Jasak’s face could have been hewn out of granite. Gadrial held his hand tightly, her own expression anxious as she looked up at his profile. Despite the weakening of her Talent, Shaylar physically felt the fury raging through him behind that stony mask, and she found herself clutching Jathmar’s hand even more tightly.
“I wish I could say that was the worst thing Fifty Ulthar had to report,” the duke said even more heavily. “Unfortunately, it isn’t. According to Therman’s brother-in-law, the lie that Magister Halathyn was shot down in cold blood by the Sharonians after surrendering, not in a ghastly friendly fire accident, isn’t just a wild story concocted by rumor mongers and so called reporters desperate for a story. According to Ulthar, the troops have been told-told officially-the same lie by their own intelligence officers.”
“That’s insane!” Gadrial snapped, and this time there was no hint of apology in her expression when the duke looked at her. “One of the few things we knew for certain before we ever started for home was that Magister Halathyn was killed by one of our own infantry dragons! That was absolutely established in the earliest reports, whatever lies may’ve hit the crystals since!”
“Precisely.” The duke shook his head, looking older in that moment than Shaylar had ever seen him look. “Precisely. Apparently whoever’s feeding the troops the false reports is at least attempting to cover himself by saying his information is ‘unconfirmed,’ but as far as I’m concerned, that’s simply a glaring tipoff that it’s deliberate and authorized at the highest levels. Harshu has to know the truth. For that matter, he has to know that eventually the truth is going to come out. But it’s evident from Ulthar’s report-assuming he’s got it right, and I’m very much afraid he does-that at the very least none of the Expeditionary Force’s senior officers are attempting to correct the ‘rumors’ sweeping through the ranks. And you know as well as I do, Gadrial, exactly how that’s going to inflame our people. Especially the garthans like Ulthar’s brother-in-law. I can’t think of anything better calculated to generate atrocities than to allow our own troops to believe the Sharonians routinely commit them.”
A crackling silence invaded the room, lingering like a static electricity on the skin, until Shaylar broke it.
“You Grace,” she said very, very carefully, “why do I think those ‘atrocities’ are the reason Jathmar and I are here this evening?”
“Because they are.” The duke faced her squarely, and his shoulders braced. “I’m afraid Two Thousand Harshu, faced with your own people’s huge advantage in communications-apparently on the advice of Five Hundred Neshok-settled on a technique to prevent your Voices from warning anyone up-chain about our advance.”
Shaylar blinked. Sharona had been forced to develop techniques for neutralizing the Voice Talent long ago, but it hadn’t been easy and it had taken centuries. How could the Arcanans, who’d never even heard of Talents before Toppled Timber have devised one so quickly?!
Then she felt the spike of pure, unadulterated fury coming off of Jasak and the sudden horror radiating from Gadrial. The emotions were so powerful-and so focused on her, for some reason-that they almost knocked her breathless despite the weakening of her Talent.
“I don’t care who he is, Father,” Jasak snapped. “I’ll cut his black heart out on the dueling ground!”
“I understand your sentiments, Jasak,” the duke said. “And I share them. But that’s getting ahead of where we are now. What we have to do now is find out if what Ulthar’s reporting is true. We have to confirm that, with evidence that will stand up before any tribunal, before we can do anything else. And we have to find out whose idea it really was. Harshu’s for the dragon as far as I’m concerned, no matter who came up with it, but given how this information’s reached Portalis-and who in Portalis has it-I have to wonder who else could be manipulating the situation…and why?”
“Mul Gurthak,” Gadrial hissed. “We keep hearing about Harshu, but mul Gurthak’s his superior, and this has the stink of shakira all over it, Your Grace!”
“That’s exactly what I think, my dear. Unfortunately, we can’t prove it. In fact, at the moment, we can’t prove any of this.”
“Any of what?” Shaylar demanded. “What do you all talking about, and why is Jasak so…so furious about whatever it is?”
Jasak crossed to the couch upon which she and Jathmar sat. He dropped to one knee in front of her, reaching out and taking her free hand in both of his while he looked straight into her eyes with that unyielding personal integrity she’d come to know so well.
“I’m furious because I’m your baranal,” he said. “Because you and Jathmar-all your people, even those I’ve never met-have already suffered and lost so much because of this entire stupid, unforgivable nightmare. And because whoever came up with Harshu’s ‘technique’ for neutralizing your Voices only knew they had to be neutralized in the first place because I reported the capability.”
“That’s not fair, Jas!” Gadrial said sharply. “You had to report that, and you had no idea-no idea at all-anyone would use that information for this!”
“For what?!” Shaylar demanded again, and Jasak drew a deep breath.
“There’s only one way we could ‘neutralize’ a Voice, Shaylar.” His voice was gentle, yet it was cored with steel, hammered on the anvil of his fury. “We don’t have a spell to do that. The only way we know to…‘turn off’ a Talent is to kill whoever has it.”
Shaylar stared at him for a second or two longer, unable to process what he’d just said. And then understanding filled her like a sea of poison. It rushed into her, filling every nook and cranny of her soul with a black, crushing tide of horror. And of guilt. And of hatred.
She snatched her hand out of Jasak’s and slammed back against the couch’s luxurious cushions. Of course that was what they’d done. It was what they did. They butchered anything they didn’t understand! But they couldn’t have done it-couldn’t have known to do it-if not for her. If she hadn’t survived, if she hadn’t told them about her Talent, if Jasak hadn’t passed that information along, then Sharona couldn’t have been surprised the way it clearly had been! And all of those Voices, all those people whose only crime had been to be Talented…
“Monsters,” she whispered, staring back and forth between Jasak and his father. “You’re all monsters! Mother Marthea, how do you live with yourselves?! I knew some of those Voices! I’ve touched their minds, shared their thoughts. They were part of me, and some of them were only children!”
Jasak reached out to her again, but she shrank away, shaking her head convulsively.
“Don’t touch me, Jasak Olderhan!” she snapped. “Don’t! Not now!”
“Shaylar-”
“No, Gadrial.” Shaylar shook her head again, even harder. “I don’t want to hear it! Not now.” She released Jathmar’s hand to wrap her arms about herself, huddling in on her bones as if she were freezing. She rocked on the couch, like a mother morning the deaths of her own children, and tears ran down her face.