“Of course, dear,” Helen replied. “Kaylin?”
“Is it Terrano you’re afraid of?” Kaylin demanded when she was in the safety of her own room.
“I am not afraid of any of them,” Helen replied. “And no. I trust his intent. The only family Terrano is willing to acknowledge is the cohort itself. He will do nothing—at all—to harm them, and this is the life they have chosen. In his fashion, he will help them while he remains.
“But, Kaylin, I’ve told you before that my ability to contain the full cohort is suspect. If they desire their freedom, I cannot become their cage. I am not what the Hallionne Alsanis was. My imperatives not to harm my guests reside entirely in you. I am more flexible than the Hallionne; I have more choice than they have. But I have attachments, as well. I know there are things you could never accept, never live with. But I also know that there are thingsIcould never accept or live with. The ability to live with tenants such as you is the murky combination of those two points.
“But I choose tenants based on compatibility. I desire to be certain things—for myself. But I am what I was made to be. I have more choice than other similar buildings—and at some cost, some injury. I do not desire to be what I am not. I do not desire to have your ability to walk through the city streets. Sometimes I envy it. But Iama building. And that is neither here nor there. If the cohort becomes too unstable, too dangerous to contain, I will eject them.”
“But—”
“Too dangerous, in this case, involves your safety. I understand that that decision will be costly; I understand that it could break the trust that we’ve developed. It is the fear of breaking that trust that is difficult for me, because I can clearly see the possible necessity, and you...won’t.”
Kaylin chose a black shirt, black pants; she considered daggers part of informal wear, but decided that that was possiblytooinformal. She didn’t change her hair, though; it would have taken too long.
“And if I asked you not to?”
Helen didn’t answer. But then again, she didn’t need to answer. Kaylin’s shoulders slumped, and the small Dragon crooned in her ear.
“The rest of your guests have assembled,” Helen said, which was a signal to move. “What I want you to understand is that intention is not necessary to cause harm. The farmer whose wagon hits a child running across the street did not set out to injure children, but the injury exists, regardless.”
“And what I need you to understand,” Kaylin replied, “is that the farmer can’t stop driving his wagon, even if that injury is a result of the driving. He didn’t mean to hurt the child. Yes, lack of intention doesn’t guarantee that no one gets hurt—I know that. But the fear of harm caused by even lack of intention can’t stop the farmer from coming to market. He’ll starve. I’m not afraid that they’ll deliberately hurt me, or us. I understand that theycan. But Teela could pretty much kill me anytime she wanted to.”
“Not while she’s here.”
Kaylin snorted. “I’m not always here, Helen. If I’m afraid of anything bad that can happen to me while I’m not here, and I stay here, protected by you, for the rest of my life, what will my life mean?”
“What does life mean, outside of that?”
Kaylinreallywanted her tabard at this specific moment. And because she did, it appeared. “I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer for that. Right now, I want to be able to help the midwives when they have an emergency. I want to be a Hawk because the law is better on this side of the Ablayne than it is across the bridge. I want friends I can trust, and I want friends who can trust me. I want to be more reliable.
“And that’s not really an answer, is it?” She opened her door and stepped into the hall. “I did a lot of harm, in the fiefs. I knowwhyI did it. I know where it came from. I needed to survive, and everything was stronger than I was. I didn’t learn to lie—but I learned to hide. I learned to run. I learned to steal, and eventually to kill. Ihated it. If I could change it all, I would. I can’t, so I have to accept it. I did terrible things. But I canstopdoing terrible things. It doesn’t change what I did in the past, because nothing will.
“And if I did all those things, I can’t just judge people who are doing awful things. I can try to stop them. They’re not better than me. They’re not worse than me. They’re...just people, often making choices because they’re too terrified to really think about them. I make better choices now because I don’t let fear make decisions for me.”
“No?”
“Okay, Itrynot to let fear make decisions for me. Sometimes I have to choose between different fears, which, ugh.”
“Down to the end of the hall,” Helen said.
“And I understand the Consort’s fears. But... I can’t think of people I don’t know the same way she can. To her, the potential Barrani, and the Barrani in general, have the same value, the same weight. To me...they don’t. I try to protect what’s in front of my face. I don’t have any other way.”
“TheNorannirweren’t in front of your face, though, and they were the strongest disagreement you’ve had with the Consort to date.”
“It was a metaphor, Helen.”
“Yes, dear, but I’m not certain it was a verygoodone.”
Kaylin had seen this room before; Helen had brought them here on Kaylin’s first night. It was a dining table set beneath a mostly open sky; the sky was an early evening, and the sun hadn’t fully set. It was striking.
The Barrani seemed far more at home beneath open skies than they had in the parlor, with the exception of the guards. Of course, that might have something to do with the way they were now dressed. The almost militant consistency of a sea of emerald green had given way to other colors, and the clothing styles were not meant for Court; they weren’t meant to impress. They had chosen to be as formal as the Consort herself, although Kaylin noted that most of the hairstyles—which looked sculpted—had remained in place. The time taken to recover from that hair would have been too demanding.
She noted that some of the cohort had relaxed enough that they were, once again, in physical contact—not the Leontine variant of stacked bodies and piles of fur, but they were holding hands or rubbing shoulders. In Allaron’s case, though, it was probably because he was literally Terrano’s physical anchor.
Only when Kaylin took her seat at the table did the Consort speak. Of the Barrani assembled, she was most like Teela, who retained the inviolability of physical space.
“I admit I don’t always understand your version of casual, comfortable clothing.”
