The Emperor's Wolves (Wolves of Elantra #1) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,158

even from the Tha’alanari. When it was too much to bear in isolation, he reached out to me—to a Barrani Lord, raised to games in which murder is an acceptable move. Nothing he spoke of could damage me. Nothing he spoke of could break me. I knew what the witness testimony, verified by the Tha’alani, would do to the Tha’alaan. I made the decision to kill.”

“He provided you the names.”

“He could not hold them back,” An’Sennarin said with a smile. “That is the thing that is not clear to those who have neither given nor taken a True Name. It is not a one-way exchange. I am far better equipped to hide my thoughts from him now than I was on that long-ago day. And it pains him greatly to attempt to exert control; he suffers even now with the guilt of it.

“If you use my name, as Adellos did, you will discover that weakness as well. I will not fight you,” he added, voice softer. “I know that you know it, or can know it, or will know it—you will be castelord. But Adellos has held that name and that knowledge separate from the Tha’alaan. And the water understands; I do not believe she will release it without his permission.

“I would not have become An’Sennarin were it not, in the end, for Tessa and the Tha’alaan. I would give it all back were she to survive. But as An’Sennarin I could end the deaths. As An’Sennarin I could destroy the parts of Sennarin that had allowed the murders to be orchestrated. I could end all threat from my line—and any lesser family—only as ruler.

“The murder of kin, the assassinations of kin, will not trouble the Emperor at all.”

“The witnesses were not Barrani.”

“No. I will be a Barrani Lord accused of a crime that cannot be dismissed by the laws of exemption. It is my death that will end the investigation, if you carry it through to its logical conclusion.

“And I will not walk to that death now—although there is nothing you can take from my thoughts and my experience that does not already exist somewhere in the Tha’alaan. But it is my kin, not yours, who will perish before I eventually fall, and my kin have done nothing but harm to yours. There will, perhaps, be some poetic justice in my death.”

“Is that what you’ve waited for? Your death?”

“Justice. I am, at heart, a coward.”

Severn understood, then, why Elluvian and An’Tellarus had been sent from the room.

“A coward?”

“Death would have been a blessing, but I did not have the strength or courage to end my own life. The lives of others, yes. But not my own.”

Ybelline opened her mouth; Severn lifted a hand. She closed her mouth on whatever she had been about to say. It was Severn who spoke. “Why did you visit the Oracular Halls?”

“I wished to meet Random. Tessa spoke of her often.”

“Were you the Barrani Lord who attempted to visit her recently?”

An’Sennarin frowned. “No. I visited her but once when I had some hope remaining.”

“What did you ask her?”

“I did not ask her anything.”

“Oracles—”

“I did not ask her anything because Tessa had asked nothing,” he said. He closed his eyes. “I wanted to save them. I was afraid by then. I had told Tessa, clearly, that the only way we could safely meet was through the bond of my name. I thought the suspicion would pass. I had time.

“She didn’t. I was allowed to visit Random because Random asked it. She did not know my name; did not know that what she had given Tessa in the privacy of the Tha’alaan was my name. I don’t think she understands it now, although she is older. You have visited her?”

Severn nodded.

“What did you ask of her?”

“We had no intention of receiving an oracle, either. Random was a person of interest in our investigation. We wanted to ask about Tessa and her friends. No memory of the oracle given Tessa on her first visit remained in the Tha’alaan. It remained with Random, and she wanted, I think, to tell someone. Random had no fear of the Tha’alani. No fear of Ybelline.”

“You would have known, eventually,” An’Sennarin said.

“The Imperial Service is not willing to wait when other options are available.”

“And will you inform the Imperial Service?”

“In this? It is not required. I have been seconded to the Wolves.”

He smiled. After a pause, so did Ybelline. “I do not have what Adellos has sequestered from even the Tha’alanari. I