Page 118 of Cast in Conflict

“I have not attempted to hurt Helen.”

“No. But the thing is, you don’t have to try to hurt her. Sometimes you can hurt people without even being aware they’re there. We call that collateral damage. But intent doesn’t cut it. What’s damaged is damaged. I didn’t mean to doesn’t count as a legal defense.”

“And you are here as a representative of Imperial Law?”

Kaylin exhaled. “No. No, and you know it.”

“You brought up law.”

She had. “Why didn’t you build this place instead?”

“Instead? It’s always here.” Sedarias looked away for the first time. “It’s always here but I cannot always reach it.”

Kaylin closed her eyes.

“You don’t have spaces like this one. You could; Helen would allow it. But you don’t. You let Helen be Helen. This space, Helen also allowed me to create. She likes it,” Sedarias added, voice soft. “I wish I had met her in my childhood.”

“She wouldn’t be the Helen you know now.”

Silence.

“What were you trying to do?”

“I wasn’t consciously trying to do anything. I was...angry. With Mandoran.” Before Kaylin could speak in his defense, she added, “And I suppose with Serralyn and Valliant as well. With Eddorian. With Teela.” She bowed her head again. “Terrano says I am always angry.”

“You’re not going to deny that, are you?”

“This was not created, this place, from anger.”

Kaylin opened her eyes. She looked at the trees, at the sky, at the surroundings. “No. But it’s not real, either. This, and the rock desert, neither are real.”

“You don’t understand Helen’s power, a Hallionne’s power, if you believe that. You could—were you any other mortal—die here. How much more real must something be?”

“Helen wouldn’t allow any of my guests to be killed anywhere within her boundaries.”

“No, perhaps not. No more would Alsanis, when we were his to jail.” Sedarias rose. “What would you rather see?”

“You,” Kaylin replied. “Your friends. My normal house.”

“Nothing about your house is normal. What Helen does to create your normal house is akin to what has been done here. You’ve seen our rooms.”

But it wasn’t the same. Kaylin couldn’t tell if Sedarias was lying or deflecting, or if she believed what she had said.

She can’t hear us.

She could, however, hear Kaylin. “Why don’t you trust them?”

Sedarias said nothing.

“I understand why you didn’t trust your family. I always wanted siblings. I never had any. Not really. But your family has convinced me that I might have been extremely lucky not to.”

This pulled a cold smile from Sedarias.

“But your brother is dead. Your sister is dead. You might have a whole host of cousins who inevitably join them, if your entire family culture is the same. I don’t know. I’m not Barrani and I can’t judge.”

“But you do judge.”

Kaylin shrugged. “I think it sucks, yes. I think the world is a better place without your relatives in it, yes. But I understand why you didn’t trust them. They would have killed you if you’d left them any openings. They tried when you didn’t.

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