“Did he even have that sword?”
“Swords are, for certain occasions, considered part of formal clothing.”
“So...accessories?”
Mandoran snorted. He wasn’t, Kaylin noted, wearing a similar sword.
“Please do not strangle her.” Teela’s voice drifted down from the height of the stairs above. “I’ve managed not to strangle her—often at great cost—and I would hate for those years of monumental self-control to be wasted.” Teela wore green.
The rest of the cohort, however, did not. Nor did Kaylin.
Terrano wore blue, a shade of night that suited the color of his eyes. Teela had a grip on his arm that looked natural, except for the whitening of the knuckles.
“You don’t want to go?” Kaylin asked him.
“He doesn’t want to wait,” Teela replied in a tone that would have made her younger self shrivel. “He thought he’d go ahead and scout the location. I believe those were his exact words.”
Sedarias clearly agreed with Teela’s shriveling annoyance, because she turned the same glare on Terrano.
Mandoran, on the other hand, grinned and offered Terrano a sympathetic and very theatrical shrug. “Someone should,” he said.
“Someone we can actually talk to.”
“You mean order around,” Terrano murmured.
“Of course she does. She’s Sedarias.”
It was hard for Sedarias to split a glare between Mandoran and Terrano, given their positions—one by the door, one on the stairs—but she did try.
Several carriages had been sent for the cohort, all bearing the heraldry of the Consort. Helen let them in through the gates and Kaylin was certain by the time they reached the front door, her house knew the location of every speck of dust—not that there seemed to be any—inside and outside of their very elegant cabins. If there was a trap of any kind waiting within, Helen couldn’t find it. Sedarias, however, was not concerned. Nor was Teela. Severn trusted Helen’s assessment, but wanted that assessment before the cohort embarked.
When they were at last loaded into their various conveyances, Teela was in the carriage with Tain, Severn and Kaylin. Tain, unlike Teela, wore the garb the Consort had sent, because she had included Tain in the number of people unlikely to be well dressed enough.
Enough, Kaylin thought, to face a monster. Because court dress was sogoodfor that.
“You are to let either Sedarias or me do the talking,” Teela said quietly. “If a question is directed toward you by anyone other than the High Lord or the Consort,pleaseallow us to field it. You will be given some leeway because you are mortal, but at this point, please assume that every single person who approaches you is looking for openings.”
“To kill me?”
“Not you precisely; you would be collateral damage. But if they could find a way to use you in your presumed ignorance—don’t make that face, I’m not the one doing the presuming—they would do it in a heartbeat. If they could use you to embarrass or humiliate the cohort, they would do it. I think it likely that any approach will have that goal in mind. Under other circumstances, it wouldn’t matter.”
Tain coughed.
“It’s true. Kaylin has survived being almost entirely herself at Court. Here, however, she will not be the target. What she does will affect the rest of us. How she does it. Where.”
Kaylin swallowed the words she’d been trying not to say and, with them, most of her annoyance at the perceived condescension. She was used to being judged. She was bullish in her determination to be judged for the person she was. But reflecting poorly on the cohort at this particular time? She could manage to stay silent. She could let Teela and Sedarias carry the heavy weight. If she thought that she was doing itforthe cohort, she’d manage.
Kaylin was not surprised to see the Consort at the height of the grand, wide stairs that led into the High Halls. Nor was she surprised to see Ynpharion at her side. The Consort had an escort of four guards, which was—according to Teela—considered minimal. Two was a gesture of almost unheard of trust. And she’d brought only two on her visit to Kaylin’s home.
Of course, she’d brought two for very specific reasons, but outsiders didn’t know those reasons; they saw the two guards, knew that the Consort had entered Kaylin’s home and understood that the Consort’s trust in Kaylin—and, by extension, her guests—was high. Probably unreasonably high, given all available facts.
Ynpharion was predictably annoyed by her thoughts, which conversely brightened her mood. Not his, of course, but that wasn’t her job.
It is certainlynotmine.His annoyance took the edge off what might, in another less touchy person, be called fear.
Sedarias reached the height of the stairs, and there, she performed the most obsequious bow Kaylin had ever seen her produce. It was graceful, elegant and bold in the way that total obeisance could be when offered by the powerful.
She is not powerful, Ynpharion snapped.She offers the Consort her due.But he, too, found it almost discomfiting.
