The Emperor's Wolves (Wolves of Elantra #1) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,113
light, the gray seemed stronger. Expression of any kind had fallen away from her face, banished until she caught Severn looking at her, as if seeking her guidance.
Her lips pursed; she shook her head without shifting her gaze, the movement so minimal he’d have missed it had she not been looking right at him. Her eyes darted, once, to the side; she didn’t speak a word otherwise.
He understood.
Severn was on probation. Helmat was the Wolflord, Elluvian the only Barrani to serve the Wolves, and Ybelline was the future castelord of the Tha’alani. No one was paying Rosen enough to interfere with things that were none of her business.
Her pointed, silent direction—to Elluvian’s currently unoccupied office—made clear that no one was paying Severn enough, either.
Severn understood. But Ybelline was almost at the end of whatever patience had kept her on her feet so far, and she wouldn’t be here—at all—were it not for Imperial demands made of the Tha’alani. He wasn’t concerned for Elluvian, nor was he worried for the Wolves or their lord.
He met Rosen’s gaze, grimaced slightly, and nodded. He then turned to the three people who might stand for a while in front of Rosen’s desk at an impasse, and shifted the straps on his shoulder just enough to catch their attention.
Elluvian’s eyes were blue, Ybelline’s green. Helmat’s expression was grim. Severn bowed his head for a brief moment, and then walked past them all to Elluvian’s office. He hadn’t yet decided how much of Random’s work he wanted to share. Not the sketch of Elianne.
She was looking at you.
* * *
Elluvian didn’t join them in the office that was theoretically his, but it had become clear to Severn that the Barrani Wolf was seldom there. Severn sat; Ybelline pulled the second chair the office contained toward his, facing him, her knees pressed against his. He set the pack on the floor to one side of the chair and held out his hands—just as he had done earlier—both palms up and open.
She lowered her chin, her hands pressed so tightly into her lap they were edged in white, her eyes closed.
He waited. He wanted to withdraw his hands, to let her leave. But the information would leave with her. The Wolves needed that information.
She knew. She lifted her hands and placed them across Severn’s; her fingers were tense, almost viselike. He waited. He was willing to wait the hours necessary for Ybelline to gather her thoughts, to armor herself. He even understood why that armor was necessary.
“Thank you,” she said, and he realized that she had touched his forehead so gently he had barely been aware of it given the tightness of her grip. There is too much of this that is—that must be—only for the caste court.
Mortals and Barrani were involved in the murders of your people. There’s no caste court exemption in such deaths.
No. But there is much that is not death—not murder, that is. This will not be the same style of interview that you have experienced with me before. Ask your questions. I will answer them. But I will answer them as if it were only with voices that we speak.
Could she even do that?
Yes. The answer was hesitant, uncertain. Yes, because I have to be able to do this. I have to be able to both touch your thoughts, your mind, and shelter my own almost completely. I have managed something similar with my own kin.
And it was killing her, he thought. The Tha’alani were not a people who had many secrets; they lived in a state where secrets weren’t necessary. But she was Tha’alanari, and the Tha’alanari were chosen because they could. What it did to them, what it made of them, they accepted.
Severn hated it. And accepted it. And waited.
Your questions?
He nodded. Sennarin.
* * *
Sennarin—An’Sennarin—has ruled his court for only a few decades.
Those decades occurred after the murders or before?
Silence. Severn waited.
During, she finally said, as if she had been reviewing the information she held to derive an answer.
Is he Ollarin? Or was he?
It is not a name by which the Imperial Service knew him.
Did they know him by a different name before he became An’Sennarin?
Is it relevant?
We don’t know what’s relevant, Severn replied.
She nodded without moving at all; it was a strange sensation. Before his ascension, he was Ollarin, I believe. He was not the direct heir at the time of the previous lord’s death; he was a cousin.