"Let’s go for a walk, hey?"
Kendall didn’t want to talk, but she knew the Sentene mage wouldn’t leave her alone until she’d said her piece, so she followed along silently, out a back door of the inn where there wasn’t such an audience, and down one of the sloping cobbled streets. Danress wasn’t wearing her coat, and in the long shadows of late afternoon they didn’t draw any attention.
Sanlecey was a pretty town, with lots of up and down streets and tall, thin houses with dressing around the window – they looked like the dollhouse Nan Tikal had been so fond of boasting about. All of the houses had little patches of garden out front – not for vegetables, but full of flowers. Roses mainly, and sprawling bushes covered with purple and white daisies. At the bottom of the hill was a wide curving street edged with fancy stores on one side and a park on the other. There was a pond in the middle, and they sat on a bench to watch two swans drift about looking bored.
"How much of Sark will be destroyed, do you reckon?"
Lieutenant Danress grimaced. "Between hundreds and thousands of homes. Up to half of the city, though we are praying we will lose only the fringe. There’s pressure to divert as many Hand and Sentene mages as possible into shielding certain buildings that lie on the edge of the predicted destruction. The Dawnbringer’s Temple, for instance, is a work of art, truly glorious, and it’s sure to be badly damaged, even if it’s not crushed outright. They’re removing the windows, hoping to preserve them elsewhere, but the carvings -"
"There’s lots of mages who aren’t in the Queen’s service, aren’t there? Can’t they do that?"
"Some will be. But it’s a question of numbers, and the danger. Shielding large areas against crushing force is a massive undertaking. You saw what it took Lady Rennyn to protect a single room. For us to protect entire buildings will take time to set up, and unless the mages are willing to trust the shields enough to stay within them during the expansion – a thing Lady Weston has forbidden for both the Sentene and the Hand – we will need to factor in duration. The shields will be set as near to the last moment as we dare, and then left."
"Saving buildings instead of people." Kendall had lived close to Sark all her life, but never been there, never seen the great glass windows of the Temple which were supposed to be so special.
"We can understand the reasons – the Temple, particularly, is one of Tyrland’s jewels. But there are things we’d prefer to be doing."
She meant protecting Rennyn. Kendall scowled at a swan, which moved on unconcerned.
"Don’t mistake what’s happening here," Lieutenant Danress said. "We know there’s things she hasn’t told us, that there’s some further complexity she’s keeping back. Half-truths mostly, but the occasional bald-faced lie. She can act, but the omissions become obvious eventually."
"Could she take control of the power the Black Queen’s summoned, instead of – whatever she’s supposed to do?"
The look Lieutenant Danress gave her was so startled, Kendall explained the suspicion which had been growing in her.
"She doesn’t want the throne, she’s no friend of the Black Queen. She said she isn’t going to cast the Grand Summoning herself. But couldn’t she take all that power and make it hers?"
"I – I’d say that’s impossible, but given Lady Rennyn’s abilities, perhaps I shouldn’t underestimate her. But that would be monstrously dangerous to the city and there’s a vast difference between could and would."
"What other reason does she have to lie? She’s – it’s so obvious that she must be going to do something wrong. She just admitted that she’d be willing to kill innocent people to win. Lie about what she intends to do, and if she has to, kill people. Without even telling them why, without even giving them a choice."
Lieutenant Danress shook her head. "Lady Rennyn may be hiding something, but do you think we – let alone the Kellian – would not see through that kind of motive? There’s no finer judge of character than a Kellian, and whatever else this is, they’re sure Lady Rennyn isn’t power-hungry."
Kendall glowered. "Don’t you think the Kellian might be a little biased? She’s–"
"A Montjuste-Surclere? Believe me, that hardly recommended her to the Kellian."
"They don’t act like that."
"Hmph. Their current behaviour is dictated by the events of the Black Night. Keste – Keste Faral and I get along well and she tried to describe to me their first reaction, after we returned from Finton and were speculating over Lady Rennyn’s identity. They found the idea of Montjuste-Surclere survivors annoying."
"Annoying?" That didn’t match how they acted.
"People mistake the Kellian manner for a lack of will, but it’s totally the opposite. They are – in a way they’re very, ah, proud’s not the word and nor is arrogant. They have incredibly high standards. They don’t like to be connected with people who are…base. The Black Queen is their idea of base, and they don’t consider Prince Tiandel was much better. They have a very low opinion of selfishness, of hurting others for your own benefit."
"They’re all holier-than-the-Dawnbringer?"
Lieutenant Danress laughed, and shrugged. "Not really – they certainly don’t go around trying to reform people. They just find certain people distasteful. Most of the rest they are unfailingly polite to, and some they consider worth knowing. When I was first assigned to be my Captain’s partner, I was in dread of not living up to him."
Kendall would have just been in dread. "He’s a scary man."
"Daunting," Lieutenant Danress agreed, in much the same tone she’d use for wonderful. "Do you know – he knows more about magical theory than me – he just has no ability to cast? To be a novice Sentene and assigned to be his partner was a nightmare, but he gave me plenty of chances to prove myself and treated any mistakes as the minor things they were – so long as I did not make them twice."
Kendall thought Lieutenant Danress had a bad case of hero worship, but kept that to herself. Sukata was a bit the same way about Captain Faille, which Kendall just found perplexing.
"There’s a reason Illuma and Faille are so respected," Lieutenant Danress went on, smiling at Kendall’s expression. "They are extraordinary, both brilliant and fair. Not to mention very protective of their people. The idea of Montjuste-Surcleres resurfacing, linked with someone like Solace – as Lady Rennyn seemed she might be when we encountered her in Finton – well, they found it annoying, as I said. Like a sheep-thief relative showing up at a wedding.
"And then the Black Night, where Sebastian throws himself in front of a clutch of Irisian and Lady Rennyn – if we had taken even a minute or two longer in killing the last of the Eferum-Get, she may have died. And she chose that, to not let an Azrenel loose even at the cost of her life, because it was a worse thing than the Black Queen. The Kellian stopped finding their link to her a negative thing after that, and are almost possessive where she’s concerned. While they very much want to know just what it is she’s keeping back, they trust her overall goals."
"Even without knowing what they are."
"It’s more the means which are in question. We are certain she truly intends to stop Solace."
"You could just ask."
"You think we haven’t, directly and indirectly? The problem is the way she’s been raised. All this was meant to be a secret, she was supposed to avoid us even knowing she existed. Not sensible, of course, but nothing we do seems to convince her that we can protect her adequately. She won’t even discuss how to deal with the final incursion, which is in the Fens, until she’s done the next partial attunement in the Hall of Summoning. We’re almost certain she intends to cut loose from us after the Fens incursion, and make her own way to the Hall of Summoning. Frustrating, as you can imagine."