Cast in Peril

by Michelle Sagara

  Teela wasn’t here.

  “You wear the blood of the green,” he said. His voice was very low, almost gravelly.

  Kaylin nodded.

  “It is unfortunate. I am in your debt, and you are now a danger to me.” Kaylin was surprised that the Hallionne understood the concept of debt.

  “It is the debt and not the danger that concerns you?” he asked, reminding her that he was, for all intents and purposes, a Tower, and she was standing on his ground.

  “I can’t see the danger,” she replied. “I understand what a name means to you—mostly—but I can’t see a point at which I could ever use yours. It’s too big, it’s too complicated. I don’t think I could get past the first two syllables before you—”

  “Destroyed you?”

  “That, yes.”

  “I would not take the risk if you were not Chosen, in all ways.” He turned to the Consort. “The Hallionne, Lady, is at your service.” He gestured and the earth cracked beneath his feet.

  Chapter 23

  Although a large crevice opened beneath the Hallionne’s feet, he didn’t fall. Instead, stairs rose, climbing out of the earth in flat, thick slabs that led down. The Consort bowed to the Hallionne before she took the stairs that led into the ground itself. Here, the Lords chose to take the risk of residence within the Hallionne, rather than upon the plains that surrounded it; they even led the horses. The horses were nervous—understandably so—but the Barrani to whom they’d been entrusted coaxed them down the stairs toward a standing stone arch that appeared to open into dirt.

  The horses were not required to offer the Hallionne’s entrance their blood; the Barrani, clearly, were. Some passed through without making that offering, a sure sign that they had come this way at least once before. Severn, however, had not. When the Barrani were gone, he made his way down the stairs and stopped at the midway point to make certain Kaylin was following.

  During this tired procession, the Hallionne’s Avatar kept watch. When Severn cut his hand and pressed it into what looked like softly packed dirt, the Avatar nodded. Severn then handed her the knife, as he had done once before; Kaylin hesitated.

  “It is not necessary for the harmoniste to offer herself. I am aware of her now, and she will be aware of the rules of governance. Enter, Lord Severn.”

  Severn did not appear to have heard the Hallionne. The Hallionne, however, was aware that he had.

  “I intend no harm to her,” the Hallionne informed him when he failed to move.

  Severn nodded stiffly. Kaylin indicated that he should accept the Hallionne’s offer of hospitality now, and he failed to see—or hear—that, either.

  “Don’t bother,” a familiar voice interjected.

  Kaylin spun in place; Teela was walking down the stairs. She was bleeding from a gash in her left arm that had apparently melted armor, but her sword was sheathed. Her eyes were blue and ringed with the dark circles that spoke of exhaustion; her hair was braided. Floating above her head, in a way that would have been dangerous had he been a pigeon or a seagull, was the small dragon.

  “Hallionne Bertolle,” she said. She offered him a perfect bow, injuries and the unfortunate state of her clothing notwithstanding.

  “An’Teela,” he replied. “You are welcome here.”

  The small dragon darted forward and wrapped himself around Kaylin’s head. She reached up, pulled him off, and deposited him on her shoulders instead, as his tail was more or less blocking her vision. Then she approached Teela, who stiffened. It was meant as a warning, and Kaylin heeded it in a way she hadn’t when the other Lords of the High Court had been injured.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “I am demonstrably capable of standing, walking, and speaking,” was the tight reply. “But I am in almost desperate need of a bath.”

  Before Kaylin could ask another question, Teela broke what might have become a deadlock by the simple expedient of grabbing Kaylin’s hand and dragging her through the dirt on the other side of the arch.

  * * *

  The interior of the Hallionne was, of course, not dirt. The foyer was of stone, and similar in look and feel to the solid angularity of the cliff station, whose name Kaylin was now very aware she didn’t know. The minute they landed, or at least the minute she could see her feet again, she immediately turned to Teela, who still had her hand in a death grip.

  “Do not,” Teela warned her.

  “But the others—”

  “If I were in danger of unwanted transformation, kitling, I would allow it. This is just—a wound. It is by no means the worst I’ve taken.”

  It was the worst Kaylin remembered seeing.

  As if divining the thought, Teela exhaled, sliding into Elantran. “I was a Hawk before you were born. I’ve taken worse in the line of duty.”

  Teela started to walk. Given that Kaylin was still holding her hand—with most of the strength of the grip squarely in Teela’s hand—Kaylin went with her. She managed to stumble her way into a fast walk, because Teela was in such a foul mood that she might not notice if Kaylin fell flat on her face.

  “Teela—the Hallionne—”

  “To hells with the Hallionne,” was the grim reply.

  Kaylin was watching the floor. The telltale light-of-direction, as she thought of the soft glow that pointed the way to the room the Hallionne had chosen, failed to appear.

  “And to hells with dinner, if that’s what you were going to say next.”

  “But I—”

  Teela came to an abrupt stop and looked down at their joined hands. “Oh.” She managed to disentangle her hand; Kaylin’s fingers were white and tingling. “Apologies, kitling. I believe your Corporal is now at the entrance. He’s not a fool; he knows better than to have a contest of wills with a Hallionne. But for some reason—and I admit I’m short of context—it looked like he was determined to do just that. This would be your fault?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Well, yes. But not on purpose.”

  Teela began to walk more slowly, and Kaylin fell into step beside her, as if they were patrolling. “I saw the Hallionne’s name.”

  Teela stopped dead, inhaled loudly, and looked down. “Remind me not to kill Nightshade when I next lay eyes on him. I’ve traveled to the West March before, and on only one occasion was it this much of a disaster—and at that, only during the recitation.”

  “Teela, was Terrano one of the children?”

  “The children?”

  “The twelve that went with you. Was he one of—”

  Teela lifted a hand to her brow. “Yes.”

  “But I thought they were—”

  “Dead? To the race, to the Barrani, they are.”

  “He recognized you. I don’t even think he wanted to kill you.”

  “No, Kaylin. I will no doubt be questioned at length by the Hallionne and the Consort. There is some possibility that I’ll also have to deal with my cousin. Evarrim,” she added, before Kaylin could ask. “And I do not wish to do so while I am filthy and obviously injured. I will accept your help with the bath, if you insist.”

  Kaylin didn’t insist, but she followed, trying not to look like an anxious puppy.

  * * *

  The Hallionne appeared to know where Teela wanted to go, or at least where it wanted her to go; the halls opened and turned—at sharp angles—to accommodate her long stride, but they didn’t go on for miles; they ended in a hall of closed doors. “You may find the baths primitive,” Teela told her as she headed toward the closest door on the left-hand side of the hall. “They are considered restorative.”

  The door opened into a small hall composed mostly of open arches; through one, there was a bedroom, through another, a conference room, and through the last, something that looked at this distance like a moderately well-lit cave. Teela peeled off in the direction of the cave, leaving Kaylin to shadow her.

  The help Kaylin was allowed to offer involved aid removing armor and scabbard.
She allowed Kaylin to peel cloth off skin so sticky with blood the fabric had adhered, and during this, she said nothing. Only the fact she was willing to accept the help made it clear she required it. Teela didn’t grimace, flinch, or complain, and as her complexion was usually pale, it was hard to gauge whether or not its color was due to blood loss.

  “If you won’t let me heal it,” Kaylin said, folding arms to keep her hands away from an injury that looked worse, not better, when it was uncovered, “at least let me sew it up a bit.”

  “Fine. I’ll take the needle.”

  Kaylin went to the bedroom, where she found her pack in a closet that was part of the wall. She pulled out the requisite tools and returned to the room. Teela was half-submerged in warm water that had, as far as Kaylin was concerned, far too many large rocks in it to be suitable for bathing. Her arm, on the other hand, was both above the water and dry.

  “You hate stitching wounds,” Teela said, closing her eyes and leaning her head against a tilted rock.

  It was true. Kaylin found something that looked vaguely like soap and did her best to get her hands clean; her fingernails had accumulated enough dirt she could fill a small planter. “I hate writing reports, too. But I do them.”

  * * *

  True to her word, Teela let Kaylin clean and stitch the wound on her arm, which was about as bad as it looked.

  “Teela—”

  “I really do not want to answer questions, kitling.”

  “Was the small dragon helpful?”

  “…Yes.”

  Kaylin inhaled sharply. “I think you should go home.”

  Teela swiveled her neck to look at Kaylin, who had joined her in the bath. She sat, legs folded, knees beneath her chin, a few feet away from where Teela lounged.

  “You’re not the Teller, you’re not the harmoniste, and you’re not the Lord of the West March.”

  “If you tell me that you’re afraid that the recitation will hurt me, I will strangle you. Or drown you, which might be easier on the arm you’ve just stitched. Very tidy work, by the way.”

  Kaylin forced herself to say nothing, but the small dragon squawked.

  “I’ll strangle you, too,” Teela told him.

  The dragon now hissed, and Teela stood, shedding more water than strictly necessary as she did it so quickly. Her eyes were blue, but only an idiot would have expected a different color. Kaylin kept her arms wrapped around her knees as Teela grabbed a bathrobe and stormed out of the cave that served as a bath.

  The small dragon turned to look reproachfully at Kaylin. “What? What do you want me to say?” She rose, aware that her dress—which should at the very least be bloody, dirty, and probably torn—looked as good as new. The rest of her, not so much, although her hands were clean. “I don’t really love it when people worry pointlessly about me, either, and I’m trying to be consistent here.”

  The dragon snorted.

  “Yeah, well. It’s easy for you—you don’t have any actual words.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later, Kaylin found herself outside in the hall. Alone. She turned to look down the hall and wasn’t surprised to see that it had expanded in her brief sojourn on the other side of the door. The halls seemed taller and wider, and the doors on either side of its walls had proliferated. She couldn’t easily discern which way was out, or at least, which way led to food.

  She was almost tired enough that food was less appealing than sleep, although her stomach didn’t agree with this assessment. The small dragon sat on her shoulders, chewing her hair.

  She looked at her feet and waited for the lights on the floor to start their directional glow. The Hallionne, if not present in Avatar form, obliged. She followed, trying to rescue her hair from a dragon who seemed to be…bored.

  But the light did not immediately take her to the dining hall—if there even was one, given the events of the day.

  It took her, instead, to a room situated at the end of the hall. This room had double doors instead of the wide single doors, all closed, that characterized the other rooms on the way, but as she approached them, they opened. None of the doors in any Hallionne seemed to have the wards favored by the security conscious everywhere in Elantra.

  She was not surprised when the doors opened into an almost palatial room. There was, in fact, a long dining table off to one side on which food was heaped. The food should have been her first concern; it wasn’t.

  To the left, she saw a sitting room, and in that sitting room, two men she recognized: Lord Andellen and Lord Nightshade. Lord Nightshade had the stem of a conical crystal glass in his left hand, and he raised it—and a brow—as she entered the doors.

  * * *

  Andellen and his lord were seated; she failed to join them, choosing to lean against the stone frame of the entrance instead.

  “The Hallionne seems to be whole,” Nightshade said.

  “For the moment, yes. I don’t know how long he’ll stay that way, because I have no idea how he was infected.” If that was even the word. She drew a sharper breath, folded her arms across her chest, and said, “When did you know you were to be the Teller for this particular recitation?”

  His gaze fell to the wine in his glass. “An interesting question.” The words were cool.

  Her eyes narrowed as she examined him—from a distance. Barrani skin was always exquisitely fair, and his was no exception, but he seemed to her eye to be paler than usual, and not in an entirely good way. Some of the anger and the justified suspicion left her. It had not been a good day for anyone.

  “Did you know before you made the deal with the Hawklord?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Clearly it matters to me, or I wouldn’t be asking.”

  “Yes, I knew.”

  “Could you have refused the role? Could you just ignore the crown?”

  “I?” He smiled. It was a slender, cold expression, but it was also startling in the way it changed the lines of his face. “No, Lord Kaylin. It is not in me. Could it be refused? Possibly.” He glanced at Lord Andellen.

  Andellen rose. He retrieved an empty glass, filled it, and brought it to Kaylin, which made her uncomfortable. Andellen was, in every way—except for his oath to an Outcaste—a proper Lord of the High Court; Kaylin was a base pretender.

  “Accept it,” Andellen said softly, his smile robbing the words of danger. “I am, as I have said, in your debt, and even your observational skills must make clear to you how little the Barrani appreciate debt. There are two ways to discharge it.”

  “Kill me or save me from death?”

  “You do understand.”

  Kaylin took the glass, and as she did, she caught Andellen’s hand. “You’re injured.”

  “I am. I was not as gravely injured as my Lord, but I will not thank you should you choose to interfere.”

  She let his hand go. “Are there any Barrani who appreciate a healer?”

  “The Lord of the West March was not notably enraged when you saved his life,” Andellen pointed out.

  It was true. She glanced at the ring around her finger. “No, he wasn’t. This clearly makes him very unusual.”

  “The Lord of the High Court was likewise unruffled by your interference.”

  “You’re telling me you’re not either of those men.”

  “No, Lord Kaylin; nor is Lord Nightshade. The injuries he sustained he expected.”

  “But—”

  “He made his choice. It was never going to be a…popular choice, and there were always going to be repercussions. Iberrienne has more support than either of us expected, but neither of us envisioned the appearance of a female Dragon. The ways in which the two—the Exchequer and the female Dragon—coincided was very unfortunate. The High Court would have turned a blind eye to Lord Nightshade’s interference in the matter of the Exchequer. It was a paltry affair that involved, and harmed, humans for the most part.

  “Had Iberrienne been uninvolved with the Dragon, it would have been for the best
.”

  “He wasn’t,” was her flat reply. “And he incidentally destroyed my home.”

  “Lord Nightshade is aware that had the Dragon perished, you would have, by default, done the same, and he is not pleased; it is part of the reason—” He cut off the sentence instantly, turned, and offered Nightshade a perfect obeisance.

  Nightshade’s eyes were narrow and blue. Kaylin wanted the rest of the sentence, but not at the possible expense of Andellen. Andellen wasn’t Teela, Tain, or any of the Barrani Hawks Kaylin knew well. He almost never spoke Elantran, and she couldn’t imagine him engaging in bar brawls as a way of avoiding boredom. But she had grown fond of him.

  “If you are here, Lord Kaylin, I will retire to the dining hall to speak with the Consort. There are matters that involve the Hallionne that must be discussed.” Andellen left before she could think of a way to stop him that wasn’t awkward.

  “Kaylin,” Nightshade said as he rose and set his own glass aside on the long, low marble table in front of him.

  She met his gaze and held it. The small dragon tensed; his wings knocked hair into her face as he lifted himself to full height, still retaining his shoulder perch.

  Nightshade raised a brow, but his eyes shaded toward green as he met the small dragon’s intense and ridiculous challenge. “Do you think you own her?” he asked softly.

  The small dragon said nothing, but while he wasn’t capable of speech, he had ways of making his opinion clear. Kaylin couldn’t see the color of the small dragon’s eyes; his head was so far forward she could only see his ears and the back of his head.

  “I think,” she said carefully, “he thinks you don’t.”

  “I…see.” His eyes were still more green than blue; the small dragon’s act of angry defiance had amused him.

  “I wouldn’t be amused, if I were you,” she said evenly and quietly. “He was responsible for the death of at least two of the creatures who attacked us on the road.”

  He didn’t even raise a brow.

  “Did you know that I would be chosen as harmoniste?”