Michelle Sagara

by Cast in Sorrow

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “When the Lord’s hall was attacked.”

  “And you are here? Should you not be in the heart of the green?”

  “She should,” Teela said, her amusement ebbing. “That, however, is not a subject to be discussed here; it is neither wise nor safe.”

  Severn joined them. Teela glanced at him. “You risk too much, Corporal.”

  “Kaylin wanted me here,” he replied.

  Kaylin met his gaze and then found her feet very interesting. It was true. She thought he even knew why.

  Iberrienne.

  Closing her eyes, she said, I’m not a Wolf, Severn. I’m a Hawk. We both served the Emperor in our own ways. But—but—

  Yes. You consider Iberrienne so damaged you now see him as a helpless child. You understand that that doesn’t change my duty?

  She swallowed. Yes. Look, I know, believe I know what he did. I know how many people he killed. He didn’t consider their lives worth anything. If the fiefs were in our jurisdiction, he’d hang. He wouldn’t, but the Barrani would kill him. They didn’t suffer their own to be judged in the Imperial Court—and as Iberrienne’s victims were not Barrani, the Barrani High Court could not claim caste exemption and therefore caste justice. I know he deserves to be executed. I know.

  Severn smiled; it was a shadowed smile. He was standing much closer to her than he normally did. Could you kill him?

  I’ve killed, Severn. I’ve killed people who didn’t deserve to die. I worked as an enforcer for Barren. If every murderer deserves death—I deserve it, as well. Me. She could still see Iberrienne’s painfully open expression. Whoever he thinks he is now is not the man who did those things. He looks—helpless. Young. She swallowed. No. No, I couldn’t. I could have killed him—if I had the power—at any other time.

  He exhaled, lifted a hand, touched her shoulder. The Consort is more important, for the moment.

  I’m not sure the Emperor would agree with that.

  The Emperor’s not here, and I have reasons of my own for entering the green’s heart.

  * * *

  It was another long half hour before those who were willing to follow the Lord of the West March were gathered. Not all of the Barrani gathered here were willing to take that risk; everyone who had come from the High Court, however, was.

  None of those men was Nightshade.

  No, he replied. I will stay with Iberrienne.

  I won’t be able to—to call you.

  He said nothing. She felt, of all things, anger. He was angry—but not with Kaylin. Not, she sensed, with Iberrienne, either.

  “Warden,” the Lord of the West March said.

  “Lord of the West March.” He frowned, and then his eyes narrowed. When he lifted them, he lifted them to sky. Kaylin, whose vision was nowhere equal to that of the Barrani, nonetheless saw what he saw. An eagle.

  No, not one. Two. They circled, descending. Barian lifted an arm. Just one. He turned to Kaylin. “Lord Kaylin.”

  But Kaylin shook her head. “It’s not me.”

  Barian frowned.

  Lirienne—lift an arm. Umm, please.

  He was surprised, but did as she had asked. He raised an arm, bent at the elbow as Barian’s was. The two eagles landed then, one on each man’s arm.

  “Warden,” one said. “Lord of the West March. Why have you come to the green?”

  “I am guide,” the Warden said. “The Lord of the West March seeks to reach the Lady.”

  The two eagles glanced at each other; they spoke. They didn’t speak in High Barrani. They didn’t speak in a language the Lord of the West March understood, either. She couldn’t tell, from Barian’s expression, whether he could.

  But before they had finished their discussion, the small dragon squawked.

  They turned their heads—only their heads, which looked so unnatural—toward Kaylin’s shoulder. The small dragon squawked again. He squawked loudly.

  “Chosen,” the eagle on Barian’s arm said, “show me your hand.”

  Kaylin blinked. She glanced at her hands. Clearly, she was tired; it took her a moment to understand why he’d asked. She lifted her left hand, palm out, toward the eagles. The eagle on Lirienne’s arm squawked. He then spoke to his companion.

  “Warden,” one of the two finally said. “We are come to tell you that the wards will not wake.”

  Barian froze. One or two of the men who served him froze, as well. “None of them?”

  “There are two; green will hear you if you speak the words of waking and invocation while in their presence. You will lose much time if you walk the longest path; the two are the only wards that will now respond, although the propiciants bespeak the others now.”

  “Which wards, eldest?”

  “The seat,” the eagle replied. “The oldest seat.”

  * * *

  The answer meant nothing to Kaylin. She was clearly the only person here to whom it meant nothing.

  It’s not a chair, Severn told her. It’s considered the center of both the West March and the green. It’s where the recitation takes place.

  When you came here the first time—did you see the other runes the dreams are talking about?

  Yes. He withdrew.

  Severn—don’t. I can’t make you tell me anything—but don’t shut me out.

  I won’t. But, Kaylin, there are things I don’t want to talk about. There are things I don’t want to think about. This was part of my life as a Wolf; it has nothing to do with your life as a Hawk. I saw the runes. I passed them. But I didn’t come here with a guide, or with the blessing—however reluctant—of the guardian.

  Who did you come here with?

  He was silent. She retreated; she felt irrationally stung, but couldn’t deny the truth of what he’d said. She had never, for instance, talked much about Barren with Severn. There was a lot he didn’t know. A lot she didn’t want him to know, when it came right down to it. And why? Because if he did, he’d stop caring?

  Maybe. Maybe that was part of it.

  The small dragon bit her ear. She cursed at him in Leontine. In quiet Leontine, which didn’t work so well.

  Everyone was staring at her.

  “Lord Kaylin?” Lord Barian said, as if prompting her for a reply.

  Damn it. What did I miss?

  The eagles have offered to lead us to the seat of life. Or rather, they’ve offered to lead you to the seat; they’ve agreed that we will accompany you if you decide to accept their offer.

  And if I don’t?

  The implication is that we won’t reach the seat. At all.

  That’s going to make the recitation difficult.

  No, it won’t. But if the Consort is trapped elsewhere, we’ll have wasted days. The Barrani don’t require sleep.

  But they did require food. “Yes,” she told the eagles, who were staring at her as if they could hear every word she hadn’t said out loud. She watched as the path beneath their collective feet began to move.

  * * *

  At this point in a long evening that was, as the minutes passed, giving way to dawn, it shouldn’t have been surprising. It was.

  “What’s happening?” Kaylin asked, forgetting everything she’d learned about the proper political address extended to powerful men. “Why is the ground doing this?”

  “This may come as surprise,” the Lord of the West March said, “but this is not generally the way we approach the heart of the green.” They started to move. Either that or every other part of the landscape did.

  “Look,” she said to the eagles, dropping into Elantran. “Can we just, oh, walk?”

  She felt Lirienne’s amusement—and a hint of his approval. She did not understand the Barrani.

  You ask the questions none of my kin will ask; they tolerate it because you are mortal, and mortal ignorance is expected. The Warden will answer the question you have chosen to ask, without insulting the High Court.

  Why in the hells would an answer be in
sulting?

  It would imply ignorance.

  But you just said you are—

  Indeed.

  The eagles looked at each other. “The wards cannot hear,” they said—in unison.

  Lord Barian cleared his throat. “The path that winds its way through the heart of the green is not, in any sense of the word, a physical path. Only during the recitation is it laid bare; at that time, the whole of the green is turned toward one purpose, and one alone. At other times, the path opens as the propiciants speak the words of greeting; they open again when they speak the words of benediction. Each section of what you perceive as path is governed by the wards.

  “Only in the presence of those who can speak the necessary words is the path revealed, and it is revealed almost step by step.”

  “You wished to travel quickly,” the eagles added—again in unison, and again, to Kaylin. “This is the safest mode of travel for your companions.”

  That, however, was less well-done.

  You’ll note it’s not me who said it.

  “An’Teela. Teela,” the eagles said.

  Teela said nothing.

  “The green is waiting. The wait has been long.”

  * * *

  Motion didn’t usually make Kaylin nauseous. The motion of the path did. It was like a gut punch accompanied by the sharp, stinging pain of her exposed marks. The hidden ones hurt, as well.

  Lirienne, would you know if—if something had happened to the Consort?

  Would I know if she were dead?

  That was what she meant. She couldn’t bring herself to use the word.

  Not here. I find it odd, he said. Barrani could find things intellectually interesting at the worst of times. You are mortal. You will die. You walk to death from the moment of your birth. Why, then, is death such a difficult concept?

  Because we can’t avoid it.

  But that wasn’t the truth. Human death, Leontine death, Aerian death—and Barrani death—were all the same, in the end. It wasn’t her own death she feared, although she went out of her way to avoid it where possible. It was what death meant. It meant absence. Permanent absence. It meant abandonment. The fact that it wasn’t chosen by the person who left didn’t change the fact of its effect.

  Time didn’t change it. Nothing could. You could learn to accept it—hells, you had no choice. But the loss? She bit her lip and glanced at Teela, hoping Teela wouldn’t notice. Teela remembered everything. Teela remembered it as clearly as if it were stored in Imperial Records. Teela knew now and for as long as she lived, every single thing that was gone. All the details. All the details of how she had lost it.

  Kaylin had never known her father. Teela had known hers—and she had both loved him and killed him.

  Did that make it better, in the end? Could memories of her father’s death somehow ease the cost of the memories of her mother’s?

  No, Lirienne said, his voice soft. But that is always the hope. Teela is kyuthe to you.

  Kaylin said nothing.

  Do you understand why, Kaylin? When she failed to answer, he said, you have always seen her as invulnerable. Immortal. Nothing the Imperial Hawks face will kill her. She is safe, for you, because she is not mortal. She is the family that you cannot lose. She will not die. She will not change. Time will take nothing from her, and when it takes your competence from you, you will know that she is there.

  Why are you telling me this?

  It is truth. But it is your truth. Hers is different. You are, to the surprise of the Barrani of both the High Court and the Vale, kyuthe in her eyes. We understood why she chose to join the Hawks; she was...

  Bored?

  Yes. You do not understand what boredom means to the Immortal. We understood. With her went a handful of Barrani who had neither the courage nor the desperation to take the test of name. That was unusual, but not unheard of. We did not know—until you—how attached she had become to your ephemeral world.

  Me?

  She faced the Dragon Court, for your sake. She returned to the High Halls, she donned both her title and the grandeur of her line, and she walked into the Imperial Palace. She did not claim her rank as an Imperial Hawk; before the Dragon Court, she claimed her ties to the High Court, and her rank as a warrior in the Dragon wars.

  When? When did she do this?

  You were younger, Kaylin. You were considered, I believe, a child by everyone but yourself. And the Emperor understood the danger of the marks you bear. He wished to see you destroyed. She wished to see you preserved. Her presence as a warrior, her title as a senior member of the High Court, and the weapon she bore, all made a threat she herself would never utter. She was willing to go to war—for you. If he desired your death, he would have had to kill her first. And, Kaylin—you did not see her.

  You didn’t, either.

  He chuckled. No. But my brother did. My sister did. The Consort attempted to reason with her. She listened. She listened with the respect due the Lady. She agreed with every argument the Lady made. She would not, however, be swayed. She was unconcerned with the loss of face.

  Let me guess. Attachment to mortals is right up there with dying for your cats.

  It is exactly like that; I am informed that it nonetheless happens among mortals. It does not happen among my kin. She strode into the Palace to make her argument to the Eternal Emperor. She did not threaten him, as was expected. Her accoutrements were all the threat she allowed herself to make.

  Kaylin looked at Teela; Teela was staring into the distance in a “don’t talk to me” way.

  She pleaded, Kaylin. She told the Emperor that your life was measured in decades—mortal decades; that it would end soon enough on its own. Lord Tiamaris argued against those years; he pointed out that if decades were so insignificant—in a city in which the majority of the occupants faced exactly that fate—what difference did they make? The harm you might do in those decades, the possibility of destruction, and at that, unpredictable destruction, warranted your death. It was prudent.

  That, I knew.

  Oh?

  Marcus—my Sergeant—still hates him for it. She frowned. She had heard that Teela had gone to Court on her behalf. She hadn’t questioned it; she barely remembered because she hadn’t been asked to attend. She’d been told after the fact.

  You think that Barrani do not love. I love my brother and my sister.

  I know. That’s what makes you—

  Unusual? Or weak?

  Unusual, she said, firmly.

  It is a weakness, he said. No, Kaylin. For you it is not. But the survival of your kind depends on numbers. You do not survive in isolation. It is not the same for my kin or the Emperor’s. You think of love—when you think of it—as a strength, as a binding. And for you, it is.

  But bindings break when they are tested for eternity. Nothing, not even mountains, last forever. What has been a strength can shatter—with a single death, in a single moment. You call it a risk, he added softly. But it is not a risk, for us; it is a certainty. But we live, Kaylin. We live. Love is not therefore unknown to us; it is sharpest when we are young.

  But I believe you understand. And if you do not, it is both my fear and my hope that you will.

  * * *

  “An’Teela.”

  Teela met the eyes of the Lord of the West March. He said nothing further; she said nothing. To him. To Kaylin, in Elantran, she said, “If the Exchequer doesn’t hang for this, I will hunt him down and kill him myself.”

  Kaylin said nothing because the nausea was increasing. The passing trees and grass spun in circles; she closed her eyes, which helped—but not enough. She could still feel the ground vibrating beneath her feet; had she not been surrounded by Barrani, she would have dropped to her knees.

  Hells with it. She dropped to the ground anyway. She was never going to gain Barrani approval; she could spend her whole life being as perfectly mannered and viciously political as they were, and she might get a pat on the head. At the moment, it wasn’t incentiv
e enough; she sat, crossing her legs beneath the flowing folds of her skirt. Having more ground beneath her—and a shorter distance to hit it if the dizziness overwhelmed her—helped.

  She was momentarily grateful when the world stopped moving and very carefully opened her eyes.

  She wasn’t certain what she had expected of a place called the heart of the green. Mostly, a lot of well-tended grass—the kind that only rich people had—and trees. Maybe a fountain, or a small pond.

  There was no grass here. There were two trees—two leafless, winter trees. There was what might once have been a fountain; the stone was preserved, but the basin was dry and empty. Kaylin approached the fountain, pausing once to ask silent permission of Barian, who frowned but nodded. If there were wards here, she couldn’t see them. She glanced at the small dragon, who’d folded himself into the shawl position; he could only barely be bothered to lift his head. He sighed and lowered it again, without doing anything helpful first.

  Fine.

  She touched the fount’s rim. It was warm; the clearing was warm. Not hot, not arid, but warm; it suggested sunlight on a day that the sun didn’t choose to be punishing. But nothing grew here that she could see.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  Chapter 17

  The small dragon whiffled.

  “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “You were, of course, talking to yourself again. What have I told you about that?” Teela came to stand by her side; she didn’t touch the stone. Her hands were loosely clasped behind her back.

  “People will doubt my sanity.”

  Teela nodded. “Unless you happen to be the Arkon.”

  “In which case it’s irrelevant.”

  Teela’s smile was stiff, but genuine. “Yes. What, specifically, don’t you understand?”

  “This is the heart of the green. But—it’s not very green.”

  “No.”

  “Was it always like this?”

  “It has been like this for a long time.”

  “Which is a no.”

  “Kitling, honestly, if I could pack you up and send you home—with any hope that you’d arrive in more or less one piece—I would. No. In my childhood, it was not.”