Rhillian's emerald gaze fixed onto Sasha with spine-tingling force. There was a droplet of blood trickling down one pale cheek. These beautiful people, this beautiful civilisation, was a shining light for all the world, Kessligh insisted. They are peaceful and good because they are philosophical, and do not to leap to conclusions. They neither hate nor fear easily. They do not kill on a whim. They are frequently long-winded, gentle and indecisive.
But what if that changed, Sasha wondered, staring at that terrible, beautiful vision of luminescent eyes and trickling blood. What if we pushed them too far? What it we made them so angry, and so scared, that they lost their indecisiveness and replaced it with determination? There was determination in Rhillian's eyes now. Determination and focused, deadly intensity. Sasha had now seen Rhillian fight. She'd seen Errollyn fight, and other serrin too. Saalshen would be a terrible enemy for humanity. Terrible for the damage they could do, and terrible for the simple tragedy of such good and decent people forced into conflict with those who should do far better to befriend them. She could not let it happen. She would not.
“You need honour to confirm your identity,” said Rhillian, unblinking. “Your honour tells you who you are. We serrin don't need it. We know who we are.”
“Vel'ennar?” Sasha asked quietly.
“Vel'ennar,” Rhillian agreed. “The one soul,” literally translated. A concept of serrin unity. Whether it was real or imagined, cultural or merely philosophical, no human seemed to know…and no serrin had yet definitively explained. Not to Sasha's hearing, anyhow.
Vinae hissed in pain as Terel applied something to the wound. He was not removing the bolt, Sasha saw. Probably there were better facilities available to serrin than a dingy alleyway for that. “Do you need any help?” she asked Terel.
“Do you have any skills with medicine?” Terel asked as he worked.
“Um…not for something like that, not really.”
“Then I don't need your help.”
Rhillian's eyes flicked uphill, back the way they'd come. Sasha spun in alarm, but saw nothing. Then, after a moment, a small, indistinct shadow crossed the path. A cat.
“Do you see better,” she asked Rhillian warily, “or do they?” Meaning the cat.
Rhillian shrugged. “I've never asked one. Possibly they do. But do they know what they're seeing?”
“Do you? Maybe the cat knows everything and we're all fools.”
“A serrin answer,” Rhillian said coyly, with an impressed smile. “You're spending far too much time with us. We'll corrupt you.”
“Too late. You remind me of a cat, sometimes.”
Rhillian's grin seemed to light up the dark, flashing white teeth and gleaming eyes. “Meow,” she said with her entire, lean, poised body.
Further down the winding alleys, the party finally arrived at a nondescript gate in the rear wall of a narrow passage. Rhillian reached into a hole beside the gate and pulled something. Faintly, Sasha heard a bell ring. A moment later, a hatch slid aside, and something whispered in dialect. Rhillian replied. Several latches were undone and the gate opened on silent, oiled hinges. Sasha waited until last, passing a serrin she did not recognise, who shut the gate behind her. They made their way through a stone passage with arrowslits at the end, and another gate, reinforced yet open for now.
A turn and then they emerged into a patio centred by a fountain, with gardens about the surrounding wall. The house had broad, slatted doors opening directly onto the patio, behind a row of pillars supporting an overhead balcony. More serrin were waiting, and took Vinae into the house. Sasha followed Rhillian and Terel, and found herself in an adjoining sitting room, chairs about a tiled floor and bookshelves against the walls. Most welcoming of all, Errollyn, Liam, Yulia and Adele were all waiting there.
“Where's Marlen?” Rhillian asked immediately.
“Inside somewhere,” said Adele. “He's fine.” Rhillian looked relieved. Sasha looked questioningly at Errollyn. He'd leaned his bow against a wall and was cleaning his sword. Evidently he'd had to use it. He met her gaze and gave a faint smile. “I never doubted I'd see you here,” that smile said. Somehow, she knew what he meant.
Servants brought them drinks…human servants, dressed much the same as serrin-plainly, with few frills or trinkets, but with quality and style all the same. Upon first visiting a Saalshen property in Petrodor, Sasha had been astonished to find human servants in the house. Errollyn had explained to her that the first serrin talmaad in Petrodor had resisted it at first-service was not a profession nor a social condition of any sort in Saalshen-but it had been a waste of resources for well-trained talmaad to be doing household chores.
The Nasi-Keth had suggested the solution. There were plenty of folk on the Petrodor lower slopes who needed work. Folks with deformities, that often led to them being rejected by their families as cursed. And so the talmaad had taken in many such folk as houseworkers-a term the serrin preferred to “servants.” The houseworkers were undyingly loyal and the serrin were happier. The houseworkers would surely be in a dismal state were they not “serving,” and so “serving” became an alternative no serrin could begrudge them from having.
A bald, round-faced man with an anxious smile handed Sasha a drink and then shuffled off, one leg stiff, one hand and arm curled tight. Yulia was slumped in a chair in a corner. Liam paced, anxious to be on his way.
Rhillian addressed her fellows in Saalsi. “I must meet with Patachi Maerler tonight,” she said. “Words were exchanged with Duke Rochel. There are possibilities.”
“Shall we send a message ahead?” asked one serrin. “I'm not certain of his whereabouts tonight.”
“He'll be home,” said Rhillian, with assuredness. “He'll be expecting me.”
“What did Rochel say?” asked another man, newly arrived into the room. His jet black hair fell with stylish disarray about a well-formed face. His eyes were a pale, almost colourless grey. Kiel.
“Another time awaits,” said Rhillian, in the most abstract form that Saalsi allowed. “Not with others listening,” Sasha interpreted that. “Adele, Marlen, stay and rest. Kiel, I want you along. Errollyn too.”
“Must he?” said Kiel. The question was blandly put. Much about Kiel was bland, and expressionless. Most serrin were disconcerting to basic human instincts, as was Kiel but in a different way. Rhillian startled with her intensity. Kiel startled in his impassivity. He was the only serrin Sasha had ever met toward whom her instinctive reaction was dislike.
“Must I?” said Errollyn.
Rhillian's stare was displeased. “You know humans better than most. You read Patachi Maerler well. You may notice things others will miss.”
“I don't know humans as well as Sasha does,” said Errollyn. He sheathed his sword over one shoulder. “Why not ask her along?”
Rhillian's stare became even more displeased. She said something in dialect.
“Rhillian says that I'm being difficult,” Errollyn translated to Sasha. “She says I know very well why she cannot ask you along.” Rhillian made a sharp gesture of exasperation. “Why don't you tell us all, Rhillian, why Sasha cannot come along? Why is it that you plot things, in a human city, that do not concern our human allies?”
“He becomes more and more human every day,” Kiel said mildly. He sounded almost amused.
“Sasha has her own people to return to,” said Rhillian, glaring.
“And I'd so much rather go with her.”
“Are you talmaad, or are you not?”
“Do you define the talmaad now?” A human might have folded his arms in defiance. That pose, however, seemed foreign to serrin. Errollyn stood calmly, a thumb in his belt. “You're right, I do read Patachi Maerler quite well. You're a fool to trust him, I said so from the start, and I'm sure I'll tell you the same after this meeting too. What more can I add to your expedition?”