Page 125 of Cast in Conflict

Severn would have listened.

“Yes. You are not happy.”

“I just—” Kaylin exhaled. “I remember when I was afraid of how the existence of, the freedom of, the cohort would affect me. I mean—would affect Teela. She’s an important friend. One of my first friends here. I understand Sedarias’s fear. And...I don’t really like it when I look at it from the outside.”

“No. But you don’t feel like that now.”

Kaylin snorted. “No. Now I’m just worried about what the cohort will do, period. I was afraid Teela would have less time to—to think about me.” She shook her head. “Sedarias is afraid of the same thing. But I had my mother. I don’t know what Sedarias’s mother was like. I don’t know if she survived, or if her father killed her—or, given her brothers and sisters, someone else in her family did.

“And I don’t really want to know. But Mandoran likes Bellusdeo—and Bellusdeo has had a really hard life.”

“It’s not a competition.”

“No, I know. But I think Mandoran’s been important to Bellusdeo. I mean, she’d never say that; she’d probably die first. But...”

“Yes. But that is now for the cohort to resolve. Thank you.”

“Why couldn’t they have done that in the first place?”

Helen was silent for an uncomfortable beat. “I try not to interfere, dear. I try not to ask intrusive questions. I know much of your life and your day—and I do strongly agree with Lord Nightshade—Karriamis is extremely dangerous, and I would vastly prefer you avoided his Tower. But you must make your own decisions, and I accept that.”

“We weren’t talking about me,” was the uncomfortable reply.

Helen continued as if Kaylin hadn’t spoken. “However, I have lived with you—with your words, your thoughts, your dreams and your nightmares. Let me ask you just one question. Do you remember what you did on the day you discovered the people who were kidnapping and selling children?”

Kaylin blinked.

“You used the power of your marks. Do you remember what you did? No, do not answer. It is not necessary. You do. Do you think that Teela or Tain could have stopped you?”

“They didn’t care.”

“No. Do you believe they could have stopped you?”

Kaylin looked down at her feet.

“You have very little in common with Sedarias,” Helen continued, her voice much softer. “But not nothing. This is the danger, always, of power; if you lose control—and we all lose control some of the time—the damage done is far, far harder to recover from. What you did for Sedarias, you believe I could do. I could not.

“To Sedarias, I am a building. She would hear the words, but she would not listen, would not absorb them.”

“But she lived with Alsanis for centuries!”

Helen nodded. “Alsanis was, in some fashion, the strict and severe parent that she had never had before. You think that her parents were both strict and severe. They were not. Alsanis was parental; he was old. He interfered. He decided what was best for the children in his care.

“In her own fashion, and as she is capable of it, she cares deeply for Alsanis—but she wants him at a distance while she finds her own feet. I am...a building. I am not Alsanis; she knows that. She trusts me to keep the people I choose to offer shelter safe. But she cannot listen to me; she could not listen to Alsanis.

“She could only barely listen to you—but she could and did. You are part of her family, even if she’s afraid that in remaining here she will lose that family.

“I think it is good that she stays here and makes peace with the fact that they are all conjoined and they are also all separate. They are not Sedarias. The fact that they are not, and that they are still and will always be part of the cohort, is something she must face and accept.

“But as you have noted, it is not easy. You were afraid that you would personally lose Teela. But you also understood that these long-ago friends were a source of grief and pain, and you wanted Teela to be happy. Both of these feelings were true; they were both yours. You chose. Sometimes it is hard to make the right choice—but life without such conflicts does not exist.

“Sedarias is very strong, but she is also—as you have seen—fragile. Fragile in ways that you no longer are. Yes, she has had much longer—but not in this world. I will not call it the real world; her time in Alsanis was real. But there, no strangers intruded, no responsibilities to others had to be borne; they couldn’t be.

“They thought of Teela as lost. They focused on trying to reconnect with her. But even that was not thinking of other people; Teela was a part of them.

“Now, they have left the nest. They are interacting with other people. They are taking on other responsibilities, or exploring possibilities that did not exist for them for almost the entirety of their lives. They are looking outward, not inward, because they can.

“Your fear of losing Teela was small, compared to Sedarias’s fear. The cohort are the first people Sedarias dared to openly care for. She is afraid that now that they have choice, the only thing she has to offer is power. The power of Mellarionne, if she can hold it. It’s what she was raised to believe and to value. She is of course wrong. But she is not good at listening, at hearing.”

---