hands. He might have attempted to offer comfort; the Tha’alani had seen, long ago, the worst of what he had been in this life, and he was not that youth anymore. He was not afraid of her.
“And is regret absolute? One thing or the other? You are Tha’alani. You know that that is not the case. Even among your kin—”
She lifted her chin. Her eyes were green. Ybelline. Green. Helmat almost ended the meeting for the day and allowed her to come again tomorrow or the day after, as she had threatened. “Helmat, you regret what I suffer. You wish, somehow, to protect me. I am the strongest of my kin. You know—intellectually—that my people share experiences. What happens to one is open to all, with very few exceptions. Garadin’s pain, you do not regret. Or Draalzyn’s. Timorri’s. Any of my kin who have been broken, in the end, by the terrible secrecy of the madness of murderers. What you fail to understand is that their pain is my pain. I am part of that secrecy.
“Could I, I would do it all myself, and share none of it. You wish to wait for another member of the Tha’alanari. You think that will spare me. It does not, and it never will. Do not worry for me,” she told him, as if she could read his thoughts without touching his forehead or his skin. “I will find it far easier than Garadin. Had I been allowed to substitute myself for Timorri, we would not have lost him.”
“You will not be a good leader,” he told her softly, refuting none of her statements, “if you cannot delegate. You will not be a good leader if you cannot accept the losses that come as a natural part of your responsibility.”
“Then I will be a terrible leader,” she replied. “But that terrible leader is the leader my people need. Be what your people need of you, but keep your concern on the inside of your head, where no one else can hear it, no matter how desperate—” She swallowed.
“Ybelline, I ask you not to do this.”
She shook her head.
“You know what Timorri saw.”
“I am—Yes. Yes, I saw.”
“It was necessary,” Garadin said from the wall. “Had she not intervened, we would have lost at least two, maybe three more. You do not understand her strength,” he continued. “But perhaps you now better understand my fear.”
Helmat ignored Garadin, which was almost second nature. “You contained it.”
She nodded again.
“We are not doing this today.”
“It will help me,” Ybelline said softly. “Unless this young man is a similar monstrosity of fear and rage and pain, unless he is—” She shook her head. “It will help me today.”
“Why?”
“Because it will remind me, Helmat, that darkness does not always lead to madness and pain and death. No.” She exhaled. “It will remind me that there is a need for what you—for what we—do.” When Helmat did not budge, she added, “It will anchor me.”
The Lord of Wolves moved out of her way. “It is not,” he said when she moved past him, “a lie. I regret it, Ybelline. My regret comes in part from my duties, my life choices. I want, and wanted, to protect.”
“The weak and helpless,” she said, but did not look back.
“And would it be better, then, to have no such desire at all?”
She exhaled. Back to him, she said, “No. Tomorrow, perhaps the day after, we might revisit this. But at the moment, my desire to protect my people is too painful. Were it not for the Imperial Service—” and here she skirted treason “—they would not require that protection. What life itself offers—”
“We work for all of the citizens of Elantra.”
“Helmat—”
“Do you think I don’t understand? Ybelline, I command the Shadow Wolves. It is my responsibility to find and train them. How long do you think most of them last?” He was getting old; he couldn’t let it go. “Were it not for the Tha’alanari, the Shadow Wolves would not exist. We could not do what we do without the certainty your people give us. We could not keep the Wolves leashed; could not give them the certain knowledge that what they do is for the better. All of our efforts would produce well-trained, deadly assassins, and in the end, too many of them would serve their own interests.”
“It is not the same,” she replied. “No human is forced to become one of your Wolves. No Barrani, either. The Emperor has not threatened to reduce