She expected Ynpharion’s intrusion. Given the Consort’s current problem, he wasn’t going to be absent until the situation was resolved—one way or another. Nightshade was sounconscious she couldn’t read him through the namebond, which meant he couldn’t reach her.
But a voice she almostneverheard reached out to her.
Kyuthe.Lirienne. Lord of the West March.My sister seems extremely troubled, and the comfort I can offer from the distance of my home is too weak to be effective. Tell me what troubles her.
There was command in the words, but he didn’t push it. She held his name, not the other way around.
But she held his name, as she held Nightshade’s, with his explicit permission. She hadn’t taken the name because of her superior will or power.
I can’t talk about the Consort without her permission, she finally said.I’m sure she’d talk to you if she could.She guessed that the Consort couldn’t. If the Consort’s condition was like Nightshade’s, any namebonds would be useless.Lord Nightshade was almost assassinated. Someone sent two full war bands into the fiefs to assassinate him.
And theydid not succeed.
Not yet—they came close. The Consort isn’t happy about it.
No. She would not be. Very well. Where are you going?
She was fairly certain he knew, because he, like Ynpharion or Nightshade, could listen in if he so chose, but answered anyway.The Academia.
Silence. Kaylin thought he’d gone away again, but when he spoke there was a hush around the word that implied respect. No, more than that.The Academia.Soit is true that it has arisen from the distant historical ash.
Yes.
I would like to see it myself.
I think that can easily be arranged. Have you spoken to your brother at all?
No. He, too, has been silent about the current troubles.
He said no more, and she was painfully aware that his, the lightest touch of all her namebonds, was possibly the strongest.If he turned his attention to Kaylin, and to her life here, he would know almost as much as she knew.
“How does Teela manage to keep anything secret from the rest of you?” She poked Mandoran. He’d taken up position to her right; Severn walked to her left. Fallessian and Terrano had gone ahead to scout. Kaylin wasn’t expecting trouble—they were entering the fiefs through Tiamaris.
But it was in the border zone between Nightshade and Tiamaris that the brunt of the attack had taken place, so maybe she wasn’t paranoid enough.
“She can mask her thoughts from Helen as well,” Mandoran replied. “She mostly doesn’t cut us off—but can, if she thinks it’s necessary.”
“And she’d think it’s necessary if it’s something that might endanger any of you.”
“Pretty much. I probably don’t need to tell you just how offensive Sedarias finds this. Condescension is supposed to go one way—from Sedariastosomeone else.”
“It’s not condescension—” Kaylin cut off the rest of her own sentence.
“You can’t even say it.”
“Teela frustrates me as well. But... it’s different for me.”
“How so?”
“I’m mortal. Teela is Barrani. She took me under wing when I first arrived at the Halls of Law. She thought I was reckless and way too emotional.”
“And you weren’t?”
Kaylin’s laugh was bitter. “Oh, I absolutely was. I was reckless and angry and almost suicidal. I didn’t think my life mattered. No, it’s more than that. I thought I didn’t deserve to live. I didn’t deserve tojudge. Who was I to judge others for their actions? Who was I toarrestthem?
“Teela made it clear that if I served the Laws, I could get answers to that. But to do that, I had to believe in them, and Ihad to carry them out. But... it made sense to me that she’d be condescending. She was Barrani. She was Immortal. She’d lived for centuries. She’d fought in wars. Barrani aren’t known for being mindful of Imperial Laws. They don’t have to be, as long as they’re only attacking each other.
“But Teela upheld Imperial Law. She trained me in rudimentary combat; she drilled every word of the law into my head. And she invited—well, commanded, really—me to consider what our worldcouldbe like if people respected those laws. You have to understand—I was a child. Teela was an adult, to me. It’s like she knew everything in the world worth knowing.”