Page 122 of Cast in Conflict

“I cannot speak for the others.”

“You can.”

“I can’t. You know what they remember. You know what they felt. But what I have discovered about memory is this: it is selective. If we truly look, we can see the truth, but we revisit the memories that we choose to visit.

“You remember the fear. But you remember it in a slanted fashion. I was not afraid of you.”

“Then why?”

“Because I wanted hope,” Teela replied. “I wanted to believe it was possible to trust others of my kind. I wanted to choose a future that my father would never have chosen for me. It was a pathetic act of defiance.” She looked around the table, met Terrano’s gaze and nodded.

All of the cohort materialized. Annarion. Allaron. Torrisant, Fallessian, Karian. Last came the physically distant Eddorian.

“I was afraid,” Serralyn admitted, although her expression was far too sunny to contain fear now. “I haven’t been afraid of you for centuries. I admit I’m a bit afraid of this, but that’s because I’m sane.”

Sedarias turned toward her, and then, at last, toward Mandoran.

Kaylin realized they had all spoken out loud. All of them. “Teela came back for you,” she said quietly. “She had everything she was supposed to want—everything you’ve said you wanted—but she came back.”

“You’ve never tried to use our names against us,” Serralyn continued, when Sedarias remained silent. “Until now.”

Kaylin closed her eyes. Closed them, and then forced them open again. It was wrong. It was wrong on every level. But Sedarias wasn’t trying to do that now. She offered no defense. She offered nothing.

No, Kaylin thought, they were still in this odd garden and not on the plane of stone and rock.

“It must be hard,” Kaylin finally said. All of the cohort turned toward her. “There are days when I hate my job. Days when I want to strangle my coworkers or scream at Marcus. There are days when I want the midwives’ guild to just leave me alone and let me sleep.”

Sedarias raised a brow.

“I can keep all of that to myself. I don’t have to act on any of it. What defines me isn’t how I feel on those days. It’s what I choose to do. Emotions aren’t a choice. They’re emotion. They’re a response. Maybe I’m hungry. Maybe I’m exhausted. Maybe I’m angry at myself because I made a stupid mistake and other people are going to suffer for it.

“I have privacy. None of you do. You’re more like the Tha’alani in that regard. But the Tha’alani were raised—from birth—to seek the Tha’alaan. To trust it, to find comfort from it, and to seek knowledge in it. Not to own it. There is no chance that they’ll leave it. No chance that it will leave them.”

“They don’t have any choice,” Sedarias said, but her voice was a whisper.

“Neither do any of you. There’s no way to let go of a name. If there was, I’d’ve done it. I asked. If I can’t kill the person in question, we’re bound for life.”

“Do you think they’d all be here—” they, not we “—if they had any choice? You’ve seen what I’m like. You know what I’m like. You know—she just told you—what I tried to do.”

Kaylin exhaled again. It felt like all she did was exhale here. “Severn tried to take control of me.”

The silence that fell in response to those words was almost the entire reason she had never, ever mentioned it to anyone but Helen—Helen, who wouldn’t judge Severn by anything but Severn himself.

Teela’s eyes were blue, but they hadn’t descended into midnight. “Why?” The word was a demand, a command.

“He wanted to stop me from doing something he was certain would kill me.”

“Was he right?”

“I don’t know. I understand a bit more about myself and my marks and the way I move through the world now. It was instinctive—it was like grabbing my shoulder or arm to pull me back or keep me still.”

“They aren’t the same thing at all—as you well know.”

“He couldn’t reach my arm or shoulder—he wasn’t there.” She looked down a moment, remembering. When she lifted her chin she said, “He was angry at himself for weeks. He avoided me for weeks after. Because he’d thought to manipulate me. It wasn’t me he was angry at. He didn’t try to justify it.

“I knew why he’d tried. I think I’d have done the same thing, if our positions were reversed and he wasn’t listening.”

“I don’t,” Mandoran said.

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