She then examined the gathering through Hope’s lifted wing.
Ynpharion thought her rude and ungainly; he criticized her timing and her lack of subtlety. He did not, however, expect her to stop. Nor, she thought, did he want her to.
What do you know that we haven’t been told?
Many things. But about this? Nothing. Had I, I would share it; your success—and the success of your friends—is of vital importance to the Lady. She has considered this since she first heard of your impromptu arrival in the West March—but it has long haunted both her and the High Lord, as you must suspect.
I think it would kill me, to rule here.
It would kill you, he said, far more sharply,to rule anywhere.
I meant the voices—I meant hearing the pleas and the screams of the trapped.
Ah. Yes, I imagine you would find that difficult, as well.Ynpharion was not an easy person to like, and Kaylin was almost certain she would never achieve it. He did not consider affection or friendship necessary or desirable, and the thought annoyed him intensely, because it was so trivial. As if affection of any kind were poison.
There was nothing in this gathered crowd that looked remotely out of place to Kaylin’s eyes, even given the familiar’s wing. She couldn’t see the entirety of the gathered crowd, however, and she was certain that Hope wanted her to seesomething.
She was right. That something, however, did not come immediately.
Sedarias now separated herself from the cohort and approached the thrones without escort. The bow she offered the High Lord was an echo of, a reinforcement of, the respect she had offered the Consort before she had entered the High Halls. She held this bow, as she had held the first, until she was given leave to rise. He greeted her by name—a name unadorned by the title that seemed so important to the Barrani. She was Sedarias of Mellarionne.
Kaylin flinched inwardly at the mention of her family. Sedarias did not.
The rest of the cohort then approached, one by one, as Sedarias had done.
The High Lord spoke words of welcome and even seemed to mean all of them, but the Barrani were good at that. Kaylin wasn’t surprised to see Lord Evarrim standing to the side of the High Lord’s throne, and it occurred to her that Evarrim wasn’tgoodat lying or hiding his reactions. The thought that he might be the Barrani equivalent of Kaylin set her teeth on edge.
On Evarrim’s brow, she could see the tiara of the Arcanum; a large ruby, lit from an unseen source of light, nestled within the tiara’s small peak. He wore robes of blue and green, the green a match for the color Teela always chose to wear when she came to Court. He was not young by the standards of the Barrani; she wondered if he had been alive when the cohort was sent to the green.
His eyes—very blue—narrowed.
So did the eyes of her familiar, and Spike was now a frantic vibration that set her whole left arm trembling. By some unspoken agreement, the Barrani of the High Court—and their various guards—kept their distance while the entirety of the cohort, and Tain, offered their respects to the High Lord and his Consort.
But when Tain, who waited at the end of the line, had been released by the High Lord’s almost silent nod, the crowd began to move; spaces that had not existed when the Court bore witness were made now, as various people sought to approach the cohort. Many of them were no doubt curious, but even in that jostling, there was the echo of rigid hierarchy.
This, Kaylin thought, was what Sedarias had expected. She wasn’t surprised when the first person to reach her said, “Welcome home, sister.”
An’Mellarionne offered her a perfect bow that robbed his scant greeting of sincerity; it was a bow extended by people of powertopeople of power. It was not a familial gesture.
No, it is not, Ynpharion said, a tinge of grudging surprise coloring his words.
The head of Mellarionne wore the circlet Kaylin now associated with Arcanists; like Evarrim’s, his housed a ruby. It was smaller than the gemstone in Evarrim’s tiara, but brighter; it almost seemed to burn.
“Coravante.” Sedarias chose to greet him entirely informally. “It has been long since I set foot in our ancestral home.”
“And long, indeed, since Alsanis has opened his doors to visitors,” her brother replied. He turned to his attendant. Bressarian. “You have been much missed.” Had his eyes not been a deep blue, Kaylin would have believed him; the words themselves were warm, almost friendly.
A lie is not successful if the person to whom you tell it has no desire to hear the words.
“And you,” Sedarias said, her voice softer than Kaylin had ever heard it. “I would very much like to visit our home.”
That lie, for instance, is poor. It is not what Coravante desires to hear.
She can’t say anything he wants to hear, and she knows it. She’s not saying it for his sake.
You are learning.It said something about Kaylin that Ynpharion’s approval actually meant anything to her.
Nothing good.
