it of Helmat, he will want to know why. But you are on probation; I am not certain he will grant it without justification. Why do you wish to visit? This is not the usual reaction to an encounter with the Tha’alani.”
The ghost of a smile played across the boy’s lips. “Ybelline isn’t the usual interrogator sent by the Imperial Service, either.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Helmat was, if not happy to see Severn, not annoyed, either. He had questions to ask, and while Elluvian could answer many of them, it was not Elluvian’s answers Helmat desired. Severn was not gregarious; he was not, in the way Darrell had been, charismatic or charming. His silence, however, was not a silence of reticence or fear. It simply was.
“Rosen says that you have requested permission to visit the Tha’alani quarters.”
Severn nodded.
“Why?”
“I wish to speak with Ybelline.”
“To what end?”
Silence again, but this was the silence of thought. Severn knew why he wanted to go; he wished to express this in the clearest way possible.
“Twenty years ago, ten of the Tha’alani were murdered. They were killed by a crowd of humans.”
Helmat nodded grimly.
“It has only recently come to light that at the back of the crowd, keeping his hands clean, was a Barrani man.”
The Wolflord nodded again.
Severn exhaled. “The Tha’alani memories are part of the group mind. The deaths would have been recorded in the Tha’alaan.”
“Not those deaths,” the Wolflord said. “The Tha’alanari have the ability to keep such memories separate from most of their kind.”
“But the Tha’alanari will know.”
Helmat nodded.
“Had the victims witnessed the Barrani man, he would be part of those memories. He has never been mentioned in any of our legal Records.”
Helmat was almost surprised. “You’ve accessed Records?”
“With Elluvian’s permission. And,” he added, before Helmat could draw breath, “with Rosen’s. It was her mirror.” This last was said almost apologetically. “It was only the awareness of one of the perpetrators that brought the Barrani connection to light.”
Helmat nodded again, folding his hands atop his desk as he stared intently at Severn’s face, at his expression. “Go on.”
“The Barrani man must have stood well away from the crowd—and well away from the victim—for his presence to remain undetected.” When Helmat did not interrupt, Severn continued. “This implies that the Barrani man in question understood the limits of the Tha’alani perception.” Now he hesitated.
“Most of my recruits want nothing to do with the Tha’alani again. They are considered a necessary evil, a condition of employ. Why are you different?”
“Ybelline,” he replied, the single word unadorned, it was so neutral. Seeing that this was not quite enough of an answer, he fell silent for three beats. “She has seen the worst that I have done. The worst I’ve ever been. And she accepted that completely. How could I be afraid that she would somehow ferret out other secrets?”
“I’m sure you’ve been told this before,” Helmat said. “But you are a strange young man.”
His brief smile illuminated the lines of his face, the warmth of his eyes.
“What do you hope Ybelline can tell you?”
The warmth ebbed away, replaced by intent, focus, the folding of a brow too youthful to retain those lines, as Helmat’s brow now did. “All of the murders happened within a small period of mortal time. Our time, or the Tha’alani’s. The deaths caused extreme difficulty for the Tha’alani—because the memories of the murder, the hatred, the fear and the pain of the dying, are imprinted within all the rest of the memories.”
“Yes.”
“The Emperor wasn’t able to protect the Tha’alani from this scar.”
“That is perceptive.”
“I would want to,” Severn replied. “If I were the Emperor. And the guilt would—” He swallowed. He had some experience with the scars guilt left. “Sorry. The murders happened around the same time period. A Barrani man likely orchestrated the deaths. Most of us fear the Tha’alani, and it’s easy to manipulate people who fear.
“But the Barrani don’t interact with the Tha’alani. If someone Barrani was behind this, there must be a reason for it.”
“And what do you now suspect?”
“That somewhere around the same time—twenty years ago, maybe twenty-one—someone Barrani did interact with the Tha’alani.”
“The Tha’alani would not willingly touch an Immortal. While it is not strictly speaking illegal for such contact to be made, no member of the Tha’alanari would condone it.”
“So Records say. It would require Imperial permission—if the Tha’alani in question were a member of the Tha’alanari, the organization that serves the Emperor directly. The laws of exemption, in the case of the Tha’alani, make clear that—”
Helmat, who