“You will not be a good leader,” he told her softly, refuting none of her statements, “if you cannot delegate. You will not be a good leader if you cannot accept the losses that come as a natural part of your responsibility.”
“Then I will be a terrible leader,” she replied. “But that terrible leader is the leader my people need. Be what your people need of you, but keep your concern on the inside of your head, where no one else can hear it, no matter how desperate—” She swallowed.
“Ybelline, I ask you not to do this.”
She shook her head.
“You know what Timorri saw.”
“I am—Yes. Yes, I saw.”
“It was necessary,” Garadin said from the wall. “Had she not intervened, we would have lost at least two, maybe three more. You do not understand her strength,” he continued. “But perhaps you now better understand my fear.”
Helmat ignored Garadin, which was almost second nature. “You contained it.”
She nodded again.
“We are not doing this today.”
“It will help me,” Ybelline said softly. “Unless this young man is a similar monstrosity of fear and rage and pain, unless he is—” She shook her head. “It will help me today.”
“Why?”
“Because it will remind me, Helmat, that darkness does not always lead to madness and pain and death. No.” She exhaled. “It will remind me that there is a need for what you—for whatwe—do.” When Helmat did not budge, she added, “It will anchor me.”
The Lord of Wolves moved out of her way. “It is not,” he said when she moved past him, “a lie. I regret it, Ybelline. My regret comes in part from my duties, my life choices. I want, and wanted, to protect.”
“The weak and helpless,” she said, but did not look back.
“And would it be better, then, to have no such desire at all?”
She exhaled. Back to him, she said, “No. Tomorrow, perhaps the day after, we might revisit this. But at the moment, my desire to protect my people is too painful. Were it not for the Imperial Service—” and here she skirted treason “—they would notrequirethat protection. What life itself offers—”
“We work forallof the citizens of Elantra.”
“Helmat—”
“Do you think I don’t understand? Ybelline, I command the Shadow Wolves. It is my responsibility to find and train them. How long do you think most of them last?” He was getting old; he couldn’t let it go. “Were it not for the Tha’alanari, the Shadow Wolves would not exist. We could not do what we do without the certainty your people give us. We could not keep the Wolves leashed; could not give them the certain knowledge that what they do is for the better. All of our efforts would produce well-trained, deadly assassins, and in the end, too many of them would serve their own interests.”
“It is not the same,” she replied. “No human is forced to become one of your Wolves. No Barrani, either. The Emperor has not threatened to reduce you, and your home, to ash if the services of such people are not surrendered.”
“And are you telling me that the Tha’alanari is created by conscription?”
Garadin, whose face, larger than life and green-eyed, remained upon the wall, said, “She is not. Lord Marlin, today isnotthe day for your games, your political sleight of hand.”
“It is not a game to me. It has never been a game.” But he stopped.
Severn stepped past Helmat to offer Ybelline his right hand, as if her antennae did not exist and she were a lovely older woman, due a measure of politeness.
Ybelline seemed surprised by this, but it was perhaps the surprise that she needed at the moment, and Helmat could otherwise give her nothing: no aid, no help, no protection. He remained silent but realized belatedly that his hands were clasped behind his back. He corrected this, although En had noticed.
“Do you understand what I am here to do?” Ybelline asked the youth, her head tilted to study their joined hands as if she were translating between a language she had studied and learned and her mother tongue.
“You are here,” Severn replied, a tremor gilding the words, “to look at me and my past and to confirm—or deny—the truth.”
She nodded. “You’ve told Lord Marlin the truth?”
“He hasn’t actually asked.”