“If Sedarias didn’t want it known, she wouldn’t have left. She doesn’t want to feel public humiliation or pain—but she doesn’t care if Kaylin knows. Teela already knows, and Tain is practically oath-bound.”
“And the other mortal?”
“Severn’s the same, only he serves Lord Kaylin.”
Kaylin tried very hard not to grimace at the use of the courtesy title.
“Sedarias accepts you. Mostly,” Eddorian added, “because of you two.” Although he was looking at Mandoran, he included Annarion in this. “She’s willing to trust only us, but you both trust this house, and this house is Kaylin’s. It’s why she’s willing to accept a Dragon.” He looked to Valliant, who gave a very reluctant nod.
“Iberrienne isn’t like Calarnenne—Nightshade. Neither is my sister. Their actions didn’t get them forcibly removed from the High Court by the previous lord. But...when Iberrienne was offered a chance to rescue me—his perception—he took it. He took it instantly.” Voice lower, he added, “It destroyed him.”
Silence.
Mandoran picked up the thread. “Annarion’s brother never stopped looking for some way to save Annarion. Eddorian’s brother sacrificed himself to save Eddorian.”
“And Sedarias’s sibling tried to kill her.”
“Her sister, yes—but she doesn’t doubt that her brother was behind it, in the end. And frankly, neither does Teela, which is probably more important, given Teela’s long-term experience with the Court and its politics.” Mandoran grimaced after a pause; clearly someone was telling him to shut up. Luckily—unluckily?—Mandoran had never been moved by attempts to silence him. “It’s hard for Sedarias. So far, none of our families have cared enough to spend the resources attempting to murder any of the rest of us, and some demonstrably spent those resources for the opposite reason: to liberate us. I think it’s likely that we’ll come under fire at some point, but the stakes aren’t as high for our families. Yet.
“She’s one of us. She’d never hurt us unless she had no other choice—and frankly, I can’t imagine a Sedarias so cornered that she had no other choice. But she didn’t pay attention to Iberrienne because he was no longer a threat. She doesn’t understand Eddorian’s guilt or his concern. She doesn’t understand Annarion’s attachment to Nightshade, andreallydoesn’t understand why Annarion’s so angry with his brother.
“And none of us who do understand it can explain it to her. I mean, she knows what we know if she bothers to look—but she can’t quite take it in and make it her own, because she’s never had what they’ve had, and she never will. The best chance of peace or survival she has lies in the deaths of her immediate family—those that survive.”
“But...”
It was Terrano whose eyes narrowed. Allaron’s arm tightened; Terrano was watching the conversation, as such, from the floor. “What now?” He was annoyed. He was, Kaylin thought, angry at Mandoran and Eddorian for telling Kaylin—an outsider—anything that revealed a vulnerability. He couldn’t stop them; he didn’t even seem to be surprised that he couldn’t. But he wouldn’t be, would he?
“If she didn’twantwhat they had—what you had,” Kaylin added, glancing at Eddorian, “she would never have suggested the giving of the names. She would never have tried to build the cohort into the family thatwouldn’tbetray her, wouldn’t try to kill her when it was convenient.”
“Exactly,”Terrano snapped.
Eddorian and Mandoran exchanged a glance. Eddorian shrugged. It was a fief shrug.
“Yes and no,” Mandoran then said. “Look—I don’t understand Nightshade at all. I do understand Iberrienne at least. He believed that his brother was out of his reach. Out ofallreach. Only when Terrano appeared before him did that change. But when it did change, he wanted two things: power, and his brother back. Because if he had power, he’d likely have his brother. If he didn’t? Well, it’s not like much would change. He’d still be more powerful.
“That’s what good families are like, at Court. Nightshade would have been considered a sentimental fool—at best. If you’d offered him powerorhis brother, and he believed that you could give him the latter, he would have chosen his brother without pause. That is not what Mellarionne is like. It’s not what Sedarias would have been, had she become An’Mellarionne.”
“Is it what she’ll become if she is?”
Silence.
Terrano said, “She only cares about those who went to the green. You two—papers.”
“And you’re going to sit around uselessly sulking?” Eddorian demanded.
Terrano’s grin was genuine. “There has to besomeadvantage to being on the outside.”
Allaron growled. Serralyn cuffed the top of Terrano’s head, which took real flexibility.
The cohort had decided that they would allow Helen to create jewelry and outer layers of clothing that were appropriately formal. Their ideas of appropriately formal caused Tain to leave the room—but Tain’s eyes were a blue-green and the left corner of his mouth was twitching with the attempt to contain hilarity.
Apparently, the fashion of the highborn Barrani Court was similar to the fashion in the highborn Human Caste Court; it changed for no discernible reason whatsoever, and the changes appeared to be important to the people who followed them. Kaylin personally thought the Leontines far more practical but, as she lacked the fur and the fangs, attempted to keep out of sight of rich mortals.
Teela had a few things to say about fashion at Court. Sedarias didn’t appear to like them. Serralyn didn’t care. Fallessian did. Allaron, to Kaylin’s surprise, did. This started an entirely different argument, but most of that was silent, and Kaylin felt she didn’tneedto know anything about Barrani fashion in the long-ago Court that had sentenced the young cohort to possible death.
“I’m not certain that the Consort will recognize that style of dress,” Helen offered to apparent silence. “Are you certain?”
Kaylin glanced at Severn and mouthed the wordsformal dress, raising eyebrows.
