Page 31 of Guiding Reason

He wants to see how I react to that,Hyran thought as he sat. “I know Guardian Vin has quite an impressive family history. I was stunned when I first looked into it. I can’t say I’m surprised about it now that I’ve met him. But you didn’t believe me, earlier. When I told you I wanted things to work out well between us.”

Col sighed. “No, that’s not it. I believe you. I’d be a disappointment to my team if I didn’t tell you flat out they’d do anything to protect me. I’m their leader, and I have to make things a bit flashy and impressive when I can.”

Hyran couldn’t help himself. He smiled. “So you threaten me.”

“My little brother has regular parents just like you. They threatened to murder Senny when they first met him. Who knows, maybe Vin threatened to murder Senny too, and I just missed that. Consider it your initiation.”

Hyran nodded. “Strange, but fine.”

“You’ve never been part of a team?”

“I’m on Logistics Four. That’s a team.”

“But you don’t work with anyone. You go outside the walls where you have time to make friends with outsiders and Hounds.”

Hyran sucked in a breath. He’d have to tread carefully here. “I’m not friends with any Hounds. They’re difficult. I try not to murder them, they try not to murder me, most of the time. If you call that friendship, sure.”

Col nodded and picked up the screen he’d carried over with his beauty products. “Can you show me where? The humans you befriended, I mean. Where is that town?”

Hyran cocked his head. “I can. But can I ask why you want me to tell you?”

“Because they might have seen something. I…I don’t know yet. Can you just show me?”

Hyran nodded and took the screen. It displayed the normalized map, or at least that’s what he liked to call it. It didn’t mark out the human settlements that Hyran knew, and it didn’t mark those paths he’d seen Hounds take nor did it have any of the Hound places the outsiders had told him about. It was this map that they all knew from their first few years of schooling.

“Here, approximately.” Hyran marked the place west of Cuprea. “That’s where Lowvalley is. It’s really tiny, compared to other places.”

Col leaned in to look at the screen. “That’s near the floodlands.”

“Yes. They forage a type of mushroom that grows there. It’s good. They also cultivate their own, which is an impressive way to do agriculture and one I think we could learn from.”

“So they shared food with you.”

“Didn’t the outsider you met share food with you?”

Col nodded. “They offered succor.”

Hyran tilted his head to the side. “What’s that mean?”

Col bit his lip and took the screen back. “You requested my file through the Op-AI? The Ferrean one?”

“Yes, why?”

“Did you look at the version my Op-AI sent you? I mean, it should have sent you something. After the imprinting.”

“I had a lot of messages. I haven’t read all of them yet, and I want to truly get to know you, not just from some file.”

“I’m only asking because I would assume the version you received upon request redacted my place of birth, which was outside the walls.”

Hyran’s jaw dropped. He had not seen that coming. “You—Coldis. You’re right, I didn’t know that. You’d have to have been young to be taken in?”

The Conduit nodded. “Very young. But I remembered succor. It works between outsiders and Hounds, and apparently also for my team. It’s asking for help and promising peace while one receives it.”

“I see. That makes sense. The outside can be, well, it can be what you saw. Not that I know what you saw or experienced during the attack, but I can imagine it wouldn’t have been pleasant, what with your team hurt.”

Col put his screen away. “It wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t pleasant at all. I’d like to meet the people you made friends with, the outsiders who told you of that woman.”

“What? You want to go outside the walls again?”