He didn’t rise, but he did smile as Kaylin found her feet again and began to approach. She was almost shocked when the consort walked past Vanyor and opened her arms; she was shocked when the consort hugged her. The Barrani were elegant and beautiful—but they were always distant.
Shock didn’t stop her from returning the hug, however.
“Lord Kaylin,” the consort said, when she at last let go. She took a step back and looked at what Kaylin was wearing, but even the very, very practical clothing didn’t cause her to stiffen or frown. “You have been away from Court.”
She hadn’t been to Court since she’d left. This was the first time she’d regretted it. “I’m sorry,” she said, sliding into Elantran. There was no easy way to offer an apology in High Barrani.
The consort, to her surprise, slid into Elantran, as well. “You’ve been busy?”
“Very.”
“The midwives?”
“The midwives, the foundling hall, and my job.”
“Ah. But you are not wearing the Hawk.”
“No. Where I’m going today—besides here,” she added quickly, “it’s not really appreciated.”
At this, the consort’s fair skin paled slightly. It didn’t make her any less beautiful, but it was a beauty it was impossible to envy or resent. “I see your Lord Severn is with you.”
“He’s not my Lord,” Kaylin said quickly.
Severn, however, bowed. It was a Barrani bow, and it was—damn him anyway—perfect. “It is,” he said, in High Barrani, “my privilege. We must beg your pardon,” he added, “for our interruption.”
“Then you will not be staying.”
“To our great regret,” he replied carefully, “no.”
She nodded as if she expected no less, and turned back to the High Lord, who was now silent as he observed them. “Come,” she said, looking at Kaylin over her shoulder. “He is waiting.”
The bow that she’d failed to offer the consort—if for no other reason than that bows were really awkward when one was being hugged—Kaylin now offered the High Lord. There weren’t a lot of Barrani present, but she was certain they’d all be watching and taking notes, and she tried her best not to embarrass him. He nodded, and she rose.
His eyes were emerald green, but they were flecked with golden light, as if they reflected the spirit of the garden over which he presided. “Lord Kaylin,” he said softly. “The Lord of the West March sends his regards.”
“He’s not here?”
“He has returned to the lands over which he rules.” He paused, and then added, with a glance at his consort, “It is likely he will return for the Festival. He has grown curious about mortals in the past months.” He gestured at a low table on which food had silently and magically appeared. It wasn’t actual magic—she’d’ve felt that—but it might as well have been, for all she’d noticed. That was the trouble with Barrani; they were distracting. At the very least.
“Sit with us,” he added. “If you require privacy, the Court will grant it for the space of a simple meal.”
It wasn’t an order, but she obeyed anyway.
“You are not…attired…for visiting.”
She glanced at him. “No,” she said quietly. “I’m not Barrani—I can’t effortlessly fight in anything I happen to be wearing.”
“You expect to fight?”
She nodded, and then, seeing the subtle shift in his expression, quickly added, “Not here.”
“May I ask where?”
“The fiefs.” And then, because she was aware of her relationship to Lord Nightshade, she also added, “The fief of Barren.” One day, she thought with a grimace, she would plan out entire conversations in advance.
He glanced at the consort. Although the glance was brief, even Kaylin could see it was significant. “There has been difficulty in the fief you name?”
Her gaze narrowed. She glanced around, briefly, to see who was close enough to hear her. Severn. She slid into Elantran. “I’d guess you already know the answer to that.”
He raised a dark brow, but didn’t bother to deny it; she took the subtle criticism of her change in language as well as could be expected.
“It was my understanding—our understanding,” he added, nodding to the consort, “that you continued your employ in the Halls of Law.”
“I’m still a Hawk.”
He looked at the ring on her hand, and nodded. “So I see. It was also our understanding that the Imperial Laws and edicts do not—and cannot—extend into the fiefs.”
Since it had been one of her pet peeves for the entire duration of her time in the Halls, she grimaced. “It’s true.”
“And yet you intend to travel directly to the fiefs from the High Halls.”
She nodded.
“This is therefore not a matter of Law.”
Severn cleared his throat. “It is not a matter for the Hawks,” he replied. “Not all of the Imperial edicts stop at the borders.”
The castelord nodded. He rose, walked to the table, and began to pour wine. If Severn hadn’t stilled in the silent way he did when he was shocked, Kaylin wouldn’t have paid much attention. But he did.
“Will you take wine? Sweet water?”
“Water,” she told him.
Severn stepped on her foot.
“Water, please.”
Oddly enough, the pressure on her foot didn’t ease much. But the castelord did return with her water, which she took. She found a patch of very soft grass—moss soft, and almost hypnotically soothing to the touch—and sank into it, near the feet of the consort. Which, she suddenly noted, were bare.
“This is going to be tricky,” she told the castelord. “And it’s possible I might say something that either gives offense or crosses a line that I can’t see. I apologize for both in advance; if the situation weren’t so bad, I wouldn’t have come here at all. Not,” she added quickly, “to talk about this. I would have visited, though.” She said this last to the consort.
The consort laughed. “Kaylin,” she said, when the laughter had died into a quiet smile. “There is no one at Court like you. I would greatly appreciate your presence here.”
“Because they’ll have someone else to focus their anger on?”
She laughed again. “Something very like that, yes.” Friendly or no, she was still Barrani. “You will be excused much for your ignorance of our customs, and strange though it may sound, were you to emulate the Barrani perfectly in every way, you would upset a larger number of people.
“They would, however, be less likely to openly share their displeasure.” She glanced at the High Lord, and her expression lost some of its amusement. “Yes,” she said quietly. “We are aware that there has been growing difficulty in the fiefs. We have some measure of protection against the possible danger of a fief failing to hold the border—but it has not been tested.”
The consort’s knee was at Kaylin’s eye level, which, in the end, wasn’t entirely comfortable. Kaylin rose. “High Lord,” she said, because she didn’t actually know his name, “you’re of course aware of Lord Nightshade and the position he occupies in the fiefs.”
“We are. We are aware, as well, of the nature of your own relationship to the fief and its Lord.”
“Were you, at one point in time, aware in the same way of Lord Illien and the position he also occupied in the fief of Illien?”
Silence. It was the usual type of silence that implied, if not guilt, then a lot of hidden—and relevant—information. She kept her voice steady, and her hands by her sides, as she continued to speak. “We don’t have a lot of experience with the fiefs or the fief lords. I probably have more than most people present. And I have no experience at all with Illien, because according to what I know of the fiefs, he should be dead.”
More silence, but this time, she expected it.
“Or I should say, according to what I knew of the fiefs. Fief Law is pretty simple—if you’re powerful enough, you rule. If you rule, it means the previous fief lo
rd wasn’t powerful enough to stop you.”
“Which sounds familiar,” the consort said, with a wry half smile.
“Should. Although to be fair, it sounds familiar in any culture except possibly the Tha’alani.” She hesitated, and then added, “And maybe the Aerians.” She took a deep breath. “I need to know what you know about Illien.” She refrained from using the word undying, although it was difficult.
But the High Lord—the man who had been, until his father’s death, the Lord of the Green—studied her in silence for a while. “Very well,” he said at last. “I owe you that much, Kaylin Neya, midwife.” He rose. “Follow.”
She glanced at the table of food that she hadn’t touched yet, and then shrugged. Severn had said nothing, and judging by his expression, wouldn’t start now.
The High Lord led them from the gardens, and into the wide, tall hallways that were adorned with statues, marble floors, and living flowers. He passed through them, the consort at his side, until the halls changed in texture. Kaylin had a suspicion she knew where they were going. Nor was she wrong. The High Lord led her from the gorgeous, open halls into halls that seemed older and darker; they were also shorter. The stonework was smooth, but seemed rough and lifeless.
“This is where I first met you,” Kaylin said quietly.
“Indeed.”
“But why—”
“It is, of all rooms in the Halls, one of the safest.”
And one of the darkest and most disturbing. Which would probably be the ideal definition of safety for the Barrani, she thought with a grimace.
He opened the single, thick door, and entered, clapping his hands twice to encourage what light there was to shine. It was a sickly light, a green-white that never really illuminated, and it was contained on a series of poles. She thought those poles might once have been home to torches, but couldn’t be sure.
As her eyes acclimatized themselves to this new light, she saw the circle engraved on the floor, its carved runes both reflecting and hoarding the glow. The High Lord stepped over the circle without touching those runes, and lifted a hand when Kaylin followed; she stopped at the circle’s edge. The consort’s hand was on her arm to restrain her in case she hadn’t gotten the hint.
Her skin began to itch, although the High Lord hadn’t gestured or spoken. His eyes were now the same green as the light, which wasn’t a comfort.
“You remember our first meeting,” he said, turning back to face them as they stood on the circle’s periphery. It wasn’t a question. Kaylin nodded. “You understood what I had attempted. I know that you are not fond of Lord Evarrim, but it was Evarrim who, in the end, saved me.”
It was hard for Kaylin to accept that a man who was so obviously in love with his own power could expend that power for anything useful.
“But you’ve seen the undying,” he continued. Again, it wasn’t a question.
This time, when she nodded, she added, “I’m not sure how you know that.”
“It’s of little consequence.” Meaning he wasn’t about to tell her. Fine. “You’ve seen—you’ve touched—the water of life.”
Kaylin glanced at the consort, who nodded.
“But even so, you are mortal. You do not, perhaps cannot, understand the significance of our names. Our true names,” he added. “They are a gift and a trap. You understood why I attempted to divest myself of my own.”
She nodded because she did. The High Lord—the Lord of the Green—at least made sense, to her. She couldn’t imagine why any other Barrani would try.
“What do you wish to know about Illien?”
“I think he is—was—undying.”
The pause was slight, but she marked it. “He was not, when he first entered the fiefs. He was not when he first defeated the fief lord he found there and claimed the Tower as his own.”
Her brows rose at his words. “Did you—did you know him?”
He laughed. The consort, standing beside Kaylin, frowned slightly. “Oh, yes. There were four of our kin who entered the fiefs, and they will never return. You have met one, Lord Nightshade. He is as he was before he fled the Court. But you have yet to meet the others. You have not, I think, met Illien.”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Lord Nightshade is not free to return to the High Halls. It would be his death, unless the circumstances were so profoundly grim that his death would harm us all. Illien was not Outcaste when he chose to wander across the river. He found the fief. I believe, in some sense, it called to him, but that is not clear to me.”
“The other Barrani?”
But he shook his head. “You will discover them in time, or you will not. I hope, for your sake, you do not.”
She nodded. Hesitated.
“Ask.”
“Why did they leave? I understand why Nightshade did—I can guess the fate of Barrani Outcaste, and it probably isn’t pleasant. He’s not a man to accept anyone else’s judgment of his actions.”
The High Lord nodded. “And perhaps that is why Lord Nightshade remains as he was. He did not seek the fiefs for power or knowledge. He sought them strategically.” He paused for a moment, and the lights in the room grew brighter. They were still a faintly repulsive color, on the other hand.
“Illien?”
“Illien was a dreamer. Not in the way of mortals. His dreams were larger, deeper, and harsher. What we—in the High Halls—understand of the fiefs, we understand because of Illien. He went to study them, some time ago. The mortal city had failed to catch his interest, and the politics of the Court, in his own words, bored him, they had become so insipid.
“He had spent years in the West Marches, and before that, decades in the wilderness beyond the Empire. He was considered an expert, in a fashion, about the Dragons, our ancient enemies. He was not—could not—be entirely comfortable in a city in which a Dragon claimed ownership of all.
“Let me add that many of our kin sympathized with this—they are not all young, and they are not all foolish. We suffered great losses at the hands of the Dragons.”
“They probably suffered similar at yours.”
He shrugged. Unlike Kaylin’s fief gesture, his was smooth and elegant—but it amounted to the same thing. “My father, the previous High Lord, saw the benefit of the Dragon Emperor. The Dragon Emperor does not visit the High Halls, and he does not interfere in internal Barrani affairs. He was not of a mind to intrigue against the Emperor, except as it suited his purposes in the Court political structure.
“I am not my father. I accept the Dragon Emperor and his claim.” The High Lord turned, as if he heard something that even Kaylin couldn’t hear. “The Halls beneath are restless,” he said after a moment.
The consort lifted a hand, and he shook his head; she was slow to lower it.
“I understand why the Emperor chose to build his city here. I understand why the High Halls stand as they stand. And I understand, in some small part, the nature of the fiefs. It is why we can prepare at all.” He paused. “Understand, Kaylin,” he said, as he turned to face her. She took a step back, because the emerald of his eyes was now laced with dark shadows, glints of ebony. “That the holding of a true name is not a simple affair. Stories say that when you know the true name of another living being, you can compel him to the action of your desire. I believe you understand why this is not always true.”
“Some names are…too big.”
“Yes. But if there is balance, the binding works both ways. I remember,” he added, “some part of what the Other knew. It is not knowledge that the High Halls have had before, not in this fashion. Nor would I suggest it in future,” he added, with a grim smile. “But he held my name, in secret, for many years.”
She nodded.
“I did not, and could not, hold his. He has no name.” He glanced at her, as if testing her reaction. What he was looking for, she didn’t know.
“He’s—it’s—an Old One. Do they even have names?”
“We don’t know. Not even
the most ancient of Dragons does. What information we once might have possessed, we lost in the shadowstorms and the wars. It did not seem entirely relevant at the time—the Old Ones were lost. They were gone.”
“They’re not entirely gone.”
He nodded. She didn’t like the color of his eyes. “Illien was undying, in the end. He was not undying when he found his way across the Ablayne; he was not undying when he took—and held—the Tower.”
“Did he tell you what the Tower was?”
The High Lord laughed. It was a brief burst of sound, startling when coming from a Barrani. “Yes, Kaylin. Has Lord Nightshade never told you what his Castle is?”
“It’s his,” she replied with a shrug. And then, because it was important, she set the fief attitude aside. “It conforms to him. It’s not entirely solid—it changes shape. The halls move.”
He waited, but she fell silent. “You have described the Castle, to some extent,” he said when her pause had grown long enough. “And in your fashion, you have answered my question. Let me tell you what the Tower of Illien was, for Illien.”
She nodded, glancing once at Severn, who was now utterly impassive.
“It was—as no doubt Castle Nightshade is—far larger on the interior than the exterior suggests. When he wrested control of the Tower away from its former occupant—”
“Barrani?”
“No. When he wrested control of the Tower from its former occupant, the Tower began to shift and change. He had expected something of the sort,” he added quietly. “And if I were to guess—for he never put it in words—he enjoyed his early occupation. The fief itself was not of concern to Illien, not at the time. But the Tower was.
“I am under no illusion. I do not, nor would I, claim to know all that Illien knew. He was Barrani, as am I. But in part, his love was the ancient and the powerful, and he was drawn to the fiefs because they stood against the rule of the Dragon Emperor. I think he thought he might find freedom there.”
“It wasn’t freedom he found,” Severn said, speaking for the first time.
The High Lord raised a brow. “You are perhaps mistranslating. It is a failure with the spoken word. Freedom, for the Barrani, is power. Without power, you are beholden to others, and you live—and die—at their whim. You are aware, Kaylin, that this City, in one form or another, has existed for a long time.” It wasn’t a question.
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