“And right now, that’s good. But something’s wrong, and we need to fix it,” Kaylin told them both. Terrano looked at Sedarias. Sedarias looked at nothing for one long moment.
“Mandoran was right,” she finally said. She looked at Kaylin as if she were an insect who had finally demanded her full attention. All of the cohort were now turned toward her, as if she were gravity and they were falling.
“Do not do that here,” Winston said, his voice sharp. “We are not yet safe.”
Sedarias laughed. In a bitter voice, she said, “There is no safety. Kaylin is mortal. If she can build safety, it only has to last decades. But you know, as well as we, that safety is an illusion. Trust is a lie we tell ourselves.”
“Why lie?” Kaylin asked.
“Because if we didn’t, we’d kill everyone in sight. If there is no safety, there are still variations on acceptable danger. Do you know whattrustis, Lord Kaylin?”
Kaylin waited, lips compressing. It kept words from escaping.
“Trust is what we have when we believe the people surrounding us are harmless. It is the comfort we take when we are certain that we will survive anything they might do to hurt us. Do you understand?”
Winston looked confused.
Kaylin, however, was not. As if Sedarias were her thirteen-year-old self, she met the Barrani’s blue-eyed glare. “You’re wrong.”
“Decades. Only decades.”
“I’ve lived that way. I did it for the longest six months of my life, and at the end of that six months, all I wanted was death. Mine,” she added. “I had nothing to offer anyoneexceptdeath. Or worse. I looked at the future before me, and all I could see was pain and isolation and fear. I told myself that if I survived, I could change my life—and only if I survived. I did thingstosurvive that I will never, ever forget. And on the bad days, if I could go back in time and eradicate myself, Iwould.”
Silence. Sedarias finally broke it. “You’re a Hawk.”
“I went to the Halls of Law to assassinate the Hawklord.”
“Teela says you are lying.”
“She’s wrong. It happens.” Kaylin exhaled. “Fine. I went to make theattempt. I didn’t expect to succeed. I expected to die. I expected to die, and if I’d had the strength, I would have saved everyone the trouble and drowned myself in the Ablayne. I didn’t. I didn’t want to live, but I couldn’t end my own life.
“If survival were the only thing that mattered, I wouldn’t be a Hawk. I wouldn’t know Teela. I wouldn’t understand the laws. I wouldn’t understand thatno oneis perfect; that the laws can be both good and inadequate at the same time. I do my best. My best changes from day to day. But Iwantthe Hawks. I want people who struggle to do more than just survive. I want people I can believe in.
“Ialwayswanted it.” Kaylin inhaled. Held her breath for five seconds and exhaled. “I trust Teela with my life. According to your definition, I can’t.” She glanced at Winston, who seemed to have calmed down a bit. “But...you wanted it as well.”
Sedarias folded her arms.
“If you hadn’t, would you know the names of the cohort? The True Names?”
“I did that, you foolish, foolish child, because it was theonlyway I could render them harmless. I did itbecausemy will is the stronger, the greater, will. If I knew their names, Icoulddefend myself against any possible attack. I did it because I had confidencein my own power.”
Allaron placed a hand on Kaylin’s shoulder. She glanced at him, and he shook his head.
But no. No. “Then why,” Kaylin said, as Allaron’s hand tightened, “did you attack the green? Why did you attack us when we went to perform theregalia? You almost destroyed an entire race—mine, incidentally.”
“We did not—”
“Fine. Your advice and your plans almost allowed total idiots to destroy an entire race. Some of those idiots arepart ofthat race. I’m not going to quibble specifics.”
Terrano held up a hand. “Please talk more slowly.”
Kaylin wanted to shriek. She wondered, then, what the inside of Sedarias’s head sounded like. Hers was unusually quiet. “Fine. Why did you attack the green? Have you forgotten? Has your stay in Alsanis these past months damaged your Barrani memory?”
Silence.
“Because if it has,I remember. You wanted tochange the past. It was impossible. It was always going to be impossible. But you did it anyway. Do you remember why?” None of the cohort spoke. Kaylin therefore turned to Terrano, the only member on the outside. “Terrano?”
His glance skittered off the ice of Sedarias’s expression. “...To save Teela.”