Michelle Sagara

by Cast in Sorrow

  No.

  This is not the first time he has been granted such a gift; the first time, it was considered theft and trickery.

  Because it’s so easy to lie to the green.

  He was amused. He kept it entirely off his face, although he spoke as he offered his sister an arm. It is not difficult—at all—to lie to the green; it is difficult to make oneself understood at all.

  Kaylin waited for Severn as the Barrani began to drift toward the Hallionne. He shook his head, and carefully removed yards and yards of fabric from the crook of her elbow.

  “It’s going to get dirty—”

  “It won’t. Trust the green. Wear it, as it was meant to be worn.”

  She started to argue, but the small dragon sat up and squawked in her ear. “I swear, you bite me again and you’ll be walking home.”

  * * *

  She’d walked, as if she were part of a solemn procession. Her legs hurt, her arms felt so heavy she could barely lift them. What she wanted at this very moment was to crawl into her bed—the bed that was splinters and feathers—and sleep for three days.

  But the Barrani of the Vale came, standing to either side of the procession of which she was only part. They were silent. Only two of them detached themselves from the crowd, but she recognized them: Gaedin and Serian. They quietly saw to the fall of her train, and they took up positions of honor at her back.

  She wanted to tell them that they’d been instrumental in saving them all, because the shortcut had given her the knowledge necessary to save Teela. She even opened her mouth. But Serian’s warning glance caused her to shut it again. She wasn’t used to being the center of attention; she tried to enjoy it, and failed. But Diarmat’s many lectures served one useful purpose: they kept her moving. She held her head high. She didn’t fumble or even speak.

  Not until the gates of Alsanis rolled open to welcome them all, because waiting for them in the long, grand hall, with its many lights and its many, many arches, was a Barrani man who was not, she was certain, Barrani at all.

  “No, Lord Kaylin,” he said, and he bowed to her in full sight of the Vale. It was a low, graceful, perfect bow. “I am not. But the Barrani are my distant kin, and I have longed, for centuries, to speak with them again. I bid you welcome. I bid your Lord Severn welcome, as well. While you live, my doors will always open at your command, and you will always find sanctuary and welcome here.

  “You will find welcome, should you return, in the green.” He then turned and offered an equal bow—to the Consort. “Lady.”

  She offered the Avatar of Alsanis her hand; he accepted it, bowed over it, and then placed it on his arm. “Come. Food is waiting, and water, and wine.” He turned, and then turned again. “Barian.”

  The Warden bowed.

  “In the long years of my exile, I have heard your voice, and yours alone of all your kin. Join us.”

  * * *

  Dinner was a loud and, for Barrani, raucous affair. Even Kaylin, sick to death of Barrani functions and politics, found herself laughing—in particular when Mandoran and Allaron decided to have an impromptu eating contest. A certain amount of decorum was present wherever the Consort generally was, but the cohort didn’t seem to be aware of it, and if she was offended in any way, the Consort kept it to herself.

  But Kaylin suspected, given the green of the Consort’s eyes, that she wasn’t.

  She wasn’t even upset when Kaylin, flagging to the point of nearly dropping her chin into dessert, excused herself from the table and the rest of the immortal merriment. Severn escorted her as far as her room—and in Hallionne parlance, it was a long walk. Nor did the Hallionne intend her to share, at least not with anyone who wasn’t a small shoulder ornament.

  The last thing she remembered clearly was getting out of the dress and hanging it in a closet. Well, draping it over a hanger in a closet. She left the green boots beneath it. She expected both the closet and its contents to be gone in the morning.

  She didn’t remember reaching the bed, but it was pretty hard to miss something this large. The small dragon sat up and warbled.

  There was no noise in the room. But it wasn’t anything in the room that had woken her.

  In the distance, Nightshade was angry.

  * * *

  She rose and dressed, and this time, she took clothing from the pack leaning at a tilt against the far wall. The closet was, of course, a nonentity in the room. She made her way to the door, and from it, into the halls; her eyes adjusted to the light slowly, but it didn’t matter. She had the strong feeling she could stumble through Alsanis wearing a blindfold and she’d fail to trip, fall, or injure herself in any way.

  She made her way to Nightshade. Clearly, she was still half-asleep if an angry fieflord was an emergency to run toward and not away from.

  “He is not angry with you,” Alsanis said. His Avatar had appeared beside her between one step and the next.

  “What is he angry about?”

  “Annarion.”

  Which would make it the world’s shortest happy reunion. “What has Annarion done?”

  “Sedarias feels it best that she and her friends remain here for some time. She does not feel it is wise to leave the Hallionne in a state of ignorance. The world has changed since they first left it, and to maneuver in what remains, they must have knowledge.”

  Kaylin nodded because this made sense.

  “Annarion will not be remaining.”

  “Wouldn’t that make Sedarias angry?”

  “Sedarias? Why would she be angered?”

  “If she doesn’t feel it’s safe—”

  “She understands Annarion’s reasoning, and she accepts it.”

  “Nightshade doesn’t.”

  “No. He wishes Annarion to remain here. He has...insisted? Commanded?”

  And Annarion had refused. No wonder Nightshade was pissed.

  “Calarnenne is Outcaste. It is not—or will not—be safe for him once he leaves the Hallionne. It would not, I think, be safe for Lord Iberrienne, either, but Lord Iberrienne will remain. The Consort has done what she can for him,” he added, his voice softening. “But he was much damaged by his interactions in the outlands. Will you tend him?”

  But Kaylin shook her head. “No. He is—he will—recover.” She hoped. “But I don’t want him to be what he was.”

  “You are afraid Lord Severn will kill him.”

  “It’s not a fear—it’s a certainty. He can’t do it here; he won’t try. But Iberrienne as he is now is not a danger to anyone.”

  “Eddorian will protect him.”

  She thought it should work the other way around.

  “Why? Eddorian was the elder of the two. Eddorian understands some of what was done; he cannot, however, heal the damage. He will ask you, I think.”

  Kaylin said nothing. She approached an open door in a hallway full of closed ones.

  “They are brothers,” Alsanis said softly. Kaylin realized that the term, brother, meant something to Alsanis that it probably didn’t mean to anyone else here. She didn’t argue. Instead, she stepped into the room.

  It wasn’t a bedroom; it wasn’t a sitting room, either. It was a Barrani courtyard, open to a cool, gray sky, and artfully dusted with fallen leaves. Both of the men in its center stiffened and turned as she entered. She recognized them. One was Annarion, and the other, the fieflord of her childhood. The Teller’s tiara no longer graced his forehead.

  Nightshade was not the only one who was angry; Annarion was pale with it, his hands in curved half fists by his side. The Barrani turned to face her.

  “Leave,” Nightshade said.

  She ignored him. “Don’t even think,” she added, “of using your mark against me. Not here. The Hallionne won’t allow it.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m betting my life on it. Are you willing to bet yours?”

  His brows rose, and a very tight smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Turning to his brother, he said, “May I have the privilege o
f introducing Lord Kaylin?”

  Annarion was not amused. Not even close. The mark on her cheek seemed to inflame, rather than quell, his fury. He was not, however, angry at her. “I am aware of who Lord Kaylin is.” He bowed to her. He bowed stiffly and very formally, granting her a respect that she would never have gotten in the High Halls. “Private Neya,” he added, accenting the name in Elantran.

  “It’s my preferred title, yes.” She hesitated, and then said, “I heard you’re leaving the West March.”

  He seemed unsurprised. “Yes. I have spoken with the Lady, and she has agreed to allow me to accompany her party back to the High Halls. I will present myself to the High Lord.”

  “You’re not a Lord of the Court.”

  “Not yet.”

  Kaylin felt her stomach drop, the way it would have had she jumped off a cliff. Her brows rose, her eyes rounding; she couldn’t stop them. “You can’t seriously be thinking of taking the test of name?”

  “Can I not? My brother has, and he has survived.”

  “I don’t mean to insult you,” she said, in even Elantran. “But you didn’t do a great job of holding on to it the last time.”

  His brows rose, and color came to his cheeks. He didn’t, however, argue.

  “Look,” she continued, when Nightshade failed to speak, “you can go to the High Halls. But the name—”

  “I will have no standing in the High Court unless I take—and pass—that test. And I require standing. In the end, we all will.”

  “If you fail, your name will be lost!”

  He stared at her. “Of course.”

  She stared right back.

  “You cannot think that I would fail a test that even a mortal could pass?”

  “Everyone else in the history of the High Halls who has failed hasn’t been mortal.”

  “I am aware of that. My brother all but insisted you undergo that test.”

  She started to argue, and faltered. “I am not,” she said, with greater dignity, “his brother or his kin. I’m—as you point out—merely mortal. One of the masses. If I failed, he lost nothing.”

  For some reason, this made Annarion more angry, not less. Kaylin was used to judging Barrani mood by eye color; in Annarion’s case, it wasn’t necessary. “Is this what he told you?”

  “He didn’t need to say it,” she replied, gentling her voice. “I’ve worked with Barrani for almost half my life. I understand most of their attitudes.”

  “Marking someone was considered barbaric, even in our youth. Did you agree to this?”

  “Why are you even asking the question when you already know the answer?”

  His brows rose; his lips twitched. He looked very much like his brother then. “I wish to hear my brother’s defense.”

  “He doesn’t have one.”

  “No. But even that admission would tell me something; it is why he refuses to speak. Can you bear that mark and not understand even this about him?” He looked at Nightshade. “Brother, what have you become in my absence?” His voice broke.

  Kaylin felt it like a blow, and couldn’t say why. She lifted a hand almost involuntarily. “He gave me his name. Annarion—he gave me his name.”

  Nightshade’s eyes darkened. He said, and did, nothing. Not even in a way that Annarion couldn’t hear.

  Annarion stared at his brother’s graven face. “Teela asks me to tell you, Private Neya,” he said, “that two wrongs don’t make a right. She expects this to mean something to you.”

  Kaylin winced. Teela would be listening. Of course she would. And she’d probably have about a hundred things to say about it in the morning. She considered taking the portal paths and hoping that she landed someplace close to Elantra just to avoid them.

  “But, Lord Kaylin, understand the difference: his name was his to offer, just as mine was mine to offer. What you did not offer, he should never have taken. And he would not have, when I knew him. He would not have.” He turned to Nightshade then. “How can time change a man so?”

  “I owe you no explanation,” Nightshade said softly. “Nor do I owe the High Court one; I am Outcaste. The matters of the Court are not—”

  “You can say that, even now, when you came as Teller?” Annarion demanded, his voice rising.

  “The crown came to me.”

  “Will you play these games with me?”

  Nightshade smiled. “All of the best games are for the highest stakes.”

  Kaylin thought Annarion would hit him. She stepped between them, facing the younger man and seeing, beneath his fury, his bewildered pain. “You were gone,” she said. “You were lost. Do you think it meant nothing? Do you think it caused no pain?” She hesitated; he marked it.

  “Teela’s not happy.”

  “Teela is never happy. You’ll have a few centuries to get acquainted with this fact.” She caught his arm. “Come back to your room.”

  “Do you think to protect him?” Annarion demanded.

  Kaylin shook her head.

  “Do you think, then, to protect me?” He laughed. He laughed out loud; it was a bitter, but genuinely amused sound.

  Kaylin tightened her grip on his arm; the small dragon hissed.

  Annarion’s brows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

  The dragon squawked.

  “If you do not watch your tongue—”

  “Wait, wait—you can understand him?”

  Annarion looked confused. “Yes.”

  She turned narrowed eyes on the dragon, who shrugged his wings and refused to meet her gaze.

  “Lord Kaylin—he is yours and you can’t understand him?”

  She exhaled. She turned to Nightshade, whose eyes had lightened slightly. “Can you understand a word he’s squawking?”

  “No, Lord Kaylin.” He met—and held—his brother’s gaze. “I have given you what advice I can. If you will not consider it, if you will not accept its hard-won wisdom, I will leave you.”

  “I will return home.”

  “There is no home, Annarion.”

  “There must—”

  “I am Outcaste. If you wish to earn the scorn of the Court, you may come to visit the fiefs—but you will find no home to your liking there.”

  “Our line—”

  “You will recall our cousins? Their children hold the line.”

  Annarion’s eyes darkened. “And you dare to tell me that I am not to take the test of name? You can stand there and talk to me of unnecessary risk? I am severely disappointed in you, Calarnenne. You have abandoned the responsibility of our family and our line; do not even dream of demanding that I do the same.” He turned, Kaylin still attached to his arm, and walked away.

  Go with him. If I am not to strangle him with my own hands, I would not have him perish. I am, however, seriously tempted; I have not been this angry since...

  Since you last saw him?

  Or perhaps just after. You will find him a staunch ally in future—if he survives. He is young. He will not become someone you would approve of when he is reckoned adult by our people, but while your lives overlap, he will be someone that you can understand. And perhaps you will understand him better than I.

  Teela is almost as old as you are, and I approve of her.

  You do not know all of her history; no more do you know mine. Annarion’s, however, is within the grasp of your brief life to date. Mortals have a saying: Be careful what you wish for. It is...vexing. I will not see you in the West March again.

  Kaylin was halfway down the hall when Nightshade added, I am in your debt, Chosen.

  * * *

  When Kaylin returned to her room, Teela was in it.

  “I assume Alsanis okayed this?”

  Teela shrugged. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she stood—instead of lounging across a convenient flat surface. “I want to warn you not to interfere,” she said. “But I hate to waste my breath. What are you going to do with him?”

  “Annarion?”

  “Of course.”

 
“I’m not sure I’m going to tell you,” Kaylin replied, removing clothing as she made ready for sleep, attempt two. “Especially if I don’t want him to know.”

  “She has you there,” another voice said. Mandoran appeared in the doorway, balancing a tray that had ten people’s worth of food on it.

  Kaylin’s jaw dropped.

  “What?” Teela said, slowly relaxing her arms. She glanced around the room and eventually ended up on the bed. Sideways.

  “Nothing.” Kaylin stopped undressing and felt, for a moment, at home. Mandoran wasn’t Tain, but Teela was absolutely Teela. “Did you come to say goodbye?”

  Mandoran laughed. Kaylin fell almost instantly in love with that laughter. It held affection, knowledge, and sheer delight.

  Teela glared at him, which made him laugh louder.

  “She’s not staying,” Mandoran said.

  “If I weren’t feeling lazy,” Teela told him, “I’d leave. You could have my conversation for me and I’d be spared the effort.”

  “You’re—you’re not staying?”

  “Don’t make that face.”

  “Your eyes are closed, Teela. You can’t see my face.”

  “I have the expression etched in memory. And I can see what Mandoran can see when he’s not laughing so hard he’s crying.”

  Which, of course, made him laugh more.

  “I was going to stay. Not for long. But...I can hear them now. They can hear me. They can truly speak to each other. They don’t need me here. Whereas you?”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “No, of course not. If you were a mortal child you’d be under Marrin’s wing, in the foundling hall; I actually pity the people who are stupid enough to try to hurt any of her orphans. But you’re going to be living with a dragon. You have the Halls of Law. You’re no doubt going to have an ambitious and disenfranchised Barrani Lord, and you have the world’s most annoying pet.”

  The small dragon squawked.

  Mandoran’s eyes rounded just before he fell over laughing. “Don’t ask,” he said, holding up a hand. “I’m not going to tell you what he said; Teela would only kill him. Or try. Don’t worry about Teela,” he added. “She’s not like Annarion; she’s tough.”

  “Annarion—”

  “He believes in people. Even when Teela was one of us, she believed in no one but us, and it took her some time to come around. Annarion’s more optimistic.” His smile faded. “He’s very upset about his brother. We’re worried that he’ll do something stupid. So, Teela’s going back to Elantra with you.”