Page 121 of Cast in Conflict

“Not fight: flee. And you know this. You can’t avoid knowing it. That’s what you’re afraid of: the flight. You’re afraid that they’ll leave because they’re not afraid anymore and they don’t need you.

“You’re afraid that’s already what’s happening. Serralyn and Valliant. Mandoran.”

17

As she spoke the names, the members of the cohort who owned them appeared, just as Terrano had done. It was a calculated risk on her part; she knew, intellectually, that they weren’t physically here.

Ah.

That’s why Helen had had difficulty preserving Severn.

“Yes, dear. You are here the way the cohort is here. You just don’t realize it. You are not part of them; you could not be here at all if you weren’t part of me.”

Serralyn said, “I’d prefer not to sit on the ground, if it’s all the same to you.”

Sedarias said nothing. Loudly.

Serralyn exhaled and sat practically on top of Terrano. Valliant said nothing, but joined her; they’d sat this way in the dining room, admittedly with more pillows and a rug.

Kaylin was surprised to see Teela, and by her expression, so was Sedarias. She was warier, but that made sense: Teela had killed her father, had taken her family line, and had obliterated its name. She wielded one of The Three. She had fought in the wars that had been the sole reason for their exile in the West March, wars the rest of the cohort hadn’t seen. She was a power. She was recognized as a power, even by the former An’Mellarionne. No one messed with An’Teela unless they had a death wish.

She was what Sedarias saw herself as.

Was there envy? Probably some. And that was the thing with the cohort: they saw and heard it all. There was no privacy, and they’d grown up together in such a way that privacy was almost foreign.

Except for Teela.

Sedarias met her gaze, held it, and did not tell her to sit on the floor. Kaylin scurried out of the chair she occupied because she wasn’t certain that Sedarias making a chair specifically for Teela wouldn’t cause problems for the rest of the cohort.

Teela took the chair Kaylin had just vacated.

“I did not mean to endanger Kaylin,” Sedarias said.

“No. I know. So does Kaylin. If Kaylin weren’t so compulsive, there would have been no danger.” She spared Kaylin a side glare, but most of her attention remained focused on Sedarias. “I apologize for my absence; it took me a while to find a way in, and I had to have Helen’s aid—aid she was not immediately free to give me.”

Kaylin said nothing much more quietly.

“She was taking care of Severn, because someone brought him in here,” Terrano said.

Kaylin was pretty certain Teela already knew this. She really wanted to kick him, though.

“Please do,” Sedarias said. “It will save me the trouble.”

“We’d welcome being kicked,” Terrano shot back, “compared to what’s been happening for the last several hours.”

Mandoran had taken a seat beside Terrano, and he nodded, but said very little. If Terrano accepted this as business as usual, Mandoran didn’t.

Neither did Teela.

“This is where you need to be,” Teela said softly. “Not the rock and the remnants of a battlefield. You must see that.”

Sedarias said nothing.

“I didn’t grow up with you,” Teela continued. “Perhaps that’s why I can see it more clearly. I did not give you my name out of fear. I was not afraid of you, then. I am not afraid of you now. You might believe it’s because of what I’ve achieved in the interim, when you all went on without me and I could no longer hear your voices, even if I knew you were still alive.

“You would be wrong. I did not have Mellarionne. I had my mother’s family, considered irrelevant and insignificant in the High Court of the time. They were not my father’s family; they were not Mellarionne. My father would have approved of—did approve of—Mellarionne. He was wary, of course, but he considered them powerful and therefore worthy of respect.

“I did not believe that you could control me. I did not give you my name because of that fear. I did not believe you could kill me—although we must be grateful that was never put to the test.

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