Page 110 of Cast in Conflict

You have never understood.

I’ve always understood, she snapped back. You’re not a power. Fine. I spent all of my life until I arrived in the city being even less of a power than you. Maybe it’s a shorter period of time—but my whole life is a short period of time compared to yours. I know what it’s like to be terrified that I won’t even survive. But I also know what it’s like to fear starving to death—to be so damn hungry there’s almost nothing I wouldn’t do for food. Do you?

Silence.

You don’t.

You’re Chosen, he finally said, the words a grudging acknowledgment of the truth.

Now, yes. And that cost me. It cost fourteen children their lives.

More silence. It occurred to Kaylin, as the waves of anger began to abate, that this was not what Nightshade had had in mind.

Anger, Ynpharion said, is better than fear. If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. I had my life. I wanted to keep it.

Kaylin was silent. I didn’t, she finally said. I didn’t want to keep mine.

Ynpharion added a new emotion: surprise.

I wouldn’t throw it away, now. I like the life I have, the life I’ve found. But I didn’t build it—I tripped over it. And kept tripping. I didn’t know Helen. I didn’t know the cohort. I didn’t know Bellusdeo—or Nightshade, if it comes to that. I didn’t have Teela or the Hawks.

Is that what you believe?

Yes, because it’s the truth.

If the cohort has taught you nothing, it should have taught you this: truth is mutable, flexible, dependent on context. I was never Sedarias. Never.

Because you see her as a power.

Because she is a power. She always was. You think that her centuries-long fate somehow negates that truth. We know better.

Who is “we”?

Her people. The Barrani. She lived the life I lived, but she—

You survived it. So did she.

Silence, this one larger and louder. So did you, Ynpharion finally said.

I’m not Barrani.

Neither is Sedarias.

And you?

I am Barrani. I do not have the freedom that Sedarias gained for herself. I did not kill my brother or my sister; I did not kill my parents.

She didn’t kill her parents.

No. An’Teela killed her only living parent—and she is free.

And that’s what you want? The question itself was harsh, but the tone was not. It wasn’t meant as an accusation. For a moment, on Hope’s back, the wind howling in her ears and pulling strands of loose hair toward Severn’s face, she simply wanted to know more about him.

It’s not what Sedarias wants, he finally said.

What do you think she wants?

What you wanted. I think she started out wanting what you wanted. Your mother died when you were young—you didn’t want that. Neither did An’Teela. But An’Teela could build a life on vengeance. You didn’t have that. Sedarias did. But...Sedarias is not An’Teela.

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