Cast in Flame

by Michelle Sagara

  “Is the Court composed of mortals?” Annarion asked.

  “It is almost entirely composed of Dragons,” Teela replied. “Why?”

  “Dragons clearly don’t feel immortality the way the rest of our kin do.” Before Teela could speak, he added, “Immortals become weary with the passage of centuries.”

  “You’re weary?”

  Annarion shook his head. “I am reckoned old by my kin, but...I have not had the time to grow weary of this world; I have barely lived in it, after all. I have not seen all the changes wrought since we were first exposed to the regalia. I cannot understand how they occurred—I cannot believe it possible that we live peacefully in an Empire ruled by a Dragon. For what were we sacrificed? Why did our kin lose their lives in the wars that preceded that sacrifice?

  “To become the tame Immortals that bow to a draconian Emperor?” He glanced pointedly at Teela, and although he could have spoken to her in the silence of their name-bond, he said, “I understand that ennui is inevitable. But the lengths to which our people have gone to avoid it almost beggars the imagination.”

  Teela snorted. “It was not about ennui.”

  “Oh?”

  Above them, light shattered and fragmented. The Avatar roared like a Dragon.

  “It was about the Shadows and the darkness that exists at the heart of this city. You will come to understand it if you take the Test of Name—but you will never understand it fully.”

  That stung Annarion, judging by his expression. Whatever he said in response was fully private, which Kaylin guessed meant it was insulting.

  “Oh, don’t. Just don’t.” Teela spoke in Elantran. “The world is what the world is. Try to change it when you actually understand more of it. If I catch you anywhere near the border at the heart of the fiefs—”

  “Yes?” Annarion’s voice was very, very chilly.

  “She won’t have to do anything,” Kaylin cut in, not liking where this was going given the ruckus happening above her head. “You’ll probably attract the attention of every dangerous one-off in miles, and you’ll die or get absorbed or get transformed. It’s probably the latter she’s worried about.” It occurred to her, as Annarion drew breath, that she was in charge of where they were actually standing, because she was at the center of the barrier.

  She began to walk.

  Everyone—even angry Annarion—followed.

  “The world is not supposed to be this way,” he said, to no one in particular. Or to everyone.

  “Tell me about it,” Kaylin replied. “I grew up with no parents in the fief your brother is Lord over. We were hunted by his thugs, by his Ferals, and by the mortals who were strong enough to enforce their particular desires. We ate garbage when we could find it. We didn’t have a stable home.

  “I didn’t particularly like the way the world was. I don’t particularly like the way the world is. But complaining about it doesn’t change anything, and charging into Nightshade or his thugs would have just guaranteed that I’d be a casualty. You can charge across the borders if you want—”

  “No,” Teela said, “he can’t.”

  “—But it’s not going to change the world in a way anyone who lives in it would appreciate. Probably not even you.”

  Annarion said, “Not while I’m naked, at any rate.”

  Kaylin surprised herself by laughing.

  “What, exactly, is a ‘one-off?’”

  Kaylin glanced at Teela.

  “No you don’t,” Teela replied. “It’s not terminology my people use. If you want him to have an understanding of your imprecise nomenclature, you can explain it yourself.”

  “Your people being Barrani, not Hawks.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of multitasking.”

  Kaylin snorted. “You know about the Shadows, right?”

  Annarion frowned. He said nothing but after a pause, nodded, his expression one of intent concentration.

  “If rumors are true, they’re concentrated in the center of the fiefs. No one crosses those borders.”

  “And the Shadows remain there?”

  “Not willingly. There are Towers in the fiefs. Six that we know of for certain. Some people believe there’s a seventh.”

  “In the center of the fiefs?”

  Kaylin nodded. The light shed by her sphere was strong enough to illuminate smooth, worn stone. It was natural stone; it hadn’t been laid in by masons. She closed her eyes as she heard the distant trickle of water. “The Towers are like the Hallionne. I don’t know if they were created the same way. Given the Avatar, I have my suspicions.”

  “They sleep, like the Hallionne.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “And they wake the same way?”

  She stopped. The Hallionne slept unless they were woken. Waking them wasn’t simple. It wasn’t a matter of shouting a few words or kicking the nearest wall. They woke to song—a specific song. Kaylin had seen and heard it performed by the Consort. The Consort and Nightshade, in harmony. By the end of it, the Consort looked as if she’d carried half her body weight on a twenty-mile forced march; she was exhausted.

  “Clearly not the same way,” she replied. “Have you heard the song of waking?”

  He blinked. She might have asked him if he’d ever drawn breath before. “Of course.”

  Teela’s glance was sharp. It implied a question, without vocalizing it.

  “Is there a song to put them back to sleep?”

  “No. They drift, if there is no one to converse with.” Pause. “Sometimes you can converse with the Hallionne while they sleep. Their answers, then, are different.”

  “And you conversed with the Castle while it was sleeping.”

  “Not on purpose.” He hesitated, and then added, “The imperatives of the Castle are not the imperatives of the Hallionne; the Hallionne were meant to protect anyone who dwelled within their walls. The Castle’s imperatives are less clear to me.”

  “Less clear how?”

  “It is listening,” he replied, after a long pause and another distinct glare from Teela. “It is listening for one voice.”

  “That’s not what I’ve been told.”

  “I do not know what you have been told. You have not spoken with this Castle before. Perhaps the Towers, like the Hallionne, are unique, and each has its own imperative.” He frowned. “You have not spoken with the Castle, but the Castle knows your voice. It has listened, while sleeping. It understands what you are.”

  “Please tell me you’re not talking with him now.”

  “No. I cannot hear him, not as I did before.”

  “Can he hear you?”

  Annarion glanced at the translucent sphere of words that surrounded them all. “I...do not think so. If he is like the Hallionne, he will be displeased.”

  “He’s not like the Hallionne,” Kaylin replied. “I don’t want him reading my mind.”

  “He will not hear anything that my brother’s servants do not think.”

  “He’ll hear a lot that they don’t think.” She continued to follow the rough stone tunnels as she spoke. They were wider than the tunnels at the heart of the green, and much taller. Nightshade, we’re leaving. I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave Annarion here.

  He will not thank you for his rescue.

  I don’t need his gratitude. I need to survive. I’m not sure I care if he does, but Teela won’t leave without him.

  Nightshade chuckled. Neither will you.

  She said nothing, frozen for one moment in the fiefs of her adolescence. And then, grimacing, she shook herself free. No, she wouldn’t leave him behind. She wouldn’t kill him. Not unless her survival depended on it—and maybe, if she was honest, not even then. She’d lived a life of fear, and fear had become the whole of her life until her life wa
sn’t worth anything to anyone—not even herself.

  She wouldn’t go back to that: fear living her life, instead of her.

  She knew Nightshade thought of it as a weakness. He thought of it as an amusing weakness, a charming flaw. It didn’t matter. Kaylin was not now, and would never be, Barrani. She had nothing to prove to Nightshade.

  She hoped she had nothing to prove to Nightshade.

  * * *

  The sound of water grew louder as they walked. “Whatever it was Mandoran tried to do or say to the elemental water,” she told Annarion, “avoid it. I think the water will carry us out of the Castle—but I’d really prefer not to be bashed against every bit of available rock on the way.”

  “My brother—”

  “Is going to be insulted if you finish that sentence. He’s Lord of the Castle; he has been for decades.”

  Centuries.

  Whatever.

  “And is he proof against the ancestors?”

  “Your brother? No. The Castle, yes.” She spoke with more certainty than she felt. It didn’t matter. In Annarion’s eyes, she was mortal—and at that, some variant of indentured.

  “Don’t ask me,” Teela told him—out loud and in Elantran. “Kaylin’s understanding of your brother far outpaces mine.”

  “But do you think he’ll be safe?”

  “If the ancestors are—as I suspect—awake? I can’t see how he could be. But Kaylin’s spent more time speaking with buildings, as well.”

  “I think the ancestors are here,” Kaylin told them both, “because they’re related to the Castle. Or what the Castle was before he became one of the sentinel Towers. I’m not as certain that he volunteered, the way the Hallionne did.”

  “Can Nightshade keep them here?”

  “It would be safer if he did not,” Annarion said.

  Kaylin stopped walking. It hadn’t even occurred to her that he wouldn’t try. “Safer for whom?”

  She felt Nightshade’s laughter. He was genuinely, if bitterly, amused.

  “Most of your kin are in this city,” she told him, with more heat than she’d intended.

  “He is one man,” Annarion replied. “The High Court is many. And if he is outcaste, he owes the High Court nothing.”

  “You don’t know why he’s outcaste.”

  “No. No more, I am certain, than do you.” Annarion’s eyes were an oddly luminescent blue. They were not a familiar Barrani color. “I am certain,” he said, voice low, “that there is a reason. I am certain that a mistake has been made.”

  He is young. He is...as I remember him. I am not, however, as he remembers me. I am a disappointment to him. It is...vexing. I should have known that he would react in precisely the way he has.

  You couldn’t have known that he could have this effect on the Castle.

  No. But the effect, as you call it, is secondary. I am reminded, now, of how I would have viewed the man I am now, when I was his age.

  Not well, I take it?

  No.

  Kaylin thought about what her thirteen-year-old self would think of her as she was now. The difference—at least in her case—was that she was certain her thirteen-year-old self would be wrong in every possible way. Except for the envy. She had the feeling that it wasn’t as cut-and-dried for the fieflord. And it was actively painful for his brother.

  Can you take control of the Castle?

  Yes. It is not, as you suspect, trivial. But the Castle requires a Lord. I believe such requirement is fundamental to its existence.

  And if the Castle prefers one of the two sleeping ancestors you have in your basement?

  I hope to render that irrelevant, he replied, with more ice. But I will owe you all a debt of gratitude if you preserve my brother.

  I think that’s going to be more challenging than—

  Yes. He is as I remember. He is the brother I worked, planned, and surrendered so much to save. I can remember the arguments we had in the past—now. For his part, they are similar to arguments we had with our parents. For mine, they are of necessity different. Immortals have the arrogance of assuming that nothing about them changes; he is proof that that is a lie we tell ourselves so thoroughly it feels like truth.

  I didn’t think the Barrani had a problem with lying.

  A lie that is planned has intelligence, intellect, and elegance—when used upon others. Preserve my brother, Kaylin, and I will be in your debt.

  She knew how Barrani felt about debt.

  Indeed. In this case I will discharge that debt with honor and gratitude. Anything less would be a severe disappointment to my brother, and I am uncertain that the fief would survive another such disagreement. You understand my attachment to Annarion, as does An’Teela. I believe the Consort has never doubted it. It is a weakness, Kaylin. A singular weakness. At the moment, I believe I could cheerfully strangle my brother—and I consider it my right. If I am not to have the satisfaction of destroying him, I will allow no others to do so.

  He’s not going to be happy if you don’t survive this.

  No. It is unusual for Barrani kin to form such strong attachments. Perhaps if he had lived as we had, he might be more pragmatic.

  Kaylin stubbed her toe. Cursing, she said, He’s just as pragmatic as you are. If I understand what’s happened, you spent centuries looking for a way to reach the brother you were certain was still alive when everyone else had given up on him. Don’t make him do the same thing.

  It would, in mortal parlance, serve him right. Go. You are the only occupant of this Castle who can exit safely this way.

  He fell silent. His words, however, would have failed to encapsulate what he felt. Annarion, altered or no, was the only surviving person for whom he was willing to risk his life. He was kin. He was family.

  The Barrani made show of disavowing all such ties, but Kaylin never had. In the absence of blood-ties, she built family wherever she could. It was the only way she could feel at home, that she could feel home meant something. So she understood what Nightshade would never put into words, and she had the words for it.

  She kept them to herself, but began to walk more quickly. Stopped. I don’t suppose there’s any way to get the Castle to make Annarion some clothing?

  I would not be willing to take that risk at the moment, was the dry reply. I am certain your Tara could do it.

  She considered showing up at this hour of the night on Tiamaris’s doorstep, and decided it could wait. The tunnel had finally opened up into cavern. She didn’t need the light to know that they’d reached the river; she could hear its roar.

  There were words in it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Without thought, she reached out and grabbed Annarion’s left wrist. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice low. “But—don’t speak. Don’t try to talk to the water.” When he failed to answer, she looked at him. His eyes were wide, but the rest of his expression might have been carved of stone.

  “Too late?” she asked Teela.

  Teela’s lips had thinned; where Annarion’s eyes were rounded, hers had narrowed. “If it helps, he thought he understood Mandoran’s mistake.”

  “So he needed to make a different one?”

  Severn cleared his throat, loudly. Water rose.

  It wasn’t clear water; it didn’t have the tranquil purity of the pond in Evanton’s Garden. Small rocks, rounded stones and bits of debris Kaylin couldn’t immediately identify given the speed of their movement, were contained within. But the swell at the water’s height wasn’t due to the speed at which it traversed the carved bedrock.

  Roiling water took shape as it rose. It didn’t splash; it didn’t shoot up the tunnel to dislodge them. The small dragon hissed in Kaylin’s ear.

  She wanted to send the small dragon toward the water, but she was afraid of losi
ng the sphere that protected them and granted them light. She knew that the power itself came from the marks that adorned her skin; she wasn’t certain if she had been the one to invoke it. She had her doubts.

  The small dragon didn’t apparently share them. He pushed himself off her shoulder, squawking loudly enough to be heard over the water’s roar. The water reached out to envelope him; he dived.

  “Teela—hang on to Annarion.” Kaylin handed his wrist to the Barrani Hawk. “Severn, hang on to me.”

  He sheathed his weapons. Against water, they weren’t going to be much use. He framed Kaylin’s waist with the palms of either hand. She walked toward the pillar of water that now stood in the riverbed.

  The small dragon squawked and squawked; his voice resembled a flock of angry pigeons. Or seagulls. Maybe seagulls. The water lifted an arm to swat him out of the way. It would have been funny at any other time, but as the arm came down on dry rock, the rock cracked beneath it.

  Kaylin couldn’t help it; she flinched. She knew what storms could do to ships in harbor. But rain had never killed her. Water, when it struck her, never stung. And the water here had been her first introduction to the Tha’alaan. She couldn’t be afraid of it.

  But she was. She was afraid of its anger.

  Fear or no, she knew there was a way through it. Like an elemental mother—like a loving mother, she silently corrected herself—the intensity of anger and rage had limits. She might scream at Kaylin in fury; she wouldn’t try to smash her to a pulp. She wouldn’t kill her.

  She believed that. But she’d never been good at approaching her own mother when her mother’s cheer had frayed and she had seen the anger and pain that lurked beneath it. That anger had terrified her child self.

  Did people ever truly grow up? Or did they just get better at dealing with life as life became familiar? The fear was just as strong now as it had been when she’d last seen her mother’s anger. But her mother’s anger had been infinitely preferable to her sudden, complete absence. Kaylin inhaled, clinging to that certainty.