“I never knew my father.”
“I spent centuries wishing I had never known mine. Sometimes ignorance is a blessing.” Teela exhaled. “And sometimes, it’s not. My mother knew he’d lied. She tried to save me; she didn’t come alone. I told you she grew up in the West March. The Lord of the West March would clearly not be moved; the recitation could not be conducted without his consent. Even were that consent reluctantly given, he would be bound by it; he could not afford the loss of face rescinding that permission would cause.
“She could not, therefore, approach the Lord of the West March. I believe, had the Consort of the time been present, she might have had luck pleading her case there. But the Consort very rarely travels to the far reaches of the West March. You are blessed.”
Kaylin wondered why half the blessings she experienced felt a lot like curses.
“She went to her parents instead. She called upon her kin. Her parents understood both her fear and her frenzy, and they bespoke others; they avoided the Lords of the Court, and they sought no aid from the Lord of the West March. Before you ask, the Lord who held the West March of that time is not the man who has claimed you as kyuthe. Your Lord of the West March is in no way the same. He is soft and more sentimental, and it is my suspicion that had he been Lord of the West March at the time of the recitation, it would never have taken place.
“But my father was an influential, powerful Lord. He could be refused a request, but not a request that the High Lord had already granted. In the end, my mother and her kin appeared before the recitation had begun, and they demanded my release.
“My father, of course, refused and ordered them to leave. They did not leave.”
“They fought,” Kaylin whispered.
“Yes. And they fell. In and of itself, that was a crime—but my father’s men did not draw swords first and they acted, arguably, in defense. I should tell you now, in case it becomes relevant, that shedding blood within the circle of the green is considered a severe crime.”
“As large a crime as attempting to alter Barrani children?”
“No. But at the time, no such crime existed. The Barrani of the West March fell to the superior blades of the High Court. I tried to stop them,” she added, her voice an uncharacteristic whisper in the darkness.
Kaylin didn’t have to close her eyes; it was dark. But she wanted to, for just a minute. She could imagine that she might’ve done the same, and she knew the way it would have ended.
“My mother knew they would fail when her people began to die. She didn’t fight. Instead she prayed to the heart of the green.”
“Wait, she prayed?”
“A figure of speech.” Teela’s silence had the quality of thought. “Perhaps that is the wrong word in your tongue. Beseech?”
“‘Beseech’ makes more sense if we’re talking about Barrani.”
“Beseeched the heart of the green, then, to little effect. My father killed her. He did not attempt to spare her life; he was angry. She was his wife and known as his wife, and she had traveled with the High Court and the children. She had betrayed him, and she had done so in full view of the High Court; she could not be spared.” Teela’s voice sounded so dry, so matter-of-fact.
“Did he even try?”
“No, kitling. I told you—he couldn’t.”
“But—but if you accept that, if you can accept that…”
“Yes?”
“I don’t understand why you killed him. Why you felt you had to kill him.”
“I loved my mother,” she replied.
Barrani sometimes made no sense. Kaylin could understand the need to kill the man who had murdered her mother; she had no problem with that. But Kaylin was certain that no explanation, no circumstance, that caused her father to murder her mother would ever be acceptable to her. If she could understand fully and completely the reasons for the killing, how could she hate him enough to enact revenge?
Kaylin had spent almost seven years of her life planning ways to kill Severn should she ever meet him again. But once she had learned the why, the machinery of revenge had rusted out beneath her.
“Your lips are moving again, kitling.”
“They are not.” Kaylin would have hit her with a pillow, but Teela apparently had all of them at the moment.
“We’re not the same. Don’t spend too much time trying to make that comparison. I understand why he killed her. But in the end, she died because of me.”
“That’s not true. You didn’t kill her.”
“Had I not been in the West March, had I not been a candidate for the recitation, she would never have moved against my father. No more would I; in our fashion, we both loved him, and the things we wanted from him were not dissimilar. She would have raised no hand—or voice—to spare the other children; they were not hers.”
“Teela, why was she so concerned?”
“She never explained it to me. But after the recitation, it became very clear.”
Kaylin frowned. “There’s something I don’t understand.”
“There’s a lot you don’t understand. Which particular element is causing confusion now?”
“You were there. Your mother failed to save you. You were one of the children who was forced to listen to the regalia. Which is now a great crime. Yet you’re still Teela. If what happened to the children was so horrifying, why didn’t it happen to you?”
* * *
Teela rolled over, switching from stomach to back; she stretched her arms high above her head, exposing her armpits. Kaylin knew, from unfortunate experience, that Teela wasn’t ticklish, and in any case, it seemed like the wrong moment to make a second attempt. Wrong or no, she did consider it.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. “It was a question asked of me often in my childhood. Even as I matured, I was watched, tested, and cautioned.”
“Were you the only one spared?”
“Yes.”
“And it was obvious that the others were—”
“Yes, kitling. It was obvious within the day. It was obvious that something had gone wrong within the hour, although not all the children so affected manifested the change immediately. It was,” she added softly, “a long, long recitation. The harmoniste collapsed immediately upon its conclusion, as did the Lord of the West March. Only the Teller was spared that fate—in a fashion.
“We were taken to the station in the West March. It is not so often used for visitors; there are halls within the West March that are usually left open. But the deaths in the circle of the green closed many doors that day.
“Had we not been in the station, I do not know what would have happened. There are theories,” she added softly. “There are theories that were argued for hundreds of heated hours in the High Halls upon our return. Some of the Lords—those who had not accompanied our group—were adamant that we try again. They pointed to the very unusual circumstances that preceded the recitation: the blood in the circle, the deaths, the almost unheard-of length of the regalia that had been offered to the triad.
“But the Lord of the West March, upon recovery, forbade any further attempt. The High Lord himself traveled, in haste and at personal risk, to the West March, and when he returned, he ended all discussions. He would not countenance such a risk again, for we had lost some dozen of our children in that attempt—and given the numbers of our young, it was significant.”
“Do you know what he saw?” Kaylin asked when Teela’s voice once again ebbed into silence.
“Yes. He saw the way station. He saw what it contained. The children, the young, were not the only losses—and in my opinion, the Lords of the Court who died within twenty-four hours of the recitation’s end were considered the bigger loss.”
“Did the children kill them?”
“Yes. And were it not for the anger of the citizens of the West March, the death count would have been much, much higher; we would have been welcomed in the homes and the halls where they dwelled. The station was a prison; it contained the t
ransformed.”
“But…you were in the station.”
“I was.”
“And you survived.”
“Yes. I was one of only a handful to do so. My father was another, but he lost three lieges in his flight.”
“He saved you.”
Teela said nothing.
“Teela—”
“Enough, kitling. I have not spoken of this for centuries. If you are now afraid for me, don’t be: I returned to the West March as an adult. On that journey, watched by every member of the Court, I was chosen as harmoniste. It stilled their fears.”
“And yours?”
“What did I have to fear?” she asked. But her voice—her voice wasn’t Teela’s voice; it was too raw and too bitter. Kaylin was silent for a moment; she sat up in the darkness. “Kitling, I am not you.” There was a note of warning in her words. “I traveled to the West March in the dress you now wear—well, a longer variant—and I stood as harmoniste, and I did not transform, I did not become monstrous, I did not kill the Lords of the High Court, present and watching like wary vultures. I became fully, and finally, adult.”
“Was it hard?”
“It was…difficult.”
“And I’m making you go back.”
“No, kitling, you are not. You couldn’t make me do something I did not want to do. I am here because I suggested it to Marcus.” She rolled onto her side, facing Kaylin. “I am a Lord of the High Court. I am a Lord of note in that Court. But I’m also a Hawk. As a Hawk, I play by ridiculous, labyrinthine Imperial rules. I support equally ridiculous Laws—how many books does it take to contain them all, anyway?—and I wear a tabard, as if I were the lowest of my own guardsmen. I walk—walk, mind, not ride and not drive—the packed and dirty streets of Elantra, in the service of a Dragon—”
“In the service of his Laws.”
Teela snorted.
“It’s not the same thing, Teela.”
“—and I spend as much of my time living outside of the High Halls as I possibly can. I’m not overly fond of mortals,” she added. “But before that gives offense, I am even less fond of most of my kin. The Hawks,” she added, her voice shifting, “became important to me. I do not know when it happened. I don’t even understand why, but I offered to accompany you to the West March because the Halls of Law needed the information Nightshade dangled in front of the Hawklord.
“I did it as an adult; I did it knowing what the West March means to me. If you attempt to feel guilty about my presence here, I will be insulted. And what have I told you about deliberately insulting the Barrani?”
“It’s a very bad idea.”
“Is that all I said?”
“No. It was longer and had more concrete lists of consequences. But that was the gist of it. I’m not allowed to worry?”
“Worry if you like. But guilt? No. Your guilt is an attempt to deprive me of the ability to make an adult choice—and accept the resultant consequences—and given what I endured to become an adult, I can’t allow it.”
Teela settled her head back into the pillows, since she still had all of them. “At this very moment—and I’m certain I’ll regret saying this—I’m actually glad I came. It was a shock seeing you in that dress. I am worried, and I was upset. But it’s been a long, long time since I last spoke about my mother to someone who would truly understand the loss.”
“You were talking about her death.”
“I know. But talking about her death, I remember her life—or at least the parts of it that overlapped with mine. She did everything she could to save me.”
“I think she did save you, in the end.”
“Oh?”
“You said she begged the heart of the green for something. I think we can both guess what it was. You were the only one to survive, so maybe the heart of the green was listening.” Kaylin relaxed and sank back into the bed again. “Hey, are you going to hog all the pillows? Give me one. Give me one and tell me more about your mother. Or the West March. The good bits,” she added.
Chapter 17
In the morning—and the light was ambient morning light, although here, too, the rooms lacked anything that resembled windows—Kaylin felt calmer. Teela was already awake, because Barrani didn’t need to sleep; they kind of dabbled in it, as if they understood it was supposed to be a good thing but couldn’t quite get the hang of it.
But Teela’s eyes were the same color, when Kaylin saw them, as Kaylin’s dress. The good thing about dresses that were entirely magical was they appeared to be self-cleaning. And self-ironing, too. Kaylin slid into it, vastly more comfortable with its color, its length, and that fact that, for this journey, it was hers than she had been before she’d been dumped in Teela’s room. The small dragon perched on her shoulders, mumbling to himself.
“You know,” Teela said, “if he is a familiar—and I am almost certain he is—the stories about their grandeur and power seem to have missed the mark.”
“They probably weren’t aiming for truth.”
“No, probably not. They’re stories, after all.”
“Are you ready? I’m starving.” She headed toward the closet, and Teela cleared her throat loudly. “Right. I forgot. The bags will get tossed out when we leave. Hey, Teela, what did the light mean?”
“The light?”
“The one that hit me on the head just before we left the last station.”
“We talk about the alignment of the stars when we talk about the recitation. The stars referred to aren’t literal. They are also referred to as illuminations. The light offered as you left was a single illumination, but it was offered so early in the journey it implies that there will be more. There is some correlation between the illuminations and the complexity of the tale. A harmoniste isn’t always chosen; a Teller of Tales is even rarer.”
“When you were a child—”
“Yes. We had all three. The harmoniste barely survived, and he was much changed.”
* * *
The breakfast table was the same one at which dinner had been served the previous evening; it was peopled by the same Lords, although most of their clothing had changed. The Consort sat at the head of the table, and to her right sat Lord Nightshade. Kaylin felt her cheek grow warmer and she started to lift a hand to touch his mark; Teela caught the hand instead and kept hold of it.
“It would be best if you failed to acknowledge the mark.”
“Is it glowing?”
“Slightly, yes. I don’t think the color works with your dress.” Her grip tightened, but not painfully. “You could wear a large sack over your face, and everyone would still be aware of the mark; there’s no way to hide it from Barrani. There’s no need to let it make you feel self-conscious, either. On most days you don’t even remember it’s there anymore. Make this one of those days.”
Kaylin glanced at her; she was smiling. “Look, there’s your Corporal; he’s saved us seats.”
Teela’s version of “saved” was entirely inaccurate; Severn was mortal. There were seats near his end of the table because no one with any desire to climb to the upper echelons of the Barrani High Court could see any advantage in conversing with him. Teela steered them both toward Severn’s end of the table.
“You ended up at Teela’s?”
“More or less. But Teela doesn’t need much sleep.”
Teela, being Barrani, took her place on the intricate stone bench without making a sound. “Did you sleep well?” she asked Severn.
He nodded. The morning meal was mostly a variety of bread and fruit cut into not entirely appealing shapes. There was cheese, as well as…fish. The fish was raw. Teela laughed out loud at the expression on her face.
“It won’t kill you,” she said.
“No, it won’t.” Because she had no intention of eating it.
“Well, don’t eat too much,” the Barrani Hawk said, entirely disregarding her own advice.
“Why not?” was the immediately suspicious question. “Did you eat all the cheese,
Severn?”
“I’ve decided I’d like to drive the carriage today.”
“No way.”
“You can’t exactly forbid it, kitling.”
“Probably not, but I can try. Severn, help me out here.”
Severn laughed. He was—he looked—entirely relaxed. For the next fifteen minutes they might have been sitting on the admittedly battered benches in the mess hall, on a day with no Exchequer hanging over their collective heads. The presence of the Barrani Lords did nothing to quell that impression; they were like a backdrop, and at least they weren’t sitting across a desk in the public office, complaining about armies of giants. Or evil chickens.
But it couldn’t last. Not here. Barrani, having finished eating and probably aware that they’d be stuck in carriages—or on foot—for the long and grueling day of travel ahead, now began to rise.
One of those Lords was Nightshade.
It was interesting to watch him move. Even the Lords who failed to speak a word to him—and they comprised two-thirds of the Court present in the hall—couldn’t quite ignore his passage; not the pointed way they could ignore Kaylin’s. He drifted down the side of the table, pausing only to speak with Andellen, who, no surprise, answered.
But when Nightshade laughed, everyone fell silent, even Teela. Court laughter was generally unkind; it was a variant of Court gossip and had the same edge, albeit absent the actual words. The only exception to that in Kaylin’s admittedly small experience was, or had been, the Consort. She was not, however, laughing now. Nightshade was.
His voice was full and open; he seemed to be genuinely amused—almost delighted—by whatever it was Andellen had said. One look at Andellen’s face made clear that he was also highly amused; they were sharing a joke of a kind that had no place in this Court.
Nightshade drifted down the table and at last reached Teela. He offered her a full bow.
She lifted a black brow in response; her eyes were now blue, but it wasn’t the indigo that they’d fallen into when she’d first laid eyes on him the previous evening. “Lord Nightshade,” she said, which caused a small whisper to rise from the portions of the table near enough to hear her. Given they were Barrani, it was a large portion.
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