Cast in Shadow

by Michelle Sagara

  Not that it was, strictly speaking, necessary. Kaylin lived in a small place, but she lived in a part of town that was frequented by Hawks and Swords. If there was crime, it usually wasn’t something that was done outdoors.

  “Kaylin,” Severn said quietly, when they reached the building that contained her small room. “Don’t trust the fieflord.”

  “I’m a Hawk, not an idiot,” she snapped. She paused, and then added, “Why did you go to talk to him?”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “If it doesn’t matter, answer.”

  He didn’t. She knew he wouldn’t.

  They stood in the dark of the twin moons in an uncomfortable silence. Kaylin had no way of breaking it. She turned, opened the door and headed up the stairs.

  Severn followed.

  “Severn, go home.”

  “I will. When I see you safely to yours.”

  “This wasn’t a date!”

  He said nothing. She snarled and bounded up the stairs. The tripping didn’t help her much.

  Offering a hand didn’t help him.

  She said, distinctly, “I don’t want your help. I want to—”

  “Kill me?”

  “Something like that.”

  He shrugged. “Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

  She hated him, then. She gained her feet, stormed up the stairs, was out of breath by the time she fumbled with two locks and threw open her door.

  The only light in the room was cast by mirror; the windows were shuttered. Had she done that?

  Severn came up behind her, and she gave in to the inevitable. She walked into her home, and left the door open behind her. Was surprised when he didn’t come in.

  He stood in the frame of the door, gazing at everything as if he’d always been a Hawk. At last he said, “You live alone.”

  She nodded. “Easier, that way.”

  “You never liked being alone in the fiefs.”

  “Meant something different, in the fiefs. But I don’t live there anymore.”

  “You do,” he said softly. “We both do.”

  “Actually,” a familiar voice said, “She doesn’t. Kaylin, is he a friend, or does he need help finding the door?”

  Kaylin almost laughed out loud. Teela had taken up a very casual lounging position against the stair railing, and she had a dagger in her left hand. She spoke Elantran, as she usually did when she was with the Hawks.

  It had been a while since Kaylin had heard her speak anything else.

  “He’s a Hawk,” she said quietly.

  Teela’s frown was subtle and lazy. “I don’t recognize him.”

  “He’s new.”

  “Must be, if he’s hanging around your door.” She eased herself off the rail, gaining her full height. After it became obvious that Severn had a slight advantage, she shrugged and relaxed again. “A bit scarred,” she said to Kaylin, in her Barrani purr, “but sort of pretty. You’re sure he’s not with you?”

  “He’s not with me.”

  “He’s not fond of being talked about as if he weren’t here,” Severn added quietly. He turned stiffly to Kaylin and said, “I’ll see myself out.”

  Teela whistled.

  “What?”

  “I’d avoid him, if I were you.”

  “You don’t much look like you want to avoid him.”

  “I’m not you.” It always amazed Kaylin that something so tall could radiate essence of cat. Teela smiled and sauntered into the room; the door had been left open, and she had a habit of making herself at home—at least in Kaylin’s home.

  “Why are you here?” Kaylin asked.

  “You’re late.”

  “Late?”

  “We’re supposed to go out drinking. You forget?”

  “I—” she looked down at the dress she was still wearing. At the circular script across her arms. She was dead tired. “Yeah. I forgot.”

  Teela shrugged. “Tain thought so. But it’s you—you could have just been late. What’s with the dress? It’s not like—” She stopped.

  She could stop so suddenly, stillness seemed menacing.

  Kaylin turned her back and started to pull the dress up over her head. She had to struggle; her arms were stiff, and the dress wasn’t exactly baggy.

  “You can see the fieflord’s mark,” she said, when silk cleared her face. She tossed the dress into the pile beneath the windowsill, and then rooted around in the pile beside the bed until she came up with a bed robe; she slipped into it, and after a minute of fumbling, gave up on the belt. Resigned, she turned to face Teela; the Barrani Hawk hadn’t moved an inch.

  “I would have seen it earlier, but we started drinking without you.” Her voice sounded normal. Kaylin had, however, seen Teela break the arms of a drug dealer on the banks of the Ablayne while talking about the fact that her desk was a pigsty. She wondered if she should reach for her daggers. It wasn’t an idle thought.

  But she was so damn tired, it wasn’t a possibility either. She sat heavily on the bed, never taking her eyes off Teela’s face.

  “He sent you into Nightshade,” the Barrani Hawk said. Unblinking. Unnerving.

  Kaylin nodded. “Is it bad?”

  “It’s bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “How many people have you seen with a mark like that?”

  Kaylin shook her head. “None.”

  “In Nightshade?” Teela was aware of sparse details of Kaylin’s past; all of the Hawks were.

  “Never.” She paused, and then added, “Do you know how to remove it?”

  Teela shrugged. Kaylin felt herself relaxing.

  “Sure. I could cut off your head.”

  “Thanks, but I’m sort of using it.”

  “Not for much, if you’ve got that. When did it happen?”

  “Today.”

  “You allowed it?”

  “I didn’t exactly get a chance to offer permission,” she snapped.

  “Why did he…mark you?”

  “How the hell should I know? He’s Barrani. I’m not.”

  “No. Clearly.”

  “And if I were, what would I be doing?”

  “Playing corpse. Or rounding up other Barrani and heading into the fiefs to kill the man who marked you.”

  “Was that an offer?”

  “Maybe.” The Barrani eyes were glittering; they’d shaded from perfect green into perfect blue. It was a bad sign. “Kaylin—those marks are forbidden to mortals.”

  “He’s not exactly on the right side of the law. He’s a fieflord.”

  “You don’t understand what it means, do you? No, don’t bother.” Teela crossed the room and slung herself heavily over the bed. Great. It wasn’t a large bed. “It’s a symbol of ownership.”

  Kaylin shrugged. In as much as a Barrani could look outraged, Teela managed it. “He’s the fieflord,” Kaylin said, weary. “He owns all of Nightshade.”

  “What I said was true, Kaylin. You don’t live there anymore.”

  “No.” She wedged herself onto six inches of bed, and then added, “Tiamaris said it can’t be removed by anyone but Nightshade.”

  “He’s right.”

  She was quiet for a minute. “Teela?”

  “What?”

  “If I weren’t a Hawk, would you have killed me?”

  Teela shrugged. “Maybe. It’s not safe to bear a mark like that. Not outside of his fief.”

  “Why?”

  “Ask the castelord. No, on second thought, don’t ask the castelord. In fact, don’t see the castelord, ever.”

  “I’ll add it to the list.” She closed her eyes. “What’s Tain going to say?”

  “If you’re lucky, a lot of Barrani that won’t mean a damn thing to you.”

  Kaylin borrowed a Leontine phrase. She knew what her luck was like.

  The mirror woke her in the morning.

  When exactly in the morning, she couldn’t say—but the phrase too damn early came to mind. She rolled off the bed.
>
  There was no booming voice to accompany the unnatural sheen of the mirror’s surface; no clear picture of Iron Jaw in full Leontine annoyance.

  “Go away,” she muttered. She pulled the bed robe tight and stood. Her legs were wobbling. Then again, had she gone out drinking with Teela and Tain, they would have been worse. If the inside of her mouth hadn’t tasted like a hairball, the world would have been a better place.

  The mirror continued to glow. She made her way to its surface and placed her palm against the lower right corner. A face began to emerge from the too-bright light; a woman’s face. She was Leontine, and she wasn’t a Hawk. Shedding sleep, Kaylin straightened her shoulders. “Marrin,” she said softly.

  “Kaylin. I’m sorry to wake you—I mirrored the office, but Marcus said you weren’t going to be in today.” Her fur was a shade of pale gold; she was not young.

  “I’m not—I’ve got today off. You need me?”

  Marrin nodded.

  “I’m not dressed, and I haven’t eaten. How soon do you need me?”

  The silence went on for just a stretch too long. Kaylin grunted. Breakfast could wait. Dressing, however, couldn’t. She stared at her arm; the bracer reflected Marrin’s image. After a moment, she clenched the bracer fist and ran her fingers over the gems in a quick sequence. It was the sequence that Lord Grammayre had taught her last: White, blue, white, blue, red, red, red.

  The only sound in the small apartment was the quiet click of its hinges.

  The river quarter was already crowded; the streets were full of either horse or people. Given the size of some of the people, it was just as safe to stay out of their way. Kaylin was grateful that it wasn’t a parade day. Had it been, it would have taken her half the day to get to the foundling hall, and she would have been biting the heads off of more or less innocent bystanders about three minutes in.

  She cursed under her breath at the various bakers’ stalls; she really didn’t have to the time to stop, and had she, the money was a bit lacking. Her stomach, as usual, was ignorant of the basic facts of her life, and it growled every time she came close. Which, given the press of bodies, was about every ten feet.

  Shadows moved across the bent heads of the crowd. She glanced up; Aerians were in the sky. It would be really useful to have wings about now. As usual, she made do.

  The foundling halls backed out onto the Ablayne; they were gated, fenced and haphazardly guarded. Amos, the guard in question, was wandering around in front of the slender metal gate like a worried hen as Kaylin approached. As a guard, he was a great gardener. He didn’t wear much armor, he had a sword that might have been sharp when he was four years old—whenever that might have been—and he wasn’t, in his own words, as strong as he used to be. But he did like children.

  He relaxed visibly. Bad sign.

  “Marrin?”

  “She’s waiting for you in the front hall,” he said. He had almost no hair, and what little he did have, he worried with shaking hands. “I’m—”

  “Never mind. What’s happened?”

  “It’s Catti.” In spite of her name, Catti was a human orphan. All of the children in the foundling halls were. Leontines and Aerians were less numerous than humans, and much hardier; they seldom left children behind. And when they did? Someone kept them. Aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings—someone always wanted them.

  The youngest of the foundlings often came to the hall with no name attached to them, and they were named by Marrin. Marrin had a Leontine’s sense of humor.

  “Catti? What’s wrong with Catti?”

  He shook his head and pointed to the closed doors of the foundling halls. They were modest doors, in a building of its size. She swallowed, nodded and ran.

  When Kaylin had first come to visit the foundling halls, she had asked Marrin why the children in the halls were all human. Marrin had explained, quietly, that the halls were open to children of any race—but that only the human children seemed to make their way through its doors, or at least to its steps.

  “The rest are wanted,” Kaylin had said, bitter.

  Marrin had shaken her head, growling softly. “Don’t use that word,” she had said, her S’s sibilant.

  “Which one?”

  “Wanted.”

  Kaylin had shrugged.

  “Humans are all so fragile,” Marrin had continued firmly, “and little things kill you. Plagues. Floods. Fires. Other humans. I don’t want my children to think that they were deserted.”

  Your children, Kaylin had thought, with suspicion. But she had discovered, as she had been drawn, time and again, to the halls, that they were Marrin’s children in every way that mattered. Marrin saw to it that they were housed, clothed and fed; Marrin bullied and cozened people into donating the things such a hall required. Where money was scarce, she was willing to settle for time—and the children were taught to read, write and perform skills that might make them useful to people who had the money to employ them.

  Kaylin couldn’t resent the orphans for their good fortune; she had thought to, but seeing them…they were just children.

  And Kaylin had always had a weakness for children.

  She swung the doors open and almost collided with Marrin. The Leontine was pacing.

  “Marrin, what happened to Catti?”

  “She fell,” Marrin said quietly.

  “From where?”

  But the Leontine said only, “Follow me.” Her tone of voice added, quickly. Kaylin did as the other children who lived in the foundling hall did: she obeyed.

  Catti was in a low bed, covered by heavy blankets. She was not conscious, which was a bad sign. “You moved her?” Kaylin asked.

  “She didn’t walk here by herself,” was the curt reply. Marrin really was worried.

  And Kaylin could see why. Catti was breathing. But that was about all she was doing, and it was pretty shallow breath.

  “Dock found her,” Marrin added, in a more subdued tone.

  “Is he still calling himself that?”

  Marrin shrugged. “It’s a phase,” she said. Her paws were behind her back, but as she paced, Kaylin could see that the fighting claws were extended.

  “Did he move her?”

  Marrin nodded.

  “Tell him not to, next time. Just…leave her, and call me.”

  “Is she—”

  “I don’t know. But I’ve seen injuries like this before.” Not often, thank the gods. Whichever gods. Kaylin wasn’t particular about religion. “Get some water,” she added.

  “You want me to bathe her down?”

  Kaylin shook her head. “I’ll need to drink it. I might not remember. Make me,” she added, as she placed a palm against the girl’s pale cheek. Catti had grown, in the last six years. At twelve, she still had a child’s face, but the jaw was sharpening, the cheekbones becoming prominent; she wouldn’t be a girl for much longer. She wanted to join the Hawks.

  Kaylin grimaced. “I can’t be disturbed,” she continued quietly.

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “No, I mean—” But she shook her head. “It’s different from the usual.”

  “How?”

  Doctors were expensive, but because Marrin was so intimidating—when she had need—she could always find at least one who would call. It was after the doctors had come, and had left without a word, that she would summon Kaylin.

  Because she knew as well as any of the Hawks did that Kaylin’s gift was hidden, had to be hidden. By order of the Hawklord, and for much better reasons than that. Kaylin could heal. It was the rarest of the mage talents, and there were four known healers in the Empire—all of them seconded to the Emperor. They lived in a very rich and very pretty cage, and they healed at his command or whim; they stood by, waiting for assassination attempts to come and go so that they might flex their fingers.

  But their talents? They were understood. Kaylin’s had no real explanation. She had not trained for years in their use; they had come to her. Just as the marks on her arms had. />
  The Hawklord felt that the two were intertwined, and he did not trust the power. Kaylin was bright; she didn’t, either. But given the choice between using it and not using it? She stared at Catti’s pale face. It wasn’t much of a choice.

  It never was.

  “Disease is easier.”

  “It’s still life-threatening.”

  Kaylin nodded. “But it’s easier.” To kill something. “This is—I’ve never done this.”

  Marrin tensed, and her claws clicked together; it was the only sound in the room for some minutes, because Catti’s breathing was almost inaudible. “I trust you,” she said at last, speaking in the tongue of her people. It was a phrase that had multiple meanings, but it was only ever used in situations that involved life or death. Or both. Marcus had taught her the words just before she had taken the Hawks’ Oath of Induction, but he had never been able to clearly explain what it meant to Kaylin’s satisfaction. Her translation was off. But on some level, she understood it. She just couldn’t put it into her own words. Funny, that things she couldn’t explain could still bear so much weight.

  She brought her free hand to Catti’s face, and cupping pale skin between her palms, she closed her eyes.

  Catti wasn’t there.

  Kaylin had expected as much, but it still hit hard—the sense of absence. The distance. She was frightened of failure, but she wasn’t terrified—terrified would do her no good. Fear, as the Hawklord had taught her, had its place. But it was hard to keep it in its place. Years had given her a hope of doing so—but no certainty.

  Catti.

  She visualized. It helped. Better to think of Catti as she was—as she had been—at all ages. Kaylin’s memory was like a kaleidoscope; fractured, but in a way that was arresting, even beautiful, if looked at the right way. As a child, Catti’s hair had been bright red, but it had shaded toward auburn with the passage of time; it had grown, and been cut back, over and over again, as if it were unruly, something a gardener might curse at. Kaylin had seen it in braids, in pigtails and above the girl’s wide ears; she had seen it in locks across the floor. It was too fine to sell, Marrin had told her.

  Catti loved to talk. She loved to sing. She could do the former until the cows came home, but the latter? Not well, and mostly, not on key. It had never stopped her. She liked to sing at Festival, when the orphans were allowed to stage plays in the streets; she liked to sing during parade days, when they were given a holiday from their endless string of lessons and chores; she liked to sing at night, as if she were a mother, over the beds of the youngest of the foundlings. They didn’t mind that she couldn’t hold a tune.