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Cast in Peril
Michelle Sagara
It has been a busy few weeks for Private Kaylin Neva. In between angling for a promotion, sharing her room with the last living female Dragon and dealing with more refugees than anyone knew what to do with, the unusual egg she'd been given was ready to hatch.Actually, that turned out to be lucky, because it absorbed the energy from the bomb that went off in her quarters…So now might be the perfect time to leave Elantra and journey to the West March with the Barrani. If not for the disappearances of citizens in the fief of Tiamaris – disappearances traced to the very Barrani Kaylin will be traveling with…
Usually disaster doesn’t strike quite so close to home…
It has been a busy few weeks for Private Kaylin Neva. In between angling for a promotion, sharing her room with the last living female Dragon and dealing with more refugees than anyone knew what to do with, the unusual egg she’d been given began to hatch. Actually, that turned out to be lucky, because it absorbed the energy from the bomb that went off in her quarters.…
So now might be the perfect time to leave Elantra and journey to the West March with the Barrani. If not for the disappearances of citizens in the fief of Tiamaris—disappearances traced to the very Barrani Kaylin is about to be traveling with…
Praise for New York Times bestselling author
MICHELLE SAGARA
and The Chronicles of Elantra series
“No one provides an emotional payoff like Michelle Sagara. Combine that with a fast-paced police procedural, deadly magics, five very different races and a wickedly dry sense of humor—well, it doesn’t get any better than this.”
—Bestselling author Tanya Huff on The Chronicles of Elantra series
“Intense, fast-paced, intriguing, compelling and hard to put down…unforgettable.”
—In the Library Reviews on Cast in Shadow
“Readers will embrace this compelling, strong-willed heroine with her often sarcastic voice.”
—Publishers Weekly on Cast in Courtlight
“The impressively detailed setting and the book’s spirited heroine are sure to charm romance readers as well as fantasy fans who like some mystery with their magic.”
—Publishers Weekly on Cast in Secret
“Along with the exquisitely detailed world building, Sagara’s character development is mesmerizing. She expertly breathes life into a stubborn yet evolving heroine. A true master of her craft!”
—RT Book Reviews (4 ½ stars) on Cast in Fury
“With prose that is elegantly descriptive, Sagara answers some long-standing questions and adds another layer of mystery. Each visit to this amazing world, with its richness of place and character, is one to relish.”
—RT Book Reviews (4 ½ stars) on Cast in Silence
“Another satisfying addition to an already vivid and entertaining fantasy series.”
—Publishers Weekly on Cast in Chaos
“Sagara stirs together an abundance of adventure, action and humor to produce one extraordinary story…with the bonus of introducing a highly intriguing new character. An utter gem!”
—RT Book Reviews (4 ½ stars) on Cast in Ruin
Cast in Peril
Michelle Sagara
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
For Tobin,
who escaped to the west coast,
but has since discovered that being a brother is a life sentence.
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u8a6eefa0-33e8-5af5-99a9-0885227a387f)
Chapter 2 (#uec4c599e-75f9-5252-b4a2-477f724a649b)
Chapter 3 (#u72743f1e-8895-5c72-b7f6-5801f5f666a9)
Chapter 4 (#uaa222efd-d371-5d95-a569-0654e9ce6cd4)
Chapter 5 (#ufd1326b3-7d8e-5437-83fd-bffac8a10dd0)
Chapter 6 (#u9ac9a73a-6d84-57b7-9ab4-a624a7dba5e5)
Chapter 7 (#ub891f735-6080-5b44-8b3c-0509bd9248e1)
Chapter 8 (#u422e295a-9891-5d5f-b0c8-34edaa169993)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1
The worst thing about having a roommate, in Kaylin’s opinion—and admittedly after only two weeks—was morning. The fact that this particular roommate was a Dragon didn’t help. Bellusdeo was clean, tidy, and ate very little. She didn’t actually require sleep, and for the first couple of nights, that had seemed like a good thing because Kaylin’s apartment only had one bed. It only had one room.
But around morning number four, which had come on the heels of an urgent mirror message from the Guild of Midwives and a hideously touch-and-go birth, the “good thing” developed the preceding words “too damn much of a…”
Ten days—which included three more emergency calls—later, Kaylin struggled out of bed when the shadows in the room were far too short, and came face-to-face with someone who looked refreshed and annoyingly cheerful. She always looked refreshed and cheerful, but the annoying part had grown with time and familiarity.
It was far too late for breakfast, in part because Kaylin hadn’t managed to get to the market the previous day and there was no food in the apartment. So she scrounged for clean clothing, taking what little time she had to tend to the large unhatched egg she slept wrapped around.
“Kaylin, I think the egg has changed color,” Bellusdeo said. She stared at the egg but didn’t actually touch it. She did, however, help Kaylin gather the cloth she kept wrapped around it when she left it for the day.
Kaylin, who was still bleary from sleep and fatigued by the work of the previous night, squinted. “Maybe. Do you think—do you think that means it’s going to hatch?”
“I don’t know. I don’t recognize the species of egg.”
Kaylin pressed her ear against the shell. She could almost hear something moving within it—but the sound was so faint it might have been due to hopeful imagination. She considered taking the egg into the office with her, remembered that it was magic-lesson day, and decided to take the risk of leaving it untended for the afternoon. It was afternoon by this point, so it would be a shorter absence than usual.
Bellusdeo then accompanied Kaylin into work.
* * *
Kaylin accepted the barrage of amused mockery her hour of arrival caused with less than her usual grace. She had managed to go almost three weeks without being late. Admittedly on two of those days she’d perambulated around the office like someone doing a good imitation of the walking dead—but she’d been timely walking dead, damn it.
“If you dislike the mockery,” Bellusdeo told her as she walked gracefully by Kaylin’s side, “why don’t you just arrive on time?”
“I need to sleep.”
“You don’t have to go to the midwives’ guildhall.”
“If I miss a few hours here in the morning, Marcus snarls at me and I expose my throat for a few minutes. I also win someone some money in the betting pool. If I miss an emergency call from the midwives’ guild, someone dies. Guess which is more important?”
Bellusdeo nodded. “We have an etiquette lesson this evening,” the Dragon added. It was true. It was also a subtle reminder that Bellusdeo did make Kaylin’s life a little easier, because while Lord Diarmat pretty much despised Kaylin, he couldn’t openly treat Bellusdeo with contempt, and Bellusdeo had an uncanny knack for asking the direct questions that would have caused mortal offense had they come from Kaylin’s mouth. In this case, mortal was accurate.
Kaylin grimaced and straightened up. “I have a magic lesson in half an hour.”
“With Sanabalis?”
“The same.” Kaylin hesitated and then added, “Do you think you could call him Lord Sanabalis?”
“Why? You don’t. If you don’t, I can hardly see that it will make much difference if I fail to do so.”
“It won’t make much difference to you. It’ll get me in less trouble.” She headed toward the reception desk, where Caitlin was watching their progress down the hall. The mirror dutifully announced the time the minute Kaylin’s foot had crossed the threshold. At least it hadn’t called her by name.
“Good afternoon, dear,” Caitlin said, rising from her chair. “The midwives called you in last night?”
Kaylin nodded. “Marya woke me at two in the morning.”
“It was bad?”
“It was very bad; I almost didn’t make it in time.”
“Did you eat anything before you came here?”
“Yes.”
Bellusdeo lifted a lovely golden brow but said nothing. Not that words actually had to be spoken around Caitlin, who pursed her lips.
“Lord Sanabalis is waiting for you.”
“Of course he is.”
* * *
Bellusdeo didn’t actually join her for magic lessons; as a member of the Dragon Court—albeit on a technicality—she didn’t require them. She did, however, go to Elantran language lessons in the East Room for the duration; the Imperial Palace had ordered two linguists to work with her during that time. What the linguists made of Bellusdeo, Kaylin didn’t know; she was just grateful for the few moments in which Bellusdeo was someone else’s problem.
“I admit I’m surprised to see you on time, Private,” Sanabalis said as she cringed her way through contact with the room’s door ward and entered.
“Oh?”
“Given the time at which you left your dwelling last evening, I assumed you would be at least an hour late.”
Kaylin sat and folded her arms across her chest. “You’re having my apartment watched at two in the morning?”
Sanabalis didn’t answer the question. Instead he said, “How is Bellusdeo adapting to life in the City?”
“She hasn’t changed much since I spoke to you about it two days ago.”
“And have you reconsidered the Emperor’s offer to house you in a more suitable location?”
Sadly, she had. On offer was a much, much larger apartment. It was, however, farther from the office, and Kaylin still held on to the faint hope that Bellusdeo would get tired of living in a run-down, single-room apartment with no privacy and choose to move out on her own.
So far, Dragon stubbornness was running neck and neck with human stubbornness. It seemed unfair that only the human was suffering. If they had a larger dwelling, Kaylin could have an entire room to herself, and they would have room for Bellusdeo’s Ascendant, a Norannir who would only barely fit through Kaylin’s current door—if he crouched. Maggaron could keep an eye on Bellusdeo, and Kaylin might actually have a day—at work—in which she didn’t have the Dragon as her constant companion. As it was, that Ascendant, Maggaron, had been exiled to the Tower in the fief of Tiamaris, and he was very, very glum about the separation.
What she said, however, was “No. We’re doing fine.” Kaylin’s biggest fear was that she would move, lose her small—but affordable—apartment, and have nowhere else to go when Bellusdeo finally decided to move out. Severn had suggested that she pay her rent while staying in the Imperial building, but it galled Kaylin to spend that much money on something she wasn’t even using.
She glared at her nemesis, the candle.
Sanabalis folded his hands on the table’s surface; it had been newly oiled and waxed, and the Dragon’s reflection stared back up at him. “Your etiquette lesson is tonight.”
“I know.”
“You seem to have survived the previous lessons.”
“Yes. So did Diarmat and Bellusdeo.”
Sanabalis winced, but he chuckled, as well. “I believe Lord Diarmat is on the edge of repenting his decision to teach you; he may well ask the Arkon to undertake that duty instead.”
“But he won’t fall over that edge until we’ve suffered at least as much as he has?”
“Ah, no. I believe he would be more than willing to continue to teach you, but he feels that Bellusdeo is an impediment to your effective absorption of necessary knowledge.” Sanabalis nodded at the candle. “Begin.”
* * *
The entire department heard her shriek.
Only half of them left their desks to see what had caused it—or at least only half of them were visible when Kaylin threw the door open and tried to run through them into the office. She was bouncing.
“Teela! Tain! I did it!”
“Whatever you did, kitling,” Teela replied, “you broke the silence spell that usually protects us from your cursing during class.” She glanced pointedly at the warded door. “What do you think you did?”
Kaylin spun and pointed.
The candle’s wick was actually burning. She’d been staring at it every class for what felt like years—but couldn’t have been more than a couple of months in objective time—and had even cut it in half in a foul mood. Not once in all those months had the damn thing done what it was supposed to do.
But today?
Today she’d almost felt the warmth of fire; she’d grasped and visualized its name. It had taken the better part of an hour to accomplish that much, because it was a large name and parts of it kept sliding out of her grip. It didn’t matter; this was the first class she’d had with Sanabalis that hadn’t ended in total, frustrating failure.
Lord Sanabalis rose, and Kaylin hesitated, losing a little of her bounce. “You didn’t do it, did you? It was me?”
“It was you, Private Neya. And because you’ve succeeded—once—I will consider today’s lesson complete. If you will accompany me?”
“Pardon?”
“I believe Lord Grammayre and Sergeant Kassan would like a few words with you. They did want to speak with you earlier, but I felt the matter could wait until after your lesson.”
Yes, because Lord Sanabalis was a Dragon and Lord Grammayre and Sergeant Kassan were only the men responsible for signing off on her pay chit.
* * *
Lord Grammayre and Marcus were waiting in the Hawklord’s Tower. Kaylin, torn between panic at the length of time they’d been made to wait and worry about the topic of discussion, went up the stairs at a brisk clip, as if rushing to her doom. Dragon knowledge of the effective chain of command in the Halls of Law was pretty simple: the Dragon Court’s desires took precedence over everything. It was hard to get that wrong. Their knowledge of the finer details, on the other hand—and in particular Kaylin’s place in the food chain as a private—left a lot to be desired, especially since their pay and their rank weren’t ever going to be at risk. She tried not to resent this as Sanabalis, curse him, practically crawled.
The Tower doors were open, which was a small mercy. Kaylin approached them, the sound of her steps on stone drawing two pairs of distinctive eyes—Leontine and Aerian. Marcus’s facial fur was standing on end, and his eyes were orange. The Hawklord’s wings were slightly extended, and his eyes were a gray-blue. Had she been a flower, she’d’ve instantly wilted under that much dry heat. Angry Leontine Sergeant, angry Aerian Commander in Chief, slightly bored Dragon, and panicked human—you could practically call it a racial congress, with humans in their usual position.
Marcus was in such a bad mood that he didn’t even mention how late she was; he wasn’t in a bad enough mood not to growl when she hesitated in the doorway. She crossed the threshold quickly and offered Lord Grammayre a salute. It was as perfect as she could make it—and if two weeks under the Draconic Lord Diarmat had given her nothing else, it had certainly improved the quality of necessary gestures of respect, not that she was required to salute a member of the Dragon Court.
Lord Sanabalis, as a member of said court, wasn’t required to offer a salute to anyone in the Halls of Law. Kaylin wasn’t certain what formal gestures of respect he offered the Eternal Emperor, because thankfully she’d never seen the Eternal Emperor—at least not yet. She’d seen the rest of the Dragons interact with each other, and while they were polite and formal when nothing important was being discussed, they didn’t spend all day bowing, saluting, or speaking full titles. She now even knew what their full titles were.
“At ease, Private.” If an order could be guaranteed to make her feel less at ease, she didn’t want to hear it. The Hawklord’s tone of voice had enough edge to draw blood. She nodded stiffly and dropped her arms to her sides.
“Lord Sanabalis,” the Hawklord continued, “we have news of some import to relay to the Imperial Court.”
“Good. Does it involve the current investigation into the Exchequer?”
“It does. We have an unexpected lead. Our subsequent investigations have given us reason to believe it is extremely relevant.”
Sanabalis raised a brow. “May I ask the source of that information?”
“You may; it is the only reason Private Neya is currently present.”
“I will assume that the lead did not come through the Private.”
“No. Not directly. She has been involved as your attaché in the fief of Tiamaris for much of the investigation; as she has not yet been released from those duties, she has had no direct involvement in the Exchequer affair.”
Lord Sanabalis nodded.
“Even if she is no longer required as frequently in the fief, she appears to be the unofficial minder for the newly arrived Lady Bellusdeo.”
Kaylin cringed.
“Private?” Marcus growled.
Kaylin cleared her throat. “She doesn’t like to be referred to as Lady Bellusdeo.”
“And given her position at the moment, that is understandable. I will endeavor not to cause her the hardship of appropriate Elantran title in future,” Lord Grammayre said. “However.”
Sanabalis’s eyes had shaded to a pale copper. Kaylin wasn’t certain what color her eyes would be if human eye color shifted at the whim of mood; given that she was standing near an angry Leontine, an annoyed Dragon, and an unhappy Aerian, it probably wouldn’t be good.
“What is Private Neya’s involvement?”
The Leontine glared at the Hawklord. The Hawklord pretended not to notice either the glare or the question. “The usual method of paying in Imperial currency for information was rejected; the information, however, was deemed necessary.”
“And?”
“The information offered to us came via Lord Nightshade of the fief of Nightshade.”
Copper shaded toward orange in the Dragon Lord’s eyes. “He offered the information first?”
“Of course not. But he offered some of the information to indicate the importance of the offer.”
“And the information he did offer was not sufficient for our investigators?”
“No; if we attempted to investigate thoroughly, we would almost certainly be detected, and any proof of criminal activity would vanish.”
“What was the tidbit he dangled?”
“The Office of the Exchequer has been working in conjunction with two highly placed Arcanists. Both,” he added, “are Barrani, and both might be in possession of some of the embezzled funds.”
* * *
Kaylin did not, through dint of will, whistle. She did sneak a glance at Sanabalis; his eyes hadn’t gotten any redder, which was a positive sign. On the other hand, Marcus’s hadn’t gotten any less orange, which was not, given that Marcus now turned the full force of his glare on her. She felt this a tad unfair, given that she’d already warned him what Nightshade would demand in return for the information; she was not, however, feeling suicidal enough to point this out.
“Were you aware, Private, that the leave of absence requested in return for this information would be extensive?”
“…How extensive?”
“The fieflord is asking for a minimum of six weeks if we provide the transport, and a minimum of eight weeks if we do not.”
She blinked. After a moment, she said, “Eight weeks?” thinking, as she did, of her rent.
“Eight weeks.”
“I can’t take eight weeks off!”
For some reason, this seemed to improve Marcus’s mood. “When you agreed to Teela’s offer of aid during your leave of absence, did it ever occur to you to look up a map of the Empire?”
“…No.”
Sanabalis lifted a hand. “Why is a leave of eight weeks required?”
“She’s to travel to the West March.”
“A map wouldn’t have done you any good, Private,” Sanabalis now told Kaylin. “The West March is not technically part of the Empire. It is a remote stretch of forest of some significant size. It is not, however, the size of the forest that makes it worthy of note.”
This was not exactly a comfort. “What makes it noteworthy?”
“The trees contained in the heart of that forest are not considered…entirely safe.”
“What does that mean? They don’t burn when you breathe on them?”
Sanabalis’s answering silence was glacial.
“Given Teela’s offer, she will also be missing for eight weeks. It’s a good damn thing Nightshade specifically demanded that you go without any other Hawks, or we’d probably have to do without Corporal Handred, as well.”
Kaylin was still stuck on the eight weeks. “Minimum?” she finally managed to say.
“Minimum. There is the possibility of poor weather and impassable roads, and Lord Nightshade wished to make clear that eight weeks might not suffice.”
She shook herself. “The information was useful?”
“The information,” Lord Grammayre replied, before Marcus could, “may finally crack the case for us. It is more than simply useful, but we wasted some time in negotiations for your release, and we are only now in dialogue with the Lord of Wolves.”
The Wolves.
“How bad is this going to be?”
No one answered, which was answer enough.
“You agreed to the leave of absence?”
The Hawklord nodded. Kaylin desperately wanted to ask if this absence involved pay, because she’d have nowhere to live if it didn’t. On the other hand, the right person to ask was Caitlin, not Marcus, and certainly not Marcus in this mood.
“When does this leave start?”
“Teela will be able to better inform you of the actual dates of import; I suggest you speak with her, because she’ll also be able to inform you of expected dress, weather, and, apparently, colorful wildlife. Lord Nightshade, however, is likely to be in touch with you shortly; you are to leave in five days if we are not to provide the transport he’s asking for.”
“And if you do?”
“We’re not.”
“But—”
“Yes?”
“The midwives. And the Foundling Hall. And the—the etiquette lessons—”
“Lord Sanabalis will, of course, evaluate the information once you’ve left, and discuss it with the Imperial Court. In a strict currency evaluation, eight weeks of your time is far less than we might be expected to pay for information of this
nature; it will save money at a time when finances are—”
Sanabalis coughed loudly.
“Now,” Marcus growled, “get lost.”
* * *
Teela was loitering at the bottom of the stairs, her hands behind her back, her shoulders at a slant against the slight curve of the wall. She glanced up when she heard Kaylin’s steps. Given that Kaylin wasn’t exactly attempting to move silently, this wasn’t hard.
“You’ve heard the news?” she said as Kaylin took the last step and drew level with her, in a manner of speaking. Teela, like all Barrani, was tall; she probably had seven inches on Kaylin when Kaylin was standing at her straightest. Teela wasn’t even trying at the moment.
“Yes.”
“Don’t look so glum. Have you ever been outside the City?”
“No.”
Teela whistled. “Well, this will be an adventure for you, then. It’s a useful experience; you can’t stay cooped up behind the City walls for all your life.”
“Why exactly not?”
“In this case? Because Nightshade had a very important piece of information and you happened to mention his offer to Marcus.”
“I didn’t think I’d be gone for eight weeks!”
“Eight is, in my opinion, optimistic.”
Kaylin’s jaw momentarily unhinged. Teela reached out and pushed it shut. “Don’t fret. It’ll be fun.”
“That’s not making me feel a whole lot better, Teela. I know what your definition of fun is.”
* * *
Severn was waiting for Kaylin in the office when she at last reached her desk; she knew this because he was sitting in her chair. He looked up when she tapped his shoulder.
“Bad news?” he asked as he moved to let her sit. He reached into the pack at his feet and pulled out the bracer that prevented her from using magic. She’d thrown it over her shoulder on the run, because she knew it would return to Severn. It always did. “Midwives?”
She took the bracer, slid it over her wrist, and closed it. “Two in the morning.”
“And I heard that I should offer congratulations on the candle.”
The triumph of a lit candle had evaporated. She sat and folded her arms across her desk in a type of lean that implied her spine was melting. “They took Nightshade up on his offer,” she said, speaking to the wood grain and the interior of her elbows.
“Did you expect them to do anything else?”
“…No.”
“Then?”
“…I’ll be absent for eight weeks. Teela thinks it’ll actually be longer.” She lifted her head and turned to look at Severn. “You’re not coming, either.”
He shrugged; it was a fief shrug, and it was a tense one.
“So you’ll be out patrolling with some other Hawk, not me, and gods know if they won’t decide that you’re more effective working with someone else. Marcus might give my beat away.”
“Marcus won’t—”
“And the midwives won’t be able to call me. They’ve had four emergencies in the last two weeks. If those had been part of the eight, at least four people would have died.”
“At least?”
“I think they could have saved two of the babies.”
“But Nightshade’s information may well crack the Exchequer case.”
“May well? It had better tie it up in expensive cloth with bows on top.” She lowered her chin to the desk again. “But putting the Exchequer in prison—or under the ground—wouldn’t save the lives of those mothers. I’m hard put to see which lives it would save. Besides the Hawks.”
Severn tactfully steered the topic away from her visions of mortality. “Teela’s going with you?”
“Yeah. She’s a Lord of the Barrani Court, and apparently whatever this jaunt to the West March is about, it’s ceremonial. She’s got an invitation to go.”
“Well, keep an eye on her.”
Kaylin almost laughed. “Me and what army? You know Teela.”
Severn didn’t have a chance to answer. Bellusdeo appeared at his elbow. “They’ve finally let me out,” she said in accented but reasonable Elantran. She frowned. “You don’t look very happy. The magic lesson didn’t go well?”
“No, the lesson went very well.”
“This is how you react to a good lesson?”
Kaylin snorted but pushed herself off her desk and out of the chair. “No. It’s how I react to bad news.”
When Bellusdeo’s brows rose, Kaylin could almost hear them snap. “What bad news?” she asked in almost entirely the wrong tone of voice.
“The Barrani have some sort of ceremony out in the West March, and I’m obliged to attend it.”
“Why? You’re not Barrani.”
Kaylin’s mouth stopped flapping as her brain caught up with it. She glanced at Severn for help, but he had nothing to offer. “I can’t really talk about it,” she finally said. “Not without having my throat ripped out.”
Bellusdeo, however, knew that this wasn’t literal. It had taken her a couple of days to figure that out, because Marcus was still his usual suspicious and unfriendly self when dealing with Dragons. “I almost think I will apply for a job in the Halls,” she said, her voice cool. “I’ve heard that the Hawks are very multiracial, and they’ve even had a Dragon as a member before.”
“Marcus would be your boss,” Kaylin replied quickly.
“Yes. I’ll admit that is a deterrent. Are you ready to go home?”
Kaylin had been ready to go home an hour ago, which would have been during the meeting with the Hawklord, Sanabalis, and Marcus. She nodded, looking out the window, which was silent for the moment. “We have time to grab something to eat—and get changed—before we head to the palace and the charming Lord Diarmat for tonight’s personal torture session.”
* * *
The streets wouldn’t be empty for hours yet, but they weren’t quite as crowded as they had been on the way in, and Kaylin couldn’t be late, in a career-detrimental way, to enter her own apartment. She could, however, miss the few remaining farmers in the market, so she hurried to that destination, Bellusdeo in tow. Bellusdeo had a few questions about food acquisition, but in the main, the worst of them had been answered on their first foray into the market, much to Kaylin’s frustration and the bemusement of the farmers.
It was helpful to have Bellusdeo here, on the other hand, because the baskets in which food was generally carried home were still in said home. They made their way back to the apartment; by this point, Bellusdeo had no difficulty finding it.
The Dragon practiced her Elantran in the market, and she practiced it in the street. Kaylin tried—very hard—to elide all swearing from her commentary and her answers to Bellusdeo’s questions, and only in part because it was slightly embarrassing to have to explain what the rude words meant.
But she was hungry and slightly discouraged as she made her way to the apartment, her thoughts mostly on the midwives, Tiamaris, and the total lack of privacy one room afforded.
She unlocked the door, entered her room, and made a beeline for the mirror; when it showed a total lack of calls, she relaxed. She let her hair down, literally, and tried to put the stick where she could easily find it in the morning. She then went to the kitchen for a couple of plates. There was still water that was potable, and the food she’d bought for the evening didn’t require anything as complicated as cooking.
Bellusdeo took a seat on the bed, which was fair; the chair was a clothing repository at the moment, and Kaylin wasn’t so exhausted that she needed to fall over and sleep. The bed, however, creaked ominously as it received Dragon weight, and while it hadn’t yet collapsed beneath Bellusdeo, the sound reminded Kaylin of the unhatched egg that now resided beneath her. She quickly shoved the remainder of a hard, smooth cheese into her mouth and tried not to look as if she was diving in a panic for the box that contained the egg.
Bellusdeo snorted. Kaylin had the grace to look a little embarrassed as she unwound the various bits and pieces of cloth that served as poor insulation for the egg during her absence.
The egg was a pale shade of purple in her hands.
“It wasn’t that color earlier,” Bellusdeo observed, leaning back on her hands and stretching.
“No, it wasn’t. Tomorrow, if it hasn’t hatched, I’m going to bring it with me to the office.”
“Oh, your Sergeant will love that, I’m certain.” She frowned and looked up at the shutters of the window as they popped open.
Kaylin, still holding the egg, winced and rose. “Sorry about that,” she said, because the shutter had narrowly avoided the back of Bellusdeo’s head. “They’re warped. I keep meaning to see about getting them replaced—”
“When you say �replaced,’ do you mean you intend to build new ones?”
“Hells, no. I couldn’t make new shutters that would be half as good as these, and these are no good. Let me tie them together.”
Bellusdeo, however, was looking at something in her lap. She rose, her expression freezing solid. It wasn’t her expression that was the problem: it was the color of her eyes. They’d shifted from lazy gold to a deep, deep red without stopping for anything else in between. “Kaylin,” she said, moving toward her and toward the door, as well. “The shutters—”
But Kaylin didn’t need to hear more, because something flew in through the open window.
Chapter 2
Kaylin’s first instinct was to ram the shutters shut, but she was carrying the egg, and she’d have to set it down—or drop it. “Get down, Bellusdeo.” Her voice was sharp, harsh.
Bellusdeo caught Kaylin by the shoulders and dragged her from the window as Kaylin ducked out of any line of sight that wasn’t at a severe angle and tried to see where the crossbow bolt had landed. She didn’t find it.
“Kaylin, we have to leave.”
“If there’s more than one assassin,” Kaylin countered, “running out the door in a panic is playing into their hands.” She grabbed for the egg’s carton as a second bolt flew through the open window.
Except it wasn’t a bolt. Kaylin felt the hair on her neck instantly stand at attention, which was bad; the marks on her body began to burn, which was worse. She couldn’t see what she’d clearly heard land on the floor of her apartment, but she didn’t need to see it to know—suddenly and completely—what it was. Her eyes widened.
“Gods—Bellusdeo—it’s an Arcane bomb—”
The room exploded.
* * *
Wood flew out in a wide circle: shutters, parts of the wall, wooden floor slats, and the soft wood that formed their base. Her mattress sent feathers into the air, and the feathers were caught in a blue, blue sizzle, becoming a miniature lightning storm. There was so damn much magic in the room, Kaylin’s entire body was screaming in pain on the way to total numbness.
Which was better than being dead.
Bellusdeo had her arms around Kaylin and her back toward the window; her body was pressed against the egg that Kaylin still held between almost nerveless palms. The world expanded around them; shards of mirror flew past Kaylin’s cheek and lodged in the Dragon’s hair. The floor beneath their feet cracked and gave; the joists above their heads did the same, bending up toward someone else’s floor. Wind whipped whatever wasn’t nailed down through the air—which would, in this apartment, be everything.
Everything except the two women who stood at what had once been its center. Kaylin could see a sphere surrounding them; it was a soft, pale gold, like the color of a living word—but there were no words to shed it.
“Are you all right?” she shouted.
Bellusdeo nodded. Her eyes were still bloodred, and her hands were like bruising pincers.
“I didn’t know you were so powerful—”
Bellusdeo’s brows rose into her very disheveled hair. “I’m not. This isn’t me.”
“It’s not me, either.” Kaylin looked at the bracer on her wrist; its gems’ lights were flashing so quickly they looked like chaos embedded in gold. Somewhere above, below, and to the right, people began to shout and scream as Kaylin looked at her hands.
For once, Kaylin was barely aware of the civilians.
The egg’s shell had cracked, and bits of it were flying in the unnatural wind the Arcane bomb had caused. It didn’t matter. What was in—what had been surrounded by—that shell stared up at her. It was small and pale; it was also, like slightly smoky glass, translucent. Everything except its eyes. Its eyes were disturbing; they had no irises, no pupils, no whites. They would have been gray or silver, except for the constant, moving flecks of color that seemed to all but swim across their surface. Like opals, she thought.
Or, remembering the effects of the Shadow that had destroyed the watchtowers in the fief formerly known as Barren, like malignant storms.
Bellusdeo looked down, as well. She tried to move out of the way, but since she didn’t actually let go of Kaylin’s shoulders, it was awkward. Dragons weren’t known for their flexibility. She hissed, a wordless sibilant. “Kaylin, your arm.”
“The bracer does that some of the time. Ignore it.”
“I wasn’t talking about your bracer. Your—your marks, Chosen.”
Kaylin frowned. She couldn’t take her eyes off the small creature—and only in part because she didn’t want to. It had the form and shape of something reptilian, but not the actual scales. A long neck, a long tail, and a delicate head with a tapered jaw, the beast now sat in her palms.
“Kaylin.”
It opened its mouth, revealing translucent teeth, translucent tongue, and some hint of translucent upper palate. “I think—I think it’s yawning.”
“I think you’re crazy,” Bellusdeo snapped in Elantran. In Barrani, she added, “Is that the right word? It means insane.”
“Yes.” But when it stretched its neck, its tongue flickering like a snake’s tongue might, she saw the last little bit of its body as it slowly unfurled wings. For something that fit more or less in the palm of her hand—well, a little less—it had long wings. Long wings; eyes like opals.
“Kaylin—”
Kaylin shook herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at the spot where the floor wasn’t anymore. It happened to be far beneath her feet, but she hadn’t yet fallen. Neither had the weightier Bellusdeo. “What about the marks?”
“If you can manage to divert your gaze by a few degrees, you’ll see for yourself.”
Kaylin looked slightly over the small creature’s head. “Oh.”
“Oh, you say.”
One of the marks from Kaylin’s arm was floating in the air above the small creature’s head, hovering, in miniature, the way the spoken True Words did. “Bellusdeo, can you read it? Can you tell me what it means?”
Bellusdeo shook her head. “I was taught very little of the ancient tongue.”
“But you’re as old as the Arkon—”
“Yes. I was not, however, considered adult in my Aerie, because I wasn’t. What I learned, I learned by subterfuge and charm. Mostly charm.”
“It wouldn’t kill you to try that on Diarmat. It might, at this point, kill him.”
The rune began to thin as Kaylin watched it. No, not thin—compress. Three horizontal strokes began to shift their position, making a jumble of a pattern that had, for a moment, looked tantalizingly familiar. There was a short, fat dot in the center of the pattern, and slender, vertical squiggles to the left; those were pulled in as well, until there was something the shape of a very odd funnel just above the hatchling’s delicate head.
It flicked its tongue and then roared. Which came out as a pretty pathetic squawk. As it inhaled to try again, the funnel above its head began to descend; the creature opened its mouth and…began to eat it. Or drink from it.
“Bellusdeo, pinch me. Oh, never mind—you already are.”
Bellusdeo, however, was staring at the creature. “Do you understand what you have in your hands?” she finally asked in a hushed voice.
“A baby Dragon?”
“Remind me to speak to the Emperor about the standards of your biological education,” was the scathing reply. “Anything that small and delicate that hatched in the Aerie would be crushed or suffocated before it got out of its shell.”
“Well, it looks like a Dragon, except for the color.”
“It looks nothing like a Dragon!”
Kaylin decided not to press the point.
“And if it were, we’d both be dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a familiar,” Bellusdeo replied. “They’re almost legendary creatures. No, let me rephrase that: they are legendary creatures. I’ve never seen one before.”
“Then how do you know what it is?”
“Familiars, according to legend, are born in magical conflagration.”
“From eggs?”
“Funnily enough, the legends didn’t specify. This one, though, was.”
“What can you tell me about familiars? From legend, I mean,” she added hastily.
“Very little. They were the creatures of sorcerers, and in one particular story, the sorcerer who sought to summon a familiar destroyed half a world in the attempt.”
“Half a world?” Kaylin looked around the wreckage. “This doesn’t even qualify, if that’s the level of magic you’re talking about.”
Bellusdeo shrugged. “Legends are neither scientific nor historical. Arcane bomb? Is that what you called it?”
“Yes.” She frowned. “I didn’t see it; I could feel it. But I can see the sphere that absorbed most of the impact. On us,” she hastily added, looking at the debris.
The Dragon looked around the ruins of what had once been Kaylin’s apartment. Or rather, her building, since the one above and the one below weren’t going to be suitable living quarters for anything but desperate mice.
“Is this,” Kaylin nodded at the small dragon, “the source of the sphere?”
“Pardon?”
“The sphere. The one surrounding us.”
Bellusdeo closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Kaylin was happy to see that they were orange. “You are correct,” she said softly in Barrani. “There is a sphere surrounding us. You can see that without casting?”
Kaylin nodded. “It doesn’t seem like a strong spell.”
Bellusdeo’s eyes rounded fully. Apparently this was idiocy beyond even her expectations of mortals. “In what way?”
Kaylin was now looking, eyes narrowed, at every standing surface in the surrounding apartment. “No signature,” she replied, still examining the walls.
The small dragon turned its head toward the large one; its tongue flicked air, and Kaylin saw that its tongue was now the same color as its eyes. The rune was gone.
* * *
Kaylin was almost afraid to move, but she did—slowly—the small dragon cupped in her hands, the large Dragon attached to her shoulders. She didn’t tell Bellusdeo to let go, because she had a hunch that the sphere was generated somehow by the creature Bellusdeo had called a familiar, and it was the sphere that seemed to be allowing her the slow, timid steps she was taking through what was essentially air with splinters thrown in. She didn’t want Bellusdeo to fall.
But she looked at what remained of the floor where the Arcane bomb had exploded, and she could see the harsh illumination of a sigil against the broken floorboards; it was huge and splashed up against what remained of the walls.
“What are you looking for? The device?”
“No, that’s gone. I’m looking for the signature of the mage who created it. Arcane bombs are usually designed to have up to three different magical signatures, and none of those signatures is guaranteed to correspond to an actual criminal.” She frowned.
Bellusdeo looked shocked. Outraged. It instantly made Kaylin feel better. “What do you mean, an actual criminal? Isn’t the creation of a magical item of that nature criminal enough?”
Since it was more or less an annual rant on Kaylin’s part—if she was being generous—Kaylin had no arguments to offer in response. “This one’s different.”
“How?”
“I can only see two, and frankly, they seem a bit on the small size.”
“Maybe it wasn’t what you thought it was?”
“Or maybe the whole egg-hatching-in-conflagration thing did something with most of the magic the item contained.” She glanced at the creature, who had curled up so that his head was practically under one of his wings. He appeared to be sleeping. “He’s really, really cute,” she whispered.
“Kaylin, please. Focus.”
“Yes, Bellusdeo,” she said in exactly the same meek tone she sometimes used to ward off Marcus-level irritation.
* * *
Kaylin was wondering how in the hells they were supposed to leave the apartment and make their way down to the presumed safety of the street below, because the floors between here and the door—which had incidentally been blown clear off its admittedly flimsy hinges and probably lay in pieces on the stairs below—were nonexistent.
Bellusdeo, however, didn’t appear concerned. Enough of the wall was missing that she could probably go Dragon for a few minutes and jump out; the fall wasn’t likely to harm her in her Dragon form. Going Dragon was technically illegal, and even if Kaylin was certain there would be dispensation granted for the act—and she was—Bellusdeo hesitated.
They were saved by the beat of frantic—and familiar—wings. “Kaylin!”
Clint had come. And if Clint was here, so were other Aerians. He shouted her name again, the tenor of the two syllables laced with fear so visceral it was painful. Kaylin shouted back, “We’re here, Clint. We’re alive. We’re all right. There’s no floor, though, so we’re not sure how to get out.”
“You’re alive?”
She rolled her eyes and lifted her voice again. “No, I was lying. I’m dead and I’m here to haunt you and pull at your flight feathers for the rest of your natural existence!”
There was a pause and then a harsh bark of laughter; not just Clint’s, either.
“Glad you think it’s funny, Clint. Now can you fly your butt in here and carry us out?”
* * *
Kaylin Neya, Private, and a Hawk of long standing even if she hadn’t technically been on the payroll as a Hawk for much of that tenure, loved her job. It was a defining responsibility, and it actually helped people. Or at least hindered frauds like the ones on Elani street. But at the end of a long day at work, what she usually wanted was to go home, eat—when there was food in the house—and curl up in bed.
The workday had ended, and she’d gone home for the last time. She just hadn’t realized it.
From the cobbled stones of the street, she looked up at the very impressive hole in the wall of the building that had previously contained that home. She also looked at the debris on the streets and at the radius of its scatter. Clint was breathing heavily by the time he’d landed with Kaylin, because she’d insisted he take Bellusdeo out first.
“Kaylin?”
She glanced up at Clint. His wings were high; they weren’t extended, but they made clear he was ready to fight if necessary. The skies were alive with Hawks. At this time of night, the Halls weren’t exactly fully staffed; someone had sent out almost everyone they could get their hands on with short notice. She’d always loved to watch Aerians fly.
“Kaylin.”
She looked at Clint again. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a little distracted.” She lifted the small creature cupped in her palms. He was warm, and he was the only thing, at the moment, that seemed to be providing any heat. Her clothing, or the clothing she’d been wearing—and at least she hadn’t stripped it off and settled into bed before the bomb had come sailing through the damn window—was covered in small shards of silvered glass and splinters. It was now the only clothing she had. That and whatever she’d shoved into the bottom of her locker in the Halls.
“Kaylin,” Clint said again. This time, he accompanied the words with action: he lifted her in his arms. She wanted to tell him she was fine, she really did—but she was cold, and she was trying very hard to think like a Hawk and not like an upset civilian. Clint turned to Bellusdeo. “There’s an escort just above your head. The two to your left and right in the sky will be flying at window height; the third will fly down to shield you if there’s any perceived danger. We’re under orders to get you both back to the Halls of Law immediately.”
“Whose orders?” Bellusdeo asked. If she was shaken at all by what had happened, it didn’t show; Kaylin envied her the composure. She also felt more ashamed of her own lack.
“The Lord of Hawks,” Clint replied. “But expect there to be an Imperial Dragon or two at the Halls by the time you get there.”
* * *
Clint had been slightly optimistic—or pessimistic, depending on your viewpoint; there were no Imperial Dragons waiting for them at the office. The office, however, was fully staffed, mostly by Barrani Hawks. Caitlin was still at her desk, because Caitlin had been working long hours for the past several weeks; the Exchequer investigation had caused a second shift replete with its attendant paperwork and bureaucracy.
Marcus, eyes pretty much red, fur standing up everywhere it was visible, and claws fully extended, was at his desk. His lips were drawn up over his teeth; all he needed was foam or spittle and he’d look entirely rabid. Teela and Tain intercepted Kaylin as she made her way to said desk, her hands still cupping the only thing, besides Bellusdeo and the clothing on their backs, that she’d managed to save.
Marcus, however, didn’t appear to notice what she held in her hands. Given his fury, she was hoping he’d at least recognize her. The good thing about the Barrani—and good was entirely subjective—was that when they were seething in fury, their eyes shifted color. To blue. To midnight-blue, which in this light looked suspiciously like black. She knew this because Teela’s and Tain’s eyes were that color. But they hadn’t suddenly sprouted claws and they weren’t bristling with weapons; they looked decidedly less friendly, that was all.
Of course, she could only think something as inane as this because they weren’t angry at her. Even furious, however, Teela noted that she was carrying something small in her hands. “What is that? A glass dragon?”
Bellusdeo snorted smoke.
Kaylin, however, understood the question. “No,” she said quietly. “It’s alive.”
Teela’s eyes lightened to a more familiar blue; Tain’s, however, didn’t budge. “What is it, and where did you find it at a time like this?”
“It hatched from a very large egg.”
“An egg? The one in your apartment?”
Remembering that Teela had not only seen the egg but by all reports burned her hand when trying to touch it, Kaylin chose a nod as the safest bet. When Teela’s stare wandered into glare territory, she added more words.
“It’s a— I don’t know what it is. Bellusdeo thinks it’s a familiar.”
The silence was like a knife: long and sharp.
Tain turned to Teela. “Please tell me I did not hear what she just said.”
Teela was staring at Kaylin’s hands. “I think,” Teela told her, “we’ll need to hear the longer version of that answer.” She glanced at Marcus’s desk. “It will, unfortunately, have to wait.”
* * *
Taking a deep breath, Kaylin headed to Marcus’s desk. She couldn’t really stand at attention, and the usual at-ease posture wasn’t going to work, either, unless she wanted to drop the sleeping dragon on the ground. Marcus actually looked at her hands. He didn’t, however, ask her what she was carrying. More important, he didn’t tell her to get rid of it. He left his chair and she saw deep scores in both the armrests. She winced. Marcus had to replace his desk on a relatively frequent basis. He seldom had to replace his chair.
He walked around the desk toward Kaylin, who instantly lifted her chin to expose her throat. His mood was bad enough that he even reached for it, although he lowered his hands before he touched skin. “Did you destroy your apartment?” he asked in a rumbling growl of a voice.
“No, sir.”
“Then why are you exposing your throat?”
Because you’re in the worst mood I think I’ve ever seen you in? She thought it massively unfair that she was the one who’d almost been killed and everyone was more than happy to vent their rage and fury at that fact on her. Kaylin, still aware that no one had yet denied her the promotion she desperately wanted, kept that one on the right side of her mouth. He was in a bad enough mood that he didn’t wait for an answer, which was good, because she was too tired to come up with one. She was also still very cold—except for her hands.
As if she could hear the thought from across the office, Caitlin appeared with a blanket. She wrapped it around Kaylin’s shoulders and knotted two corners just under her chin. She also paused to look at the small, translucent creature in Kaylin’s hands. “He is adorable, dear,” she said.
Bellusdeo, silent and unassailed by Marcus in a fury, snorted.
“I’ll get you something warm to drink. The Hawklord should be down— Ah, there he is.”
* * *
The entire office was like a living catalog of racial foul moods. The Hawklord’s eyes were as dark as Teela’s, and his wings were high, the arches poised as if to strike. “Private,” he said in a much friendlier voice than the Sergeant had used. “You’re alive.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked at her hands. “If the item you are carrying is not essential, I suggest you set it down somewhere safe.”
She swallowed. “It’s essential.”
“I see. Perhaps, at a later point in time, you can tell me where, in the regulations, carrying glass is considered essential for performance of your duties.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What happened?”
“We went home to change for the etiquette lessons. While we were there—” She took a deep breath, held it, and continued. “While we were there, something was thrown or shot into the apartment through the window.”
“The window was open?”
“No, sir. The shutters were closed, but they’re really warped, so they’re only tied shut. Sometimes they pop loose—”
He lifted a hand. “Continue.”
“I think an Arcane bomb landed in the room.”
His brows rose. “Impossible.”
She swallowed. “Sir—”
Clint cleared his throat; she’d forgotten he was even there. “It’s not impossible, sir.”
“You have a damage report?”
“We have Hawks working with a portable mirror now, but I did see the building.”
“And?”
“It’s sustained severe structural damage. Very little remains of the walls, floor, or ceiling in the room in which the suspected bomb exploded.”
“And you, Private, were somehow not in the room when it did explode?”
“I was.”
He looked over her head to Bellusdeo, who was standing and looking vaguely regal. Although Dragons were not Barrani, and therefore lacked some of their innate grace and cold beauty, they certainly weren’t mortal. They could, on the other hand, hide it better when they chose to do so. “We were both in the room.”
“You are unharmed?”
“Yes.”
“Did you shield yourself?”
Bellusdeo’s brow rose a fraction. “I did not.”
“Can you explain how you are both alive?”
“Not definitively, but I have some suspicion.”
“And that?”
“The necessary item in Private Neya’s hands.”
Every set of eyes in the office that were close enough to Kaylin now turned their attention to what she was carrying. The Hawklord’s eyes were already losing the sapphire edge of their blue. Tain and Marcus still looked enraged, however.
“Private, explain.”
“When we had the problem with the magical surges a few weeks ago, the midwives had some problems with some of the deliveries.”
“Yes. I read the reports.” It was hard to tell from his tone of voice whether or not he was being sarcastic.
“This came from one of those problems.” She lifted her hands, extending her arms to enable her commander to get a closer look. The translucent dragon lifted its wings and then raised its delicate head, elongating its neck in the process.
Kaylin hurriedly drew her arms back in, because she wasn’t entirely certain what the little creature would do—and biting the Hawklord’s nose appeared to be a distinct possibility.
“I…see.” To Bellusdeo he said, “How did this small dragon preserve your lives?”
“He is not a Dragon,” she replied as she approached Kaylin’s side. “But I believe he is a familiar.”
* * *
The Hawklord and the Sergeant exchanged a glance. Kaylin was willing to bet a large amount of money—and given her finances, large was relative—that the Sergeant, at least, had never heard the term.
“What is a familiar?” Score. His fur was slowly sinking, but his ears would probably be standing on end for an hour.
“Theoretically?” Bellusdeo asked.
“It doesn’t look very theoretical to me.”
“A familiar is theoretically the companion of a Sorcerer.”
Marcus glanced at the Hawklord again. On the other hand, Kaylin was pretty sure he knew that word. He growled. Kaylin winced. The small creature spread its wings.
“Sergeant,” Bellusdeo said in an entirely different tone of voice, “I suggest you approach—and speak—respectfully. If we are correct, the small creature in front of you absorbed the brunt of the magical explosion and converted some of that power into a protective barrier.”
“What? Something with a brain that size?”
The creature opened its little mouth and tried to roar. It squeaked.
“I think he might be hungry,” Kaylin said.
Marcus’s eyes had actually cooled to a more workable burnt-orange by this point. Irritation and fury clearly couldn’t occupy the same turf in his mind for long. The creature squeaked again, and Marcus covered his eyes, briefly, with his pads. “I-do-not-believe-I-am-having-this-day,” he said. “Private!”
She stiffened. “Sir!”
“Do you know why the office is so crowded tonight?”
“No, sir.”
“Because we are about to move into three important areas with the aid of the Wolves. Do you know why we haven’t left yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Because your apartment exploded.”
“Sir—”
“We are under orders to secure Lady Bellusdeo until representatives of the Dragon Court arrive.”
“And me?” she asked, feeling a little of the cold recede. “Since she’s safe and I don’t have anywhere else to be, can I go with Teela and Tain?”
“Absolutely not,” a new voice said. A familiar new voice, and not one she particularly wanted to hear in her own office. “I believe the Private and Lady Bellusdeo are otherwise occupied this evening.”
Standing in the doors that served as either entrance or exit was the familiar and detestable Lord Diarmat. In his Dragon armor.
* * *
Caitlin returned to the office with a steaming mug of what Kaylin privately suspected was milk filched from the mess hall. She had to maneuver herself and the milk around Lord Diarmat’s stiff body, because he didn’t appear to notice her.
“Lord Diarmat,” Bellusdeo said sweetly. She bowed.
“Lady Bellusdeo,” he replied far less sweetly. He did, however, also bow. “You are to return, with escort, to the Palace.”
“Oh?”
“The Emperor is concerned; he feels it likely that you were the target of the attempted assassination.”
Kaylin was relieved for just as long as it took her to remember that even if Bellusdeo weren’t here, she would still have no privacy because she didn’t have a home.
“However, since Private Neya is also somewhat unusual, he considers it not impossible that she was the target and you would merely have been collateral damage.” The Imperial Dragon turned to the Hawklord. “Lord Grammayre.”
“Lord Diarmat.” The Hawklord bowed; the Dragon didn’t. Kaylin watched, memorizing the details of the Hawklord’s bow and hating the fact that it was necessary. “You are prepared?”
“I am. I have a dozen of my own men waiting; three of the mages of the Imperial Order are also in position. Lord Emmerian will meet us there.”
Kaylin shook her head. Caitlin brought the milk and set it carefully on the edge of Marcus’s desk. “Do you think you can hold your little friend in one hand?”
Kaylin nodded but didn’t move. “Teela, what is he talking about? He’s not here to take Bellusdeo to the Palace?”
“No,” she replied.
“That is correct. I am here on more martial, but not more necessary, business. Lord Sanabalis, however, is waiting in an Imperial Carriage in the yard. He will be your escort. Lady Bellusdeo, should there be any threat of magic or physical attack, the Emperor will excuse any transformation you deem necessary.”
Bellusdeo said nothing at all—and given her expression, which was glacial, that was a good thing.
Chapter 3
“Does this mean that we’re off the lesson hook?” Kaylin asked Bellusdeo as they walked to the yard. They were shadowed by Clint, whose wings still hadn’t come down and whose eyes were still blue. She particularly hated to see Clint’s eyes go blue, because, among other things, he had the laugh she loved best in the entire department, and when his eyes were that color, there was no chance of hearing it.
“I have no idea. Given the time, and given Lord Diarmat’s current disposition, I would guess that we are, indeed, excused from a few hours of his pompous and unfortunate cultural babble.”
Clint actually choked slightly, and his eyes did clear a bit. Lord Diarmat was the captain, and therefore commander, of the Imperial Guard, and the Imperial Guard wasn’t generally beloved by the Halls of Law; the Imperial Guard had a very high opinion of themselves and a less than respectful opinion of anyone else in a uniform who also served at the Emperor’s command.
The small dragon was now sitting half in her hand; the other half extended up her arm so that his neck could more or less rest against it.
“I wish that creature could make himself invisible,” Bellusdeo said quietly.
“Why?”
“Because I worry about the attention he’ll attract.”
“Could it be any worse than an Arcane bomb that destroys his entire home?”
“Oh, I don’t think his life—if it even is a he—is in any danger. I think yours, on the other hand—”
“Let’s pretend I just repeated that question.”
Bellusdeo lifted a brow and then just shook her head. “Do you honestly think that the bomb was meant for you?”
“Does it matter? If it was meant for you, it still destroyed my home and everything in it that wasn’t attached to something breathing.” She took a deep breath, expelled it, and shook her head. “Sorry. You don’t deserve that.”
“You’re certain?”
“No. I was trying to be polite. If someone’s trying to kill you—” which, in Kaylin’s opinion, was the most likely option “—it’s probably not fun for you, either. But that’s been my home since I crossed the bridge from the fiefs. Caitlin helped me find it. Caitlin let me choose it. It’s the only place I’ve ever been certain was mine.”
“…And if someone was trying to kill me, it’s indirectly my fault that it’s gone?”
“You’re sure you’re not a Tha’alani in disguise?”
“Relatively.”
Kaylin muttered a few Leontine words and wished she could just sew her own mouth shut for the next hour or two. Because part of her did feel exactly that, and she wasn’t proud of it. She just couldn’t figure out how to squelch it. It would be different if she’d begged Bellusdeo to live with her; she hadn’t. She’d practically done the opposite. And if Bellusdeo had been living in Tiamaris or the Imperial Palace—which had been Kaylin’s first and second choices—Kaylin would still have a home.
The small dragon sank claws into her arm and dragged itself up to her shoulder, where it perched to bite her ear. She cursed in louder Leontine and then swiveled her neck to glare. The opal eyes of the small creature regarded her, unblinking, for a long moment.
“I guess I deserved that,” she said in a quiet voice as some of the tension began to leave her jaw and neck.
“Why?” Bellusdeo asked in the same cool, practical voice.
“Because if you’re right—and given my luck, you probably are—he’s trying to tell me that he wouldn’t have hatched at all if someone with a crapload of magical power hadn’t been trying to kill you.”
* * *
Sanabalis was enraged. If he’d opened his mouth and foot-long fangs had sprouted, it would have looked completely natural. Kaylin, who’d been following on Bellusdeo’s heels, almost backed out of the carriage. She managed not to, but only barely. “I—I have another place to stay,” she began.
“Get. In.”
She did. To Kaylin’s surprise, given his mood, Sanabalis did not slam the carriage door.
They traveled halfway to the Palace in silence. Sanabalis broke it, because he was the only one who dared—or cared to; Bellusdeo didn’t seem overly concerned with his mood. “What is sitting on your shoulder?”
“The—the hatchling,” Kaylin replied, managing to stop the words small dragon from leaving her mouth.
“Hatchling?”
“I— Yes. From an egg.”
He raised a brow, and the color of his eyes began to brighten into a much safer orange. On the usual bad day, orange wasn’t a safe color; funny how context was everything. “Generally the word hatch implies egg. What egg?”
“I don’t suppose we can wait until we get to the Palace? The Arkon’s going to ask the same questions.”
A white brow rose as Sanabalis snorted smoke into the enclosed space.
* * *
When the carriage pulled into the Imperial drive, the road was swarming with guards. This was impressive, because Diarmat implied he’d taken a few dozen with him; she wondered if any of the Imperial Guard was off duty tonight. More impressive, for a value of impressive Kaylin often found annoying, were the half-dozen older men in the robes of the Imperial Order of Mages. If they resented being dragooned into guard duty, they very carefully kept it off their faces as Sanabalis and Bellusdeo disembarked. They even managed to do so when Kaylin did.
They were less impressively poker-faced when they caught sight of the glass dragon perched on her shoulder, but only one man was foolish enough to ask, and he didn’t get more of an answer than Sanabalis’s curt dismissal.
“Private,” the Dragon Lord said to Kaylin as the mages who were technically junior to him in every conceivable way did the polite version of scattering, “you will spend the evening in the Palace in our most secure chambers.”
“How much magic is in your secure chambers?” Kaylin asked, trying not to cringe.
“Not enough, I’m certain, to be unbearably uncomfortable.”
“Meaning I can live with the discomfort.”
“If you feel any, yes. I do not require that you do this in silence; I require that you do it where no Dragon—except Lady Bellusdeo—is in danger of hearing you.”
* * *
Sanabalis led them into the Palace, where a by-now familiar man in a perfectly tailored suit was waiting. He bowed to Sanabalis, bowed far more deeply to Bellusdeo, and then led them to a part of the Palace that Kaylin vaguely recognized: it was where Marcus’s wives had briefly stayed.
“These will be your rooms,” he told both Kaylin and Bellusdeo. “If you prefer separate quarters—”
“We don’t,” Bellusdeo replied before Kaylin could gratefully accept the offer.
“Very good.” He bowed, making clear by this gesture that Kaylin’s preferences counted for the usual nothing. “Food will be provided at the usual mealtimes. If you require specific food or desire it on a different schedule, that can be accommodated. If there are any specific likes or dislikes—”
Kaylin opened her mouth; Bellusdeo lifted her hand. Clearly her hand was also more important. “We are satisfied. Thank you.”
The man then bowed and left them alone—with Sanabalis.
“He was just getting to the good part,” Kaylin told Bellusdeo.
“Which part would that be?”
“The part where I get to choose whatever it is I’m being fed.”
“Given the quality of what you do eat, I believe you’ll survive your silence.” She turned to Sanabalis. “Please don’t let us detain you.”
Sanabalis, whose eyes were still orange, met her dismissal impassively; he also folded his arms across his chest.
“Yes?”
“The Emperor requests a moment of your time.”
Kaylin froze.
“Not yours, Private. He merely wishes to ascertain that Bellusdeo is, in fact, unharmed. He was…most upset…when word of the attack reached the Palace.”
“He must have been if he mobilized half the Dragon Court so quickly.”
“That mobilization was not a response to the attack,” was the curt reply. “And no, before you ask, I’m not at liberty to discuss it. Lady Bellusdeo?”
“I would of course be both honored and delighted to speak with the Eternal Emperor. I do, however, have one request.”
“And that?”
“I believe Kaylin should speak with the Arkon, unless the moment of time the Emperor requests also involves the Arkon’s presence.”
“It does not, and I believe your request can easily be accommodated. We will escort the Private to the Library before you speak with the Emperor, if that will suffice. Corporal, if you would care to accompany us?”
“I wouldn’t dream of missing it.” There were whole days when Kaylin hated Dragons.
* * *
The Arkon was not, in fact, in a red-eyed, raging fury. He was only barely bronze-eyed, and given any other Immortal she’d seen this evening, that was a blessing; it wasn’t as if the Arkon ever looked happy to see her. He did, however, say, “I see the reports of your demise were exaggerated.”
Kaylin’s eyes rounded. “Someone told you I was dead?”
“It was rumored that you were, in fact, dead.”
“You didn’t believe it.”
“I believe there is a phrase that is in common usage among your kind: �Only the good die young.’” The Arkon was seated at a table in the main Library, surrounded by books, scrolls, and a handful of very expensive crystals, none of which were activated. He had a mirror to the left, buttressed by books; it, too, was inactive. Seeing the direction of Kaylin’s glance, the Arkon said, “Yes, I was about to resume my work.” Frowning, he added, “What exactly are you carrying?”
“Sanabalis, did you want to stay for this part?”
The Arkon cleared his throat loudly.
“Lord Sanabalis, sorry.” The small dragon sat up in her hands but spread his translucent wings as he did. “This is a—hatchling.”
“It looks remarkably like a tiny, glass dragon.”
Bellusdeo rolled her eyes; she did not, however, snort. “Lannagaros, your eyesight is clearly failing.”
The Arkon winced. “Bellusdeo, I would appreciate it if you would observe correct form; I am the Arkon.”
She raised a pale brow but said nothing.
“Private Neya?”
“You remember there was a lot of trouble caused by the magical flux of the portal that eventually opened in Elani?”
“Indeed.”
“It affected a number of different things. Among them, deliveries—of babies,” she added, because from the Arkon’s expression, the distinction needed to be made. “Not, apparently, pregnancies; any baby born in the area after the portal had opened was normal.”
He nodded.
“One of the births produced an egg, rather than a normal infant. The father wasn’t interested in keeping the egg, and it was handed to me. I was going to give it to Evanton, but I never had the chance; Elani still hasn’t been fully opened to normal pedestrian traffic, and Evanton’s been—busy.”
“So you kept the egg.”
“I did.”
“She took care of it,” Bellusdeo interjected, “as if she’d laid it herself.”
“Bellusdeo, don’t you have somewhere else you have to be?” Kaylin asked sharply.
“Apparently, yes, but I’m certain that the question of my survival—and possibly yours by extension—will arise, and any information the Arkon can provide lessens the chance that you will personally be called to the audience chamber.”
Wincing, Kaylin apologized.
“How did you incubate the egg?”
“In a totally inadequate way,” Bellusdeo replied. “It does not appear to have suffered.”
The small dragon stretched before climbing up Kaylin’s arm, where it sort of clung to her left shoulder; it draped the rest of its body across the back of her neck; its head, it perched on her right. It wuffled in her ear.
The Arkon frowned. “Records,” he said, and the mirror’s surface shivered. The room’s reflection faded from view. “Lizards. Winged lizards. Translucent lizards.” He turned and readjusted the mirror so that it faced Kaylin full-on. “Capture information and attempt to match.” He paused and then added, “All archives.” Turning back to Kaylin, he said, “I will not dispute Bellusdeo’s comment on the adequacy of your incubation decisions, but the egg clearly hatched, and its occupant is clearly alive.” He glanced at Bellusdeo before returning his attention to Kaylin; given that Bellusdeo had answered most of his questions before Kaylin could finish taking a breath, this wasn’t surprising. “When did the egg hatch?”
“Well, that’s the strange thing.”
Bellusdeo snorted. For an Immortal she was really short on patience; Kaylin tried to imagine her as the Queen of anything and gave up—although, admittedly, the idea of Bellusdeo being Queen had one appeal: she wasn’t likely to chew the heads off her Court for their lack of appropriate etiquette.
“The egg didn’t hatch until the bomb exploded in the center of the apartment.”
The Arkon froze. Sanabalis lifted a hand to the bridge of his nose; his eyes, however, were now about the same bronze as the Arkon’s.
“Let me be clear. You are telling me that the egg’s hatching was contingent on the explosion of an Arcane bomb?”
“No. I’m telling you the egg hatched when the bomb exploded. It may have cracked the shell.”
The Arkon turned to glare at Bellusdeo. “I trust you are enjoying yourself, Lady Bellusdeo?”
“I feel a small amount of self-indulgence, given the events of the day, is not unreasonable, yes.”
“I see that your definition of small amounts of self-indulgence has remained a constant.” He turned to Kaylin. “Forgive the interruption, Private. Was there anything unusual that occurred when the egg hatched?”
“Define �unusual.’”
“Honestly, Sanabalis,” the Arkon said in a much lower voice, “I feel that Bellusdeo is not the correct companion for the Private. Some of her influence is bound to manifest itself at inconvenient times.” He also lifted a hand to the bridge of his nose. “Anything out of the ordinary. Anything magical.”
Kaylin nodded crisply. “A barrier of some kind appeared. It protected both Bellusdeo and me from the debris and the possibility of injury.”
“Anything else?”
Kaylin hesitated.
“Private.”
“It ate one of my marks right after it hatched.”
* * *
After a very long pause, the Arkon rose from his desk and approached Kaylin. The small dragon lifted its head, bumping the side of Kaylin’s cheek as it did. The Arkon examined the dragon from a safe distance, during which time he was uncomfortably silent. “Given the current status of the Hawks, it is probably too much to ask for a full Records capture of your marks tonight. I will expect a full capture to be arranged for tomorrow, and all records are to be transferred to the Imperial Archives for my perusal. Is that clear?”
“As glass, sir.”
“Good.” He held out a hand. “Please give me the creature.”
Kaylin hesitated, and the Arkon’s eyes narrowed. She tried to disengage the small dragon; he dug in. Literally. “I don’t think he wants to leave,” she said, pulling at four small, clawed appendages. He responded by biting her hair.
The Arkon lowered his hand. “Has the creature spoken at all?”
“Pardon?”
“Spoken. Communicated.”
“Uh, no.”
“Has it separated itself from you at all, for any length of time?”
“Separated itself?”
“Left. You. Alone.”
“No, Arkon.”
“Have you attempted to put it down at all?”
“Not until now, Arkon.” She winced; she’d had burrs that were easier to remove from her hair. “Can I ask where this line of questioning is leading?”
“Did Bellusdeo say anything about the creature prior to your arrival here?”
Kaylin glanced nervously at Bellusdeo, who conversely didn’t appear to be nervous at all.
“I told her, Lannagaros, that I thought she was in possession of a familiar.”
“I…see.”
“Do you disagree?”
“Given that I have never seen what I would consider to be a genuine familiar, or at least the type of familiar about which legends arise, I am not in a position to either agree or disagree.” He turned to the mirror. “Records.”
Since Records was already searching for whatever he’d last asked for, Kaylin thought this a bit unfair—but then again, it wasn’t as if the Records were overworked mortals.
“Information, myths, or stories about familiars. This may,” he added, “take some time, if the Emperor is waiting.”
Bellusdeo nodded, fixed a firm and not terribly friendly smile to her face, and gestured at Sanabalis. Sanabalis bowed. “We may possibly revisit this discussion,” he told Kaylin as they headed toward the door.
Only when they were gone did the Arkon resume his seat; he also, however, indicated that Kaylin could grab a chair and join him—at a reasonable distance from the table that contained his work.
To her surprise, the first question he asked when the doors had closed on the two departing Dragons was “You are well?”
The small dragon had settled back onto her neck like a scarf with talons. She blinked. “Pardon?”
“While I have often heard various members of my Court and your Halls threaten you with bodily harm, strangulation, or dismemberment, you have seldom been a victim of an attack within the confines of your own home. If I understand the nature of the attack correctly, you now no longer have a home, and I am therefore attempting to ascertain your state of mind. Are you well?”
She told him she was fine. Except the words she used were “No. I’m not.” Closing her eyes, she said, “It’s the only real home I’ve had since my mother died. Every other place I’ve lived belonged to someone else, either before I moved in or after.” In the fiefs, there were no laws of ownership. At least not in the fief of Nightshade. It wasn’t that hard to eject a handful of children from the space in which they were squatting so that you could squat there instead.
She opened her eyes. “I’m happy to be alive. I am. But—it doesn’t feel real.”
“Being alive?”
“Being homeless. When I leave the Library, I don’t get to leave the Palace.”
“You are a guest, Private, not a prisoner.”
“Tell that to the Emperor.” The small dragon lifted its head and rubbed its nose along the side of her cheek. “Yes, yes,” she whispered. “I’m getting to that part.”
The Arkon raised a brow, and she reddened.
“Bellusdeo believes that the egg wouldn’t have hatched without the bomb, so—I have the hatchling.” She hesitated. “Would someone really kill me over it?”
“Not if they understood its nature.”
“What about its nature?”
“It is, in its entirety, yours.”
The small dragon’s eyes widened; it swiveled its head in the Arkon’s direction and opened its delicate, translucent mouth. There was a lot of squawking.
“Umm, did you understand any of that?” Kaylin asked as the Arkon stared at the dragonlet.
“No.”
Kaylin had, in her youth, engaged in staring contests with cats—she’d always lost. She had a suspicion that the Arkon in his age was beginning to engage in a similar contest with the small dragon—and given large Dragons, and the inability to pry the small one off her shoulder, she could see a long, sleepless night in the very near future. She therefore reached up and covered the small dragon’s eyes with her hand—something only the very young or the very suicidal would ever try with the large one.
“Can we get back to the entirely mine part?”
The small dragon reared up and bit her hand—but not quite hard enough to draw blood.
“Fine. Can we get back to the part where I’m entirely its?”
The Arkon snorted.
“And also the stories where Sorcerers destroyed half a world in order to somehow create or summon one?”
“Yes. Understand that those stories are exactly that: stories. They are not reliable or factual. There may be some particulars that suit the current situation, but many more will not.” He turned and readjusted the mirror, which made Kaylin wince; in general it wasn’t considered safe to move active mirrors, although Kaylin had never understood why. Angry Leontine was more than enough incentive.
“By the way, what is a Sorcerer?”
“For all intents and purposes? Think of a Sorcerer as an Arcanist but with actual power.”
Since her apartment was now mostly a pile of smoldering splinters, Kaylin thought his definition of “actual power” needed fine-tuning. “Any less arrogant?”
“There was purportedly one extant in my youth, but there was never confirmation of his—or her—existence. Given that people who possess power frequently decide what qualifies as humility or arrogance in a way that allows little dissent, I will offer a qualified no.”
“Fine. Arrogant and very powerful.” She looked pointedly at her shoulder. “How, exactly, is a small dragon of great use to an arrogant and very powerful Arcanist?”
“Bellusdeo implied that the �small dragon,’ as you call it, shielded both of you from the brunt of the damage the Arcane bomb would have otherwise caused. It is almost a certainty that you would not have survived otherwise. Further study is warranted, but it is clear to me that Bellusdeo would have been, at the very least, gravely injured. She was not.”
“If a Sorcerer is actually more powerful than the Arcanists, I don’t think some form of impressive magical defense would be beyond him—or her. I understand why the familiar might be helpful to someone like me, but I didn’t exactly destroy half a world to get one.”
“Ah, I think I see the difficulty. If you are referring to this story,” he said, tapping the mirror so that the image immediately shifted, “the Sorcerer didn’t destroy the world to, as you put it, �get’ a familiar; he destroyed half a world as a by-product of his attempt to produce—or summon—one. I’m afraid the original word could mean either, so the meaning is not precise. It was what you would consider collateral damage. And if you fail to understand how that damage could occur—”
She lifted a hand. “Not stupid,” she said curtly. “I know why the egg happened. I know what kind of magical disturbance produced it. Given the total lack of predictability of the effects of that magic, I can understand the how. I’m just stuck on the why.”
The Arkon nodded in apparent sympathy. “Dragons were not, to my knowledge, Sorcerers.”
“Meaning?”
“It makes no clear sense to me, either; the stories that we have are fragmentary and somewhat conflicting. The story that I am currently considering—and you may look at the mirror images if you like, but you won’t be able to read the words—doesn’t reference the practical use of the creature. It does, however, make reference to its astonishing beauty.” He lifted a brow. “This story implies that the familiar was winged, but of a much more substantial size.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, apparently its owner could ride on its back, and did. On the other hand, the use of the word summon is more distinct and implies something demonic in nature.”
“Demonic?”
“It’s a religious story.”
“Do any of the stories imply the familiars were a danger to their owners?”
The Arkon took minutes to answer the question. “…Yes.”
“Figures. Does it say how?”
The Arkon’s frown deepened. “I’m afraid,” he finally said, “that this is also a very dead language, and I’m uncertain. I will have to consult with the Royal linguists when time permits. You said that he ate one of your marks?”
She nodded. She didn’t, however, point out that the Devourer had also eaten some of her marks; her testimony was in Records, and if he failed to recall it on the spot, she wasn’t going to remind him. Why, she wasn’t certain.
“And that would be—” The rest of her sentence was lost to the sudden roaring that filled the Library. It wasn’t the Arkon’s voice. He lifted a brow and then shook his head. “Bellusdeo hasn’t really changed very much.”
“That was Bellusdeo?”
“Ah, no. That was the Emperor. I believe Sanabalis is at the doors.” The doors swung open—and shut—very quickly as Sanabalis entered the Library.
“I consider it a very good thing that Lord Diarmat is with the Hawks,” Sanabalis said when normal speech could actually be heard in the room.
“You didn’t stay for their discussion?”
“No. If the Emperor is to lose his composure, it is best for all concerned that there be no witnesses.” The last half of the last word was lost to the sound of more roaring.
“That,” the Arkon pointed out while distant breath was being drawn, “was Bellusdeo.”
* * *
The Arkon decided, during the small breaks between roaring—which frequently overlapped—that it was safe to leave the small dragon with Kaylin. By “safe,” he meant that she was allowed to leave the room with the dragon attached. He was aware that keeping the dragon, at this point, also meant caging the Private, and declined to, as he put it, subject himself to the endless interruption and resentment that would entail.
Sanabalis therefore escorted her from the Library. “Do you know the way to your rooms?” he asked when the doors were closed and there was another break in the roaring.
She looked at him.
“Very well, let me escort you. Attempt to pay attention, because this will no doubt be the first of many forays between the Arkon and those rooms. You will, of course, be expected to perform your regular duties during your transitional stay in the Palace.” He turned to face her as she regarded the door ward with dislike. “You will not, however, be in residence for long if the raid conducted this evening bears fruit.”
Kaylin wilted. “Nightshade?” she asked, too tired to pretend she didn’t understand what he was talking about.
Sanabalis nodded. “I am not entirely comfortable with the exchange of information for your time; the information, however, was crucial. Bellusdeo will be staying in the Palace while you discharge your obligation to the fieflord.”
“Was that part of the discussion with the Emperor?”
“It was—and is.”
“Then it’s not decided?”
“It is. The Emperor has been willing to grant leeway in all of Bellusdeo’s irregular demands for autonomy, but he will not allow her to leave the City—or the Palace—at this time. She intended to accompany you. He has pointed out one thing for which Bellusdeo has no reply.”
“What?”
“She endangered your life.”
It was true, but Kaylin felt it was also unfair. “Neither of us knew that someone would try to kill her.”
“It has always been an Imperial concern.”
“She probably thought you were being paranoid.”
“Yes. She made that clear. Her second thoughts will therefore occur in the Palace, and in your absence. I would suggest that you attempt to make the best of your status as guest here; you will depart for the West March in five days.”
Chapter 4
When Kaylin headed to the Halls of Law the next day, she went on foot. Bellusdeo wasn’t terribly happy about it, because Bellusdeo had been asked not to accompany her. The fact that she was willing to accede to a request that she clearly detested confirmed what Sanabalis had said about the almost deafening and totally incomprehensible Dragon conversation.
“You’re taking the familiar with you?”
“I wasn’t going to,” Kaylin replied, which was only a half lie. “But I can’t keep it off my shoulders for more than five minutes.” This wasn’t entirely true; it was willing to sit on the top of her head or be gathered in the palms of her hands, but neither of these were as convenient.
“You’re going to have to come up with a name for it sometime; if I hear it referred to as the �small dragon’ or �glass dragon’ again, I’ll scream.”
“That’s what the Arkon—”
“He’s ancient and probably half-blind.”
“Dragons don’t go blind with age.”
For some reason, this completely factual statement didn’t meet with Bellusdeo’s approval.
* * *
When she exited the Palace, Severn was waiting. He fell in beside her in a stiffer-than-usual silence.
“I’m sorry,” she said without looking at him. “I—”
“I heard about it this morning.”
“How?”
“Teela mirrored me; she thought I’d like to know before I hit the office.”
“I—”
“You had better things to worry about.”
“You’re angry anyway.”
“I’m angry, yes, but I’m not angry at you.” He stopped walking. “I should have been there.”
“You didn’t know.”
“Why didn’t you mirror when you hit the office?”
“Everyone was so pissed off, I didn’t think about it.” She hesitated and then added, “I’m still not thinking about it very clearly. At all. I know what happened—I was there—but part of me still thinks I can take the normal route home.”
“You could stay with me.”
She hesitated. “I would,” she said, because it was true. “But I can’t leave Bellusdeo. The Emperor won’t give permission for her to live with you—not that you’d enjoy it—and I’m betting he won’t give his blessing if I move out on my own, unless she requests it.”
He glanced at the small dragon on her shoulder but made no comment; Kaylin guessed that Teela had also mentioned its appearance, and didn’t ask. Mention of her home had dampened a mood that hadn’t been that cheery to begin with.
* * *
Kaylin made it to the Halls with a few minutes to spare and found Tanner and Kelmar on the doors. Getting into the Halls took a little longer than usual, because both of the Hawks wanted to take a look at the glass dragon, and the glass dragon seemed lazily inclined to allow their inspection. While they looked, Kaylin asked if they’d had any word, and their nonanswer was incentive enough to jog through the Halls to the office.
There, she headed straight to the duty board. She read it with care, grinding her teeth as she noticed the address of her apartment and the fact that it wasn’t anywhere near her name.
She then headed straight for Caitlin. “Why am I not being pulled in on the investigation into my own apartment?”
“Think about what you just said, dear.”
“But it’s my—”
“Exactly. Your judgment would not be considered impartial or objective enough.” Caitlin frowned slightly. “I realize you’re upset—”
“I think I’m allowed!”
“—but you shouldn’t be so upset that you forget one of the more significant rules governing investigative assignments. If it helps, the Imperial Order has been working since—”
“Have they found anything?”
“Not conclusively.”
Kaylin perked up. “What was inconclusive?”
“There was, as far as the mages could tell, only one signature left at the site.”
“That’s unusual.” Kaylin hesitated and then added, “It’s also inaccurate.”
Caitlin winced. “I think you should talk to Marcus, dear. But he’s been dealing with Dragons and mages, so he’s not in the best of moods.”
* * *
“This had better be important,” Marcus said as she approached his desk. He didn’t even bother to look up. He was elbow deep in reports. This would have been unusual, but as it was not the most unusual thing about Marcus at this very moment, Kaylin barely noticed. His left arm—or the fur on it—had been either seared or singed off. “What are you staring at, Private?”
“Nothing. Sir.”
“Good. Why are you gaping at nothing in front of my desk?”
She took a deep breath and lifted her chin slightly. “It’s about my apartment.”
“No.”
“It’s not about the investigation,” she said quickly. “But the Imperial mages apparently only found one magical signature at the detonation site. I saw two.”
Marcus dug a runnel into the desk. “When exactly did you see these?”
“Just after the bomb destroyed my home.”
“Good. I’d hate to have to demote or discipline the Hawks on duty there today; you are not supposed to be on-site. At all.” He gave up on the report he was writing—for a value of write that involved reading and a signature that was shaky to begin with—and lifted his head to stare at her. After a significant pause, he pulled a report from one of the piles. “Here.”
Kaylin had learned love of reports from Marcus but took it anyway.
“I’m up to my armpits in Imperial Concern,” he continued before she could ask about its contents. “The Imperial Order will be interested in what you have to say about a second signature. They’re also likely to feel insulted. I suggest you go directly to Lord Sanabalis; I’ve come this close to relieving one mage of his throat this morning already.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Read that report. You can give me a précis of what it actually says later. And, Private, I mean it: you go anywhere near our investigators at your former address, and you’ll be suspended without pay until you leave the City.”
* * *
Reading reports wasn’t nearly as onerous as writing them—unless you happened to be the Sergeant. Kaylin retired to her cramped, small desk, discovered that someone had commandeered her chair, and sat on the desk’s nearly pristine surface instead of going to find it. Bellusdeo was not in the office, and her mood was not Kaylin’s problem, but she felt guilty enjoying the Dragon’s absence. The report helped with that, but not in a good way.
She was uncertain as to why the report was even on Marcus’s desk, because in theory, it involved the fiefs. The Hawks kept an eye on the bridges between the fiefs and the rest of the City, but it was cursory; they couldn’t stop traffic from entering the fiefs, and they couldn’t stop traffic from leaving them, either, although admittedly questions were asked in either case. There was, with the exception of Tiamaris, very little of either.
Oh, wait. There it was: the small tendril that led to the large, omnipresent web. A boy, Miccha Jannoson, had, on a dare from his friends—Kaylin snorted at the word—crossed the bridge from the City into the fiefs. He was lucky, in that the fief in question was Tiamaris; there was enough traffic over that bridge, and most of it seemed to return in the other direction at the end of the day.
He was unlucky, in that he didn’t appear to be one of the returnees. His grandmother had filed a report with Missing Persons the following morning. Which would be yesterday.
Tiamaris was both fieflord and Dragon Lord, and he was willing to cooperate with the Halls of Law in their search.
She read through to the end; there, transcribed, was a brief message from Tiamaris: the boy was not the only person to disappear within his fief in the past two weeks. In other fiefs, such disappearances might not be noticed, noted, or of concern; in Tiamaris, they were apparently personal, Tiamaris being a Dragon. He requested, at the Halls’ leisure, a check for possible similar disappearances within Elantra, but asked that the check be broader: not teenage boys, but people, period. Mortals.
Kaylin glanced at the small dragon draped across her shoulders. She had four days before her departure. Four days wasn’t a lot of time for an investigation of something big—and the fact that Tiamaris had made an all but official request meant he considered it significant. Maybe it was time to visit the fief and speak to Tara.
* * *
Teela dropped by her desk as she was planning. Kaylin almost fell over when she saw the Barrani officer’s face; it was bruised. Her eyes, however, were green. Mostly.
“Kitling,” Teela said, sounding as tired as she looked.
Kaylin felt her jaw hanging open, and shut it.
“Why are you staring? I don’t recall ever saying I was impervious to harm.”
“What the hells were you fighting? Barrani?”
“A dozen.”
Report forgotten, Kaylin swiveled in her chair. “What happened last night?”
“We met some resistance.”
“You didn’t go on a raid with two bloody Dragons expecting no resistance.”
“Sit down. I didn’t come here to deliver bad news; I came here to extend an invitation to the High Halls.”
Kaylin’s brows disappeared into her hairline; if they hadn’t been attached to the rest of her face, they would have kept going. “P-pardon?”
“It is a personal invitation,” Teela added.
“I’m guesting at the Palace at the moment, on account of having no home.”
“Yes. You could stay with me in the High Halls instead; I find the Halls very dull and otherwise too peaceful. Regardless, you will require suitable clothing for your journey to the West March. I assume that very little of yours survived.”
“I’m wearing most of it.” Kaylin sat. “You’re not going to tell me what happened, are you?”
“You can read the report when it’s written. You can read any of a dozen reports; Marcus probably won’t.”
“Teela—”
Teela lifted a hand. “Two of the mages died. We lost four Hawks; three of them were Barrani, one was Aerian. Clint was injured, but not badly; Tain has a broken arm and the disposition one would expect from that.”
“Marcus?”
“His fur was singed, as you may have noticed. He’s alive. He’s alive,” Teela added, “because he can move his bulk at need, and he moved.”
“I don’t suppose the Dragons—”
“The Dragons are, of course, fine.”
“The Arcanum—”
“The Arcanum was damaged during the fighting; it is, however, still structurally sound.”
“Evarrim?”
“He was not involved in the fighting.” The way she said it made clear that no more questions about Evarrim were going to be answered; it also made clear that she would have been happier if he had been.
“What were you looking for anyway?”
“The Arcanists involved with the Human Caste Court and their missing funds.”
“Did you find them?”
“All but one.”
“Are they in custody?”
Teela stared at her until she felt embarrassed for even asking. “Do remember,” she said, “that the Emperor can hold his own laws in abeyance should the need arise, hmm? The Arcanists were expecting trouble; they just weren’t expecting the quality of the trouble they did get.” She said this with a particularly vicious smile. “I’ll meet you here after work.”
“But I can’t stay in the High Halls.”
“Why not?”
“Bellusdeo will kill me.”
Teela frowned. “You haven’t learned anything from yesterday, have you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Hanging around with that particular Dragon is not good for your health. I’m not sure she’s in the clear yet, and if she’s not, you won’t be.”
“I’m in the Palace,” Kaylin pointed out.
“Not at the moment, you’re not. Your point is, however, taken. I’d prefer to avoid the Palace, if at all possible.”
“Why?”
“Because the Emperor isn’t terribly happy with the Barrani, its Lords, or its mages, and I’m not assuming that he’s going to be entirely happy with its Hawks, either.”
“Why?”
“Kitling—think instead of talking, hmm?” She gave Kaylin five seconds to do that thinking, which seemed a tad unfair. “The bomb wasn’t thrown by mortals; it certainly wasn’t planted by Dragons. Whoever tried to kill Bellusdeo was almost certainly Barrani; it is not inconceivable that they were working in concert with humans.”
“If I ask why again, are you going to hurt me?”
“I’ll seriously consider it,” Teela replied, but her eyes stayed on the safe side of blue. “Bellusdeo is both female and Dragon. The Dragon population has been static for a long time now; the Barrani population hasn’t. If we’re not at war—and we’re not—the war still informs us. Someone doesn’t want there to be any more clutches, and killing Bellusdeo pretty much guarantees that.”
* * *
Kaylin’s regular beat was still embroiled in the investigations and magical cleanup demanded by the Emperor and the Imperial Order of Mages. They were drawing to a close, which meant the growing line of concerned citizens—Margot chief among them—were likely to be less of a feature in the various offices the Swords occupied. Which was a pity. Margot’s inability to make money by swindling the gullible was a genuinely bright spot in what was otherwise magical chaos and displacement.
The panicked reports of citizens at the edges of the Elani district had dropped to a manageable level in the two weeks it’d been more or less locked down, which meant the Hawks confined to desks in the public office were released to their regular duties. In the case of Private Neya and Corporal
Handred, this meant a stroll to the fief of Tiamaris; as Elani was still in lockdown, and it was their beat, they had time in the schedule for low-level investigations of a more incidental nature. As the Hawklord called them.
As the two Hawks headed toward the bridge-crossing that led to Tiamaris, Kaylin filled Severn in on the admittedly scant details of the report Marcus had offloaded, hoping that Severn would drop in on Missing Persons—Mallory’s domain—
tomorrow. Mallory didn’t have the apparent contempt for Severn that he had for Kaylin. To be fair, Severn didn’t have the apparent contempt for Mallory that Kaylin had, either. Severn was much more likely to be granted full records access for a search of those reported missing the past two weeks.
The small dragon chewed on the stick in Kaylin’s hair without dislodging it or, worse, snapping it, as they made their way across the bridge and, from there, to the less crowded fief streets. They hadn’t bothered to ditch the Hawks’ tabard, so the occupants of those streets kept their distance—but they didn’t duck into the nearest building, doorway, or alley just to move out of the way. Things improved, if slowly.
To Kaylin’s surprise, Tara wasn’t in her garden when they approached the Tower itself. Kaylin slowed, ducked around the side of the building, and found it empty, as well. Severn nodded when she glanced at him; he found it unusual, as well.
The Tower doors were shut. Since they had no ward—a kindness offered by Tara, who understood just how thoroughly uncomfortable wards made Kaylin—the two Hawks knocked and then took a step back to wait. The doors took five minutes to roll open.
Standing between them as they opened was Morse. She was alone, which was also unusual; she was on edge, which was worse. “Tiamaris wants to speak with you,” she said without preamble.
“Where’s Tara?”
“In the mirror room. If she wants to be disturbed, she’ll let us know. She’s been there for the past three days,” she added as she turned and began to lead them into the cavernous, wide halls of the Tower.
“Morse?”
Morse shrugged. “Yeah,” she said, answering the question Kaylin had asked by tone alone. “It’s been bad.” She paused, squinted, and then said, “Where’d you get the glass dragon?”
* * *
Tiamaris was waiting in what looked like a war room. The wall opposite the doors was a vast display of mirrors, none of which were in their reflective state. The whole of the fief, in much cleaner lines than the streets ever saw, was laid out to the left. Across those streets were lines in different colors; one was a bright, sharp red. It demanded attention.
Not even mindful of the distinctly orange color of his lidded eyes, Kaylin came to stand beside the fieflord.
“Word arrived that you encountered some difficulty yesterday,” he said, sparing her a passing glance. The glance, however, became a full-on stare when it hit the curled body of the small glass dragon. “What,” he asked in a sharper tone of voice, “is that?”
“The reason the difficulty wasn’t fatal.”
“Pardon?”
“The small dragon—”
“It is not a dragon.”
“Sorry. The small winged lizard—” The glass dragon lifted his head and glared balefully at the side of her face. “You’re smaller than he is,” she told it.
“It appears to understand what we are saying.”
“Yes. He doesn’t speak, though. He was hatched during the explosion of the Arcane bomb that destroyed a quarter of the building. Given what’s left of my apartment, we should have gone down with it. We didn’t. Bellusdeo thinks it’s because the— He protected us.”
Kaylin turned to Severn, who was examining the map with a frown. “The Arkon is doing research as we speak. None of which is relevant at the moment. The red is the last known location?”
The fieflord shook his head. “I will never understand mortals. Yes.”
She counted. There were a lot more than one missing boy.
“What did the Sergeant tell you?”
“He handed me a report,” she replied. “Miccha Jannoson crossed the bridge from the City and didn’t return. Are any of these lines relevant to that report?”
Tiamaris lifted a hand, and Kaylin followed its movement. One thread. It started three yards from the bridge, on the fief side of the Ablayne. It was notable for its length: it was short, much shorter than the streets.
“I don’t understand.”
“Tara spent much time constructing these overlays,” he replied, as if that would explain things.
It didn’t. “Miccha wasn’t a citizen of the fief.”
“No.”
“The Tower, any Tower, is in theory capable of tracking its citizens.”
“That,” he replied, “is a statement only partially based in truth. What she can track, should she so choose, is the approximate activity of people within my domain, if she has enough information to work with. Her records of the Barren years are notably scant, but the information she’s processed since I accepted the mantle of fieflord are of necessity more complete.”
“She couldn’t find Bellusdeo,” Kaylin pointed out, her gaze moving to the other tracks of red, some much longer.
“She couldn’t, no,” he agreed. “But there are probable reasons for that, chief among them being she had only a corpse with which to work.”
“She has even less in the case of Miccha.”
Tiamaris turned to regard her. “She is watching the bridge closely,” he finally said.
“What are the purple points?”
“The purple points—and they are not markedly purple to my eye—are unknowns.”
“Unknowns?” She glanced at the Dragon Lord. Miccha was an unknown, but Tara had clearly tagged him. “What exactly do you mean by �unknown’?”
“The fieflord, through the auspices of his or her Tower’s defenses, can see anything that occurs within the fief should they be paying attention. It is not, however, a trivial affair on our part. It is less difficult when the Tower is sentient, awake, and watchful, but even Tara has her limits. In the case of Miccha, she noted him precisely because he crossed the bridge and appeared to have very little reason to do so.”
“He did it on a dare.”
Tiamaris raised a brow. “It was an expensive dare,” he finally said.
“You think he’s dead.”
“I think he will not return to his family.” He hesitated and then added, “He is not the only person within my fief’s borders to disappear abruptly; he is the only citizen of the Empire to do so and therefore the only person who is directly relevant to your duties.”
“A lot of missing-persons reports are filed, Tiamaris. You know that.”
“Yes.”
“What distinguishes this one from those?”
“There is no obvious commonality among those who are missing. They are variously youthful, elderly, male, female.”
“They were reported missing?”
“Two were, directly to Tara. Those are the burnt-orange lines. Relatives of the missing women came to Tara for help a day after their parents disappeared. The orange lines are their known paths and destinations for the day prior to the reported disappearance. She was not, then, at full alert.”
“Now?”
He indicated four red lines. “These occurred after the first requests for aid. Those,” he added, pointing at lines that were a paler orange, “are possible similar disappearances. Morse has her people out in the streets in an attempt to discern whether or not the disappearances are real.”
Morse wouldn’t get that information directly, but she had Tara as backup. She asked the questions no one in their right mind—for a fief value—would answer; Tara eavesdropped on the conversations that occurred after Morse left the vicinity of possible witnesses. The citizens of the fief, if they thought about it for a few minutes, could figure out what was going on, but years of survival-based behaviors didn’t disappear in a month or two, and Morse caused terror in anyone sane, regardless. Tara didn’t.
The fact that the disappearances had been reported at all was an almost shocking display of trust. “That’s a dozen in total.”
“Including your citizen, yes.”
“What do you suspect?” It was clear he suspected something out of the ordinary, and fief crimes encompassed a lot of ordinary on any given day.
“There are ways of remaining hidden; not all of them are one-hundred-percent effective if someone is watching with care. If those reported as missing were dead within this fief, we would know by this point. We have discovered no bodies. Given twelve possible disappearances in total, with no word and very little in the way of clues…”
Kaylin grimaced. “Magic,” she said with the curt disgust only found in the Halls of Law.
“Magic,” he agreed in about the same tone.
“I think I need to talk to Tara.”
* * *
Tara was, as Morse had indicated, in the mirror room. If Tiamaris chose to scan fief records using traditional mirrors, Tara did not; she had a shallow, wide pool, sunk in stone, whose still surface served that function. She stood by the curve of the pool farthest from the door; her eyes were closed. She nonetheless greeted Kaylin and Severn as they entered. She had folded wings, and Kaylin marked the absence of her familiar gardening clothes.
The pool by her feet had become the ancient version of a modern mirror, although the images in the water were not the ones Kaylin had expected. Where Tiamaris had maps of the fief in every possible view, Tara’s was focused on a set of buildings, as seen from the street. Kaylin frowned. She didn’t know Tiamaris’s fief as well as she once had—the catastrophic encroachment of Shadows had destroyed several buildings, and Tiamaris’s crews were working on replacing them—but these buildings weren’t fief buildings, to her eye. They were too finely kept, too obviously well repaired, and in the fiefs of her youth, that indicated danger.
“They are not, as you suspect, within Tiamaris.” Tara turned to Kaylin, opening her eyes. They were the color of dull obsidian. “Hello,” she said softly. It took Kaylin a few seconds to realize she was speaking to the small dragon. The dragon lifted his head, stretching his delicate neck. “You are clearly here with Kaylin.”
He squawked.
“Can you understand him?” Kaylin asked.
“Yes. He is not, however, very talkative.” The Avatar frowned. “Can you not understand him?”
“No. To me, it sounds like he’s squawking.” The dragon batted the side of her cheek with the top of his head. “Sorry,” she told him. “It does.”
“You are certain you are with Kaylin?” Tara asked him.
He snorted, a dragon in miniature, and flopped down around the back of Kaylin’s neck. Kaylin reached up to rearrange his claws, frowning at the mirror’s surface. “Do you know what he is?” She asked Tara.
“No, not entirely. Creatures such as this one were considered auspicious at one time.”
“You’ve seen familiars before?”
“I? No. Not directly. There are some fragmentary histories within my records, but they are not firsthand accounts.” She hesitated, which was unusual for Tara. “Perhaps this is not the time to discuss it. I do not judge you to be in danger at present; there are people within the fief, however, who are.” Her eyes once again darkened and hardened, literally.
“You’re attempting to look outside of the fief’s boundaries?” Kaylin hesitated and then said, “Tiamaris can probably get Halls of Law’s records access as a member of the Dragon Court. I think you’ll find the buildings faster.”
Severn, however, had come to stand in silence beside Kaylin. “Why are these residences of relevance in this investigation?” He slid into effortless High Barrani. Kaylin marked it; she wasn’t certain Tara did at this point. Spoken language wasn’t an impediment to understanding thoughts—why, Kaylin didn’t know. Tara had tried to explain it before, but Kaylin was pretty certain she thought in words.
“Yes,” Tara told Severn. “They are significant for that reason.”
If the concept of mind reading didn’t horrify Kaylin the way it once had, she still hated to be left out of the conversation. She turned to Severn. “Why do you know them?”
“It was relevant to my former duties,” he replied after a long pause.
Kaylin tensed. It took effort to keep her hands by her side. “You’re not a Wolf now.”
“No. But it is just possible that it is also relevant to the Hawks’ current investigation.”
“The one that caused the Imperial raid?”
Severn nodded.
“Arcanists,” was Kaylin’s flat reply.
“Yes. The property is interesting because it’s owned by Barrani; the deed is registered to a Barrani Lord.”
“Please don’t tell me it’s registered to Evarrim.”
Severn’s silence was not a comfort.
“Severn?”
“You asked him not to tell you.” Tara’s last word tailed up as if it were a question.
“That’s not what that phrase means.” To Kaylin’s surprise, Tara didn’t ask her for the precise meaning, or rather, didn’t ask her to explain why the difference existed.
Severn’s gaze had fallen to the mirror. “You didn’t see this yourself,” he finally said to the Avatar.
“No,” she replied. “One of the men who crosses the bridge did. He is not a citizen of Tiamaris, but he is responsible for the disposition of building materials.”
“A merchant?” Kaylin asked.
“That is what my Lord hopes to ascertain.”
“Are you reading the minds of every person who crosses the bridge?”
“Yes. All. It is interesting and challenging, but tedious. It is also very difficult, and the readings may not be fully reliable. Listening to conversations is a much simpler affair. My Lord feels that the disappearances in the fief are not related to the fief itself; he is looking outward.”
“You know about the raid on the Arcanum.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. My Lord was informed by the Emperor. It is not,” she added with a frown, “information that is to be shared. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I’ll probably regret saying that, later.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Because with our luck, it’ll be relevant. Who, exactly, did you take those images from?”
Tara gestured and the mirror’s image shifted. A man in nondescript clothing appeared in the pool’s center. He was an older man; his hairline had seen better decades, but he seemed fit. She thought him in his mid-fifties, although he might have been younger. His eyes were dark, and his brows gathered across the bridge of a prominent nose, but there was a brightness to them, a focus, that implied lively intelligence.
“You are absolutely certain that this is the man?” Severn asked softly. It was the wrong kind of soft.
“Not absolutely,” Tara replied. “As I mentioned, it is difficult to read at this distance.” Before Severn could speak again, she added, “But he is the only man—or woman—present who is quite so difficult to read.”
“And the rest take more effort but produce more certain results?”
She frowned. After a long pause, she said, “There is one person I cannot read or follow.”
“You’ve deployed Morse and her crew?”
Tara nodded. “Morse doesn’t like it,” she added. “She appears to think I need protection. I am unclear as to why.”
“Morse isn’t concerned about your physical safety; she’s not stupid. Can’t you just read her mind?”
“I have. I do not understand much of what she thinks. She is concerned that the people in the fief will somehow take advantage of me.”
“I can’t imagine why. Can you mirror that image to the Halls?”
“Which?”
“Both.”
Tara nodded.
“Be very careful,” Severn told her. “Lock it down to a specific person—the Hawklord would be best.”
“Why?” Kaylin asked sharply.
“The man in the mirror is influential; he is not considered a friend of the Imperial Halls. He is cautious but political.”
“Meaning he might be able to access some of our records?”
“Meaning exactly that.”
“Is he Human Caste Court important?”
Severn didn’t answer.
“Is he too important to otherwise be crossing the bridge with carpenters?”
“Demonstrably not.” Severn forced his hands to unclench. “Yes, Kaylin, his presence here is highly suspicious. There is no reason for his presence in Tiamaris, save at the invitation of the Dragon Lord, and clearly, no such invitation has been extended.”
“It has not,” Tara said, confirming what was obvious.
“Is he in Tiamaris now?” Severn asked.
Tara frowned. “No,” she said without pause. “He did not cross the bridge today.”
The two Hawks exchanged a glance. It was the day after the raid on the Arcanum.
“We’re going to head back to the Halls of Law,” Kaylin finally said. They turned toward the doors.
* * *
“Wait.”
Kaylin turned back to see that Tara’s wings had suddenly unfolded; they were resting at a height that meant severe danger in the Aerians they mimicked.
“Yvander is speaking to someone on Capstone,” the Avatar said. Capstone was a hard sprint’s distance. “Yvander is one of my citizens.”
“Who is he speaking to?”
“I do not know. I cannot see the person clearly.”
Kaylin stiffened. “You’re certain?”
Tara nodded. In the distance, loud, heavy footsteps thundered down the hall. “I can clearly sense Yvander. I can hear what he’s thinking.”
“What is he thinking?”
“�I don’t have to work for another hour and a half. It should be safe.’”
“What should be safe?”
“A meal and a conversation,” Tara replied. “Someone has clearly offered him both.”
“Someone you can’t see.”
“Yes.”
“Someone he shouldn’t be able to see, either.”
“Yes, that is my concern.”
The doors flew open; Tiamaris, eyes verging on red, stood in its frame. His voice as he spoke was a Dragon’s full voice, caught in the chest of a man. Judging by expression alone, the man part wasn’t going to last long. “Tara, the aperture.”
She nodded, and Tiamaris turned and stepped back into the hall.
“Kaylin, Severn, follow him. Quickly; we may be too late.”
They ran into the hall in time to see Tiamaris finish a transformation that justified both the unusual width of the halls and the height of the ceiling. His eyes were larger and redder as he swiveled his head.
“Yes.” Tara spoke out loud for Kaylin’s benefit.
“Don’t just stand there gaping.” Tiamaris’s voice shook the ground as he glared at the two Hawks dwarfed by his Dragon form. “Get on.”
Chapter 5
The aperture, as Tiamaris had called it, was actually a wall, and from the interior side, it looked like solid stone. Given Tiamaris was running at it headfirst, Kaylin wasn’t too concerned; if it failed to open, it was unlikely to hurt him. Tara, however, flew ahead. At this height, most Aerians would have run—but her flight was like a loosed arrow; she moved. The wings seemed decorative.
Parts of the rapidly approaching wall, unlike the roof of the Hawklord’s Tower, did not separate and retract. Instead, they faded, turning in an eye’s blink into a very large, very open space with a bit of ceiling over it. Beyond it, instead of the vegetable gardens that pretty much served as the lofty Tower’s grounds, was the length of a street that Kaylin took a few seconds to recognize: it was Capstone.
Capstone at this time of the day wasn’t empty—but it emptied quickly, pedestrians moving to either side of the street in a panicked rush at the unexpected appearance of a large copper-red Dragon. Tiamaris’s color seemed to shift according to either mood or light; Kaylin, having seen so few transformations in any other Dragons, wasn’t certain why. It wasn’t the time to ask.
“Tara, we’re near the border of Nightshade?”
Tara nodded, scanning the people who were now standing in doorways, against walls, or, if they were lucky, in the mouth of an alley.
Tiamaris drew breath, and before Kaylin could stop him—or before she could try—he roared.
Tara lifted her chin. “There,” she said, pointing. “At the edge of the border. Kaylin?”
Kaylin leapt clear of Tiamaris’s back and landed in the street. She took off down Capstone at a run. She hadn’t asked Tara what Yvander looked like, but at this point, it wasn’t necessary: he was near the border, and all but the most hysterical of people who lived on this side of the Ablayne knew damn well to avoid it; there was likely to be only one person near its edge.
Severn caught up with her as she ran, pulling ahead because he had the greater stride. The man in question—dark-haired, slender of build—froze in place as he heard their running footsteps. Given that he’d just heard a Dragon’s roar, this was surprising. He hesitated for one long moment and then turned to look over his shoulder. His eyes widened as Severn barreled into him, knocking him off his feet.
Thank gods, Kaylin thought, that they weren’t in the streets of their city. The two men rolled to a stop as Kaylin approached them.
She blinked. “Pull him back,” she told Severn. “We’re too far in.”
Severn dragged himself—and the young man—to his feet. “Sorry. The Lady wants to speak with you.”
The man blinked. His dark eyes were wide. “The—the Lady?” He didn’t seem likely to bolt, and Severn relaxed his grip on a rumpled brown tunic. “Why?” He blinked again and looked around, his eyes widening farther, which Kaylin would have bet was impossible. He turned quickly to his right. “Get Michael,” he said. “Michael!”
He was clearly looking for someone. “There’s no one else here,” Kaylin told him as Severn began to pull him back toward the safe side of the street.
“He was right beside me,” the man insisted. “We were—” He frowned. “We were heading to Luvarr’s.”
“You were heading in the wrong direction. There was no one else with you.” Kaylin’s hands slid to the tops of her daggers as she gazed down at the street. At the height of day, the boundary that existed between Tiamaris and Nightshade seemed almost invisible. But Kaylin looked toward the fief of her childhood, the street that continued into it, and the buildings that stood at its edge, drained of all color. What was left was gray, black, and white. The border had a width that normal maps didn’t give it.
“Kaylin?”
She shook her head. Something about the shapes of the buildings looked wrong at this distance. “Take him back to Tara.”
“Not without you.”
Yvander was bewildered. “I don’t understand,” he said in a tone of voice that made him sound much younger than he looked. “Why am I here? Where’s Michael?”
“That’s a good question. Go back to the Lady,” Kaylin said gently. “I’ll look for Michael.”
“Kaylin—”
“That will not be necessary.” The fieflord stood yards away, the Tower’s Avatar—and his figurative crown—to his left. “Yvander.”
The young man dropped to his knees with no grace at all; Kaylin suspected fear had caused his legs to collapse. “Lord.”
There was no official title for the fieflord, because if you were very, very lucky, you never had to meet him. Tiamaris, however, accepted this in stride. He turned to Tara. “Lady, this is Yvander?”
She nodded, her eyes obsidian, her wings high. “You were not with Michael,” she said.
“I—I was, Lady— He was just—he was right here.…” Severn caught his arm and helped him to his feet, for a value of help that saw the Hawk doing most of the heavy lifting. He then guided him toward Tara, who hadn’t moved an inch. As Yvander approached, she lowered her wings.
“Private Neya.”
“Lord Tiamaris.”
“Tara does not believe it is wise to remain where you are standing.”
Kaylin turned to look back at the street. “Tara, can you come here?”
“I? No.”
“You’re certain?”
“I am the Tower, Kaylin; in exchange for power within the boundaries ascribed me by my creators, I am left with very little beyond them.”
“This is now beyond your boundaries?”
“Yes.”
“And in theory, that means I’m standing in Nightshade.”
Tara was silent for a long moment. “You are aware that that is not the case.”
Kaylin nodded slowly. “But I don’t understand why.”
“Come back to Tiamaris, Kaylin.”
Kaylin, however, frowned as she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Someone was standing at the window of one of the gray, washed-out buildings. He wasn’t gray in the way the buildings were; he wore loose robes that might have been at home in the High Halls. She recognized the long, black drape of Barrani hair.
His eyes widened as he realized she was looking directly at him.
“Tara, there’s someone here!”
Severn sprinted across the ill-defined border to her side as the hair on the back of her neck began to stand on end. She had enough time—barely—to throw herself to the side before the street where she’d been standing—gray and colorless though it was—erupted in a livid purple fire. She rolled to her feet and leapt again as the fire bloomed a yard away.
The small dragon squawked in her ear; he’d been so still and so quiet she’d almost forgotten he was attached. “Go somewhere safer,” she told him sharply.
Her skin ached as her clothing brushed against it, but she didn’t need the pain to know that magic was being used. Severn stopped in front of the building as he unleashed his weapon’s chain. “Get behind me!”
Kaylin managed to avoid a third volley of ugly purple fire, and the leap carried her more or less to Severn’s side, where she narrowly avoided his spinning chain. The fourth gout of flame broke against the barrier created by the chain’s arc.
“Kaylin!” Tara said, raising her voice. It wasn’t shouting, not in the strict sense of the word. Her voice sounded normal, if worried, but much, much louder.
She heard a curt, sharp curse—in a normal voice, if Dragon voices could be said to be normal. A shadow crossed the ground as Lord Tiamaris of the Dragon Court left his demesne. He landed to the left of where Severn now wielded his weapon, his wings folding as he lifted his neck toward the building that contained the unknown Barrani.
The ground didn’t shake at the force of his landing; it gave, as if it were soft sand and not cracked stone. Or as if it were flesh. It reminded Kaylin strongly of the gray stretch of nothingness that existed between worlds, although it in theory had shape, form, texture.
The unmistakable sound of a Dragon inhaling was surprisingly loud when it happened right beside your ear. Purple fire broke against Severn’s chain and sizzled where it touched Tiamaris; Kaylin could no longer be certain that the blasts were aimed at her, they were so broad. Tiamaris was angry enough that he didn’t appear to notice them.
The Dragon fieflord exhaled fire. Had the building been a regular fief hovel, it would have been glowing. This one, although it had the shape leeched of color, wavered in the wake of the flame, undulating as it slowly lost coherence. If the Barrani Lord was caught in the Dragon’s fire, he made no sign, but in the distance, Kaylin could hear weeping. It was soft, attenuated, and clear somehow over the roar of flame.
She reached out and rapped Tiamaris; he didn’t appear to notice.
The building continued to waver, melting at last into a gray smoke or fog. She would have panicked, but the crying didn’t get any louder; it was almost as if it were entirely unrelated to the demise of the building itself. Only when that building was gone did Tiamaris acknowledge Kaylin.
“You should not be here,” he told her in his deep, bass rumble.
“You’re here,” she pointed out, perhaps unwisely given the color of his eyes. “Severn, can you hear that?”
Tiamaris hadn’t looked away, but the question caught Severn’s attention. “Hear what?”
“I’ll take that as a no. I can hear someone…crying.”
“No.”
“Tiamaris?”
The Dragon snorted smoke. “No,” he said after a pause. “I hear nothing. I do not wish to remain here,” he added. “Which direction is the crying coming from?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “I think—I think it’s coming from Nightshade’s side of the border.”
“Then you may visit Nightshade,” he replied. “But do it the regular way.”
“Meaning?”
“Cross the bridge, Private. Both of them. Come. We will speak with Yvander now.”
* * *
Yvander was already speaking when they returned to the color and solidity of the fief of Tiamaris. He was gesturing, hands moving as if he thought they were wings; Tara’s head was tilted in a familiar way, and she was once again wearing her gardening clothes. Her wings, however, remained.
His hands froze as Tiamaris approached. It was almost impossible to maintain unreasoning fear when confronted with the Tower’s avatar; it was almost impossible not to be terrified when confronted with Tiamaris.
Tara, however, turned nonchalantly to the great Dragon who crowded the street simply by standing still. “Yvander thought he was with his friend Michael.”
Tiamaris nodded.
“The intruder?”
“Gone.”
Tara turned to Kaylin. “He was Barrani?”
“He looked Barrani to me—but if Yvander saw him as Michael, there’s no guarantee that he was.” She hesitated and then added, “He was using magical fire.”
“It was not fire,” Tiamaris said.
“It looked like fire. But purple.”
“Fire is not generally purple,” Tara told her. “Yvander, where did you meet Michael?”
“I met him on the way to the Town Hall. I’m due to start work in—” He glanced at the sky, and in particular at the sun’s position, and blanched.
Tara, however, touched his shoulder gently. “You will not be removed from your position. Please. Where did you meet Michael?”
“On the way to the site,” he replied, his panic receding in the face of her reassurance.
“Please, show us.”
* * *
An escort of the Lord and Lady of the fief was perhaps not what Yvander would have wished for at the start of the day, but by the time he stopped on a street whose name escaped Kaylin, he was relatively calm. “Here.”
Kaylin looked at the building to the left of the street. “He lives here?”
Yvander frowned. “No. He was visiting a friend, he said.”
“Good enough.” The building was, as far as the fiefs went, in poor repair; the door that in theory kept people out was listing on its hinges. Severn glanced at Tiamaris, who nodded in silence. Kaylin followed as Severn went to investigate. A fief building—especially in Tiamaris, given the damage done by the weakening of the borders—would have to be literally falling down before it remained empty, and this building was no exception; there were two families, at best guess, living on the first floor. The second floor, however, appeared to be empty.
They took the stairs cautiously; Severn gave Kaylin the lead because frankly, these stairs didn’t look as though they would support a lot of weight. When she reached the second story, she froze. “Severn? Come up the stairs slowly.”
The stairs creaked as he climbed them. The halls were narrow, the ceiling, which looked dangerously warped, low. Neither of these were remarkable, or at least they wouldn’t have been in Nightshade, the fief with which they were both most familiar.
“What is it? What did you see?” was the soft question asked when Severn joined her.
“A mage was here,” was her flat reply.
“Is he here now?”
“If he is, he’s not casting. My arms don’t ache. But—there was magic here. I guess whatever it took to disguise himself as Michael involved a decent amount of power.”
“Which would make some sense, but a spell of that nature would generally be cast on either Yvander or the impersonator, not a hall in the middle of a run-down building.”
“It’s not the hall,” she replied. She didn’t argue with anything else, because all of it was true. “It’s the door.” Lifting her arm, she pointed toward the room at the hall’s end. There, against its closed door, was a sigil, an echo of the identity of the mage who had cast the spell. She frowned as she drew closer. There was an obvious sigil, but around it, or beneath it, lay a far less distinct mark.
She recognized them both. She’d seen them before, in her apartment, just after her home had been destroyed by an Arcane bomb.
* * *
The door looked ordinary, for the fiefs; it was old and slightly warped. The hinges were, of course, on the other side, but Kaylin didn’t expect them to be in perfect repair, either. She approached the door with care, noting how utterly silent the rooms to either side were. It was possible they were entirely empty—it was the right time of the day for that—but she felt her heart sink a yard, regardless.
Severn nodded as if she’d spoken, and opened a door to their right. Kaylin paused and watched him enter. The door wasn’t locked, but frequently, doors in buildings of this nature weren’t. A lock guaranteed violence if someone actually wanted to enter; it didn’t keep them out. People in the fiefs understood squatters’ rights: the stronger person had them. Kaylin and Severn had moved several times, with very little warning, in their early years in Nightshade, but they’d moved unharmed. They’d put up no fight, because the result of a fight was a given; in return, the people who’d kicked them out simply waited for them to walk through the door.
Maybe that had happened here.
Severn returned. “It’s empty.”
“No sign of who’s occupying it now?”
“None.” He walked straight across the hall and opened the opposite door, entering more quickly. He left more quickly, as well. “Empty.”
He then backtracked down the hall. Kaylin turned to look at the door at the end of the hall, and at the familiar sigils that sat in its center. When Severn returned, she said, “They’re all empty.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. The downstairs wasn’t. Whatever happened upstairs didn’t make a lot of noise.”
Kaylin nodded. “Or it happened more than a week ago.”
“Strong magic?”
She shook her head. “Weak now. Whatever it was meant to do, it did—but the mages left signatures.”
“Michael wasn’t working alone, then?”
She frowned. “One of the sigils is almost illegible, it’s buried so far beneath the other.” The frown deepened. “I’ve seen a lot of sigils. The stronger one looks normal, to me. The weaker one…” She shook her head.
“You recognize them.”
“I’m not likely to forget them; they’re what the Arcane bomb splashed across what was left of my home.”
His jaw tensed; he didn’t. “Don’t touch the door.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Tiamaris is an Imperial Order–trained mage. He might see something here I don’t.”
* * *
The good thing about an enspelled door was it forced Tiamaris to let go of his Dragon form; he couldn’t fit through the entrance to the building otherwise, unless he planned to make a much larger hole in the supporting wall. His eyes had shaded to orange, but it was an orange that was very close to red. Tara, in gardening clothes, still sported obsidian eyes. They entered the building with Kaylin; Severn chose to scout the ground floor while Tara listened in. She could do that and move.
The stairs creaked ominously under Tiamaris’s weight; expecting it, Kaylin waited until he’d cleared them before stepping onto them herself. A fall like this wasn’t likely to cause a Dragon trouble, but it wouldn’t do much good for her.
Tiamaris strode straight down the hall and paused a yard from the closed door. “You didn’t open it?” he asked without looking back.
“No.”
“Is magic now active?”
As Kaylin had magic detectors built into her skin by default, she shook her head. Her skin didn’t hurt. When Tiamaris repeated the question, she said, “Not that I can sense.”
He did something that was definitely magical in response.
“That’s you?”
“It is.” He reached out and opened the door.
Kaylin cried out in shock and pain, half expecting the door to explode outward at the sudden force of magic she felt. It didn’t. It was still in one piece, still attached to its hinges. It didn’t appear to have harmed Tiamaris at all.
But it hadn’t opened into a normal room, either, even by fief standards. It opened into fog and gray, dark shadows. Or smoke without the obvious fire to cause it.
Tara said something sharp and harsh in a language Kaylin didn’t understand. The door flew shut before Tiamaris could take a step into the room itself.
“Lady?” he said, turning toward her, as Kaylin said, “Tara?” They spoke with the same inflection.
Her eyes were obsidian; wings had once again sprouted from between her shoulder blades. “Do not open the door,” she told her Lord softly. “It does not lead to any residence within the fief of Tiamaris.”
“Where does it lead, Lady?”
“To the outlands,” was her soft reply.
“To the Shadows?” Kaylin asked. “Outlands” was not a word she’d heard Tara use before. “To the heart of the fiefs?”
“No. No, Kaylin. If there was such a place in my domain, I would know.”
“But—”
“This is not the same,” she continued. “Not for the purpose for which I was created. It is, however, as much a danger to my Lord’s people.” She didn’t mean the Dragons.
Tiamaris’s eyes had shaded to a cooler orange; Kaylin was willing to bet that was as calm as they’d get today.
“Do you know what she means by �outlands’?” Kaylin asked.
“No.”
“Tara, do you think it’s likely that the missing people walked through that door?”
“I think it very likely,” Tara replied.
“Where did it take them?”
“I do not know.”
“Is there some way to determine that?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Enter the room. It is clear the spell is still active.” To Tiamaris, she added, “I do not think they will return that way, but while the entrance exists, there is some possibility. Would you have me destroy it, Lord?”
Yes warred with hope, and hope won, although it was close. “Can you place a guard upon this door, and this building, to ensure that it is not used again without your knowledge?”
“Now that I am aware of it, yes. I cannot guarantee that there are not other points of exit—or entrance—within the fief.”
“Why?” Kaylin asked.
“Because such doorways did exist when I was first created; they were not, in and of themselves, a danger; they were a path between specific locations. Once, before the fall of Ravellon, such doors existed between the great cities.”
“Great cities?”
Tara shook her head; her wings settled into a comfortable fold. “They are gone now. Ruins remain, if that. They were not mortal cities, and against their height, Elantra counts as little. But I did not think to see such a thing again,” she added.
“I am not averse to the study of the ancient,” Tiamaris finally said. “I spent much of my youth in that endeavor, and it was not always considered either safe or wise. It is possible that Sanabalis may cede some of his mages to the study of this door, should I request it.”
“Would you?”
“I would not have you stand guard in this…building…indefinitely; if the Imperial Order assigns its mages here—”
“Do you trust them?” Kaylin cut in.
“They are not Arcanists,” he replied. “They are beholden to the Emperor.”
“They are, but the fief doesn’t operate under Imperial Law.”
“True. But I believe it can be argued that the mages chosen will be…ambassadors for the Empire. Diplomats.” He smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. “It will prevent me from destroying them if they are overweening in their arrogance, but it will likewise diminish their self-importance.”
“I don’t frankly see how.”
“Many of the mages are interested in the ancient and the unknown; the choice of those who are allowed to study here, of course, will be mine. If they anger, annoy, or bore me, I will send them home; if they attempt to remain, I will send them home in pieces.”
“Why let them come here at all, then?”
“Because there is some small chance they will discover what the purpose of this room is—and was—and while they are here, they will defend it as if it were their personal belonging. Should the Barrani—any Barrani—attempt to access this room and this door from this side, we will know, and the mages will be better prepared than my own humble citizens.” He turned to Tara and said in a quieter voice, “It would be wisest, I think, to relocate those citizens who remain in the building.”
* * *
“There is a real Michael,” Tara told them as they left the building and headed toward the Tower, which took longer because there was no portal and no angry Dragon to sit on. “He is a citizen of the fief. He did not, however, approach Yvander in any way today.”
“Do you think the would-be kidnapper was someone who knew both Michael and Yvander?”
Tara frowned and shook her head. “I think Yvander supplied both the image and the words he thought he heard. What I do not understand,” she said, “is why Yvander was being led across the border, rather than to the building itself. If the room there serves as portal, why was it not used instead?”
“I’m going to guess that the disappearances in Tiamaris aren’t unique. It’s possible they’ve also occurred outside the fief.”
Tara hesitated, and Kaylin marked it. The Avatar’s eyes once again lost the semblance of normal eyes, becoming black stone instead. “My Lord gives me permission to discuss this. He gives you permission to discuss it as well, but asks that any official discussion—with your Sergeant or with the Lord of Hawks—be referred to him.
“I believe the building I was studying in the hall of perception might somehow be involved, but if the Arcanists attempted to create a portal that is similar to the one you discovered, they would find it much, much more difficult beyond the bounds of the fiefs.”
“Why?”
“There is a reason that the Towers were built and a reason they were built here. Beyond the borders of the fiefs, the type of power required would be much, much more significant. If they were very lucky, planned well, and made use of the magical storms that engulfed a large part of the City itself, yes, there is every possibility such a gateway exists in the City proper. The magical storms, however, were not predictable, and I consider their use in this case unlikely. It is not just a matter of power—although power is necessary—but also a matter of precision.”
“But they could build gateways like this in the other fiefs?”
Tara nodded. “They are most likely to be found near the border zones; a singularly powerful but unwise mage might attempt their construction within the zone itself.”
“What is it about the fiefs that make it easier or simpler here?”
Tara shrugged, a gesture that looked, in all details, as if it could have come from Morse. It probably had. “The same thing that allows Ferals to hunt in the streets. The Ferals don’t cross the bridge.”
“You don’t think they can.”
“No.”
“If �Michael’ were leading Yvander across the border to Nightshade, it’s likely that a portal exists in Nightshade.”
Tara nodded. “We have been far more vigilant than Barren was capable of being. Given the recent difficulty with the borders, the ongoing threat posed by Shadows that managed to enter the fief during the period of instability, and the necessity of reconstruction, it is more difficult to conduct large-scale and illegal magics without the possibility of detection.”
“You didn’t detect this door.”
“Not immediately.”
They reached the Tower. “Our apologies to the Halls of Law,” Tara said softly. “I do not think the missing boy will be found.”
The doors rolled open; Kaylin remained on the outside. “If people are disappearing, there has to be some reason. The people Tiamaris listed as missing are all human, but they span age and gender. I’ve seen many ways humans can be bought and sold, but their value is entirely dependent on age, gender, and appearance. None of those require something as complicated as the portal. None of them require any level of magic. But magic clearly was used.
“The victims aren’t, as far as you know, in the city anymore. They had to be sent somewhere.”
“They were sent to the outlands,” Tara replied.
“Tara, where are the outlands? Are they even in the Empire?”
“Not in the sense Elantra is, no. But if you mean to ask me why those victims came from the fief, I believe it to be because such a portal could be opened here.”
“Could it be opened in Ravellon?”
“Perhaps—but there is little chance, in my opinion, that the ones who opened the portal would survive the opening.”
“So it had to be here. What purpose would random victims serve?”
“There was once a theory,” Tara replied, “that mortals were malleable because they had no True Names and therefore no confinement. They are not fixed in shape.”
“They are,” Kaylin replied sharply. “If you attempt to break their shape, you generally damage—or kill—them.” But as she spoke, she thought of the Leontines and their story of origin and fell silent.
“The Ancients did not perceive life the way you do,” Tara finally said. “I have not heard the voices of the Ancients for so long, Kaylin. Nor do I hear them now, in this; it is too small, too precise, and too secretive. My Lord will speak with the Imperial Order, but I think it unlikely that the Imperial Order will offer enlightenment. It is possible that the Arkon may have information that is relevant.”
“Yvander was being led to Nightshade,” Kaylin said. The words were sharp and heavy. “In Nightshade, no one’s likely to care.”
Tara frowned. “If something is preying on his people, he will. If he does not have sympathy for the individuals who have gone missing,” she added, “he is nonetheless Lord in his domain, and he cannot afford to overlook such predations.”
“He didn’t give a damn about the Ferals,” was the sharp reply. “And there were certainly brothels like Barren’s, where predators from the City were welcomed.”
“He did not turn a blind eye to the latter,” was Tara’s cool reply. “He profited from it, in a fashion of his choosing.”
Kaylin’s hands bunched into instant fists. She’d learned, on the other hand, to keep still when she was in the grip of a sudden, unexpected anger. She met Tara’s steady gaze and saw that the Avatar’s eyes were no longer obsidian.
“I have angered you,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Kaylin replied, exhaling and loosening her hands, “I hate what you’re saying.”
“Is it inaccurate?”
“No. If it were inaccurate, I wouldn’t be angry. You’re not wrong, and I hate that you’re not wrong.”
“My Lord would be sympathetic,” Tara replied. Her wings folded into her back and disappeared as she straightened out her apron.
“We’ll take word to the Halls,” Kaylin said after a long pause. “If I don’t come to visit in the next two months, it’s not because I’m angry.”
Tara frowned. “You are leaving?”
“Yes. I’m going to the West March.” The West March suddenly seemed like a terrible waste of time. People were being kidnapped in the fiefs, and Kaylin and Severn were two Hawks who could navigate its streets. She didn’t say this.
On the other hand, standing on the front steps of the Tower, she didn’t need to; Tara heard it anyway.
* * *
“Kaylin.”
Kaylin, shoulders hunched, was looking for something to kick. “I don’t want to go to the West March. I want to be here.”
“The fiefs aren’t our jurisdiction.”
Kaylin said nothing for two blocks.
“And that’s not why you’re angry.”
Severn knew her. Sometimes, she forgot how well. “No.”
“Nightshade?”
“Yes.” She wanted to spit. She couldn’t bring herself to say the name. “I’ll bet you any money—and I mean any—that there’s a portal to wherever across the border. Whoever was taking Yvander to �lunch’ was leading him there.”
“I wouldn’t touch that bet.”
No one still breathing would. “But it makes no sense. The kidnappings. I hate magic.”
The small dragon hissed in her ear.
“I’m sorry, but I do.”
He nipped her earlobe. Had he been larger, she would have grabbed him and tossed him off her shoulders. As it was, she managed to ignore him. “I think this has something to do with the embezzling. The biggest difficulty we’ve had in solving this case has been the lack of distribution of the stolen funds. It’s not in banks. It’s not in drugs. It’s not in gems or other concessions. It’s not in the hands of merchants.”
“You think it’s in the hands of fieflords.”
She did. “Tara’s half-right. They couldn’t just grab people off the street. Dozens? The fieflords would have to notice that. But what if they just buy people? Pay off fieflords? It’s not much different from killing them in brothels we’d shut down in two seconds on this side of the river. They don’t have that option with Tiamaris. He’d eat them for lunch.
“And if it’s Barrani, they’d know that. They’ve been at war with Dragons on and off for centuries. If Tiamaris claims this as his, he’s not selling any of it—not for something as mundane as stolen treasury funds.”
“What, exactly, would the Exchequer or the Human Caste Court derive from that? Stealing funds to give to Barrani to buy chattel doesn’t seem like motivation to risk life and limb—literally. It doesn’t make sense.”
“No.” She slowed. “It doesn’t. But I think it doesn’t make sense because we don’t know where the people went. We’re missing part of the big picture. What we’re not missing is the fact that �Michael,’ whoever the hells he was, walked Yvander across the Nightshade border.” With a great deal of bitterness, she added, “There’s no way he doesn’t know. He fingered the Arcanum. He knew who to blame. How?”
“You’re going to Nightshade.”
“I am.”
Chapter 6
The sky was so gray, it was almost the color of silence. The rage bled away as Kaylin walked; it left a familiar despair in its wake.
It had never occurred to Kaylin, growing up in the streets of Nightshade, that a fief could be almost safe. But in Tiamaris, Ferals were hunted, and the ranks of those who formed Tiamaris’s unofficial guard force were growing; people wanted to hunt Ferals here; the young wanted to be heroes. Only the dangerously insane had ever done so in Nightshade, and in Kaylin’s admittedly small experience, they were just as likely to kill as the Ferals and for reasons that were just as clear.
In Tiamaris, people came to the fieflord—or Tara, at least—to report their missing parents.
Tiamaris had owned the fief for almost two months, if that, and these were the changes he had made. Dragons were a force of nature, as all Immortals were, but this Dragon, she understood and, in her own way, admired.
Nightshade had owned his fief for far longer than she had been alive. He could have made the fief an entirely different place, just as Tiamaris was attempting to do. He hadn’t. He had never particularly cared about the people who eked out a miserable existence in the streets surrounding his castle. They were mortal and no more important than any other insignificant and transitory possession.
The Ablayne came into view. She had seen it so often from the wrong side of its banks that it was almost a comfort. The bridge that crossed Tiamaris wasn’t empty, and the men—and women—who walked it weren’t attempting to be furtive. They walked it the way the citizens of Elantra walked to any job or to any market. They did blink a little when they saw Kaylin and Severn, but only because they wore the tabard of the Hawks.
With the streets of the city firmly beneath her feet, she relaxed—but not enough. “Will you go back to the office?” she asked.
“If you’d prefer,” he replied with only a small gap between question and answer to indicate hesitance.
She nodded, and he accompanied her down the riverside street until they reached a more familiar bridge. This one contained no foot traffic, no obvious guards, no carpenters or linguists; it was a bridge in name only and served as it had always served: as a wall, a way of keeping people in their respective homes.
“I’ll be fine,” she told Severn. “It’s not my death he wants.”
“You don’t know what he wants.”
It was true. She didn’t. “I don’t always know what I want.”
“No.” His smile was slight. “Mostly, people don’t.”
“Or they want the wrong things.”
“Wrong?”
“Things they can’t ever have. Safety. Security. Things to remain the same. Some things,” she added quickly. She turned to him at the foot of the bridge. “I want to stay where we are.”
He didn’t misinterpret, although he could have. Instead, to her surprise, he hugged her. She stiffened and then relaxed, slowly, into the warmth of it. “Don’t live in the past,” he told her.
“I’m not. It’s just—it’s part of me. I feel like I barely managed to step out of the shadows, all of them. Ferals, loss, myself. I was kept as an assassin. I’m now paid to protect people from what I once was—and I want that. You—” She swallowed.
“What I did for the Wolves wasn’t what you did for Barren.”
“Excepting the obvious, how was it different?”
“It was legal.”
“Technically, what I was doing was legal, as well. Barren was the Law.”
“Kaylin—”
“I know.” She pulled away, lifting a hand and forcing herself to smile. “We’re not doing it anymore. We’re Hawks now. I’m not Barren’s. You’re not—”
He lifted a finger to her mouth and the words ended abruptly. “Go ask what you need to ask. I’ll go to Missing Persons and file a report with Mallory and Brigit.”
* * *
It was hard to imagine that she’d once lived in Nightshade. She knew she had, but the visceral truth of life in its streets as an orphan had eased its constant grip; when she looked at the worn roads and old buildings, she could see them as they were, as they might have been in a different context. She could meet the furtive gazes of strangers, walk down the streets, and evince no surprise or dismay at the way the children and their minders fell silent, shrinking toward the cover of familiar doors or alleys to allow her to pass.
She’d been one of those children, although she’d played on the streets far less often. Some of the older minders—grandparents or great-aunts and -uncles—had been kind enough, but that kindness extended only as far as empty streets and a lack of Nightshade’s thugs. If necessary to preserve their own, they would have handed her over in a minute; it was a fact they all accepted.
Your kin wouldn’t, for the most part, although that was no guarantee of safety.
Now, Nightshade’s mark adorning her cheek, no one would touch her. Most of the people who sidled away had no idea what the mark meant, which was fair; Kaylin wasn’t clear on the concept, either. But Nightshade’s mortal thugs, and worse, his Barrani thugs, did. It gave her a freedom in the fief that she had never had and never thought to have anywhere on this side of the Ablayne.
That freedom extended all the way to Castle Nightshade.
The streets that surrounded the Castle itself were empty of all but the fortunate few who made small deliveries to the fieflord, and they didn’t stop to chat for a variety of reasons. They weren’t dressed as foreigners; they were dressed as fieflings. Any delivery made to Castle Nightshade implied wealth, and any wealth was a target. If you couldn’t be parted from your wealth while alive, death wasn’t much of an impediment.
She approached the guards who waited beyond the portcullis through which the open courtyard was visible. The portcullis served as the entrance to the Castle, but not in the traditional way. It was a portal that moved you from the street side of the metal bars to the inside of the Castle’s grand foyer, with a lot of nausea and magical discomfort in between.
Andellen was one of the two men who stood guard. He bowed. “Lord Kaylin.” The words immediately caused a similar bow in the other guard. Kaylin disliked the gesture, but understood that Andellen wasn’t offering it for the sake of her pride or her position. It was tradition, and given how little tradition existed in his life in the fiefs, she tried hard not to begrudge it.
“Lord Andellen.”
“Lord Nightshade is waiting.”
She grimaced. “Of course he is.”
* * *
Passage through the portal was always disorienting, in part because Castle Nightshade’s architecture wasn’t fixed. Like the Tower of Tiamaris, it shifted in place, responding to the desire or command of its Lord. The foyer was the only part of the Castle that Kaylin was certain remained the same between visits: it was too loud, too ostentatious, and far too bright. Large didn’t matter.
She kept this to herself as she rose unsteadily to her feet, wondering, as she often did, if Nightshade deliberately made the portal passage as nauseating as possible to give himself the edge in any negotiations or conversations.
“I hardly think it required,” was his amused—but chilly—reply. He was, of course, standing beneath the chandeliers. But his eyes were a shade of blue at odds with the situation, and the color immediately put Kaylin on guard.
“You are cautious,” he replied, “as is your wont.” He offered her an arm. If she maintained physical contact with Nightshade, the Castle didn’t throw up new doors or halls and didn’t distort the ones she’d seen before. She reached for the bend of his elbow and stopped as the small dragon reared up on its unimpressive legs, extending his head, his small jaws snapping at air. It was, sadly, the air directly between Kaylin and the Lord of the Castle.
“What is this?” he asked softly, his brows folding in almost open surprise—for a Barrani.
“My newest roommate,” she replied tersely. She pulled her hand back, and the small dragon settled—slowly—around the back of her neck, looping his tail around the front.
“It lives with you?”
She had not come to the Castle to talk about the small dragon. “Yes.”
“I…see.” He withdrew the offered arm. “Are you aware of what it is?”
“A small, winged lizard,” she replied. The small dragon hissed, but did so very quietly. She knew Nightshade would have some interest in the small creature, and at the moment, she didn’t care. A cold certainty had settled into the center of her chest, constricting breath.
His expression chilled. “You are, in the parlance of mortal Elantra, in a mood.”
“I’m angry, yes.”
“Have I done something to merit your anger?” As he spoke, he walked; if she wished to continue the conversation, she had no choice but to follow. “Have you made preparations for our journey to the West March?”
It wasn’t the question she’d expected. “I’ve been given a leave of absence from the Halls of Law, yes. I will be traveling with Teela.” The halls of the Castle looked almost familiar, and they led to the room in which Nightshade habitually received guests. Or at least guests who wore the tabard of the Hawk on the other side of the bridge.
“That is not entirely what I meant.” He led her to the long couch in front of the flat, perfect table that graced the room’s center. There, silvered trays held very tastefully arranged bread, nuts, and flowers.
“You know that the High Court is traveling there.”
“Indeed.”
“How exactly are you going to survive?”
“Is my survival of concern to you?” He smiled.
She ignored the question and the smile; the latter was harder. “You’re Outcaste, and even if the Barrani don’t view Outcastes the way the Dragons do, they won’t be able to ignore your existence if you’re constantly in their presence.”
“No,” he agreed. “Be that as it may, I have reasons to believe in this case they will hold enmity and decree in abeyance.”
“Reasons you’d like to share?”
“At this point, Private Neya, you would not understand them; I believe they will become clear with time. My status, however, given the debt owed you by the High Lord, should not materially affect your own.”
She lifted a hand to her cheek, which deepened his smile and lightened the color of his eyes. “Yes.” The smile faded. “It is not, however, concern for my welfare that brought you to my Castle.”
“No. You already know what I want to ask.”
His eyes, when they met hers, were dark, his expression smooth and cool as winter stone. “Ask,” he said softly. When her silence extended for minutes beyond awkward, he smiled. It was thin. “I would not have all effort in this conversation be mine. You made a decision, Kaylin. You have come to my fief, my Castle, to ask a simple question. Ask. I will not lie.”
She exhaled. “There’s been a series of disappearances in Tiamaris.”
His expression didn’t shift. At all. “Continue.”
“One of the people who disappeared in the fief wasn’t a native. He crossed the bridge on a dare.”
At that, Nightshade frowned. “That is unfortunate.”
“Is it more unfortunate than the other disappearances?”
“Of course. That mortal was a citizen of the Empire over which a Dragon claims ownership.”
“And the others were citizens of a fief over which a different Dragon claims ownership.”
“A Dragon who is in the unheard-of position of also owing loyalty to the Eternal Emperor. I do not envy him the loss of an Imperial citizen within the boundaries of his fief; he will almost certainly be called upon to explain it.”
“An explanation has presented itself.”
She felt him stiffen, although nothing about his expression or posture changed at all.
“And that?”
“A Barrani Lord of some power appears to have been involved.”
“Ah. You call him a Lord?”
“The Barrani who have power aren’t generally content to let it remain unrecognized.”
His smile was slender, sharp, and laced with an odd approval. “True. Why do you believe a Barrani Lord to be involved?”
“Because you do,” she replied, the words as tight and sharp as his smile.
“Perhaps that is merely the arrogance of my kind.” He rose. “If events are of significance, of consequence, we assume our own to have a hand in them.”
“So do we. Your own.” She could find no warmth with which to smile. “I saw him.”
Once again he stilled. “You…saw him? The Barrani you accuse?”
“I saw him,” she repeated, “in the border zone.”
* * *
After a significant pause, Nightshade spoke. “You are so certain, Kaylin, that the individual you saw in the border zone was Barrani?”
In response, she folded her arms. “I am.”
“The border areas are often…amorphous. What is seen—”
“I don’t want to play this game.”
“Ah.” A brief smile. “Which game, then, would you indulge in, in its stead?”
“You’re aware that I’m currently resident in the Imperial Palace?”
The smile vanished. “I was not.”
“You are aware that the only home I’ve ever had I could truly call my own was destroyed yesterday?”
Silence. It was not an awkward silence—but it was. Nightshade resumed his seat, the table dividing them. “I was not.” He glanced at the small dragon. “How was it destroyed?”
“An Arcane bomb.” Her throat was inexplicably tight; it was hard to force words out. The small dragon rubbed the underside of her jaw with the top of his head.
He asked nothing, watching her.
“The magical signature left in the wake of the bomb is not currently in the records of the Imperial Order.”
He nodded, as if the information were irrelevant.
“But that same magical signature can be found in the fief of Tiamaris, near the border, where I saw the Barrani we believe to be involved in the disappearances.”
“And your question?”
“People have been disappearing from the fief of Tiamaris for the past week—that we’re aware of. How long have people gone missing from your streets?”
“If I say they have not?”
“I’ll redefine the word �missing.’” She pushed herself to her feet, feeling too confined by the stillness enforced by sitting. “Was the unnamed Barrani Lord buying people from your fief?”
“It is not, in the fief of Nightshade, an illegal activity. Imperial Laws have no jurisdiction here. Nor do they in any other fief; Lord Tiamaris may style himself after Imperial rule, but it is choice, not dictate.”
“Is Imperial gold currently in what passes for your coffers?”
“We use the resources we have, Kaylin, and we sacrifice the things of lesser import to us.”
She swallowed.
“You have done the same in your short past. Perhaps you comfort yourself by telling yourself you had no choice. If it will comfort you in a like fashion, pretend that I, likewise, felt I had no choice.”
“How?”
“Pardon?”
“How am I supposed to pretend that? You’re the fieflord here. If someone came to threaten you—in any way—the Castle would probably eat them. They wouldn’t make it out alive unless it also suited your purpose. You won’t—you probably can’t—starve. You won’t freeze. All-out magical assault probably couldn’t destroy these walls.
“Given all that, how am I supposed to pretend you had no choice?”
He raised a brow. “I am almost surprised that you’ve considered making that effort. Very well. Some two or three dozen of the people who live in the fief have been extracted from its streets, with my permission. I received compensation for their loss.”
“Where were they sent?”
“Why do you suppose they were sent anywhere?”
“Because there’s a door in Tiamaris that opens into the outlands.”
Nightshade’s eyes were indigo. “Do not go near that door,” he said, all pretense of civility lost. “Do not touch it.”
“It’s not in your fief, and yes, Tiamaris is well aware of its existence. He protects his citizens.”
“As the shepherd protects his sheep.”
Stung, she said, “No. As a decent ruler protects his people.”
“Is there no difficulty within this city that will not, eventually, entangle you? I ask it, Kaylin, if I cannot command it. You do not understand the danger.”
“I understand it better than any of the people who were lost to it!”
“Kaylin.” He rose, and the way he stood made her conscious of the difference in their height, their weight, and their reach. She stiffened, bending at the knees as if she would, at any minute, have to throw herself bodily out of harm’s reach. The small dragon reared once again, spreading his wings just behind her head, like a slender, glass fan.
Nightshade ignored him this time.
The small dragon had ways of making himself heard, at least when he wanted Kaylin’s attention; Nightshade, however, was not the kind of man one bit on the ear or chin. Instead of maintaining his rigid posture on her left shoulder, the familiar launched himself into the closing space between the fieflord and the Hawk, buoying himself up with the silent motion of delicate, translucent wings.
He looked, to Kaylin’s eye, tiny and fragile in his defiance, and she almost reached out to grab him and pull him back, but she didn’t want to injure those wings.
What Nightshade saw must have been different; he froze in place, lifting a hand as if to indicate harmlessness. Kaylin didn’t buy it. The small dragon wasn’t buying it, either. He lifted his neck and looked down at the fieflord before opening his jaws to exhale. The motion was that of a dragon in miniature, but what he exhaled, along with his high-pitched, barely audible roar, was not a gout of flame; it was smoke.
Opalescent, swirling gray spread like a dense cloud before Nightshade; it was amorphous enough—barely—that Kaylin could see the rise of the fieflord’s brows, the widening of his eyes. He moved—he leapt—to the left, rolling across the floor and coming to his feet as if he were an acrobat.
The dense smoke didn’t follow him, but it didn’t really dissipate, either; it hung in the air like a small cloud. A small, glittering cloud. They both stared at the small dragon, who pirouetted in the air, which was the only time he took his eyes off the fieflord.
Nightshade spoke three sharp words; the hair on the back of Kaylin’s neck instantly stood on end, and the skin across her forearms and legs went numb. The small dragon yawned and returned to his customary perch, which would be her rigid shoulders. He rubbed her cheek with the side of his face.
Three lines appeared beneath the cloud, pulsing as if they were exposed golden veins. Nightshade spread his hands; his fingers were taut but steady. His eyes were a blue that was so close to black Kaylin couldn’t tell the difference. All her anger—her visceral, instinctive rage—guttered. The whole of his attention was focused on the cloud, and as he moved his hands, the lines that enclosed it shifted in place, until they touched its outer edge. When they did, their color began to change. It was a slow shift from gold to something that resembled the heart of a hearth fire.
Nightshade spoke softly in Barrani; the words were so low Kaylin couldn’t catch them. The magical lines engraved in air brightened, losing their red-orange tint.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice almost as low as his. Barrani had better hearing.
“Step away from the containment,” he told her. “If you do not know what it is, I have some suspicion. It is not safe, not even in the Castle.” Although he spoke to her, he didn’t take his eyes off the cloud. Not even when the small dragon squawked. “You are mortal,” he continued. “Mortals walk the edge of hope; it is a sharp edge.
“The question you came to ask has only one answer—an answer you knew before you arrived. Would it truly have offered any comfort were I to lie? Or would your hope blind you so badly you might choose to believe?”
She was silent.
As if he were Sanabalis, he said, “What purpose would such a lie serve?”
“I don’t know. Reputation. Community standing. Tact—the desire not to hurt someone else’s feelings.”
He frowned.
“Yes, they’re mortal terms, but I’ve noted that absent big words, there are certain similarities.”
“If I chose to lie to you now, how would you categorize that decision? I am not afraid of you, Kaylin. There may come a time,” he added, his glance flicking off the small dragon on her shoulders, “when fear would be the appropriate response, but I cannot see it. Your judgment of me, should you choose one, is irrelevant. Your feelings—ah, that is a more complicated issue, but I will not lower myself to live in such a way as to assuage your fear or your guilt.
“Let me make this much clear: you are valuable to me. You. It is not because you are mortal; your mortality does not, by extension, make the residents of this fief valuable in the same way. Nor will it. I am not beholden to Imperial Law, and I do not choose to indulge in its outward appearance at this time; it serves no useful purpose.”
“And if it did?”
“I would acquiesce, as the High Court does. But it would not change in any material way what I feel, either for you or for the mortals you mistakenly assume are your kind. Such feelings, such…interactions…are a matter of necessity; if the weak congregate, they have some hope of survival.”
Kaylin was silent for a long moment. When she once again met his gaze, she held it. “Tell me why,” she said, her voice heavy but steady. “Why did they buy your people?”
“I am not at liberty to discuss that,” he replied. “And as there is no answer I can give you that will excuse the action in your eyes, I am not of a mind to do so, regardless.”
* * *
Kaylin’s walk back to the Ablayne was swift and silent.
Chapter 7
Marcus, seated behind a stack of paperwork that made him look smaller, looked up the minute she crossed the threshold that divided Hawks from Halls. His eyes were a pale orange, and given the past week, that was good. His ears flattened as she hesitated.
“Do not tell me that you’re handing me more work,” he said, wedging a growl between every other syllable.
“Not exactly. I went to Tiamaris.”
“The Missing Persons report?”
She nodded. “According to Tiamaris, Miccha Jannoson, reported missing today, crossed the Ablayne by bridge. He disappeared a few blocks from that bridge.”
“Disappeared?”
Kaylin hesitated, casting a meaningful glance at stacks of paperwork that weren’t in any danger of getting smaller in the near future.
Marcus growled. This caught the attention of the Barrani Hawks; as Sergeant sounds went, growling was generally quiet. The wrong kind of quiet. “What happened? According to the Hawklord, a request for Records access has arrived from the Imperial Palace.”
“The Palace doesn’t need permission.”
“In this case, it does; the request has been tendered by a member of the Dragon Court, but involves access outside Imperial boundaries.”
“We believe—and we have very little in the way of solid proof, Sergeant—that a Barrani Lord is responsible for the disappearance.”
Someone whistled. It wasn’t Marcus; it was Teela. She approached the sergeant’s desk with care. “What very little proof do you have?” She wasn’t particularly offended. Two decades of service with the Hawks made Kaylin’s claim reasonable on the surface; the Barrani were often peripherally involved in crimes investigated by the Hawks.
Very few of them were Lords. Kaylin turned to Teela. “I saw him.”
“You saw him grab the child?”
“Miccha wasn’t a child, strictly speaking.”
Teela generally considered most mortals children when she was in a mood. “Answer the question.”
“No. Not that one.”
This caused Marcus’s growl to deepen, and Kaylin surrendered. “Tiamaris has been monitoring his fief carefully this past week; Miccha isn’t the only person who’s disappeared—without an obvious trace—in the boundaries of his fief. The reason he noticed Miccha at all is because of the increased surveillance.
“While we were examining the fief’s internal Records, Tara caught something unusual; one of the citizens of Tiamaris appeared to be having a casual conversation with thin air as he approached the border between Tiamaris and Nightshade. The people who’ve disappeared have done so without struggle or obvious panic, and if someone’s going to voluntarily sneak across a fief border, it’s always going to be the one that’s between the fief and the rest of Elantra.”
Marcus’s brows rose. They lowered again without comment.
“The Barrani Lord,” Kaylin said, still watching Marcus, “appeared only when the citizen in question had crossed into the border zone. I didn’t recognize him,” she added. “But I would bet money he’s an Arcanist.”
That caused a different kind of quiet. “What,” Teela finally said, “did he do to cause that assumption?”
“The usual.”
“And that?”
“Tried to kill me.”
Teela’s eyes shifted to an instant midnight-blue. Kaylin found it both stressful and oddly comforting. “I didn’t recognize the spell, but—Arcanist.”
“How did it manifest?”
“Purple fire.”
Teela said nothing. When Marcus growled, the Barrani Hawk shrugged. “I concur.”
“Pardon?”
“He’s an Arcanist. There’s more, kitling.”
“No doubt the Hawks will hear about it from Sanabalis and the Imperial Order at some point: the Lord was involved in either the creation of, or the protection of, something that functions as a portal to—somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“I’m not sure it has a name. Tara referred to it as the outlands. Tiamaris has quarantined the building we found it in, and he’s calling in Imperial mages to �study’ it. We think the Barrani Arcanist used the portal to access the fief of Tiamaris.” She hesitated, given Teela’s eye color, and then said, “The door bore two sigils.”
“You recognized them,” was Teela’s flat reply.
She nodded. “They were the same as the sigils on the Arcane bomb.”
“You’ve been informed that the Imperial mages could only find one?”
“Yes. The second—at least on the door—was subtle; it was pervasive, but strangely amorphous. I’m to speak to Sanabalis about it, but he’s so busy that I might be able to put it off for six weeks.”
“Private.”
“Sergeant?”
“When the alleged Arcanist tried to kill you a second time, was it because he recognized you?”
“No, sir. In my opinion it was because we’d seen him, and we’d interfered with whatever it was he intended. We no longer ditch our tabards when we enter Tiamaris at the request of Lord Tiamaris; it’s likely that the Barrani saw only the Hawk.” She exhaled. “If there’s any way to investigate the financial activities of the fieflords, I think you’ll find that a large portion of the embezzled treasury funds are now in the fiefs.”
“The…fiefs.”
“It’s possible that the money was funneled to the Arcanists—or an Arcanist—who then used it to pay fieflords for a few dozen of their citizens. There would be no reports filed and no objections to the disappearances.”
“The fiefs are not our jurisdiction,” Marcus growled.
“The disposition of the Imperial funds is, though.”
“You think the Exchequer was indirectly involved in slave trafficking?”
“No.” Pause. “Technically, yes.”
“If this is your idea of not adding to our workload, you fail.”
“Can I keep the job anyway?”
“Out. I believe you have an appointment at the High Halls. But first visit Records. The Arkon has sent word about needing another full scan of your marks.”
“Given the events of the afternoon, I was really hoping to give that a pass.”
“Given the importance of your pilgrimage, and your ignorance of same, that is not considered an option. Don’t give me that look—if you have a problem with the decision, take it up with the Hawklord and Lord Sanabalis. Corporal.”
Teela nodded.
“I’ve been extremely appreciative of your duty detail for the past three weeks.” That detail had involved hours that would have driven the mortals in the department literally insane; the Barrani worked around the clock with breaks for meals. They didn’t need something as petty as sleep, and lack of sleep didn’t slow them down at all.
“Not so appreciative that you’re offering a raise.”
“No. I’m following what I’m told is a time-honored tradition.”
“Which would that be?”
“If you want something done, give it to the person who’s always busy.”
Teela chuckled drily. “You want me to make certain Kaylin survives.”
“More or less.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
Teela was not in good enough humor that she insisted on driving the carriage after their detour to Records, which was a mixed blessing; driving placed her on the outside of the cabin.
“You are certain about what you saw in the border zone?”
“Given that Yvander was convinced he was walking with a friend in an entirely different part of the fief? Possibly not. But that kind of illusion usually makes my skin break out in hives.”
Teela nodded in the absent way that implied she wasn’t listening to the answer. Long experience had taught Kaylin that this didn’t actually mean she didn’t hear it. “Refrain from mentioning this in the High Halls,” she finally said. “The Barrani Court expects a certain amount of political fallout from the failed assassination attempt. The Emperor was not pleased.” Gaze firmly fixed on the exterior landscape, she added, “What else happened? Before you attempt to tell me that there was nothing, remember what I’ve said about lying.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it.”
Teela, however, did. “You visited Nightshade. Oh, don’t give me that look.” Given that Teela’s gaze hadn’t shifted, this said something. “Kitling, I don’t know what hopes you have for Lord Nightshade, but hope, among our kin, is not a double-edged blade. It is single edged, and the edge always wounds. Always. He is not mortal. He does not value what you value.”
“Does he value what you do?”
“You don’t understand what I value. You assume because I’m a Hawk, I share yours. This is not a safe assumption,” she added in case it was necessary.
“Why did you come to the Hawks?”
“For reasons of my own. They are not particularly relevant. They were reasons,” she added drily, “you would possibly approve of; your own…were not.”
“But the reason I stayed—”
“Oh, hush, kitling. Not all of our heartless plans work as we intend; nor do all of our good intentions. We are where we are, and we can rarely predict where we will go, no matter how firm our beliefs.”
After a longer pause, Kaylin said, “I can’t tell whether or not you’re warning me off Nightshade or telling me not to judge him.”
“Can I not do both?” Teela turned to her then. “It has never been safe to know him or to keep his company. That much is true. But this is less about Nightshade, to me.”
“How so?”
“He is what he is, Kaylin. Accept that; you will find the Barrani less daunting. He is not mortal, and his concerns are not mortal concerns.”
“He sold mortals to the Arcanist,” was her flat reply.
Teela’s eyes darkened. “That is unfortunate,” she finally replied. “You are certain?”
“Yes.”
“The same Arcanist—”
“Who was responsible for a portal that led to what Tara called the outlands, yes. And who destroyed my home.”
“What is he doing?” Teela said, but she didn’t ask it of Kaylin; she spoke to herself. Realizing that she had a rapt audience anyway, she shook herself. “We are almost at the High Halls. I should warn you that the High Halls are in slight disarray at the moment.”
“…What do you mean by �slight’?”
“I did mention that our raid was not entirely conclusive. The Eternal Emperor paid a visit to the High Halls—in person—this afternoon.”
“He went Dragon?”
“Ah, no, you misunderstand me.” Teela hesitated and then added, “Or perhaps not. He did not, however, arrive at the High Halls in Dragon form. He did arrive at the head of the Palace guard, companioned by the worthy Lord Diarmat.”
“And he was let into the Halls?”
“Let us say that a detachment was sent—in haste—to greet him. He was not, by all reports, in an entirely pleasant mood, nor was he willing to embark upon the more delicate dance of diplomacy usually employed between the Barrani High Court and the Dragon Court.”
“What happened?”
“Swords were brought, armor was brought—I’m afraid you’ve probably missed them; they are artifacts, preserved in the Halls, from the wars between our kind.”
“The Emperor wasn’t impressed.”
“I wouldn’t say that. They didn’t enrage him, however; he was already too close to that state to be concerned about simple armor or weapons.”
Kaylin grimaced. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“I assure you, a Dragon in the High Halls—”
“I meant tormenting me.”
“Oh, that. Yes, I admit your very mortal patience is a delight to try on occasion. I have to get it out of my system before we reach the High Halls and I’m forced to call you Lord Kaylin in a serious way.”
“As opposed to the way you use the title in the office?”
“As opposed to that, yes.” She smiled. She had a beautiful smile.
“So the Emperor was hunting for the missing Arcanist in the High Halls?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I believe there is some confusion. He wasn’t hunting for the Arcanist because of the Arcanum’s interference with the Human Caste Court; the investigation into the matter of the Exchequer, while a growing annoyance and a severe inconvenience, is unlikely to bring the two Courts to the brink of open conflict.” She paused. “It is likely, however, given your current suspicions, to cause far, far more concern to both Immortal Courts. At the moment it is in the hands of the Tha’alani and the Imperial Order of Mages.”
“Ugh. Let me guess: the Human Caste Court is claiming that they were enspelled.”
“Very good, kitling.”
“Is there any possibility that’s true?”
“If greed is a spell, yes, in my opinion. The Tha’alani will sort some of it out. At the moment, it’s uncertain how many of the Caste Court were involved in covering up for the Exchequer because they were expressing racial solidarity and how many were being heavily bribed. We have our actuarial experts working on that, as well. It is just possible that the Caste Court was collectively the victim of severe extortion; Nightshade indicated two Arcanists, one of whom perished and one of whom is missing.”
“It’s not likely he’ll flee to the High Halls.”
“No. As Lord Evarrim will, however, be present at the High Halls, it would be best if you tucked your pet under your tunic until we reach my rooms, if at all possible. I don’t think I need to tell you to—”
“Avoid him like the plague?”
“Indeed. I realize you are not fond of him. He is my cousin, and I am not fond of him, either.”
“Do you have any idea who the Barrani was?”
“I believe so.”
“What are the Emperor’s chances of catching him?”
“Not, at the moment, high. It would also be an interesting fight, although I think I would place odds on the Emperor.”
“Speaking of the Emperor—”
“He would have been content to leave the investigation—and the usual negotiations that occur when the Law and the High Halls collide—in the hands of the Halls and the Hawklord.”
“But?”
“Patience. You will recall one other event of significance that occurred yesterday?”
“My apartment was destroyed.”
“Very good. Yes. Your apartment was destroyed, and by some stroke of luck, folly, or very peculiar destiny, neither of its two occupants joined it.”
“He’s pissed about Bellusdeo.”
“He is, indeed, angry about Bellusdeo.”
“Did the Barrani even know about Bellusdeo?”
“Demonstrably.”
“…How many others are likely to try to kill her?”
“After the Emperor’s visit? Only the suicidal. We’re immortal, not invulnerable.”
Kaylin frowned. “How do you feel about her?”
Teela’s eyes narrowed. “That is an unwise question.”
“Which means you won’t answer.”
“Which means I will answer.”
Kaylin lifted a hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Then, next time, don’t ask. It wouldn’t trouble me—at all—if she died. It would not have troubled me at all had the attempt on her life been made in any other location. Or rather, had it been made while she wasn’t dogging your footsteps like a foolish, bored child. The Dragon Court already shadows the High Halls, as it shadows all of our kind; what need have we of more of them?”
“Teela—”
“We serve the Emperor.”
“I don’t think he’d consider your opinion appropriate service.”
“No, he wouldn’t. Bellusdeo has two points in her favor. She apparently likes—and respects—you, something that most of the Immortals of any power or significance fail to do, and she has, purportedly, argued at length with both the Captain of the Imperial Guard and the Eternal Emperor himself in an attempt to elevate your stature.”
“How do you know that?”
“I am part of the High Court, of course.”
“Which is never allowed anywhere near the Imperial Court. You’ve got a lot of spies in the Palace?”
“Kitling, please.”
Kaylin allowed—barely—that it had probably been a naive question. “But I don’t think the High Court cares whether or not she likes or respects me.”
“Ah, I wasn’t clear. She has two points in her favor where my opinion is concerned. Neither of those points will hold much sway where the rest of the High Court is concerned, but I’m sure you’re aware how much I care.”
“You wear the Hawk.”
“Exactly.” Teela grimaced. “No one was happy when word of her arrival reached the High Court. It’s been somewhat tricky for the Barrani Hawks, but as one of the few who is also a Lord of the Court, it’s been trickier for me. The others simply remained outside of the reach of the High Court.”
“They can do that?”
“They know the mortal city quite well. Yes, they can. It’s not considered politically wise in most circumstances, but given the probability that they would be required to spy on Bellusdeo in the best possible case, it was prudent.”
“You went to Court.”
“I did. I am not particularly afraid to deny a request that has no merit. Bellusdeo is a Dragon, and it is probable that if she survives, there will be young Dragons again, but I cannot see that as a material threat in the near future. The heart of the fiefs is a greater danger, and the Emperor is, in my opinion, critical if we wish to keep the Shadows in check. Evarrim does not agree; he feels all that we require are the Towers, now active.” Her frown was cool and slow to develop. “The Dragons and the Barrani are not at war, at the moment. But war has oft been our state in the past, and it is clear that it is a possibility in the future, as well. Fewer Dragons, in that case, would work to our advantage.”
Kaylin said nothing very loudly.
“You asked, kitling.”
It was true. She had. And she pretty much hated the answer, even if it didn’t surprise her. But she didn’t—and couldn’t—hate Teela for it. And why? Because Bellusdeo was a power. She was immortal. She had once been Queen. Hating Bellusdeo wasn’t in any way the same as selling gods alone knew how many helpless and powerless people to an Arcanist.
The small dragon nudged her cheek with its head; she ignored him until he bit her earlobe. “Can you just promise me one thing?” she said when she had stopped her very Leontine cursing and had covered one ear with her hand.
Teela lifted a brow.
“Can you hold off on the whole war thing until after I’m dead?”
Chapter 8
Fittings for Barrani clothing were definitely not the same thing as fittings for uniforms. For one, there was no Quartermaster. There were Barrani, but they appeared to have been vetted by Teela, because they treated Kaylin with abject—and genuine—deference. Kaylin found that, more than anything else in the Halls, truly unsettling, because Teela didn’t even seem to notice. Kaylin did. She usually noticed the exchanges between those who had all the power and those who had none; she’d been on the zero end of the scale for a majority of her life, and in her case, old habits died hard.
These Barrani—two men and two women—also failed to notice the small dragon that was nesting, at the moment, in Kaylin’s hair. The dragon, on the other hand, didn’t seem to find this troubling.
“What, exactly, is disturbing you, kitling? Has someone poked you with a needle?” Teela’s tone was cool and regal, although her eyes were green. She spoke Barrani, not Elantran.
“Just—nothing. Nothing.”
“If someone is clumsy enough to injure you, even in so minor a fashion, I will deal with it.”
Kaylin wondered if Teela had said this on purpose, because Teela was perfectly capable of being deliberately cruel. “I can deal with it myself,” Kaylin said stiffly, this time in Barrani.
“Ah. So you merely desire permission?”
“Teela—”
The Hawk lifted a hand. “Endure for a moment or two longer,” she said. “I will not have you presented to the rest of the Lords who have chosen the pilgrimage in inappropriate attire; as befits your station, you are expected—by title—to know better. If you fail to do so, it is not upon you that their derision will fall.”
That stopped her cold. “Upon you?”
“Very perceptive. If they insult you while I am present, I am bound by custom since I have claimed you as my kyuthe to defend you. It is therefore unlikely to occur, and if it does, it will be because an enemy of my kin wishes to engage me.” She smiled. Her smile was slender and very sharp. “I have no reluctance whatsoever to rid the Court of my enemies or the enemies of my line, but I wish to do it on my own terms. I would rather not reward them with a challenge over something as trivial as your attire; if they seek to provoke me, let them at least be creative.”
Kaylin exhaled the rest of the breath she would have used for more angry words. “I’m never going to understand the Barrani.”
“You needn’t sound so morose, Lord Kaylin. They are unlikely to understand you, either.”
“Yes, but I’m unlikely to try to kill them for fun.”
* * *
At the end of two hours, the attendants offered graceful bows to Teela, who accepted them as her due. When they left, she glanced at the door and then spoke three sharp words. Or at least three sharp syllables; Kaylin didn’t recognize the language.
“Many of my kin in particular dislike being ruled by a Dragon. Given the history of our two races, that is unlikely to surprise you. If it does,” she added darkly, “refrain from sharing.”
“Very funny.” Kaylin found a nearby cushion that was about three sizes larger than anything she’d ever owned. She sat on it and then, surprised by how soft it was, sprawled flat on her back instead. The dragon leapt off her head before she landed, and set up a loud squawking that lasted a good thirty seconds, while Teela chuckled. “Now that one of the Barrani Arcanists has attempted to assassinate Bellusdeo, the Emperor is watching. And he’s pissed off.”
“The Emperor is always watching. But yes, he is angry. It is possible that there exist, among the High Court, Lords who would do much to inflame his fury.”
“Because they’re suicidal?”
“Because it would rekindle war, Kaylin. They think, at this point, we would have the advantage in a war—and with the appearance of your Bellusdeo, that advantage is likely to dwindle with time.”
“What do you think?”
“War bores me,” she replied in a tone that perfectly suited the words. “And treason, only a little less. They are both so frequent and hold so few surprises; if you read up on the history of the Barrani—in the High Court texts, not the sanitized dribbles in the Halls—you will find that treason, like war, is an age-old practice for the very conservative among my kin. I feel it has been long enough that those same conservatives might consider it attractive again.
“If you will therefore condescend to be moved, I will feed you and escort you off the grounds.”
* * *
The food was good. The escort, however, went less smoothly. Teela was there, all right, but as they left whatever set of rooms Teela occupied, the Halls got a little more crowded. It was the wrong kind of crowd; the Barrani didn’t do milling with any competence. Also, two of them were in armor.
Teela didn’t appear to be concerned, if you failed to notice the color of her eyes. Kaylin tensed. This was a fight in which she might be helpful to Teela if circumstances were perfect. Sadly, perfect would involve the sudden disappearance of all but two of the Barrani who loitered here, obviously waiting.
The glass dragon was sitting across her shoulders; she felt him shift position and lifted a hand to press his slender body firmly back down. “Not here,” she told him quietly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to separate.”
He stopped struggling the minute the last of the words left her mouth, and pressed himself into her shoulder, looping his tail around her neck so tightly it reminded Kaylin why she didn’t care for necklaces.
“Lord An’Teela.”
“Lord Darrowelm.” Teela offered a polite—shallow—bow; it was, however, graceful. If the man to whom she addressed the bow was offended, it didn’t show; his eyes had been blue from the start. “Has the Emperor returned?”
At this, Lord Darrowelm’s eyes narrowed. “He has not. The High Lord has convened an emergency session of the High Court. Given the constraints of time and the matter of the Emperor, he felt it possible that you had not been informed.”
“The High Lord is, of course, correct.” Her eyes could not be any bluer.
“Lord Kaylin, you are also commanded to attend.”
* * *
The six Barrani did not magically dissolve as they headed down the halls, Teela and Kaylin at their center. They made no move to draw weapons; something as trivial as speech didn’t apparently occur to them. Kaylin had been the Hawk on duty in marches to the gallows that were joyful in comparison. The small dragon on her shoulders had relaxed enough that Kaylin could easily breathe; he did insist on random hissing, which the Barrani ignored.
The door that opened into the forest through which one had to pass to approach the High Lord’s throne was taller and wider than Kaylin remembered; it looked completely unfamiliar. On the other hand, the architecture of the High Halls seemed to be about as predictable as the layout of Castle Nightshade; the lack of stability didn’t faze the Barrani. They’d probably had centuries to get used to all the ways in which it could change shape.
The forest, on the other hand, did look familiar. They stepped through the door into the middle of trees, and the footpath that wound around their roots resolved itself, in the distance, into a more carefully laid path of interlocking stone. The small dragon hissed in her ear; when she failed to look at him, she felt his teeth on her left lobe. She didn’t even curse under her breath; Barrani hearing was too good. She hoped that she wasn’t going to be escorted to the High Lord with blood trailing down her neck.
When they got out of here—if they did, in one piece—they were going to have a long chat.
The path opened up into a much larger circle, girded by slightly curved benches, most of which were occupied. The center of the circle itself was also occupied, and as Kaylin passed between two of the outermost benches, Barrani heads swiveled in her direction. She weathered the inspection, missing her uniform.
Lord Darrowelm and his escort did not stop moving until they’d passed through most of the crowd; when they did, the two thrones of the High Court came into view. They were both occupied.
The Barrani escort immediately sank to one knee; only Darrowelm and Teela were left standing. They bowed. Kaylin hesitated for a heartbeat before she bowed as well, remembering that she was a Lord of the High Court, mortal or no.
The High Lord bid them rise.
“Lord An’Teela. Lord Kaylin.”
“High Lord.” Kaylin glanced to his left. The Consort sat beside him, the platinum of her hair trailing down her shoulders, where some of it spilled into her lap. She wore a simple pale gown, and her feet were bare. Her eyes, however, were a cold blue, and when Kaylin met them, she offered no obvious acknowledgment.
Clearly, she was still angry.
“Have you come to the High Halls at the behest of the Halls of Law?” the High Lord asked.
“No, High Lord.”
He waited. Fumbling with High Barrani, she said, “I am here by the grace of my kyuthe.” Teela gave her no hints, in part because Kaylin didn’t dare to look away from the High Lord to receive them. “We are to journey to the West March together, four days hence.”
“So I have been told. Why do you seek the West March at this time, Lord Kaylin?”
“I wish to witness the recitation of the regalia.” Had she had any idea she would have to stand in front of the High Lord like this, she would have practiced the making of what now felt like totally feeble excuses.
“Ah. Why?”
Because Lord Nightshade wants me to hear them. The words didn’t leave her lips and not for lack of trying. Her jaw locked in place; for one long moment it was all she could do to breathe. She felt Nightshade’s presence like a literal weight against her chest.
The High Lord noticed, of course; he said nothing, but his eyes, which weren’t very green to begin with, shaded into blue.
“I’ve—I’ve heard the story the Dragons tell the Leontines,” she offered instead—when she could speak. “I’ve seen it; I’ve touched it. It didn’t change or affect me, because I’m not Leontine. I’ve been told the regalia is a—a story told to Barrani, but it’s supposed to be similar in some fashion. And the Lords of the High Court listen to that story at least once.”
His eyes remained blue. “Very well. I will not command otherwise; you are correct in your assumption. I admit I am curious to see what effect, if any, such recitation will have; you are, in theory, mortal.”
She bowed, mostly to hide her expression; he bid her rise, probably because he knew.
“We have not yet finished our discussion, Lord Kaylin. Come, approach me.”
She glanced at Teela; Teela didn’t meet her eyes. She didn’t move her head at all.
Kaylin approached the throne. The Consort turned toward her, her eyes still the same frigid blue.
“We have heard that you suffered the loss of your home in the City.”
Sarcasm, her early and best defense mechanism, rolled over and exposed its throat under the Consort’s gaze. She swallowed and nodded. “It’s true.”
“Is it also true that you offered the hospitality of that home to a Dragon?”
Gods damn it. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she said, trying to force exasperation out of her tone, “she’s a Dragon. She wanted to stay in my home. I am a Lord of the High Court, but I am not Barrani. I had no safe way of refusing her.”
“Nor any safe way of accepting her presence, either.”
She failed to point out that the Arcane bomb had been designed—and probably thrown—by a Barrani Lord of the High Court in which she was now being interrogated, and that took effort.
“Where is the Dragon now residing?”
“In the Imperial Palace.”
“And you?”
“In the Imperial Palace.”
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