Cast in Flame

by Michelle Sagara

  “She said this?”

  “Of course not.” He winced; it took Kaylin a couple of seconds to realize it wasn’t because of anything she’d said. Unlike her, he could understand every word that was being said. Or shouted. “You have made it clear to Bellusdeo that life in the Imperial Palace does not suit you.”

  “Not in those exact words, no.”

  “Refrain from repeating the exact phrasing.”

  Because Kaylin loved her job on most days, she did.

  “You intend to find another domicile?”

  “Yes. As soon as I can.” When he lifted a brow, she thought of the job she loved—none of which included pandering to annoyed Dragons. On the other hand, survival often did. “Look, there are people who would kill to live in the Palace. I’m certain of it. But they’re the people the Hawklord goes out of his way to prevent me from meeting. Everything in my Palace rooms—everything—costs more than the clothing on my back. I feel like I should bathe before I step foot through the door.

  “I can’t leave or enter without an inquisition. I have to deal with Imperial Guards on a daily basis for no other reason than that I live here.”

  “They are there for the protection and security of our guests.”

  “Fine. But I don’t want to be a guest in my own home. I want to be able to live there. Bellusdeo is a Dragon. When she dons Court dresses, they fit her and look good. She understands the powerful. She has power. I’m a groundhawk. I can barely make ends meet on my cruddy pay. I’m not in her class—and I know it.

  “I came from the fiefs. I work on the streets. I don’t belong here, and I can’t be happy where I don’t belong.”

  “You are a Lord of the High Court.”

  “The Barrani High Court, and you know damn well I don’t have to live in the High Halls.”

  “You have visited them before.”

  “I visited them with Teela.”

  “And the difference?”

  She grimaced. There was a difference. She wasn’t certain what it was. “Teela’s a Hawk.”

  “And Bellusdeo is not.”

  “Bellusdeo would never swear the oath the Halls of Law require.”

  “No. Lord Teela did?”

  “Lord Teela doesn’t give a damn about nonbinding oaths. They’re just words, as far as the Barrani are concerned. There is no way Marcus would ever allow Bellusdeo to join the Hawks.”

  “Ah, yes. Your Sergeant’s famous mistrust of my kind.” His eyes, however, shaded toward gold. He clearly found Marcus amusing. “Your Teela understands the High Court, and she avoids it where possible. But if you enter that world, she enters it beside you—and she warns others, by presence alone, that there are consequences to any actions they might take against you. Bellusdeo cannot do that, here. And she is aware that she lacks that ability; the Palace is not her home. It is not an environment with which she is familiar, or over which she has ultimate control.

  “Still, she tries. She targets Diarmat with the full brunt of her outraged disdain. Her outrage,” he added, “is genuine. She feels your marks are not accorded the respect they are due. She does not fully consider the advantage in being underestimated— and I will say, now, that there is a distinct advantage to you, in my opinion. She feels a debt of gratitude to you.”

  “I didn’t do anything for her gratitude. I did it because...because....”

  “Oh, do continue. I’m certain it will be fascinating. You did it because that’s what anyone would do?”

  Kaylin shrugged. It was a fief shrug. Fief shrugs, on the other hand, were not a language with which the Arkon chose to be familiar.

  “You grew up in the fiefs. You are aware that you are lying. Even if you aren’t, there are very few—I can think of almost no one—who could do for Bellusdeo what you did. She would have died there.” His gaze slid off hers. “I am not certain, at this moment, that fate would not be preferable in her mind. Yes, the discussion in progress—and to my mind it will be some hours before it is done—involves both your residence and hers.” He closed his eyes. “She is in pain, Kaylin. She is grieving. For us, the grief is long past; it exists only in echoes, when we turn our thoughts to the past.

  “For Bellusdeo it is new. It makes her reckless. More reckless,” he added, as if this were necessary. “You see her as a Dragon, which is fair. You will age, you will die; she will live forever. She is favored by an Emperor we still consider it wise that you never meet; she is given leeway that would be granted no one else. All of this is true. It is not, however, the only truth.

  “I understand that the loss of your home was due to her presence. Believe, Kaylin, that she understands this, as well. If you do not resent her for the loss—if you do not speak against her companionship—she will go where you go.”

  “You...want me to move out with her.”

  “No. I feel it prudent to advise you that her presence will make your life far more difficult than it might otherwise be. I want her to move out with you. I am of the opinion—at the moment—that the benefits that accrue will go in one direction; I am aware—as you are—of the risks that move entails. If Bellusdeo does accompany you, the Imperial Treasury will cover a large portion of your rental costs.”

  Kaylin’s arms tightened, but she said nothing. She’d been able to afford her one-room apartment, even with Bellusdeo as a roommate. She wasn’t so flush with money that money itself was irrelevant. But...she really didn’t like the idea. At all. “She hasn’t even asked me, you know.”

  “I know. She will not ask if she cannot argue the Emperor around; it would be too humiliating.”

  And having a screaming fight that an entire palace had no choice but to hear wasn’t? “I don’t want my home surrounded by bloody Imperial Guards.”

  The Arkon raised a white brow.

  “I mean it. I don’t want home to be a jail.”

  “Bellusdeo will have a security detail.”

  “I apparently have a security detail, if by that you mean Imperial spies. I can’t stop them from watching my every move. I just want to pretend that they don’t.”

  “Why?”

  Dragons. Ugh.

  “And your other demands?”

  Kaylin had none. She felt guilty, because one of the things she’d been so looking forward to was having a place of her own again. She’d had nothing when she’d come from the fiefs. But she’d had hope for the future—with the Hawks, within Elantra. What hope did Bellusdeo now have that was similar?

  “Yes,” she heard herself say.

  “You will consider it?”

  She nodded. The small dragon, silent as cloth for most of the interview, raised his head and batted the side of Kaylin’s cheek with it.

  “Good. I now have work to do.”

  * * *

  “Midwives’ guild?” Clint asked, as Kaylin trudged up the stairs of the Halls of Law.

  “Dragons,” was her curt reply. If the midwives had kept her awake through the small hours of the night, she’d’ve had something useful to show for the lack of sleep.

  “If you don’t want to see Dragons,” Tanner told her, “I suggest you avoid the office for the next couple of hours.”

  “Why?”

  “Bellusdeo is there.”

  She hadn’t been in the apartments they shared at the palace when Kaylin had dragged her butt out of her rooms in the morning.

  “Alone?”

  “No. Lord Sanabalis is with her. So are six of the Imperial Guard. The color of Barrani eyes in the office is almost midnight blue.”

  Could this day get any worse? “Thanks for the heads-up.” Kaylin considered turning tail and finding breakfast, but she didn’t have much money on hand.

  “You’re going in?”

  “Trouble’ll find me when I leave the office if I don
’t; I might as well get paid for enduring it.”

  * * *

  The Imperial Guard always set the office, as a whole, on edge. Caitlin didn’t mind them, but they were so stiff, so officious, and so smugly superior, Caitlin was an island in the Halls. Bellusdeo was standing to one side of Marcus’s desk as Kaylin entered the office. Kaylin glanced, once, at the duty roster, saw her name—beside Severn’s—on the Elani beat, and allowed herself to relax. She wasn’t late. Yet.

  She didn’t, however, see Severn.

  Sanabalis was standing to one side of Bellusdeo; his eyes were a very clear orange, and if Dragons didn’t physically require sleep, he looked like he could personally use a week of it. The Imperial Guard were like breathing statues.

  “Private,” Marcus growled. His sense of smell had probably alerted him to Kaylin’s presence, as there were too many tall people between them for her to even see him, seated as he was at his desk, and behind the perpetual stacks of paper that girded it. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes, but the tone of her rank pretty much gave it away. The Imperial Guard moved to allow her through.

  She stood at attention in front of his desk and—as expected—his very orange eyes. She saw that he had reflexively gouged a few new runnels in the surface of that desk. Clearly, it hadn’t been a pleasant interview, whatever its subject.

  “Your services are apparently being seconded by the Dragon Court.”

  Standing at attention didn’t allow for the usual facial tics or gestures that indicated dismay. It was the only good thing she could say about it.

  “You are apparently not content living at the Palace.”

  It also didn’t allow for nuanced commentary, which was fine; surrounded by Imperial Guards, she didn’t feel particularly nuanced.

  “Well?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And you intend to find other accommodations.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “With a Lord of the Dragon Court.”

  She didn’t hesitate; not with Marcus in his current mood. “Yes, sir.”

  “The Dragon Court feels that such a search should not be an after-hours affair. Cognizant of the difficulties Lord Bellusdeo encountered the last time she chose to live outside of the Palace, they’ve taken it upon themselves to assure that your search for a new domicile is secure. You are therefore relieved of your regular duties until that search is completed. To Imperial satisfaction.”

  “That is not,” Bellusdeo said, speaking for the first time since Kaylin had entered an otherwise raptly silent office, “what was said.” She stepped forward, until she was standing shoulder to shoulder with Kaylin, who, at attention, couldn’t otherwise turn to look at her. “Private Neya’s sense of responsibility to the Halls is quite strong; she understands the city far better than I, a recent refugee.” She used the Elantran word for refugee. Kaylin almost cringed to hear it. “If, in Private Neya’s considered opinion, such a search can be effectively conducted outside of her working hours, that is acceptable to all concerned.” The swish sound her hair made clearly indicated that Bellusdeo was pinning someone—or several someones—with a glare.

  Sanabalis cleared his throat. In the silence of the office, it sounded like a distant earthquake. “Bellusdeo wishes to accompany Private Neya on her rounds, as she did before the private was sent out of the city to the West March.”

  Great.

  “Private,” Marcus barked. “At ease.”

  As if. She did, however, relax her posture slightly. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

  Her Sergeant snorted. In general, there was nothing but free speech in the office.

  “I’m not going on my rounds with a half dozen Imperial Guards as escort. Members of the Hawks don’t require babysitters, and we don’t want to imply they do; it’ll hurt the force. If the guards come with Bellusdeo and can’t be separated, I’ll take the time to find a new apartment. If they can be detached, I can find us a place to live on my own time.”

  For some reason, this answer didn’t appear to please Marcus, although he clearly agreed with it.

  “Is Lord Bellusdeo a Hawk?” a familiar voice asked. Kaylin couldn’t see the speaker, but cringed anyway. It was a Barrani voice. Mandoran’s. She hadn’t even seen him in the office, which answered her question about the day getting worse; clearly it could. A Barrani from the West March, frozen in time in the Barrani version of puberty, was now in the Halls of Law. She hoped Teela was standing on his feet.

  “I am not,” was the frosty, Draconian reply.

  “I was under the impression,” Mandoran continued, moving around the back side of Marcus’s desk with care to avoid the now-bristling Leontine that occupied it, “that tourists were not allowed to accompany on-duty Hawks.”

  Marcus was either breathing heavily or trying to stifle a growl. Kaylin put money on the latter, and would have refused to bet on his chances of continued success.

  “Lord Bellusdeo,” Sanabalis said, “is a member of the Dragon Court—the governing body that advises the Eternal Emperor. It is well within her purview to ask for—and receive—permission to inspect the forces assembled within the Halls in light of those duties.”

  “Whereas I am merely a Barrani Lord visiting your fair city, and therefore have no responsibilities and no duties?”

  Kaylin risked a glance at Sanabalis’s eyes. He was annoyed, but not yet angry.

  Mandoran, having navigated the desk, came to stand beside Kaylin. He was grinning, and his eyes were almost green. Certainly greener than Barrani eyes generally were in this office. He winked at her. This did not make the Leontine Sergeant any less bristly.

  “I see Teela hasn’t strangled you, yet,” she said, in as quiet a voice as she could.

  “Why would she want to do that? At the moment, she’s not bored.”

  “She is,” Teela said, “considering the concept of boredom with more deliberate care.”

  Mandoran’s grin didn’t falter.

  “Where is Corporal Handred?” Kaylin asked, hoping to stem the tide of this particular conversation.

  She’d’ve had better luck with a tidal wave. “He’s closeted with the Wolflord,” Teela replied. “The duty roster hasn’t been updated, but apparently you and I are now covering Elani street.” She turned and offered a correct bow to Sanabalis. Unfortunately, Kaylin now recognized it as a correct bow for the Barrani High Court. “I ask that you overlook any impertinence from my guest. He is in a situation very similar to Lord Bellusdeo’s; the Empire—and the Eternal Emperor—did not exist when last he walked these lands.”

  Bellusdeo frowned. “I was not aware that the Barrani could voluntarily enter the long sleep.”

  “I’m certain there are many things that would surprise you about the Barrani,” Mandoran replied. His voice, however, had taken on both edge and chill, and his eyes had darkened to blue.

  This predictably caused unrest among the Imperial Guard, subtle though it was; it caused Sanabalis’s eyes to shade toward a brighter orange, and it caused Teela’s eyes—Teela, who had made her way to the other side of Mandoran—to narrow. They were, on the other hand, already as blue as they could safely get.

  Bellusdeo, however, lifted a brow; her eyes were no longer slightly orange. They were gold. She was amused.

  Mandoran wasn’t.

  Bellusdeo then turned to Teela. “If you have now had cause to reconsider your attitude toward boredom, I have not been so fortunate. Even for the Immortal, time can pass incredibly slowly. I believe I will find the patrol of great interest on this particular day.” She turned to Mandoran and added, “as a visitor to the city that is my current home, I bid you welcome. I am certain you will do nothing to disgrace yourself or your Court should you be forced to accept the company of a Dragon for an afternoon, and I am certain the Sergeant will relax his rules enough that
you may join us.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Although Bellusdeo had the last word, there were several hundred other words—thankfully none of them in native Dragon—before it. Kaylin thought it unfair when Sanabalis asked for a private word with her before she could leave the office.

  The lack of justice didn’t notably ease when he marched her to the West Room in which her magic lessons were taught, and practically shut the door on her shoulder blades—without bothering to touch it. He did, on the other hand, activate the door ward with his own hand.

  “What,” he asked, in Elantran, “do you think you’re doing?”

  “I thought I was going on patrol in the Elani district.”

  His eyes darkened a shade. “If there is ever a time to play games with a Dragon, Private, it is not now. The Emperor is not pleased by the current state of events.”

  “Not even I could have missed that.”

  He grimaced, and his eyes lightened a shade. “He has granted Bellusdeo his very reluctant permission to leave the Palace. He is placing the fate of the race in your hands.” And clearly, while Sanabalis held Kaylin in some affection, he didn’t consider her the appropriate receptacle for that responsibility.

  She stared at him. She remembered to close her mouth after the first few seconds. “The same Emperor who initially thought I should be destroyed because I presented too great a risk?”

  “We have not notably changed rulers in the interim.” His eyes gained more gold as he studied her face. “Tell me about this new Barrani. He is a recruit?”

  She started to say no, stopped, and shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s a friend of Teela’s. An old friend.”

  “He is to my eye one of the Barrani young.”

  “She’s known him practically all her life,” she replied, trying to dodge the question he hadn’t yet asked.

  “And you trust him?”

  Did she? “I don’t know him well enough to trust him.” That was true. “But I trust Teela.”