Page 112 of Cast in Conflict

Mandoran hasn’t—

No. But if you truly understood her fear, you would know that it is the lens through which she views her world. She has been waiting for this.

Kaylin didn’t argue. Didn’t feel she could. But Terrano had seemed resigned, not surprised. Worried, not terrified. Perhaps they could do this.

But do what, exactly? Get her attention? Return her to normal? Force the cohort to hug and make up? She rolled her eyes hard enough she should have sprained them.

She didn’t understand the cohort. Knowing True Names hadn’t given her much insight, either. Every person whose True Name she knew was separate from her; they lived their own lives, they had their own responsibilities. She used the connection the way other people used mirrors: to reach out and speak to someone who wasn’t immediately present.

That was how it had started with the cohort; had they not been exposed to the regalia in their childhood, that’s probably how it would have remained, until and unless one of the twelve attempted to assert control over the others. Sedarias would have been her bet, for that.

But the attempt to exert control wasn’t control.

Severn had tried it with Kaylin. Once. And then he hadn’t spoken a word to her for weeks, as if the attempt—which she understood—destroyed any worth, value or self-respect he had. It had bothered her far less than it had bothered him, and in theory, she was the one who was affected by it.

And maybe this was like that: Sedarias had instinctively reached out to grab control, to force behaviors that she felt were in the cohort’s best interests. It felt more wrong, to Kaylin.

Severn tensed; his arms tightened briefly. Because it’s “only” you, in your own mind. You don’t ever think that should be done to someone else.

Not true. I can think of a lot of people I’d love to have taken over by people I actually trust. But she knew what he meant, or how he meant it. And if she had been willing to both accept and forget, why shouldn’t the cohort do the same?

Sedarias was part of them. Like...part of their thoughts, their way of thinking. Never separate. As prisoners in the Hallionne, they couldn’t be said to have had their own lives; only Teela did, and that was because she’d had no other choice.

But they were free, now.

Serralyn and Valliant were part of the Academia. Teela was An’Teela and a corporal of the Hawks. Terrano was...Terrano. That left Mandoran, Annarion, Allaron, Fallessian, Torrisant and Karian, the three who almost never spoke or interacted with any of the cohort except each other. And Eddorian, who had elected to remain with his brother in the Hallionne, but who was nonetheless aware of what his chosen family were doing.

At least one of the banners had belonged to Reymar, Karian’s family. Even if they interacted with no outsiders—except Helen—they had their own opinions and beliefs. And one had been Gennave’s, which was Eddorian’s; Eddorian, whose brother, like Nightshade, had searched for him. For him and power, and it was the latter that had gutted his mind.

What would she do if part of her mind rose against the rest of her?

How could she bring it back to normal? What was “normal” for the cohort and for Sedarias as part of it?

There, Hope said, an interruption she was almost grateful for. “Can you see it, unaided? There is a storm in the distance.”

Kaylin squinted. She then elbowed Severn rather than saying no.

Severn was silent for a long beat, as Hope began to pick up speed. “It’s Sedarias,” he said, voice flat. “Sedarias and Mandoran.”

16

What is the shape of Sedarias’s fear? Hope asked as he tensed beneath her.

The answer seemed clear: the battlefield, and beneath it, the barren, rocky emptiness—through which water still flowed.

Yes. And?

But there was no necessary and. Kaylin understood, before Sedarias became visible to her eyes, what the shape of her fear was; she understood it because she had lived it and passed—mostly—through it. It wasn’t the fear of isolation; it wasn’t the fear of betrayal, although Ynpharion hadn’t been wrong.

It was the certain sense that this was the only home of which she was worthy. This is what she deserved. The others? No. Even Terrano with his obsessions about the new and different had a spark of life or joy—ah, that word: joy.

Barren rock and the detritus of battle was what Sedarias had.

“Terrano!”

“I’m kind of busy,” Terrano, disembodied, replied.

“How much control do you have over this space?”

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