“I wasn’t worried about being politic,” Kaylin replied. “He stuck up for me; I owed him one.”
“I have warned you in the past about naïveté and optimism, haven’t I?”
“Every other day. And no, that’s not an exaggeration. Do you think the Warden is playing some kind of game?”
“Yes. It may not be a game of which you will disapprove. Do not needlessly antagonize him.”
“Or his mother?”
“I fear it is late for that. Avonelle is the Guardian of the green; she has held that title for centuries. The Warden, in theory, has more power, but theory is always tenuous. Understand that Lord Barian was not her only son; he is merely the only one to survive.”
“Did the rest fail the test of name?”
“No. She lost one son in the last war; the other made the journey to the High Halls and failed to return. Barrani mothers are not mortal mothers; mortals feel that immortality, such as it is, is the continuance of their line. The Barrani do not age; we assume that we will exist for all of eternity. We might therefore bear a child every few centuries, if we so choose.”
“I saw her at the table, Teela. I know what I saw.”
“Yes. It is rumored—and it is only rumor—that she had ambitions for her youngest son; it was he who chose to take the test of name. His brother has not made the same choice; he is the last of her sons. His line is the line of Wardens, through his mother; if he is lost in the same way, it spells an end to the Wardens of her blood unless she bears another son.”
“Is it like the position of Consort?”
“No. But there are some similarities.”
“Can anyone become Lord of the West March?”
“It is a hereditary title—but yes; the green does not privilege the politics of either Court. The Lord rules, but the Warden serves. It is therefore the position of Warden that the green husbands.”
“Teela—what is the green?”
Teela smiled. “I do not know. Perhaps if I knew, I would understand why I alone, of the twelve gathered here, was spared.” She hesitated, and then added, “Avonelle was my mother’s sister.”
The Consort had not wakened; nor had she moved in her sleep. She was a color that Kaylin associated with death. “Is she—is she breathing?” she asked.
Lord Lirienne inclined his head, his expression grave.
“Should I try to wake her?”
“I am not my sister.” It was stated as if it were a reply.
Kaylin understood that this man was the Lord of the West March; that he had power and rank; that he was immortal. But she couldn’t find the fear that would have forced her to be cautious. “Can I pretend I asked that question again?” She spoke Elantran.
He raised a brow. “To wake her, you will attempt to heal her.”
“Not necessarily. I can’t heal her if there’s nothing physically wrong with her.”
“And how would you determine that?” When Kaylin failed to answer, he said, “I will keep watch tonight. If there is any deterioration, I will summon you.” He placed his palm over his sister’s hand.
Avonelle was not waiting when Kaylin returned to the Warden and his men. Severn was. He glanced at her and she shook her head once. She didn’t feel a great desire to discuss the Consort’s health in front of total strangers.
The Warden’s home was not, by any stretch of the imagination, humble—at least not as mortals understood it. It was as tall and imposing as the building that housed the Lord of the West March; it was not, however, built the same way.
The home of Lord Lirienne boasted a large amount of stone; it contained the central courtyard with its fountains, and also played home to a theoretically natural source of hot water. The home of the Warden reminded Kaylin of the Hallionne Sylvanne, at least from the outside.
The door was a large tree.
Many of the homes in Elantra were made of wood—but that wood had pretty much stopped growing, on account of being cut down. The doors that led to those homes also boasted things like hinges. And handles. Here, she stared with some dismay at the bark of a very wide tree, glancing nervously at the small dragon.
“I don’t have to bleed on this door, do I?”
Severn winced, and she realized she’d fallen straight into her mother tongue in the presence of the Warden of the West March. He didn’t wince.
“No, blood isn’t necessary,” he replied, in Elantran. “You visited the Hallionne Sylvanne on your journey here.”
“I did.”
“My hall is not sentient. What peace exists within it, I preserve. The door is warded.”
Why had she thought this was a good idea? “I have a little problem with door wards.”
“How so?”
“Sometimes they object to my presence. It’s not all door wards,” she added, as he looked down his nose. “But—the ones in the Imperial Palace, and at least one in Lord Lirienne’s home—” She grimaced. “It’s harder to explain than to demonstrate.”
“It will not harm you?”
“No. Not directly.”
“Does it harm the ward?”
She should be so lucky. “It hasn’t harmed any of the wards so far.” She lifted her left hand, and placed the palm firmly against the midsection of the trunk. It was a guess; there didn’t seem to be much in the way of obvious markings.
But the small dragon considered it all boring; he didn’t hiss, leap up, or bite her hand.
The door opened, in a manner of speaking; the tree dilated, the bark folding back in wrinkles, as if it were cloth. Usually Kaylin would be grateful for the lack of fuss; today, it was slightly humiliating.
“It appears that my wards do not consider you a danger to my home,” Lord Barian said. If he was amused, he kept it to himself. He entered and turned to offer her an arm; he nodded at Severn, and the four men Kaylin assumed were his guard stepped back to allow Severn entry.
The interior of the Warden’s home matched the exterior in many ways; the halls were as tall as the High Halls, but they weren’t made of stone—or at least the supporting beams weren’t; they were trees. They grew, evenly spaced; their branches formed the bower of a ceiling. Through the gaps in wood, Kaylin thought she could see stars, but she had a feeling that rain, when it fell, didn’t penetrate the branches the way light did.
He caught the direction of her gaze, because she had to tilt her head and expose her throat to see it. “Does it worry you?”
She shook her head. “This is what I imagined the dwellings in the West March would look like.”
“Why? The High Halls are marvels of architecture, and they are all of stone.”
“The High Halls are in the heart of a city. There are roads and neatly tended lawns and spaces in the inner city where very little that isn’t weeds grow. The West March is in the heart of a forest. I could walk for days—maybe weeks—and not meet or hear another living person.” She hesitated, and then added, “I thought forests would feel like this: grand and ancient and hushed.”
“They did not meet your expectations?”
“There were a lot of bugs and a lot of the transformed. I didn’t really get a sense of peace.”
He smiled. “There is peace here, at the moment. Come. If you wish sight of stars, we might speak in the bowers above.”
This was not a place for the old or the exhausted. The bowers above involved a walk around the central pillar in the hall—a tree which was fitted with a narrow, spiraling staircase. It was as tall as the Hawklord’s tower, but the stairs were all filigree from the looks of them; Kaylin could see the ground beneath her feet. The Barrani didn’t feel a great need for something as practical as rails, either.
But the stairs did exit onto a platform that seemed to be part of the tree. A bench girded the trunk; it, like the branches, was not shaved of bark. There was something about it that felt natural, rather than unfinished.