“Do you?”
“Pardon?”
“You’re a Lord of the High Court, and you’re probably one of the older lords. Do you require an oath of allegiance from your people?”
Terrano snickered.
“No, as you guess, I do not. Allegiance, such as it is, is binding on both those who swear and those who accept what is sworn. I did not wish to assume responsibility for others. But it is not the same situation. I am not, and was never, outcaste. Vows offered to someone declared outcaste are not irrevocable. When a person of power is rendered outcaste, all vows, all responsibilities—to and for—are rendered null and void. No dishonor accrues to those who have sworn vows prior to the expulsion. Even blood oaths are released, and the breaking of fealty to one made outcaste no longer has consequences for those who swore such oaths.
“Lord Andellen’s vow of fealty was offered after Nightshade was expelled from the Barrani.”
“Ummm, how exactly are blood oaths rendered null and void?”
“Such oaths require magic; they are therefore magical in nature. Such binding magics can be destroyed at the will of the High Lord. Ah, I mean: the High Lord can destroy them without consequence.”
“But namebonds can’t.”
“Nothing but death destroys a namebond. It is the other reason namebonds are feared. Nightshade has servants in his fief—Barrani servants—but there is very little in the way oftrust between him and those men. It would not be difficult to insert people who do not have his best interests at heart.”
“Can it be as simple as that?”
“It could, yes, if he were careless. But if he were that careless, he would have been dead long ago.”
“So it’s more complicated.”
“It is more complicated. I would say our arrival—or rather the arrival of the rest of my cohort—has caused anxiety and in some cases panic. Mellarionne before Sedarias was very likely aligned with the people who wanted the Consort dead in the West March.” Teela looked, pointedly, at Sedarias, whose eyes remained midnight.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because her siblings could invade Hallionne Alsanis.”
Sedarias surrendered her silence. “Theirpurposewas to kill me. They didn’t expect the rest of us. Or you,” she added almost grudgingly. “But the people with whom Terrano interacted were not men of great renown; he, as they, were go-betweens. They did not realize that Terrano was not the only person with whom they dealt.
“They are, no doubt, afraid. Terrano’s invisibility serves two purposes. The first: he can avoid having to muster decent manners and etiquette. The second: he might be recognized by those with whom we dealt. We do not have any desire—at this point—to destroy the High Halls or its lord. The current lord is not the one who demandedvolunteersfor his experiment in the green.
“While we were trapped, we thought of the lords of the High Halls as our enemies. We did not consider the West March in the same light—probably because of Teela and her mother’s side of the family.”
“But you attacked the Consort.”
“We did not directly attack the Consort,” was Sedarias’s stiff reply. “We attacked her party, yes.”
“So... you’re telling me that she wasn’t the target.”
Teela cleared her throat.
Sedarias exhaled. “She wasn’t our target. She might have been theirs.”
“They have to know they’re attacking the entire race if she dies!”
“They did not consider that loss to be permanent. It was, I believe, for the greater good, the brighter future.”
“Did they justify that?”
Terrano shrugged. “They believed it. They believed that absent the Consort, they could build a method of waking the infants that would grant greater freedom—or power, let’s be honest—to the ‘new’ Barrani.”
“You couldn’t have warned us about this before?” Kaylin almost shrieked.
“It would have served no practical purpose. You defeated the forces sent to the West March. We assumed that it was finished. We could not get more information from Iberrienne—but he seemed to be in command. Eddorian has not tried very hard. Iberrienne desired his brother’s freedom and possible redemption more than he desired anything else. Power was a method—for Iberrienne—of bringing Eddorian home.” She exhaled. “We knew Nightshade desired the same for Annarion, but Nightshade was, and has always been, rational and cold-blooded. There are some lines Nightshade would never cross.