The Emperor's Wolves (Wolves of Elantra #1) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,72

the rest of the city. In construction it was similar; the Tha’alani must eat and trade, and roads were considered necessary to support the wagons that would deliver goods—if those wagons were allowed entry.

But to the side of the road were grassy mounds, with doors and windows built into their sides. The day was warm, the sky clear, and Tha’alani children, antennae weaving frenetically through empty air, were staring at him, wide-eyed and curious.

Nor did their guardians tell them to stop. Or not most of the guardians. One or two lifted the children from the ground and stared at Severn as if he were a rabid dog. Only one or two. The fact that he walked beside one of their kin was probably the only thing that stopped them from running through a door and bolting it behind them.

That, and the wonder of the children.

“If they have access to all of the same memories, why are some of your people not afraid?”

“That is a question I have already answered, even if you don’t understand it. Some will be afraid, because they have tasted the results of human fear, and it is scarring. It is,” he added softly, “the thing we most fear, and the reason, in the end, the Tha’alanari was created at all. Not every Tha’alani can serve as the Tha’alanari do; those who might are vetted very early, and observed.

“It can drive a man mad to witness—to participate in—the fears of your kin. The hatreds. The desires. The pain. The terrible isolation. Some, however, do not lose themselves to it, and will not lose themselves to it. We understand what the cost of that would be. These children,” he said, without glancing back, “stare at you in open wonder and curiosity. One has just asked his grandmother if you are, I’m sorry, crippled or defective.” This did not remove the smile from Scoros’s face.

Nor did it remove the smile from Severn’s.

“They were chided for the question. They are now asking why your eyes don’t change color. Humans, for the very young, are almost mythical creatures.”

“So are the Tha’alani, to my kind.”

“Yes—but we are terrifying and demonic in your myths.”

“And humans?”

“Just people.”

* * *

As they reached a bend in the road—a curve rather than an intersection—Severn could see children, older children, ahead. The Tha’alani had clearly heard about his visit. They could look at him through the eyes of others, or at least this was what was believed, yet they still desired their own individual experience.

One or two of the faces seemed normal, to him. He realized that they seemed normal because they were shadowed; they hadn’t come to witness his passage because they were curious, but rather, because they were afraid. They were facing that fear by standing in the road.

He wondered if they had been urged to face their fears by the voices of an entire quarter—and wondered, as well, if those voices were gentle, chiding, or demanding. He didn’t know. He couldn’t hear them. What must it be like to grow up with a constant chorus of critics on the inside of one’s head? What must it be like to have no privacy, ever?

Would one expect privacy? Would one desire it?

But the presence of the children who seemed to be standing in the shadow of fear made clear to him the truth of Scoros’s words. The Tha’alani were individuals. They were not of one mind or one singular belief. They had the freedom to think, and feel, their individual thoughts and emotions.

Which made Ybelline not an extension of her people, but simply Ybelline. When he spoke to her, he didn’t speak to every living Tha’alani. Every living Tha’alani might hear, but they might not. Ybelline was of the Tha’alanari—the subset of Tha’alani that could, and did, keep their thoughts and experiences to themselves, not from a desire for privacy or secrecy, but from a desire to protect the children in these streets from the weight of, the knowledge of, the worst possible fringes of society.

Protect them, and they will grow in ignorance.

Who had said that? He shook his head; the words remained in memory, but the context was far enough in the past that he could not see the speaker. The Barrani forgot nothing. The Tha’alani deposited the whole of their lived experience into the Tha’alaan. They had ways of remembering that Severn didn’t.

Ybelline’s investigation of his past had forced him to relive it. The memories that had not had a chance to fade or lessen