Would you?
...It is not a valid question for one such as I. No matter who I am or what I do, I ampart ofmy kin. But you found her. You found her again.
Silence. Walls grew thicker, stronger, and this time Ybelline did not press or touch them at all. She understood what the Wolves wanted of and from her, and she now had the answers that Helmat demanded.
She’s here, Severn surprised her by saying.She’s with the Hawks.
And Elianne did not know Severn was here, with the Wolves—or attempting to join them.I tried to find her when she ran. But I’m the last person she’ll ever want to see. I think—I think she could be happy here. She always dreamed of crossing the bridge. We all did. Ybelline?
I’m here.
I’m tired. I’m justsotired.
I know. It is safe to sleep here. It is safe, for now.
Helmat did not choose to speak until Ybelline’s stalks detached themselves from Severn’s forehead. She continued, however, to hold the young man, who appeared to be sleeping. Her arms were slender; shorter and smaller than Severn’s in all ways. But there was strength in her, regardless.
“Well?”
Her face was adorned with tears; she had shed them while in communion, and they had not yet ceased to fall. Helmat was no stranger to Tha’alani tears; they fell often, when the Tha’alani were at work. These tears, however, were different. He knew it. En knew it.
Garadin’s enlarged face had long since dissipated from the far wall, the mirror connection severed. Helmat was grateful for the absence. Garadin—and all of his kin—were the most difficult, the most coldly truculent, in the wake of an investigation such as this.
Ybelline, however, was not. Helmat had clasped his hands loosely behind his back; he left them there. Had the decision been his to make, he would have ordered Ybelline back to the Tha’alani compound—ah, no,quarter—and canceled the request until someone like Garadin could fulfill it. Seeing her face, her reddened eyes, the tears she did not bother to wipe away, he felt a visceral surge of self-loathing.
He was Lord of Wolves for a reason. None of this conflict now showed. He had, in the end, accepted that she would do the job, and he endured the consequences. “Is Severn sleeping?”
“Yes.”
“Will he wake if you let go of him?”
“Probably.”
“You don’t want to let go of him.”
“Not yet.”
En moved from the wall against which he was leaning. “What did you find?”
“He killed two children. Girls,” she added, aware of Helmat. En didn’t often differentiate between victims if they were mortal.
“Ybelline,” En said. Helmat was willing to wait for her to gather her thoughts and put them into cogent—and professional—words. Elluvian, however, was not. He had never been particularly patient, a fact Helmat found ironic. The Barrani were Immortal; they could be killed but absent murder, they had no fundamental lack of time.
Ybelline’s glance flickered over En and away. “He was not paid to kill them. They were not assassinations.”
“But children.”
She nodded. “I think, in his position, you would have done the same.”
“Would you?”
She shook her head, but the movement was slow and thoughtful. “I do not think I would have believed that there was no other choice. Even if that were, in the end, proved true. But you? You would have believed it.”
Helmat stiffened. “Tell me, then. Tell me everything.”
“You are aware that there was some commotion in the Imperial Court recently?”
“There’s always a commotion in the Imperial Court.”