And he said, “I know.”
“But I—”
“I don’t care what you did.”
She stopped.
“Do you understand that? I do not care what you did. I don’t care where you were. You were gone for six months. You didn’t stay there, and you’re not there now. You’re half killing yourself on behalf of the midwives. And the city. You find the time to teach the orphans, to take them places Marrin would never let them go otherwise. They have a little more than either of us ever did, and you don’t resent them for it.
“If you need absolution, find a religion. What I care about is now.”
“You waited for seven years.”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand you, sometimes.”
“You don’t have to work so hard at it. Come on. Home. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.” He grimaced. “But if you could avoid getting into a fight that involves half the city until I’ve recovered from today, I’d appreciate it.”
Sleep was a tense and restless affair, and Kaylin was awake in the morning. It wasn’t a good kind of awake, but as it wasn’t going away any time soon, she got out of bed, cleaned herself up—which involved a trip to the well with a bucket or two first—and ate. There wasn’t a lot to eat; she’d been riding on the Rennick wagon. His food was, as he’d pointed out, good, and there was always an endless supply. Unfortunately, he wasn’t here, and neither was his casual largesse.
When Tiamaris arrived at her door, she could hear the familiar creak of the floorboards as he approached. Dragons were heavy and there wasn’t a good way for someone heavy to silence that particular creak. She liked the floors for that reason.
She answered the door after his first knock.
He wore a familiar surcoat, Hawk emblazoned on its chest. She’d chosen to forgo her uniform because she was awake enough to understand that it wasn’t much protection where they were heading. Not that she didn’t cling to her uniform when she was feeling particularly stubborn.
But this morning was not one of those times.
“The uniform?” he said, noting her expression.
“You could wear pink gauze and enough gold to buy a small village,” she replied, as she fitted her belt, with care, and arranged her sheaths. “I’m not a Dragon.”
“You travel in the company of one.”
“Today.” She grimaced as she twisted her hair up and pinned it in place with a straight stick. “But the trick to the fiefs is avoiding a fight. You can do it by raising or lowering your eyes’ inner membranes.
“I do it by looking a little run-down and a lot like trouble,” she said.
He looked at her face for a while. She realized—after he’d been doing it for some time—that his gaze rested on the small flower that adorned her cheek.
“I don’t know if it helps,” she said. “It certainly makes a difference to the thugs that serve him. But they’re not the only danger.”
“The Ferals are unlikely to care one way or the other.”
“True.” She motioned him into the hall and shut the door firmly behind her. “But it’s the height of day. We’re unlikely to meet Ferals where we’re going.”
The streets on either side of the Ablayne were open for business. Merchants or, more appropriately, the errand boys of merchants, were jostling their way from one end of the street to the other. It was hot and humid. At this time of year, sunlight burned away all trace of the evening’s coolness before it cleared the horizon.
But the bridge across the Ablayne was, as usual, almost deserted. Kaylin took a deep breath before she set foot on it. Tiamaris never seemed to need to breathe.
“Why are you here, anyway?” she asked.
“Lord Sanabalis thought it would be safer.”
“For me or for you?”
He actually smiled at that. He did not, however, answer.
“How much did he tell you?”
“As much as he thought I needed to know.”
“Did he tell you about the Leontines?”
“Kaylin.”
She grimaced.
“He understands why this is important to you. I don’t believe you care why it’s important to him—but he is, as he can, being careful for your sake. If we’re finished on time, you can accompany him to the Leontine Quarter when he goes there.”
“If we’re not?”
“He will go anyway. He has made that commitment.”
She nodded. “I don’t know what he wants me to learn, in Nightshade.”
“He’s Sanabalis. He probably expects you to learn everything.”
Kaylin laughed. “I keep forgetting you were one of his students.”
“With luck and a few calm centuries, so will he.”
Lord Nightshade’s residence hulked against the skyline like a particularly graceful set of gallows. As they approached it the crowds in the streets thinned. Kaylin, who had stayed well away from the Castle for all of her life as one of Nightshade’s citizens, understood why. There was only one law in Nightshade, and no recourse. The Halls of Law had many, many laws—she knew; she’d memorized all of them—and even when you broke them, there was the Court system, and the complicated brokering of cash as reparation. She didn’t particularly care for that custom, but as it wasn’t used for most of the cases she investigated, she tried to be pragmatic about it.
Besides, it made clear that there were some crimes you couldn’t buy your way out of, and that discouraged people with a lot to lose. It didn’t stop them entirely, but if it had, she’d be out of a job.
Still, in Nightshade, it didn’t matter. There was only one Court here, and if you were seeing it up close, it probably meant that after a brief interval of pain and humiliation, it wouldn’t matter much to you either.
They approached the gates, and the guards to either side of it. Both guards tendered Kaylin a careful bow. She returned a curt nod, hating what the bow meant. They didn’t extend their politeness to Tiamaris, who would have probably appreciated it more.
“We’re here to see Lord Nightshade,” she said, with emphasis on the we’re.
“He awaits you,” one of the guards said. Neither of them were familiar to Kaylin. “I do not believe he has left word for your companion.”
She waited. After a few minutes of that game had gone by, she said, “He’s not leaving without me, and I’m not going in without him.”
This earned her another perfect bow.
The guard passed through the gate. Since it wasn’t, in any practical sense, a real gate, she watched him shimmer out of existence. She particularly hated the gate and the way it moved you from the outside of the Castle to the inside. But having entered the Castle once in a less traditional fashion, she wasn’t eager to repeat the experience and settled on the discomfort she knew.
The Barrani, on the other hand, never seemed to find the transition through the gate unsettling. The guard returned a handful of minutes later, and bowed again. “He will see you both.”
These guards weren’t Hawks or Swords or Wolves—although they probably had more in common with Wolves than was comfortable. They didn’t ask her to leave her weapons behind, and while she wasn’t exactly a walking armory, she certainly took no pains to hide them.
They didn’t ask Tiamaris to surrender anything, either. In his case, on the other hand, they were just being smart. A Dragon Lord might carry a sword—and Tiamaris did—but it was the least of his weapons, and the only way to part him from the dangerous ones was to remove his head.
The Barrani and the Dragons had a history of war—a history that was murky to Kaylin, and something she was content to let lie. She had stories—most of them the kind that would set her Scholarly Master’s considerable teeth on edge—and they had, in all probability, actual memories.
She gritted her teeth and made her way straight for the illusionary portcullis, grateful for the very meager breakfast she’d had.
If she had ever landed on her feet—and in t
ruth, the passage from outside to inside was less like walking and more like being thrown—she might have hated the experience less. But it was always disorienting, and she was invariably failed by knees that had gone rubber in the passage.
Today was no different; she felt as if she’d been spun around a thousand times and finally spit out, and the world coalesced around her as she pushed herself to her knees. The marble in the front vestibule, with its veins of gold and blue, was particularly fine, and looked a lot like the last time she’d seen it this close.
Lord Nightshade simply waited to come into focus.
So did Tiamaris. Whoever had constructed this Castle had clearly had to deal with Dragons and Barrani before. Humans were, as usual, an afterthought or an inconvenience. Like rats, and anything else that had a life span.
She got to her feet unsteadily, supporting her weight by putting her hand against the nearest wall and leaning until the wall had stopped moving. But when it had, Lord Nightshade inclined his head.
“Kaylin,” he said, the syllables wrapped in formal Barrani intonation. It made, of her name, a foreign thing.
“Lord Nightshade,” she replied, striving for the same formality.
“Lord Tiamaris,” the fieflord continued. “I did not expect you, but you are welcome in my home.” There was a slight emphasis on my, but it didn’t seem to faze Tiamaris. Then again, a rock slide probably wouldn’t.
“I have taken the liberty of arranging refreshments,” he told them both. “Let us repair to a more suitable set of rooms, where we may converse more freely.”
The room was a familiar room. It was, as all rooms in the Castle, sparsely furnished. Or rather, it had a lot of furniture, but given its size, the furniture didn’t make all that much of an impact. There were carpets, and Kaylin almost winced as she walked across them in her regulation boots.
She sat opposite Nightshade on a low couch. Lord Tiamaris took one of the heavier chairs. The Hawk on his chest caught the light like a reminder. They sat in silence while Nightshade poured wine into thin, clear glasses. He gestured at the bread, cheese, and fruit that were arranged on the table in front of them.
Kaylin’s stomach made an unfortunate comment. She was hungry, but she wasn’t certain she wanted to eat, because she had to leave the same way she arrived.
“Why have you come?” he asked them. He did drink the wine.
Kaylin didn’t want to do the same on an empty stomach.
“We are currently investigating a minor difficulty,” Tiamaris replied.
“Ah.”
Kaylin bit back the urge to ask Tiamaris what he considered major. Dragons tended toward understatement.
“To be honest,” the Dragon Lord added, “I am not entirely certain what brought Private Neya to Nightshade.”
“Its Lord,” Nightshade replied smoothly. “She has been absent for too long.” His eyes were a shade of emerald that had blue cores. A warning, there, if you knew the Barrani. Then again, breathing could be considered a warning if you knew the Barrani.
Tiamaris didn’t reply. Instead, he turned his gaze—his eyes a shade of amber that were the Dragon equivalent of Nightshade’s—to Kaylin. He left it there a little too long.
Great.
She felt Nightshade’s chuckle; it didn’t leave his mouth.
You are seldom prepared, Kaylin. For anything. His voice—if you could call something that bypassed ears a voice at all—was softer than she remembered; the amusement was genuine.
“I came to ask for your help,” she said quietly. She had meant to preface the words with some sort of casual preamble, but she knew that he knew she wasn’t bargaining with a good hand. Or any hand at all, really.
“That is hardly the Barrani way,” he replied.
She waited for the rest, but there wasn’t any. Studying his face, the odd shade of his eyes, the careful neutrality of his expression, she thought he knew exactly why she was here. But he would, wouldn’t he? She reached up, touched the mark on her cheek with the tips of her fingers. Felt them tingle a moment at the contact. Most days now, she forgot it was even there.
What did he want?
“What do you want?”
She grimaced. “You already know,” she whispered.
He said nothing.
Lord Tiamaris stirred in his chair but did not speak; she felt the weight of his gaze. So, apparently, did Nightshade, who shifted his glance toward the Dragon Lord. “She does not understand, Lord Tiamarais.”
“I am afraid, Lord Nightshade, that I am in her company.”
“She is the Erenne,” Nightshade replied.
Tiamaris said nothing for a moment. Then he laid his arms against the chair rests, bent his elbows, and steepled wide hands beneath his chin. “Perhaps you will allow me,” he said.
“Very well, Lord Tiamaris.”
“We seek the Dragon Outcaste,” Tiamaris said evenly.
Kaylin could feel Nightshade’s surprise though she couldn’t actually see it.
“That is not, in the end, what Kaylin Neya seeks.”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps she is not aware of it. Kaylin’s interest in the city has always been personal, and even when the city as she knows it is threatened, it will always be personal.”
He glanced at Kaylin; she wondered how much he knew.
“They are connected, your request and her desire.”
“They are indeed connected. Although I believe I was asked to accompany Kaylin as a precaution.”
“Ah. The Dragon Emperor is concerned with her safety?”
“She is one of his citizens,” Tiamaris replied. “And given the nature of her as yet unexplored abilities, she is valuable.”
“I see.”
“His interest in her, and your interest, Lord Nightshade, are perhaps not so different. But the fiefs are not part of his city.”
“Continue.”
“We believe the Outcaste has made another move, or several, outside of the confines of the city proper. What he did is now coming to fruition.”
“And he will gain power from this?”
“He will gain power,” Tiamaris replied quietly. “And in the process, we will lose a great deal. The effects of that loss will be felt first in the fiefs,” he added. “It is in the fiefs that the ancient shades are strongest.”
“And in the fiefs,” Nightshade replied, with the hint of a wry smile, “that my power exists at all.”
“That, I cannot say,” Tiamaris replied smoothly. “But we feel it is in your interest, or we would not have come to you. Where is the Outcaste, Lord Nightshade?”
“It is not of me that you must ask that question,” Nightshade replied.
“Then which of the fieflords—” He stopped.
“You begin to see,” the fieflord replied. He turned to Kaylin. “You have seen the Outcaste,” he said. “And more.”
She stared at them both as if they were out of their minds, because she wasn’t stupid. Of course she’d seen him. She’d seen him in the fief of Nightshade, surrounded by the undying Barrani and the children they had meant to sacrifice. Surrounded, as well, by dark flames, and bright, by the glowing remnants of old courtyard stone. By shadows and power.
His power. And hers. She had faced him, free of the confines of the ancient bracer that served to contain her power. She had fought, she had won; he had retreated. Had he been mortal, the retreat would have simply been called death. “You think I can answer that question?”
Lord Nightshade’s expression did not change, but he raised a hand to his brow and massaged it a moment. “I begin to feel a certain sympathy for Lord Sanabalis,” he told them both. He let his hand fall. “Kaylin,” he said. “Look at me.”
She did.
“What is the Outcaste’s name?”
She started to say how the hell should I know? But her lips began to move, to stutter over something that felt as if it should be a word. Should be, but it was too vast, and too complicated for speech, for simple saying.
; And she remembered. A word. So unlike the word that Nightshade had given her that she hadn’t really recognized it. She stared at him. Then she turned to look at Tiamaris.
Tiamaris said. “It is as we suspected.”
“You suspected that I knew his true name and you didn’t tell me?”
“You cannot even say it,” he replied. “We considered it safe.”
“And if it hadn’t been safe?”
“You are, thank your gods, Sanabalis’s problem, not mine.” He paused. “If you speak his name he will know. No matter where he is, Kaylin, he will know.
“If you try to speak it, he may not. We are not certain that he is aware. We were not certain that you were.” He paused, and then added, “If it is helpful, I remain unconvinced. To see a name is not to know it.”
She hesitated. She had seen the names of the Barrani, un-encased by bodies, and she had no idea what they were and what they meant.
But Nightshade said, “You have not observed her for long enough, Lord Tiamaris. I mean no criticism. But I believe that Kaylin can find him, if she uses what she knows. He will, however, certainly be able to find her if she tries.”
“Will he dare the Castle?”
“Who can say for certain what an Outcaste Dragon Lord will dare? Were he Barrani, and Lord, he would storm it with hundreds, and he would not cease until she either took the reins of power, used his true name and ordered him to it, or she was dead.
“The name was not a gift. Not from the Outcaste. But I believe that, with the training and the knowledge, Kaylin Neya could see many things, if she made the attempt.”
“Words,” she said softly.
He raised a brow.
“When Sanabalis spoke I saw the words.”
The brow rippled. “When Lord Sanabalis spoke?”
She nodded. “He spoke, and I could…see…what he was saying. I could see it as if it were light. No—that’s the wrong word. All of the words I have are the wrong damn words.
“I could see them and feel them, as if they were more than simple speech. I mean, more than Elantran. More than Barrani, High or Low. Why is there a Low Barrani, anyway?”
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