“Justice. I am, at heart, a coward.”
Severn understood, then, why Elluvian and An’Tellarus had been sent from the room.
“A coward?”
“Death would have been a blessing, but I did not have the strength or courage to end my own life. The lives of others, yes. But not my own.”
Ybelline opened her mouth; Severn lifted a hand. She closed her mouth on whatever she had been about to say. It was Severn who spoke. “Why did you visit the Oracular Halls?”
“I wished to meet Random. Tessa spoke of her often.”
“Were you the Barrani Lord who attempted to visit her recently?”
An’Sennarin frowned. “No. I visited her but once when I had some hope remaining.”
“What did you ask her?”
“I did not ask her anything.”
“Oracles—”
“I did not ask her anything because Tessa had asked nothing,” he said. He closed his eyes. “I wanted to save them. I was afraid by then. I had told Tessa, clearly, that the only way we could safely meet was through the bond of my name. I thought the suspicion would pass. I had time.
“She didn’t. I was allowed to visit Random because Random asked it. She did not know my name; did not know that what she had given Tessa in the privacy of the Tha’alaanwasmy name. I don’t think she understands it now, although she is older. You have visited her?”
Severn nodded.
“What did you ask of her?”
“We had no intention of receiving an oracle, either. Random was a person of interest in our investigation. We wanted to ask about Tessa and her friends. No memory of the oracle given Tessa on her first visit remained in the Tha’alaan. It remained with Random, and she wanted, I think, to tell someone. Random had no fear of the Tha’alani. No fear of Ybelline.”
“You would have known, eventually,” An’Sennarin said.
“The Imperial Service is not willing to wait when other options are available.”
“And will you inform the Imperial Service?”
“In this? It is not required. I have been seconded to the Wolves.”
He smiled. After a pause, so did Ybelline. “I do not have what Adellos has sequestered from even the Tha’alanari. I have no access to most of what remains of Tessa’s life. I have the memories that she so artfully wove in disparate, hard-to-follow strands through the Tha’alaan—but those were later, and they remain if one knows how to look carefully.
“But having seen some of Tessa’s life, some of her thought, I cannot believe that what she wanted—even when she began to fear—was your death. She would have believed that she caused it, just as you believe you were responsible for hers.”
“But she did die.”
“And you did not. Do you think your death will somehow cancel out hers?”
He didn’t reply, but the answer was obvious. “Random,” he said, returning the drifting conversation to Severn’s question, “gave me sketches. This was one—but this was clearest, to me. I knew where it would take place, but not when.”
“She didn’t explain.”
“No, but she couldn’t. She understood that this is what she saw, this is what she must capture. I thought perhaps the truth had come to light. I thought,” he added, after a brief pause, “that the woman in this sketch—you—must be the new castelord. Adellos explained that the new castelord would know; there was no way for him to completely excise the memory from the Tha’alaan. He did try.”
Ybelline’s eyes widened.
“I tried as well. But I am not of your kin; I spoke to the water. The water understood what I desired. I could have, at that point, commanded the water. But she asked me if I was willing to destroy the whole of the Tha’alaan in order to achieve my goal—and I was not. I will never be willing to pay that price.
“But it means I will live with an eternity of Tha’alani rulers who know my hidden name, my True Name.”