“Our human allies gave us our army, gave us the Steel, and the engineers and builders, and the wealth to maintain it all by taxes, and serrin decided we did not need to change the way we lived at all. And so we went back to our old ways and stopped worrying about it so much. In truth, we were better prepared to defend ourselves two hundred years ago than today. Now we are helpless like children, and hoping only that our human friends will save us. For if they do not, we have no way of saving ourselves.”
The building was a gathering space in Tormae, like a council room, though Sasha had not encountered the word before in Saalsi. It had no walls, polished wood floors, and exposed beams across a high ceiling. The centre of its floor stepped down to a hole, within which was a small garden of smooth rocks, little plants, and a pool of water. More water trickled beneath the floorboards, and all about the exposed sides were more plants. Sasha had only ever seen a building like this before in the Mahl'rhen, the serrin house in Tracato. That had been grand. This was intimate, green, and even more lovely.
She and Errollyn left their boots at the floor's edge, and interrupted the debate within. Before the central garden, Rhillian sat alone, one bare foot teasing the surface of the pool. Or nearly alone. Aisha sat one step above her, cross-legged and concerned. About the room, some seated, some standing and leaning, were talmaad. Amongst them were a few plain-clothed serrin, these in a light robe, tied at the waist. All appeared concerned.
Errollyn went straight to Rhillian, and she rose. Errollyn embraced her. Sasha saw her face over Errollyn's shoulder, her expression a little surprised and quite relieved.
“I'm sad about Arendelle,” Errollyn told her as they parted. “But not Kiel. I would have done it earlier, had not consequences forbidden it.”
“This is not a matter to be spoken of so lightly,” another serrin said gravely.
“No one asked your opinion, Hsheldrin,” Errollyn cut him off, eyes not leaving Rhillian. The talmaad named Hsheldrin looked quite displeased. “Kiel's plan was evil, as was much of Kiel's path of late. If we do not oppose evil, we oppose nothing. If Arendelle was ensnared by Kiel's ra'shi at the time, then his death is also an unavoidable and necessary sadness. You did right and well.”
Sasha went to sit by Aisha, who offered her a bowl of biscuits.
“What happens here?” Errollyn asked the gathering, challengingly. “You all look like someone died.”
Discomfort swept the room. Even Rhillian gave him a faintly warning look, resuming her seat by Aisha. Errollyn paced, slowly.
“We discuss vy'tal air,” replied a serrin.
“Banishment,” Aisha whispered to Sasha, in Lenay.
Sasha frowned. “From what?”
“Saalshen. The serrinim. Everything.”
Sasha stared across at Rhillian. Rhillian met her eyes, and smiled faintly.
Errollyn was laughing. “Vy'tal air,” he said. “Seriously? You're not joking?”
More frowns. Errollyn spoke Saalsi with deliberate bluntness, like some vandal using a porcelain statuette to break down a door. Hearing it was enough to make more sophisticated serrin wince.
“If vy'tal air is not invoked by this act,” said another serrin, “then for what should it be invoked?”
“I don't know,” Errollyn replied. “How about for something wrong?”
“No serrin has intentionally and in good mind murdered another serrin in millennia!” came the angry reply. “She murdered two!”
“Firstly,” said Errollyn, “Rhillian did not murder anyone. Kiel murdered a human family, and was about to murder many more. Rhillian stopped him. In the course of this stopping, Kiel lost his life, as did Arendelle. A fair trade in any moral tongue, I think.
“Secondly, we are about to fight a battle for Saalshen's very existence. The talmaad have two truly proven commanders in this fight. I am one, Rhillian is the other. She commanded with excellence in Elisse; few if any could have done as well. This discussion can wait until after the battle, if there is an after. If there is not an after, it will be because we are all dead, thus rendering all of this most excellent hot air of yours wasted.”
“This is the most serious crime against the serrinim in a millennium!” another serrin said angrily. “And you treat it as a joke!”
“I treat you as a joke,” Errollyn corrected. “All of you. Killing a murderous serrin is evil, yet murdering human families is nothing? Is evil only evil if it is committed against a serrin? Morality cannot be equivocated. Morality is consistency. Wrong is wrong no matter who the victim.
“The only crime here was committed by Kiel. Serrin do not kill each other because we rarely do enough evil to warrant it. If you wish to be upset by someone breaking a long-standing tradition of the serrinim, be upset by that. Rhillian, let's leave. If this mob does not understand even that much, they are not worth our company.”
“You can appoint her as commander of talmaad if you wish,” a serrin said darkly. “Whether any serrin shall choose to follow her is another matter.”
A small group of buildings clustered along the stream. One was a mill, its waterwheel squeaking in the rush of downhill water. Sasha wondered if the slope of the ground had been shaped by serrin many hundreds of years ago, or if they had chosen this slope to make the water run faster.
“Now you know how it feels,” Errollyn said to Rhillian as the four of them walked along the bank.
Rhillian sighed, thumbs tucked in her belt. She was greatly upset, but showed it little. Sasha put a hand on her shoulder. “We are all four of us exiles, in our way. My father cast me from Lenayin, Aisha cannot return to Enora, Errollyn is du'jannah, and now you.”
“I will not leave,” said Rhillian, gazing at the mill. “The threats of a people who cannot punish their own mean nothing.”
“I need you on the right flank with Sasha's Ilduuris,” said Errollyn. “If they will not follow you, they'll have me to answer to. I don't trust anyone else to do the job.”
“Arjen could,” said Rhillian. “Mirelle.”
Errollyn shook his head. “Rhillian, we have been having this argument since Petrodor. Serrin do not think flexibly. We follow. The vel'ennar is our peace and harmony, but it is also our shackles. I have no vel'ennar, so I see things that others miss. And now there is you, a normal serrin, who has become somehow stranger even than I. Before you took Kiel's life, I would not have trusted you with command as I do now.”
Rhillian gave him a wary stare. “I am a killer of my own kind.”
“Like me,” said Sasha. Rhillian rolled her eyes.
They stopped on a small bridge that crossed the stream to the mills. The building adjoining the mill had a chimney, and Sasha could smell the most wonderful bread baking. Serrin unloaded sacks of grain from a cart. One recognised Errollyn, and shouted greeting. Errollyn waved back.
“What chance do you give us?” Rhillian asked Sasha as they leaned on the rail.
“If we can take some of their artillery early, a reasonable chance,” said Sasha. “If not, very little.”
Rhillian nodded reluctantly. “Immobility is death against Steel artillery. A fate much like Saalshen's. We are immobile. Human civilisations change, yet we remain stuck in one place.”
“They weren't supposed to capture our artillery,” said Aisha. “But no one really knew what would happen in a defeat. The Steel had won only victories in two centuries. Defeat was never planned for properly.”