"I am presuming that if there is a way to prevent this you will inform us," Lady Weston said, turning to Rennyn.
"There is none." Rennyn’s face was impassive. "The Kellian are a spell construct. Symbolic magic, which has not altered in form for all that it is perpetuating itself in a rather unique way. To be Kellian is to be–" She paused. "To be at the command of the Montjuste-Surcleres. You cannot be one without the other."
She stood, and lifted the focus in both hands. "When this is complete, the range will be far beyond the distance you could have travelled in a month. I cannot be entirely certain what will happen when Solace’s will replaces your own. The original Kellian were extensions of Solace. She could see through their eyes, experience everything they experienced. I don’t know if she will be able to access your memories. But I cannot work with you any longer."
She turned away, pausing only when Lady Weston caught her elbow long enough to murmur something in her ear. With a nod she moved on, back toward Sebastian’s room, walking past Kendall and Sukata as if they weren’t there, but close enough for Kendall to see that she was white to the lips.
Sukata’s grip tightened on Kendall’s hand, so hard now it felt like the bones were grinding together, but she noticed Kendall flinch and released her.
"Let’s go somewhere else," Kendall said, and Sukata immediately turned and fled through the nearest door, leading Kendall out into the passage and then up a stairwell to the second floor. They paused to look down into the hall, where the Sentene had started to slowly move, like people who had fallen hard and weren’t quite sure what was broken, then Sukata headed through a door into a bright living room with two other doors: a Senior Captain’s quarters. The windows up here were bigger than the lower level, and there was a huge vase of daisies on the dining table. The faint trace of sigils chalked on the floor marked the space as belonging to a mage.
Sukata opened one of the doors, and led the way into a bedroom decorated with draperies of white linen, with a big painting of a very blue lake on one wall. It was sunny, neat and totally Sukata’s, a place which was really hers, which said Sukata everywhere you looked. At any other time Kendall would have had to be jealous.
"She changed what she was going to say," Sukata said, as she stopped in the dead centre of the room, rigidly upright. "To be Kellian is to belong to the Montjuste-Surcleres. We’re property. She inherited us."
The thin voice cracked on the final two words. Kendall grimaced, searching for anything useful to say. How do you comfort someone when the thing they faced was something you found completely horrible?
"The Queen gives you orders too. And if you don’t do them you could end up in prison, or executed."
"Then we at least have the choice of imprisonment, of execution. That – that was no choice at all."
"I don’t think she’s very likely to want to give you any orders," Kendall tried, tentatively.
"She made my mother kneel, Kendall!"
"What would you rather she had told her to do?" Kendall asked practically. "Given that she was trying to warn you that you’ve got a bigger problem than her out there."
Sukata was too fair to deny the point, but only succeeded in replacing angry horror with gloom. "Permanent slavery. We thought ourselves so…above, but we will never be anything but tools."
"What if they all die? All the Montjuste-Surcleres. Would you be tools still?" When Sukata just turned restively, Kendall added: "Do you think that’s why she sent her brother away?"
The purely offended look she had in response was answer enough.
"I’d hate it," Kendall said bluntly. "Hate it, hate it, hate it to death. I’d want to kill her. I can’t stand it when anyone tries to do what they think is for my good, instead of letting me do for myself." She paused, searching for inspiration. "You saw that Captain Medan brought that cat back with him, did you? Made a pet of it, and it likes him enough to have not run off on the trip. Is it a tool? This compulsion it was under was the same thing, wasn’t it? Yours is just permanently there, waiting for an order. Could you cast one of those? Could your mother?"
"We would not," Sukata said firmly.
"Lady Weston put something like that on Rennyn when she first met her. Something to force her to tell the truth. She got really annoyed. The thing is – any mage who’s good enough can make anyone else into a tool. There’s laws about it and all, isn’t there? About whether you’re responsible for things you do under magical influence. You’re stuck under a permanent one, which is really awful, but I don’t see how it makes you not people, any more than the cat isn’t still a cat."
Sukata felt as dangerous as she had outside Falk, like she could tear someone’s arm off, but then her shoulders slumped, and she sighed softly. "I suppose we are both. Property. People. Thank you, Kendall. I don’t think I can feel any better about this, but I won’t let it destroy me."
"No bones broken." Kendall shook her head. "Will you be all right here? I need to go do something."
"What?"
"Get her some dinner. Best I can make out, she hasn’t eaten since yesterday."
Sukata went still, then she lifted her chin. "I’ll come with you."
"Sure?"
"Very."
Chapter Twenty-Two
A tap at the door set Rennyn to hastily wiping her face, and she looked back as it opened to reveal Kendall and Sukata carrying a plate, pitcher and glass. They didn’t say anything, just put the meal on the desk and left, one with her chin set mule-stubborn and the other with eyes wide with dismay and determination.
Rennyn stared at the door as it closed, then managed a shaky smile. "You made some good friends, Seb."
The idea of eating repelled her, but she forced down a few bites, and drank half a glass of sweet barley water. It did help, but when she pushed herself to open the first of the books Seb had collected for her, the pages were a blur, meaningless.
She’d known this day was coming, had known she would take the brunt of it. When she’d found herself having to work closely with the Kellian earlier than planned, she’d tried to armour herself against them, to maintain a distance so it wouldn’t hurt quite so much when they looked at her as they had today. And then refused to look at her.
She doubted they would try and kill her or Seb. They were a resilient and practical and very proud people, but not unjust. They would recover from the initial shock, and prepare themselves for the horror of Solace’s control. Rennyn would do everything she could to ensure it wasn’t permanent. Then – well, she was sure they would treat her with every courtesy, and try not to flinch too obviously whenever she spoke.
The best move would be to leave Tyrland afterwards. It made sense, was the kinder option for everyone involved. There was the property in Kole, and the holdings and investments there. Tyrland was her home, but it would not be comfortable staying to play nightmare of the Kellian.
She wished Faille had been closer, so she could have better seen his reaction. He had not spoken, had not turned away, had not moved at all. But she knew he would loathe the thought of being subject to the Montjuste-Surcleres. She kept hearing his voice, asking her about trust.
Even in their horror they had not withdrawn their trust – they believed she would stop Solace where they could not. And since she wouldn’t be able to do that sitting around paralysed by things she couldn’t change, Rennyn put aside the day’s losses and moved on to future battles, focusing on reading through the marked places of the books. There was little time left, and she was increasingly worried about interference from her Wicked Uncle. Using creatures of this world as cat’s-paws completely bypassed the strongest of their defences.