mellarionne, yes.
Can you see the Ferals?
Edelonne found the question briefly confusing, but the confusion passed.Not all of them, no. There are three standing guard.
They haven’t seen you?
Not apparently.
Can they?
More silence.I would not have noticed the Consort had I not been ordered to stall her procession. What I saw—what they now see—is not all of what you see. It is also more than you see, simultaneously.She hesitated again. Kaylin thought that Edelonne was not nearly so angry with herself as Ynpharion had been with himself. Her responses were slower, more thoughtful; she didn’t take time to justify herself or blame others for the decisions that had led to what she had become.
We have never been powers, she finally said.
You’reLords of the High Court.
Yes. But we are barely more significant than servants. Our families are irrelevant, our desires subject to the whim of those who have, and have always had, power. We have none. We do not have the base power necessary to learn the magics that could make us significant; we are lacking in land, in wealth, in the forces that might meet those who threaten us on fields of battle. Our hope lies in the games that the powerful play—but we are not naive. Without power, we cannot hope to become powerful.
You have forever.
Yes. We have an eternity of licking the boots of those who were born with advantages we lack. We were offered power, Lord Kaylin. You were offered the marks of the Chosen.
No,Kaylin snapped,I wasn’t.I wasn’toffereda choice.
This surprised Edelonne.
I have the marks, yes. But—She stopped.You have more power, now, than I ever dreamed of. You live forever. You’re stronger, faster. You don’t die of exhaustion. The cold doesn’t bother you—it certainly won’t kill you.
And you, Edelonne countered,have the marks of the Chosen.The Consort and An’Teela are numbered among your friends—An’Teela considers youkyuthe. You don’tneedpower of your own; you can rely ontheirs.
“Kaylin,” Sedarias said in a tone that implied this was not the first time she’d attempted to get Kaylin’s attention.
Kaylin reined in her fraying temper, and wondered, briefly, if anyoneeverfelt powerful enough.They offered you power.
They offered us power. They offered us freedom.
Enough, Chosen, Spike said, his internal voice sharp.We have the information we require.
But we don’t—
We have the information we require. Do not attempt to gain more here; thereisa danger.
“Annarion,” Terrano said, “I see Karellan An’Solanace. Sedarias’s brother is—obviously—there. Oh. Lumennar An’Casarre is there, as well. I’m not sure any of the rest are part of this attack.”
“The rest?”
“A pity,” Sedarias said aloud. “It would have simplified our difficulties at Court if they were all here.”
She is almost terrifying, Edelonne said. She had retreated, as if she could hear Spike’s words, or Kaylin’s reaction to them.We were offered power. We accepted. But it was a power that not even the High Court understood.
There was a dark pride in the knowledge. Pride, Kaylin thought, and the slightest edge of what might have been shame.We were chosen; they were not.Definitely pride there.They did not know. They could not hear the voices we could hear, could not accept the power that we were offered. We wereneeded. Us.
Into Kaylin’s mind came not so much an image as a sensation. Kaylin realized that what had happened to Ynpharion had not happened to Edelonne. Edelonne’s power, Edelonne’s transformation—the first of many she anticipated—had been different. Where Ynpharion had attempted to rid himself of what he viewed as weakness, Edelonne had not; she had been guided every step of the way.
She had felt the Shadow as both blessing and promise; it had enfolded her in a warmth, a comfort, acertainty, that Ynpharion’s transition had lacked. Edelonne could feel the echoes of it now, as she thought of it, almost transfixed. And Kaylin could feel the desire, palpable, that swamped all sense of self. The desire for safety. The desire for comfort. The desire to be necessary, important. That was what the Shadow had provided Edelonne.
