do so.”
“He did not, when he was the private’s age. And I would say he does not now—but he understands that they are bound to us by necessity, not desire. His experience has shown him that the Tha’alani use nothing they have gathered in their investigations; that the secrets they unearth remain otherwise buried.
“Regardless, he did not have the private’s reaction.”
“This worries you?”
“Private Handred came here at his own request; Helmat did not gainsay it. But it appears—to me—that he dared the Dragon in his den, quite literally, because he was worried for the Tha’alani.”
The Emperor’s eyes lost their orange tint as his gaze met, and held, Elluvian’s. “Yes,” he said.
“He cannot imagine that he can protect the Tha’alani from you?”
“He can. He is young. But it is the desire to protect that moves him to take risks, to make choices, to dare even the anger of Dragons. And I confess that I am moved by his faith, his trust, in his Emperor.”
“Were it not for your demands, the Tha’alani would not require that protection.”
“Yes. It is surprising that the boy can have that faith in me, given the circumstances.”
“You would have buried this case, regardless.”
“Yes. He was not the only person to approach me in regard to this particular investigation.”
“He was simply the least significant?”
“Hierarchically, yes, as you must guess. He does not understand the protocols involved with an Imperial audience.”
“Granting him this audience is unlikely to teach him anything about correct protocol.”
“Do you understand why the audience was granted?”
“Your curiosity.”
“That was part of my decision, yes.”
Elluvian understood that he was to be frustrated. But this was expected when dealing with Dariandaros. Frustration, and a series of small failures that might extend into the future forever. Still, something in this private, this Severn Handred, was somehow what Dariandaros desired of his Wolves. Perhaps there was something for the lone Barrani Wolf to learn as well.
* * *
In the quiet of her rooms in the High Halls, An’Tellarus had chosen to revisit the run-down, almost unsightly room she had built over a decade ago. She looked at the books she’d collected—unenchanted, all—that suited the interior of this place with their bent corners, their fraying covers, their faded pages.
The table, scored and dinged, sat before a couch that had long since ceased to be of use. Nonetheless, she sat, a book in hand. On the table’s surface were a top, a quill, and a dagger that was more likely to cause disease than serious injury.
She waited. She was not the most patient of people on a normal day; she had enough personal power that waiting was not generally required. This had not always been the case, and today, while she exercised the patience she had all but outgrown, she considered this with care.
She, too, had been young once. She had survived it.
She doubted that she would have, had she been forced to live those early years in the crushing confines of the High Halls, with its infinitely complex politics. She had not. She had survived her youth because she had been raised in the West March. There, she had divided her time between the family of her birth and the haven of Alsanis.
That Hallionne had fallen silent, had closed his doors to all visitors. Alsanis had turned the whole of his attention inward, to the guests he now harbored against their will. He had become a jail. Even his dreams—the great birds that circled the West March—had become warped, their flight halting, with the passage of centuries.
In the youth of An’Tellarus, the dreams of the young were planted; they flourished in the lee of the wars that defined so many. She remembered the Dragon Flights, and the Barrani companies sent to stand against them. She remembered the burning desire to prove herself worthy to bear one of The Three.
That dream had long since died. An’Teela held one; Calarnenne the other. The third was in the hands of the High Lord’s family; she had never seen that sword in the High Lord’s hand, and wondered if he could wield it. But she could not. Kariannos, the sword that An’Teela now claimed, was the only one of The Three she had touched.
It had not killed her.
It had come close.
That had been a bitter disappointment. It had taken decades to recover from the shock and the sense of permanent loss. But recovery—for those who survived—was the way of her kin. And perhaps it had been for the best. Only one weapon of significance now