Mandoran appeared at the height of the stairs that led to the doors of the guest rooms. “I don’t care if he talks about my issues with Kaylin,” he told Sedarias. “Helen knows everything, anyway.”
“Helen won’t discuss it with Kaylin unless we give her permission.”
“So... I’m giving her permission? I don’t feel the need to be protected from Kaylin, of all people—without her, we wouldn’t have a safe home. And there’swaytoo much we’ve been leaving her in the dark about. That would make sense if she had zero involvement with the Barrani High Court; they won’t murder her in a fashion that would lead back to thembecauseshe’s the wrong race and it’ll give the Dragon permission to investigate—or the High Court permission to terminate the lords involved.
“But sheisa Lord of the High Court, and sheisa friend of the Consort—if that’s the right word for it. She’s involved no matter what we do. She’s involved no matter how much we share. Right now, we’ve got bits and pieces of threat, enmity, attempted murders—but we’ve only got pieces, and the pieces are small enough we can’t put them together to see the bigger picture. We can’t see a picture at all.
“Kaylin might have different pieces, related in ways we don’t immediately see. She’s on our side. She’s always been on our side. You know we’ve always done better when we’re all working on those pieces, trying to get a sense of where they fit. We think differently.”
“Well, she certainly thinks differently,” Teela agreed. “But Mandoran’s issues with his family don’t seem—at the moment—to be relevant. Helen istryingto protect your privacy.”
Mandoran descended the stairs. “Why? I’m not. I’d give Kaylin my name if the rest of you agreed.”
“We don’t,” Teela and Sedarias said—at the same time, and in the same tone of voice.
“It wouldn’t be the only name she holds.” He shrugged. Terrano was also big on the giving of his name. “Nothing terrible has happened to any of the others.”
“Nothingyet,” Sedarias snapped.
Kaylin exhaled and lifted a hand; green silk trailed down her arm as if it were liquid. “I don’t need to know about Mandoran’sfamily. I don’t need to know his True Name. I didn’t grow up in the cohort, and sometimes I want privacy—which I’d never get again.
“But thereisa lot going on, and a lot to process.”
“Will you tell us why the Consort summoned you?”
“She didn’t summon, sheinvited.” Ynpharion’s dismissive snort was absent. “And I can’t really talk about her concerns.” Kaylin was not one of nature’s liars. Given the life she’d lived in the fiefs just prior to her arrival at the Halls of Law, that shouldn’t have been true. But she glanced at Teela.
Teela’s eyes were a paler blue than they’d been for most of the day, but they were still blue. Teela, of all the cohort, chose what to share and what to hold back; she did the same with Helen. Kaylin guessed that most of the meeting with the Consort hadnotbeen shared.
“But she heard about Nightshade, and she suspects that the people who were aiming at Nightshade are working against her, as well.”
“On what grounds?” Sedarias demanded, turning to Kaylin.
Kaylin glanced at Teela; Teela failed to notice, indicating that in this, Kaylin was on her own. “I’m not certain. She said assassination attempts against him were once common; they’re much less common now. But she thinks maybe they want the sword?”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the answer I can give.” Kaylin attempted to change the subject. “We met An’Tellarus, as you probably already know.”
Sedarias nodded; clearly, Teela had chosen to share that information. “She’s dangerous.”
“Probably. She’s old, she’s Barrani, and she’s the head of her line. How could she not be dangerous?”
“Theoretically, she could have been the last man standing,” Mandoran said. “It’s happened a handful of times within Barrani history. Someone mostly harmless keeps their head down while magic and bolts fly above them, and when the air clears,everyone else is dead. They’re weak enough, they’d lose the line they inherit by default immediately—but all of the aggressive, ambitious people with even a hint of legitimate claim are dead.”
“You were paying attention when we visited An’Tellarus, right?” Kaylin asked. After Mandoran nodded, she said, “What about An’Tellarus struck you as mostly harmless? Or harmless at all?”
“...it was just a thought.”
“Don’t dignify it by calling itthought,” Teela snapped. “She is dangerous.”
“Of course,” Sedarias agreed. “But I don’t think she is—at the moment—a danger to Mellarionne. Your interaction made clear she intends to remain neutral, until and unless we have something to offer, or we step on her toes.”
Kaylin had a headache.
She imagined Terrano had one as well—but he wasn’t getting any peace on the inside of that head, either. She could almost understand why Sedarias was so angry: Terrano had come very, very close to dying in the fiefs. Of the cohort, for reasons that would never be clear to Kaylin, it was Terrano to whom Sedarias felt closest.
Sedarias had been born into the competition—the blood sport—that was the Mellarionne seat. She’d been raised with ambition to rule, and the understanding that every single person who had even a tenuous claim to the line was her mortal enemy, literally. Her sister had tried to kill her. Her brother had tried to kill her. Cousins in the distant past had done the same, and probably other siblings, lost to combat.