He was silent for long enough she thought he wouldn’t answer, which was fair. If he knew what he wanted to do, he probably wouldn’t be sitting here looking so forlorn.
“They like it here,” he said.
“And you don’t.”
“I don’t hate it.” More silence followed.
Kaylin joined him, although she kept some distance between them. He wasn’t Teela; she had no idea how much space he needed. When he failed to continue, she took up the slack.
“In my fourth year in the Halls of Law,” she told him quietly, looking at her hands, “one of the Swords was having trouble with his wife. She was a Hawk. It was...messy. They’d been married for maybe four years, and things weren’t going well. I grew up without a father,” she added, “and I have no idea what happened to him. I didn’t have a strong sense of permanence. I wanted permanence,” she added, “because I wanted safety. I wanted stability.”
He nodded. He didn’t ask her why she was telling him this story; he understood. Or at least understood that it would lead to a point that would make that why clear.
“I didn’t understand what had happened, because they’d been so close. And now they were like armed camps. And we were expected to choose a side—and naturally, given one was a Hawk and one was a Sword, it wasn’t that hard for me. But—” She shook her head. “David took me aside, and we talked.
“Apparently the Sword had cheated on his wife, and she had found out. She was hurt and angry. And I didn’t understand it because I’d have married his wife. Like, it seemed so stupid to me. I didn’t understand how he could want some other woman. Leila was tough, she was smart, she was cool under pressure. I thought she was beautiful, but—apparently that’s subjective. Because some people are stupid.” This last was spoken as if she was still sixteen. Almost seventeen.
What else does he want? What elsecouldhe want?
David’s smile had been pained.Everything. We can want everything. We can want things all the time. Sometimes we forget what we have, or sometimes the fact that we have it tarnishes it. I’m married, he added, as if this was relevant.Doesn’t mean I can’t look. Doesn’t mean I don’t find others attractive. I do. I’m not a different manbecauseI got married. I have the same responses.
But your wife doesn’t hate you enough to throw you out?
I canlook. I look, was his affectionate reply.But here’s the thing: what I’m building with my wife, I’ve committed to building. I want what we have. I want what we have more than I want what someone else has. Or what I don’t have. Do I find other people attractive? Sure. Leila is stunning. But...she’s not my wife. She hasn’t shared my history. She hasn’t had my back when things were tough. She’s not the person I go home to.
Kaylin repeated this quietly, still looking at her hands. “He said that he knew he could have what he’d always had before he met his wife—or he could have his wife and make something deeper and stronger from it. But he couldn’t have both.”
“What did you say to him after he said this?”
“Well... I pointed out that Marcus has a lot of wives, and maybe that would work for us, too.”
Terrano shot her a look. “It wouldn’t work for us. And I think it would definitely be disaster for Dragons—but that’s just a guess.”
“That’s more or less what he said, too. But: he said he’d made a choice. It curtailed—that was the word he used—his freedom, yes. There were some things he had to think about before doing, and some things he couldn’t do even if he wanted to—because he’d made that commitment. He’d promised. And that promise wasn’t something his wife didtohim, and it wasn’t something she forcedonhim. He’d chosen. Some days it was harder than others—but he said that some days being a Hawk was much harder than others, and he pointed out that I loved being a Hawk. Well,” she added, flushing, “being an almost-Hawk.
“You lived in Alsanis for almost your entire life. Alsanis started as your jailer. So it makes sense that you wanted freedom. All of you,” she added. “But...you lived with your family. Your chosen family. I don’t know how awkward you found it at first—this whole True Name thing, this people-in-your-thoughts thing. I don’t always find it very comfortable, especially not Ynpharion, who pretty much despises me. If I didn’t feel the same about him, I’d probably find it painful.
“But... I understand why you chose it. I understand why every single one of you took the risk. Because what I wanted, even when I was totally unworthy of any trust at all, was to find peopleIcould trust. And the name would have meant instant trust.”
“Or mutually assured destruction,” he countered.
“Or that. I don’t know why you chose to do it. Having met Sedarias, I can’t honestly say that I believe there was no coercion—even if she left the choice to you, in theory. There was going to be a right choice and a wrong choice, and... I wouldn’t want to make the wrong choice while Sedarias was in my face. Or knew of my existence at all.”
He laughed, releasing his legs. “There was some of that, yes. Fear of Sedarias. Fear of making the wrong choice.” He shrugged. “It’s so long ago now none of us can think of it as the wrong choice.” The smile dimmed.
“In order to escape Alsanis, you changed. You changed slowly, but you changed. I don’t know that you understood how much, at the start. I don’t know how deliberate it was. I only have Mandoran and Annarion to go on. Annarion doesn’t try to change his form. He’s not playing with invisibility or shifting states the way Mandoran does. He definitely doesn’t get stuck in walls.”
This caused Terrano to snicker, as well.
“But the changes are most dramatic in Annarion, because all of his little breaks with reality happen when he’s upset.” She thought of Annarion on his first—and hopefully only—visit to Castle Nightshade, and couldn’t help herself. She shuddered. “He wanted to come home to his brother.”
Terrano nodded. “And look how well that worked out.”
“When you’ve lived here and had to listen to them shouting at each other for nights on end, you can make that face.”
“I can make a different face, if you’d like.”
“Please don’t.”
