“So...the cohort sent one message and they’re gone?”
“Yes.”
“Are they still alive?”
Mandoran was looking slightly stretched. Annarion, however, was looking entirely like his usual self.
Again, it was Teela who answered. “Yes. If Nightshade died, you would know. We know they are still alive. But that’s all we know.” She let the silence stretch again before she said, “I’ve lived most of my life without contact with my cohort.”
“But...you knew they were alive.”
“I knew they were not dead. But I knew, as well, that they were beyond my reach. I could not hear them. They could not hear me. I assume this was the Hallionne’s decision, but have never asked. I am not Tha’alani. I am Barrani. My life, my existence and my sanity are not predicated on my connection to the thoughts of others. There is a natural expectation of silence.
“Annarion and Mandoran don’t have that. The centuries I spent in the natural silence of my interior thoughts, they spent in constant communication.” She hesitated, glanced at Annarion and Mandoran, and then continued. “I am not sure they would have remained sane, otherwise. Terrano was the most...adventurous...of all of us. I haven’t heard his thoughts since their return to us—but neither have they.”
Terrano was the lone member of that long ago cohort who had had no desire to return to his kin. He had not reclaimed the name that had been his from just after his birth, and the names themselves were the binding that held the cohort together.
“Are you afraid that he came back for them?”
Mandoran snorted. “No. Look, he wanted—for us—what we wanted for ourselves. And we wanted, for him, what he wanted for himself. There’s no way he would come back, attack them, and carry them off. There’s a small chance that he approached them and attempted to convince them they’d be happier where he is now—but the rest of us would know.”
“Fine. What did they see?”
Silence.
“Teela?” When Teela failed to answer, Kaylin turned to her House, figuratively speaking. “Helen.” Her voice was flat; there was no wheedling in it. “What did the boys see?”
“They have been trying,” Helen replied, “to describe it.”
“They can’t. You can.”
“I can describe it to them, yes. It is not a matter of privacy, Kaylin. It is a matter of words, of experience. Something happened. The cohort have been learning from Mandoran and Annarion. They have been practicing to live outside of the Hallionne. But they have had less practice and less contact with people like you. The closest analogue is Teela, but it is hard for them to think like Teela, because to do so, they have to experience only a narrow range of their existence.
“It is like trying to pour the contents of a pitcher into one glass. For you, it is natural; you understand how quickly water flows. You understand when to stop pouring. They are attempting to do what you naturally do when they can see neither the pitcher nor the glass.”
Kaylin turned to Mandoran. She poked her familiar. Her familiar squawked and squawked again, like an angry bird.
“It is not that you would not see what happened were you there,” Helen said, after a pause. “You would. But you would not see it as they saw it. You would not understand it as they might.”
“If I try to stab Mandoran right now and you don’t attempt to stop me, he’s going to see it the way I see it.”
“Yes.”
It was Annarion who said, “No.”
“Did someone try to stab them?”
It was Teela who said, “I think so, figuratively speaking.” At Kaylin’s expression, she added, “Just because you can see what someone else is seeing doesn’t mean that it makes more sense. I haven’t had the experiences the rest of my cohort has had. I have had more experience with the arcane arts that are confined to the reality I perceive. I believe, if you were to venture to the location in which they disappeared, you would find obvious—and large—traces of magical aftershocks.
“It is possible that those aftershocks exist for perfectly understandable and harmless reasons—”
“But not bloody likely.”
“Not in my opinion, no.”
Kaylin opened her mouth. Before words came out, Helen said, “I believe Lord Nightshade has arrived.”
Annarion said nothing. Mandoran, however, said a lot. In Leontine.
* * *
By this time, everyone was more or less “stable” as Helen called it, and she ushered them all into the parlor. Kaylin would have preferred the dining room, but Helen chose to ignore those preferences, probably because Nightshade was involved.
Moran was not in residence, which was the one silver lining of the evening. The last thing Moran needed was the political infighting of an entirely different caste court, given her current position.
Everyone else, however, was in the parlor. Mandoran had attempted to have Bellusdeo excluded, but Helen vetoed it, and Kaylin—who really didn’t want to put the Dragon at risk—hadn’t the heart to agree with Mandoran. Bellusdeo was more likely to survive extreme danger than Kaylin herself.
Nightshade appeared composed and almost casual. He also looked like he’d gotten sleep. While she knew the Barrani didn’t require sleep, every other Barrani in the room, Tain included, looked like they needed about a week of it. She was certain she didn’t look any better.
“Not really, dear,” Helen said.
Severn was the only regular who wasn’t in attendance.
Annarion’s bow, when offered to his brother, was stiff and overly formal, which was not lost on Nightshade. Since the brothers had had almost two weeks of relative peace, Kaylin had hoped that this meant arguments were behind them. But no, of course not. The issues that had caused the argument hadn’t been resolved.
The attempt, on Annarion’s part, to resolve them had become the point of contention, widening the conflict to encompass everyone else.
Helen offered drinks to everyone present. Teela and Tain immediately accepted. They didn’t ask for water. Kaylin, who already had a headache, decided that alcohol wasn’t going to make it any better, but Mandoran followed the Barrani Hawks’ lead. Annarion and Nightshade did not.
“Kaylin has told me some of what has occurred.”
This wasn’t entirely accurate, but Kaylin let it go. What mattered right at this particular moment was the cohort. All of it.
Annarion was silent. Teela, however, took the reins of the conversation, such as it was. She had always been a reckless driver—no one with any experience in the Hawks let her drive anything if they had to be a passenger—but she steered this particular conversation with ease. Probably because it was short and the Barrani were good at implying things without actually using the words.
“But they were not in the Hallionne?” Nightshade asked, when it was clear Teela had finished.
Mandoran answered. “No. They were in transit to Hallionne Orbaranne, on the portal paths.”
Annarion did not glance at his brother, but it wasn’t required. Kaylin suspected it was Annarion who was directing the conversation because Mandoran spoke High Barrani, and he spoke it politely and perfectly.
Nightshade considered them all. “Lord Bellusdeo,” he finally said.
She was orange-eyed and regal as she nodded. Teela’s eyes were blue; Tain’s eyes were blue. They were seldom any other color in