Cast in Conflict

by Michelle Sagara

  I’m not Barrani.

  Neither is Sedarias.

  And you?

  I am Barrani. I do not have the freedom that Sedarias gained for herself. I did not kill my brother or my sister; I did not kill my parents.

  She didn’t kill her parents.

  No. An’Teela killed her only living parent—and she is free.

  And that’s what you want? The question itself was harsh, but the tone was not. It wasn’t meant as an accusation. For a moment, on Hope’s back, the wind howling in her ears and pulling strands of loose hair toward Severn’s face, she simply wanted to know more about him.

  It’s not what Sedarias wants, he finally said.

  What do you think she wants?

  What you wanted. I think she started out wanting what you wanted. Your mother died when you were young—you didn’t want that. Neither did An’Teela. But An’Teela could build a life on vengeance. You didn’t have that. Sedarias did. But...Sedarias is not An’Teela.

  Teela took the same risk the rest of the cohort did.

  Yes, and she was abandoned. And she survived.

  She wasn’t abandoned. They couldn’t escape, at the start. When they could, Teela was the first person they looked for. Kaylin shook herself.

  I want what she built, Ynpharion said.

  Have you killed your brother and sister?

  I believe she would far rather have Annarion’s troubled relationship with his brother than the one she had with hers.

  If you were Sedarias—I know you’re not—how would you reach her?

  The battlefield was the loftiest point of this barren place. You thought of it as a place where a war had been fought—and possibly lost. I think...

  She waited. It was hard.

  I think that it is a place that is precious to her; the battle is always fought. What waits beneath it is what you now fly over: a barren, rocky landscape where even water causes damage. Her life, like my life, was a battle. And if I did not have her power, neither did my siblings. It is the battlefield that you must protect, and to which you must return her.

  But I don’t want her to fight.

  His chuckle was quiet enough that she might have mistaken his voice for another’s if it weren’t for the fact of the True Name that bound them.

  She will always fight. And the person she fights now is herself. You are afraid that she attempted to use names she knows against those who hold them.

  She was.

  That she has not done it before—or often—is a symbol of the battlefield; it is herself she fights, because that fight was the whole of her childhood until she met the cohort.

  Kaylin said nothing, willing him to continue.

  But the risk taken was the hope. We are ridiculed for hope, and often it fails us and causes us to fail ourselves. She does not believe it. And she does believe it. Terrano did not seem surprised to be here. What he said is true: this is what Sedarias is like. He cannot know her name, she cannot know theirs, without this knowledge.

  I don’t know anything about you, though.

  No. But we did not begin as they began; it could never have happened. I could not have allowed it. Were I they, I might have. He doubted it. She heard the doubt clearly.

  I want the war to end.

  Yes. I imagine Sedarias does as well. But we are also products of the lives we have been born and bred to live. This is the best she can do, for now. Perhaps, in the Hallionne it was different; there, there was no family, no Barrani enemy, nothing that could disturb the peace they built. But she is An’Mellarionne, as she desired. Everything old is new and visceral again.

  And Mandoran had betrayed her.

  That is the nature of our lives. What she expects—what I expected—is betrayal. To separate her from that expectation would almost be to separate her from herself.

  She’s had centuries of no betrayal. She wasn’t that old when she was sent to the green. More of her life has been defined by the cohort than her family.

  Yes. He spoke no other words, but they weren’t really needed. Hope is pain.

  Kaylin knew this. She knew it better than anyone. Ynpharion disagreed, but silently. Hope is necessary.

  For how long? For how long must hope burden us when it causes nothing but pain?

  I don’t know. Don’t ask me. I just know that I tried to die—by Hawk, because I couldn’t bring myself to end my own life. This was not where she had thought this literal descent into the mind of Sedarias would lead. And because she was talking to Ynpharion, emotions she would have bet had finally died reared their heads. The Hawklord gave me hope. And I’ve carried it since then.

  He said nothing as she continued. And I’m glad I carried it.

  Perhaps in time Sedarias will be—but what you see now is a direct consequence of that hope.

  Mandoran hasn’t—

  No. But if you truly understood her fear, you would know that it is the lens through which she views her world. She has been waiting for this.

  Kaylin didn’t argue. Didn’t feel she could. But Terrano had seemed resigned, not surprised. Worried, not terrified. Perhaps they could do this.

  But do what, exactly? Get her attention? Return her to normal? Force the cohort to hug and make up? She rolled her eyes hard enough she should have sprained them.

  She didn’t understand the cohort. Knowing True Names hadn’t given her much insight, either. Every person whose True Name she knew was separate from her; they lived their own lives, they had their own responsibilities. She used the connection the way other people used mirrors: to reach out and speak to someone who wasn’t immediately present.

  That was how it had started with the cohort; had they not been exposed to the regalia in their childhood, that’s probably how it would have remained, until and unless one of the twelve attempted to assert control over the others. Sedarias would have been her bet, for that.

  But the attempt to exert control wasn’t control.

  Severn had tried it with Kaylin. Once. And then he hadn’t spoken a word to her for weeks, as if the attempt—which she understood—destroyed any worth, value or self-respect he had. It had bothered her far less than it had bothered him, and in theory, she was the one who was affected by it.

  And maybe this was like that: Sedarias had instinctively reached out to grab control, to force behaviors that she felt were in the cohort’s best interests. It felt more wrong, to Kaylin.

  Severn tensed; his arms tightened briefly. Because it’s “only” you, in your own mind. You don’t ever think that should be done to someone else.

  Not true. I can think of a lot of people I’d love to have taken over by people I actually trust. But she knew what he meant, or how he meant it. And if she had been willing to both accept and forget, why shouldn’t the cohort do the same?

  Sedarias was part of them. Like...part of their thoughts, their way of thinking. Never separate. As prisoners in the Hallionne, they couldn’t be said to have had their own lives; only Teela did, and that was because she’d had no other choice.

  But they were free, now.

  Serralyn and Valliant were part of the Academia. Teela was An’Teela and a corporal of the Hawks. Terrano was...Terrano. That left Mandoran, Annarion, Allaron, Fallessian, Torrisant and Karian, the three who almost never spoke or interacted with any of the cohort except each other. And Eddorian, who had elected to remain with his brother in the Hallionne, but who was nonetheless aware of what his chosen family were doing.

  At least one of the banners had belonged to Reymar, Karian’s family. Even if they interacted with no outsiders—except Helen—they had their own opinions and beliefs. And one had been Gennave’s, which was Eddorian’s; Eddorian, whose brother, like Nightshade, had searched for him. For him and power, and it was the latter that had gutted his mind.

  What would she do if part of her mind ros
e against the rest of her?

  How could she bring it back to normal? What was “normal” for the cohort and for Sedarias as part of it?

  There, Hope said, an interruption she was almost grateful for. “Can you see it, unaided? There is a storm in the distance.”

  Kaylin squinted. She then elbowed Severn rather than saying no.

  Severn was silent for a long beat, as Hope began to pick up speed. “It’s Sedarias,” he said, voice flat. “Sedarias and Mandoran.”

  16

  What is the shape of Sedarias’s fear? Hope asked as he tensed beneath her.

  The answer seemed clear: the battlefield, and beneath it, the barren, rocky emptiness—through which water still flowed.

  Yes. And?

  But there was no necessary and. Kaylin understood, before Sedarias became visible to her eyes, what the shape of her fear was; she understood it because she had lived it and passed—mostly—through it. It wasn’t the fear of isolation; it wasn’t the fear of betrayal, although Ynpharion hadn’t been wrong.

  It was the certain sense that this was the only home of which she was worthy. This is what she deserved. The others? No. Even Terrano with his obsessions about the new and different had a spark of life or joy—ah, that word: joy.

  Barren rock and the detritus of battle was what Sedarias had.

  “Terrano!”

  “I’m kind of busy,” Terrano, disembodied, replied.

  “How much control do you have over this space?”

  “What? Me? I told you—it’s Sedarias’s space. It’s her.”

  But Kaylin shook her head. “All of you are part of it. All of you. She’s angry right now. I get that. But you’re part of her space. You’ve got as much right to control it as—as she does.”

  “Dangerous and stupid at the same time. Well done.”

  “I mean it!”

  “Obviously. It’s not that simple. There are things Sedarias can do that we can all forgive because we’ve seen her and we know who she is. But there are things she’ll never forgive.”

  “Does she hate Alsanis?”

  “What?”

  “Does she hate the Hallionne Alsanis?”

  “I know who Alsanis is. I can’t even make sense of the question. Maybe try it in Barrani?”

  “I need you all to do something.”

  “To do what?” The skies, as they approached, were a vivid green-gray; the clouds had rolled across a clear, blue sky.

  “To change the shape of this place. She’s afraid—this is about one fear. We need to remind her—”

  He laughed, the sound both reckless and wild. “What in the hells do you think we’ve been doing?”

  Kaylin lifted her arms; the marks had lifted themselves off her skin, surrounded it in a moving nimbus of light. Terrano understood. Which was frustrating, because once again, Kaylin didn’t.

  “I like Sedarias,” she said, and she felt the base of her throat swell, as if the words were song. “I want to smack her, but I want to smack Mandoran most days. And you,” she added.

  “I won’t feel left out if you don’t.”

  “I don’t know all of you. But I’ve liked all of you. I think I envied what you’ve built, what you’ve made—because I saw the outside of it. Until yesterday. Until today. I didn’t understand that it’s work, right?” The light her marks shed was blue, not gold. “But I love Helen. She’s my home. Sedarias can’t keep doing this to Helen.”

  Terrano didn’t argue.

  Helen remained silent. But Helen was doing something incredibly important for both Sedarias and cohort, and Severn.

  “Hope,” she said, “drop me in the middle of the storm.”

  * * *

  There is a danger, Hope said.

  “You think?”

  You don’t understand the nature of the danger, Hope replied.

  “Is this something you could do in my place without killing Severn?” Severn was the only thing here that might serve as a sacrifice—and Kaylin would die first.

  I cannot do it at all, Chosen, he replied, with a great and almost distant dignity. Get ready. I will drop you as you’ve requested, but I will need to be closer if you wish to survive it.

  “This isn’t reality.”

  Is it not? For Sedarias at the moment it is the only reality. It is a reality that is not mine, Chosen. It is yours and hers. It is the province of the living.

  “Wait—what do you mean?”

  But Hope had reached the height of the storm. He turned over, and Kaylin fell. So did Severn.

  * * *

  The heart of the storm was, from Kaylin’s vantage, a long way down.

  “What are you doing?” Terrano practically screamed. His voice wasn’t directly beside her ear, but she caught a lot of colorful Leontine regardless.

  She reached instinctively for Severn as she fell—whether to anchor herself or to somehow save him, she couldn’t say—but Severn was beyond her. Above her. And she could see Terrano’s hands beneath her partner’s arms. Severn was safe, for the moment.

  Kaylin herself was victim to gravity. The marks on her arms provided no aerial buoyancy; she plunged toward the two people she could easily see: Sedarias and Mandoran. They both looked up as she approached at growing speed.

  It was Sedarias who gestured, not Mandoran; Mandoran shouted in the same disgusted astonishment as Terrano. Kaylin’s descent slowed as she approached Sedarias; she could see the color of the Barrani woman’s eyes. They were obsidian with flecks of color, like black opals, a gem Kaylin had never liked: too hard, too much like the Shadows that threatened to destroy the city.

  Sedarias’s expression rippled as Kaylin continued to fall; her focus—which had been on Mandoran—shifted slowly, as if she were struggling to move the entirety of her enraged and bereaved attention to where it needed to be.

  And where it needed to be, Kaylin thought, was where they all wanted it to be: on Kaylin, and on Kaylin’s immediate survival. The rest of the conflict could wait the few seconds it would take to decide Kaylin’s fate.

  The leader of the cohort lifted her arms, opening them; Mandoran, facing her, did the same. Kaylin could not recall why she had thought this was a good idea; she had intended for Hope to land.

  As it was, the landing was going to be hers. She prayed that Terrano had managed to prevent Severn’s unintentional landing, but had no time to think anything else; she fell into Sedarias’s outstretched arms.

  And fell through them.

  * * *

  She didn’t hit stone. Beneath Sedarias’s feet—and beneath Mandoran’s—there had been nothing but rock. There was no rock where Kaylin landed, if landing was even the right word. She looked down; there was nothing beneath her feet. But what she couldn’t see was solid. Solid, dark, far less unforgiving than the rocks.

  “You shouldn’t be here, dear,” Helen said, her voice disembodied.

  “Where is here?”

  Her home didn’t answer.

  “Are you an idiot?”

  Kaylin turned in the direction of the voice. As she did she saw light: her marks. In the darkness they were the only thing she could see. “Often,” she replied.

  “It’s no wonder Teela worries about you so much—you have a death wish. What were you thinking?”

  Kaylin shrugged as the voice drew closer. “You really want to know?”

  “I asked, didn’t I?” Sedarias’s voice was a rumble encased by sharp edges.

  “I was thinking that Mandoran might need some help.”

  She could hear a second intake of breath, sharp but different from Sedarias’s.

  “Mandoran? You think Mandoran needs help?”

  “She’s really not as bright as she wants to be,” Mandoran said. He coalesced in this darkness, shining faintly. Sedarias could still not be seen. To Kaylin, bro
w folded, he said, “Seriously, what were you thinking? You can’t honestly imagine Sedarias would hurt me?”

  “You’re not a patch on Sedarias. She’s powerful and martial. I wouldn’t worry if it was Bellusdeo; Bellusdeo could hold her own.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “I could,” Sedarias snapped, appearing at last, as Mandoran did. She was about three feet taller, and she looked down—and down again—to see both her chosen brother and her landlord.

  “Could what?”

  “I could have handled the Dragon.”

  “I handled the Dragon.”

  If a storm cloud had dropped lightning bolts without warning, Kaylin wouldn’t have been surprised.

  “Seriously,” Terrano said, appearing—as they appeared—in the darkness. He glanced at Kaylin’s arms, frowning. “None of us should have made any attempt to—as you put it—handle the Dragon.”

  “She needed help, though,” Serralyn said. Serralyn, who was in the Academia with Valliant.

  “If she can’t pass the Tower’s test, that’s to our benefit.” To Kaylin’s surprise, it was Torrisant who spoke.

  “It’s only to our benefit if any of us can pass the test.” Mandoran again. Kaylin wondered, then, why she’d come here at all, but the marks continued to glow, the blue depths of their heart giving way to gold.

  “What did you do with Severn?”

  “What you should have done in the first place,” Terrano replied, although he didn’t look away from Sedarias. “He’s safe with Helen. Probably eating too, given the way she was fussing. You can’t just drag him into everything—he’s not suited to it.”

  “I didn’t realize we were about to enter someplace dangerous. It’s Helen.”

  “Well, now you know.”

  “I’m kind of hoping this never happens again.”

  “And I was kind of hoping that Allasarre was dead, buried and forgotten. We don’t always get what we want.”

  “We can get that,” Sedarias snapped. Her eyes, still opal-like, were flashing, her translucent hands becoming fists. She was shaking, and the shaking seemed to make her body far less solid, less well-defined.