There were things Kaylin was not allowed to speak about. One of them was the current High Lord and his history with that very test—because he had failed it. He had failed it, and were it not for the interference of his mother, he would have joined the rest of those who had failed. She had hidden her actions, just as she had hidden the truth about her son’s failure. But that failure had happened centuries ago.
What if...what if in the intervening time, the Shadow itself had become more cautious, more subtle? What if—in seeing the almost-enslaved heir to the High Seat—he had begun to understand that he could somehow take the name and force the Barrani to do his bidding, to be his eyes, to reach into the world that the Tower separated him from?
“How does it take the names?” she suddenly asked.
Everyone turned toward her. Terrano snorted. “How didyoutake them?”
“I didn’t—they were given to me.”
Not all of them, was Ynpharion’s acid reply.
I wasn’t going to tell them that.
Oh? Why? You don’t want them to know that you’ve practically enslaved another person?
You were trying tokill meat the time, and frankly, if there wasanyway to dump knowledge of a name—other than suicide—I’d do it in a heartbeat.But he was right. To Kaylin, itwasa type of enslavement. And she’d done it. He hadn’t offered her the name; she’d taken it because she could see it so clearly.
“Kaylin?”
“I’m being reminded of something I’d rather not be reminded about. Names, and the taking of names. I mean, Barrani True Names.”
Sedarias, blue-eyed, turned to Kaylin. The cohort now watched with interest. “When you look at me, can you see my name?”
“No. Hope?”
The familiar lifted a wing and laid it—far more gently than usual—across her eyes. The answer, however, was still no.
“You’vehandledour names, but you can’t see them?”
Kaylin shook her head.
“Since you are so terrible at lying, I believe you. And I better understand why the Consort considers you an emergency replacement. You conveyed our names—returned them to us—and yet you do not remember them, and made no attempt to bind us with them.”
“I—”
“Yes?”
“I thought they had to be given.”
“In theory, they do. In practice? Barrani can be forced, on pain of death, to ‘give’ their names. It is like any other application of power.”
“It’s worse.”
“Agreed, but it’s a matter of degree. Terrano says you’ve taken names in a different fashion?”
Bellusdeo, however, said, “Do you know my name?”
Kaylin shook her head.
“You’ve seen the whole of it. You’ve practicallyseen it built.” This caused the entire cohort to look toward Bellusdeo in something that might have been surprise—or shock. The Dragon noted the attention and shrugged—it was a decent variant of a fief shrug, too. “It saved my life.”
Kaylin nodded again, a little bobble of motion that went on a bit too long.
You see?Ynpharion said, sounding both smug and irritated, which was his usual voice.Ask yourself how you tookmyname. The how is probably very relevant to your immediate future well-being.
Why are you telling me this now?
Because the Consort holds my name, and if she cannot divest you of it, she is far more powerful, her will more steady, than you will ever be.
