“Do you know of Azoria An’Berranin?”

“That is not entirely the correct name,” the Avatar—who looked very much like a Barrani man to Kaylin’s eye—said. “She was not An’Berranin when last I was aware of her presence.”

“It’s the name I was given—or the name that was used for legal documentation in the mortal areas of our city.”

“It is the belief of most of the court that she perished after the first war. It is not your belief.”

“I don’t know, but if I had to bet, no.”

“Then you must interrogate those who are certain she is dead.”

“That’s been tried. It didn’t go well; it just caused more death. Whatever information there is, whatever is feared, people will kill to keep hidden.”

“What do you wish to know?”

“Let’s start with a couple of questions that might seem unrelated.”

“Very well. An’Teela, with all due respect, it is safe for her to ask these questions of me, which is clearly not the case in general. I was not Hallionne, no—but like any living building, I am aware of those who dwell within my confines. I was fully awake at the time Azoria and her line were of significance.

“I was fond of An’Berranin—her father. Her brother was heir to Berranin, in the event of her father’s passing, but I had no sense that he wished to rush toward his inheritance. If she adopted the title, both father and brother were dead.” There was no question in his voice.

“The excision of Berranin occurred after the first war, when the building had significantly changed,” was Teela’s quiet rejoinder.

Kaylin nodded. “I’ve spoken to scholars at the Academia. They felt that she had a voracious hunger for knowledge, but murky ambitions.”

“Even if my opinion was, like your scholars, entirely superficial in nature, she styled herself An’Berranin. Facts strongly imply that she had at least that much ambition.”

“Or that she was the last of her line left standing,” Teela added, voice soft.

The Avatar nodded. “Much of my thought was turned inward, after the first war; knowledge of what passed outside of the Tower in which I had imprisoned our foe was no longer within my purview. That has changed, although many of the lords of the current court are...uncomfortable with these changes.”

“How much say do they get?”

“Your language is oddly colloquial; perhaps that is why young Terrano prefers to speak it.” The Avatar smiled. “The Lord of the High Court is not uncomfortable with my reach; he has, indeed, encouraged it, much to the chagrin of those who nominally serve him. He is the final authority, where such authority governs me at all.

“But the imperative is the protection of the Lake, the succor of our race. And that was not the question you intended to ask.”