Cast in Peril

by Michelle Sagara

  “My brother—the one who became High Lord—was so angry. He had never been so angry with me before—or since. The brother who became Lord of the West March—and that’s an interesting and complicated story as well—refused to enter what became a raging argument. He offered no opinion; he offered no solution. He said nothing.

  “Do mortal men do this?”

  “What, say nothing?”

  The Consort nodded. “I confess that I was almost angrier at my younger brother for his refusal to speak than I was at my older for his disapproval. I did not make a binding vow,” she added, “because neither of my brothers would countenance it. It was…difficult. I did not realize at the time that my older brother intended to vacate his claim; neither he nor I realized that my younger brother would refuse to accept it.

  “I do not know what would have happened if you had not stumbled so haphazardly into the High Halls at the side of An’Teela. The Hallionne is right,” she said. “And he reminds me.” She closed her eyes. “My younger brother would have let the Court fall before he lifted the High Lord’s crown. He loved us both. It is a weakness,” she added, her voice softer. “And I know it. But I can’t hate it. I can’t despise it. In myself, yes. But not in him.

  “And not, apparently, in you. Sleep,” she added. “The Hallionne is singing. Can you hear him?”

  Kaylin shook her head. “What is he singing?”

  “An ancient song. Even I don’t understand the words,” the Consort replied. “But his voice conveys the sense of it.”

  Kaylin strained to catch a single note, but absent the Consort’s breath—and her own—the room was silent.

  “It promises sleep, dreamless sleep, and safety; it promises a gruesome and terrible death to my enemies.” Her smile was wistful. “I have not heard this song in centuries.”

  “You haven’t gone to the West March in centuries?”

  “Ah, no, I have. But the Hallionne have not been wakened, and even were they, this is a song sung only to…children. Do mortals not have such songs?”

  “Yes. We call them lullabies, but in general, they don’t mention gruesome deaths.”

  “Ah. Mortals are strange. My people believe that our children must be prepared to face the future.”

  “Mine, too, I think. But our parents have hope that the future for their children will be peaceful.” She closed her eyes and listened to the deep and even breathing of the Consort as she drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  “Hallionne Kariastos?” she whispered, staring at the ceiling, confident that any word she spoke, in any tone, would reach his ears.

  “Yes, Lord Kaylin.” He didn’t accompany the sound of his voice.

  “Thank you.”

  She felt his smile and wondered at that; he was nowhere in the darkened room. “She is dearer than a daughter to me. That is the word?”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  The Consort and Kaylin entered the dining room side by side the following morning; they entered late, given the look of the gathering. No one sat until the Consort took her seat, which left Barrani Lords milling in subtle silence. The silence grew more pointed, much of it aimed at Kaylin, as the Consort chose a seat. Kaylin looked with longing at Teela before joining the Consort.

  Breakfast was, as dinner had been, constrained and near silent. The Consort rose to signal the end of breakfast, as she always did. The diners rose with her, abandoning their desultory meals; they were as tense as she was, at least as far as eye color went.

  “This will be a little different,” she told Kaylin as she approached an empty patch of floor behind the chair she’d occupied.

  “No arch?”

  “No. The Hallionne is awake.” She didn’t lift her arms; she didn’t chant—or sing. Instead, she spoke. “Hallionne Kariastos, we thank you for your hospitality and your protection. We must depart now, for the heart of the green is waiting. Will you allow us to leave?”

  Hallionne Kariastos appeared a yard away from where the Consort stood. His arms were folded across his chest, and his wings were high. They settled as he studied the Consort’s remote expression. He turned to survey the Court; his eyes were narrowed, but they were still obsidian. “I will,” he said. “But I will accompany you, Lady.”

  He gestured, his arms rising in a steeple reminiscent of the Consort’s in the previous stations. A portal appeared to his right. It wasn’t an arch, and it had no glowing keystone, but the lack didn’t make Kaylin feel any easier.

  The Barrani were silent; usually meal conversation drifted away from the table when they did, lingering in small clutches as they stood in line. This morning, no one spoke. Kaylin wondered if the Hallionne had paid nocturnal visits to the courtiers.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I availed myself of the opportunity to speak with the Lords of the Court; it is seldom afforded us.” Since he looked at her when he answered the question she hadn’t asked out loud, several of the Lords turned to look at her, as well; they were clearly less amused.

  The Consort left immediately. Teela was, to Kaylin’s surprise, third in line; she left without looking back. Severn lingered, and as Kaylin took her customary position at the tail of the line—even given the line was much shorter and much more subdued—the hall emptied. As she approached the portal, she saw the river; water flowed through its bed in the normal way. “Is that the other side?” she asked Severn.

  He nodded.

  “Chosen,” the Hallionne said before she could enter—or exit. She turned to face him. Only Severn remained in the room. “I note that you are not fond of the illuminations.”

  “It’s not the illuminations,” she lied.

  He raised a brow.

  “Okay, it is the illuminations. I have no idea what they’re supposed to do or be, but they upset the Lords of the Court. That,” she added, “and I don’t like being smacked on the head at the best of times.”

  His brow rose. “I understand.” He held out his right hand. She stared at it. “I will not, as you put it, drop light on your head. But your role as harmoniste will be difficult; you are not Barrani, and you are not moored in the name you have taken as your own. What the Hallionne give is an attempt to strengthen you.”

  “But the illuminations don’t always exist when a harmoniste is chosen.”

  “No. In this case, they would even if the harmoniste were Barrani. You are not; we expect you to have grave difficulty. What we can offer, from the recess of sleep, we have offered. I am awake,” he added, smiling. “Come.”

  She placed her hand in his; he tightened his grip instantly. Because Severn was standing at her back, she didn’t try to pull her hand free; it would only draw his attention to the fact that her hand was now trapped, and that would probably upset him.

  Her dress began to glow, the same way it had when the light descended from the height of the arches. “You are An’Teela’s kyuthe,” the Hallionne said.

  “I’m not—”

  “Officially?” His smile was still as breathtaking as it had been the first time she’d seen it. When it faded, she had the visceral urge to say or do something—anything, really—that would bring it back. “If you succeed—and the Hallionnes are divided on your chances—you might be the only person who can offer the help she has needed for so long.”

  Chapter 20

  Offering Teela help was similar to baring one’s throat when an insane lunatic was waving a knife around. Wanting to help was fine, as long as it was clear that the desire was your problem—and you never attempted to make it hers.

  “Tell me why she needs help. Tell me why she’s needed help for so long.”

  He shook his head. “I am not as you are. You are the harmoniste. Calarnenne is the Teller. Story is primal, Lord Kaylin; if you can make sense of it, you will know the answer to your question.”

  Which, while disappointing, was about the answer she’d expected. She said, “Can I have my hand back now?”

  “Not yet,” he replied. “Lord Severn
?”

  Severn glanced at Kaylin, who nodded. He then walked through the portal.

  “What the Barrani High Court seems to forget,” the Hallionne said when Severn had emerged cleanly on the other side, “is that while there are stronger protections within the Hallionne itself, all the outlying lands are under my dominion.”

  “The Barrani are immortal,” she pointed out. When he lifted a brow, she added, “They don’t forget.”

  “Event is neutral,” Hallionne Kariastos replied. “It is in the interpretation that it becomes personal. When the Barrani look back on events, they recollect them, but they give weight to differing factors; it is why a single event can be viewed so differently. Time, event—they are not true.”

  “They aren’t lies.”

  “No; that is not the dichotomy. They are subjective, indeterminate.”

  She nodded, as if she agreed, to end the explanation. “My hand?”

  “I intend to escort you out. Come.”

  * * *

  Although the transition, when seen from inside the Hallionne, looked instant, it wasn’t. It was very much like the portcullis that led into Castle Nightshade—without the dizziness and the nausea. “You are in control of that, you know,” Hallionne Kariastos told her.

  “I’m not. No one voluntarily makes themselves sick.”

  “I believe the word you are looking for is not voluntarily, but intentionally. You do not like the space between spaces, the emptiness between worlds.”

  “Castle Nightshade is in this world.”

  He raised a brow. “So, too, am I. But the laws and the rules that govern the Hallionne are not the laws of the external world. To reach them, you must step past the known. You grip the known too tightly. You cling to it in places where it is—at best—irrelevant, and at worse, inimical. Let go, and you will find the passage much smoother.”

  “How do I let those laws and rules go?”

  “I do not know. I am not mortal.”

  “Is this why you’re holding my hand?”

  He smiled. “It is. I will release you if you prefer.”

  “No thanks.” She tightened her grip in case the words hadn’t fled her mouth fast enough.

  He laughed. “We are not, by nature, cruel,” he told her. “But perhaps our definition of kind is open to interpretation.” He stepped onto the far banks of the river, Kaylin at his side.

  * * *

  The Consort was waiting. Her arms were by her side, but her hands were curved and stiff; her eyes were a very dark blue. Teela was standing at her side and three steps to the left; her hands were behind her back. It was what she did in the office when she was tempted to draw a weapon and end an argument, that being very heavily frowned upon.

  To the Consort’s left was a Barrani Lord that Kaylin didn’t recognize. In front of her, most of the Court was arrayed. Severn stood about two feet from where Kaylin and the Hallionne emerged, well back from the gathered crowd. The Hallionne released Kaylin’s hand. For the first time since the tree station, the Lords of the Court were not surreptitiously—or openly—watching her as she stepped outside. They were watching the Consort; the Consort was, for the moment, silent. That level of silence, with that depth of blue eyes, made Kaylin momentarily forget she could speak Barrani.

  In case she hadn’t, Teela shot her a warning glance. Severn raised an arm to keep Kaylin from the periphery of the loose formation, but the Hallionne glanced at that arm, and Severn lowered it without a word. When Kaylin accompanied the Hallionne, Severn fell in to her right.

  Who died?

  She felt his surprise.

  Three Lords.

  She clenched her jaw to prevent it from dropping. Evarrim?

  No. Neither Evarrim nor Iberrienne were harmed.

  Is it bad if I’m disappointed?

  His chuckle was felt; it didn’t escape into his expression and it certainly didn’t leave his lips.

  Is it clear why they were killed?

  It is not completely clear to me, no; I just arrived.

  Guesses?

  He didn’t offer any. She had by that point reached the Consort’s side—at the side of the Hallionne. The Consort failed to look at her at all; she failed, which was more surprising, to look at the Hallionne.

  Kaylin was familiar with Tara; she knew what the Tower could do in her own domain. In the Tower, her will and her knowledge were absolute; nothing could penetrate the Tower defenses when the Tower itself was active. But in the streets of the fief of Tiamaris, her power was still significant and her word was law. It was law in part because Tiamaris deferred to her; she, in her turn, deferred to him in all matters of governance that didn’t involve the Shadows she’d been created to defend against.

  Kaylin suspected the Hallionne was not inclined to that sort of compromise, given he dealt almost solely with Barrani. The first words that left his mouth pretty much confirmed that suspicion.

  “How dare you?”

  Silence. The Consort lifted her chin but did not speak.

  “He is the Teller. Do you understand what you have done?”

  It was Teela who spoke. “He is Outcaste. To the Barrani High Court, it is significant; his role as Teller, given his status in the Court, is unprecedented.” Her eyes were the same color as the Consort’s, but her tone was the dry and objective one she used to deliver verbal reports in the Halls of Law. “A natural consequence of his status and the appearance of the crown of the Teller is disbelief and suspicion.”

  “Suspicion?” Hallionne Kariastos frowned. “You suspect that your Lord Calarnenne is capable of manipulating the heart of the green?” The word outraged did not adequately describe his expression.

  Outcaste. Nightshade.

  She glanced around the riverbank. She couldn’t—didn’t—see him.

  I am here, he told her. I am…not uninjured.

  Where is “here”?

  I am under the Hallionne’s protection.

  If you were going to accept that, you could have stayed in the station and saved yourself the trouble.

  I am not, as are fully half of the Lords on this journey, comfortable in the Hallionne when the Hallionne has been wakened.

  She grimaced. You live in a Castle that’s practically the same.

  I am the Lord of the Castle; the Castle is not Lord over me. If my Castle possesses—or is possessed by—an avatar similar to the Tower of Tiamaris’s, I would never see it wakened. I expected some difficulty, he added.

  Where’s Andellen?

  He is likewise retained by the Hallionne. But yes, he was critical to my survival. The Hallionnes are aware, but they are not as instant in their response when the difficulties occur outside the stations, as you call them.

  The three dead?

  Nightshade didn’t answer.

  “It is impossible,” the Hallionne said in a tone of voice so chilly it was a wonder the river hadn’t frozen in its bed. “Do you think that the Hallionne—even sleeping—would not be aware of tampering? Do you think we would allow it?”

  Teela shrugged. It was a classic Hawk shrug, which made Kaylin wonder just how much of Teela was really visible in the office. It was different from Teela at Court, of course, but was it any more genuine?

  “It is unwise,” the Consort said, speaking for the first time since Kaylin had emerged from the portal at Hallionne Kariastos’s side, “to insult the Hallionne; it is vastly more dangerous to insult the heart of the green. While he journeys with us, Lord Calarnenne is granted the protection of the Hallionne and the blessing of the heart of the green.”

  More silence. If they hadn’t been Barrani, they would have looked like foundlings caught filching treats from the kitchen.

  “There are three dead,” she continued when everyone failed, as a group, to speak. “I would see no more dead before we reach the West March.” She turned an icy glance upon a Lord that Kaylin didn’t recognize. “Lord Iberrienne.”

  Oh.

  “Lord Evarrim. I wish to speak with you bo
th. Hallionne, if you would care to grant us some privacy?”

  Hallionne Kariastos’s interpretation of the request was not what Kaylin’s would have been. Had he been Kaylin, he would have assumed it was a polite variant on “get lost.” Instead, he raised both arms, and the Consort, Evarrim, and Iberrienne disappeared.

  “It is,” he told Kaylin, “in accordance with the Lady’s wish. She can wake the Hallionne; she understands how to speak with us, although she finds it difficult at times.”

  “Were they involved?”

  “She does not wish the matter to be discussed with the Court.”

  “And the three?”

  “What she wishes is no longer relevant; they are dead. They attempted to break the peace of the Hallionne and felt such action might succeed should they remain outside my walls. It is an act of folly, and such lack of wisdom in men of power often precedes their deaths.”

  Neither Lord Iberrienne nor Lord Evarrim were dead, which meant they hadn’t been involved in the attempt.

  “No,” Hallionne Kariastos said. “They are canny.”

  * * *

  The Consort went missing for an hour. While she was in discussion with the Lords Evarrim and Iberrienne, Teela began to gather the horses and hitch them to the wagons. Severn helped her; Kaylin tried and the second horse stepped on her right foot. The Barrani Hawk looked down her perfect nose. “They know you’re afraid of them,” she said in a tone that implied only imbeciles would be. “I honestly have no idea how you handle the foundlings with an attitude like that. Do you follow them around begging them to listen to you?”

  “They don’t outweigh me by this much, for one.”

  Since neither Teela nor Severn appeared to have feet that attracted hooves, Kaylin let them work. When they were finished, the Consort reappeared, bracketed by two Lords that didn’t, to Kaylin’s eye, look particularly chastised. The Consort approached Hallionne Kariastos on her own, although the distance between the Consort and the rest of the Court guaranteed them neither privacy of thought nor safety, given the Hallionne’s mood.