Cast in Peril

Chapter 6

The sky was so gray, it was almost the color of silence. The rage bled away as Kaylin walked; it left a familiar despair in its wake.

It had never occurred to Kaylin, growing up in the streets of Nightshade, that a fief could be almost safe. But in Tiamaris, Ferals were hunted, and the ranks of those who formed Tiamaris’s unofficial guard force were growing; people wanted to hunt Ferals here; the young wanted to be heroes. Only the dangerously insane had ever done so in Nightshade, and in Kaylin’s admittedly small experience, they were just as likely to kill as the Ferals and for reasons that were just as clear.

In Tiamaris, people came to the fieflord—or Tara, at least—to report their missing parents.

Tiamaris had owned the fief for almost two months, if that, and these were the changes he had made. Dragons were a force of nature, as all Immortals were, but this Dragon, she understood and, in her own way, admired.

Nightshade had owned his fief for far longer than she had been alive. He could have made the fief an entirely different place, just as Tiamaris was attempting to do. He hadn’t. He had never particularly cared about the people who eked out a miserable existence in the streets surrounding his castle. They were mortal and no more important than any other insignificant and transitory possession.

The Ablayne came into view. She had seen it so often from the wrong side of its banks that it was almost a comfort. The bridge that crossed Tiamaris wasn’t empty, and the men—and women—who walked it weren’t attempting to be furtive. They walked it the way the citizens of Elantra walked to any job or to any market. They did blink a little when they saw Kaylin and Severn, but only because they wore the tabard of the Hawks.

With the streets of the city firmly beneath her feet, she relaxed—but not enough. “Will you go back to the office?” she asked.

“If you’d prefer,” he replied with only a small gap between question and answer to indicate hesitance.

She nodded, and he accompanied her down the riverside street until they reached a more familiar bridge. This one contained no foot traffic, no obvious guards, no carpenters or linguists; it was a bridge in name only and served as it had always served: as a wall, a way of keeping people in their respective homes.

“I’ll be fine,” she told Severn. “It’s not my death he wants.”

“You don’t know what he wants.”

It was true. She didn’t. “I don’t always know what I want.”

“No.” His smile was slight. “Mostly, people don’t.”

“Or they want the wrong things.”

“Wrong?”

“Things they can’t ever have. Safety. Security. Things to remain the same. Some things,” she added quickly. She turned to him at the foot of the bridge. “I want to stay where we are.”

He didn’t misinterpret, although he could have. Instead, to her surprise, he hugged her. She stiffened and then relaxed, slowly, into the warmth of it. “Don’t live in the past,” he told her.

“I’m not. It’s just—it’s part of me. I feel like I barely managed to step out of the shadows, all of them. Ferals, loss, myself. I was kept as an assassin. I’m now paid to protect people from what I once was—and I want that. You—” She swallowed.

“What I did for the Wolves wasn’t what you did for Barren.”

“Excepting the obvious, how was it different?”

“It was legal.”

“Technically, what I was doing was legal, as well. Barren was the Law.”

“Kaylin—”

“I know.” She pulled away, lifting a hand and forcing herself to smile. “We’re not doing it anymore. We’re Hawks now. I’m not Barren’s. You’re not—”

He lifted a finger to her mouth and the words ended abruptly. “Go ask what you need to ask. I’ll go to Missing Persons and file a report with Mallory and Brigit.”

* * *

It was hard to imagine that she’d once lived in Nightshade. She knew she had, but the visceral truth of life in its streets as an orphan had eased its constant grip; when she looked at the worn roads and old buildings, she could see them as they were, as they might have been in a different context. She could meet the furtive gazes of strangers, walk down the streets, and evince no surprise or dismay at the way the children and their minders fell silent, shrinking toward the cover of familiar doors or alleys to allow her to pass.

She’d been one of those children, although she’d played on the streets far less often. Some of the older minders—grandparents or great-aunts and -uncles—had been kind enough, but that kindness extended only as far as empty streets and a lack of Nightshade’s thugs. If necessary to preserve their own, they would have handed her over in a minute; it was a fact they all accepted.

Your kin wouldn’t, for the most part, although that was no guarantee of safety.

Now, Nightshade’s mark adorning her cheek, no one would touch her. Most of the people who sidled away had no idea what the mark meant, which was fair; Kaylin wasn’t clear on the concept, either. But Nightshade’s mortal thugs, and worse, his Barrani thugs, did. It gave her a freedom in the fief that she had never had and never thought to have anywhere on this side of the Ablayne.

That freedom extended all the way to Castle Nightshade.

The streets that surrounded the Castle itself were empty of all but the fortunate few who made small deliveries to the fieflord, and they didn’t stop to chat for a variety of reasons. They weren’t dressed as foreigners; they were dressed as fieflings. Any delivery made to Castle Nightshade implied wealth, and any wealth was a target. If you couldn’t be parted from your wealth while alive, death wasn’t much of an impediment.

She approached the guards who waited beyond the portcullis through which the open courtyard was visible. The portcullis served as the entrance to the Castle, but not in the traditional way. It was a portal that moved you from the street side of the metal bars to the inside of the Castle’s grand foyer, with a lot of nausea and magical discomfort in between.

Andellen was one of the two men who stood guard. He bowed. “Lord Kaylin.” The words immediately caused a similar bow in the other guard. Kaylin disliked the gesture, but understood that Andellen wasn’t offering it for the sake of her pride or her position. It was tradition, and given how little tradition existed in his life in the fiefs, she tried hard not to begrudge it.

“Lord Andellen.”

“Lord Nightshade is waiting.”

She grimaced. “Of course he is.”

* * *

Passage through the portal was always disorienting, in part because Castle Nightshade’s architecture wasn’t fixed. Like the Tower of Tiamaris, it shifted in place, responding to the desire or command of its Lord. The foyer was the only part of the Castle that Kaylin was certain remained the same between visits: it was too loud, too ostentatious, and far too bright. Large didn’t matter.

She kept this to herself as she rose unsteadily to her feet, wondering, as she often did, if Nightshade deliberately made the portal passage as nauseating as possible to give himself the edge in any negotiations or conversations.

“I hardly think it required,” was his amused—but chilly—reply. He was, of course, standing beneath the chandeliers. But his eyes were a shade of blue at odds with the situation, and the color immediately put Kaylin on guard.

“You are cautious,” he replied, “as is your wont.” He offered her an arm. If she maintained physical contact with Nightshade, the Castle didn’t throw up new doors or halls and didn’t distort the ones she’d seen before. She reached for the bend of his elbow and stopped as the small dragon reared up on its unimpressive legs, extending his head, his small jaws snapping at air. It was, sadly, the air directly between Kaylin and the Lord of the Castle.

“What is this?” he asked softly, his brows folding in almost open surprise—for a Barrani.

“My newest roommate,” she replied tersely. She pulled her hand back, and the small dragon settled—slowly—around the back of her neck, looping his tail around the front.

“It lives with you?”

She had not come to the Castle to talk about the small dragon. “Yes.”

“I…see.” He withdrew the offered arm. “Are you aware of what it is?”

“A small, winged lizard,” she replied. The small dragon hissed, but did so very quietly. She knew Nightshade would have some interest in the small creature, and at the moment, she didn’t care. A cold certainty had settled into the center of her chest, constricting breath.

His expression chilled. “You are, in the parlance of mortal Elantra, in a mood.”

“I’m angry, yes.”

“Have I done something to merit your anger?” As he spoke, he walked; if she wished to continue the conversation, she had no choice but to follow. “Have you made preparations for our journey to the West March?”

It wasn’t the question she’d expected. “I’ve been given a leave of absence from the Halls of Law, yes. I will be traveling with Teela.” The halls of the Castle looked almost familiar, and they led to the room in which Nightshade habitually received guests. Or at least guests who wore the tabard of the Hawk on the other side of the bridge.

“That is not entirely what I meant.” He led her to the long couch in front of the flat, perfect table that graced the room’s center. There, silvered trays held very tastefully arranged bread, nuts, and flowers.

“You know that the High Court is traveling there.”

“Indeed.”

“How exactly are you going to survive?”

“Is my survival of concern to you?” He smiled.

She ignored the question and the smile; the latter was harder. “You’re Outcaste, and even if the Barrani don’t view Outcastes the way the Dragons do, they won’t be able to ignore your existence if you’re constantly in their presence.”

“No,” he agreed. “Be that as it may, I have reasons to believe in this case they will hold enmity and decree in abeyance.”

“Reasons you’d like to share?”

“At this point, Private Neya, you would not understand them; I believe they will become clear with time. My status, however, given the debt owed you by the High Lord, should not materially affect your own.”

She lifted a hand to her cheek, which deepened his smile and lightened the color of his eyes. “Yes.” The smile faded. “It is not, however, concern for my welfare that brought you to my Castle.”

“No. You already know what I want to ask.”

His eyes, when they met hers, were dark, his expression smooth and cool as winter stone. “Ask,” he said softly. When her silence extended for minutes beyond awkward, he smiled. It was thin. “I would not have all effort in this conversation be mine. You made a decision, Kaylin. You have come to my fief, my Castle, to ask a simple question. Ask. I will not lie.”

She exhaled. “There’s been a series of disappearances in Tiamaris.”

His expression didn’t shift. At all. “Continue.”

“One of the people who disappeared in the fief wasn’t a native. He crossed the bridge on a dare.”

At that, Nightshade frowned. “That is unfortunate.”

“Is it more unfortunate than the other disappearances?”

“Of course. That mortal was a citizen of the Empire over which a Dragon claims ownership.”

“And the others were citizens of a fief over which a different Dragon claims ownership.”

“A Dragon who is in the unheard-of position of also owing loyalty to the Eternal Emperor. I do not envy him the loss of an Imperial citizen within the boundaries of his fief; he will almost certainly be called upon to explain it.”

“An explanation has presented itself.”

She felt him stiffen, although nothing about his expression or posture changed at all.

“And that?”

“A Barrani Lord of some power appears to have been involved.”

“Ah. You call him a Lord?”

“The Barrani who have power aren’t generally content to let it remain unrecognized.”

His smile was slender, sharp, and laced with an odd approval. “True. Why do you believe a Barrani Lord to be involved?”

“Because you do,” she replied, the words as tight and sharp as his smile.

“Perhaps that is merely the arrogance of my kind.” He rose. “If events are of significance, of consequence, we assume our own to have a hand in them.”

“So do we. Your own.” She could find no warmth with which to smile. “I saw him.”

Once again he stilled. “You…saw him? The Barrani you accuse?”

“I saw him,” she repeated, “in the border zone.”

* * *

After a significant pause, Nightshade spoke. “You are so certain, Kaylin, that the individual you saw in the border zone was Barrani?”

In response, she folded her arms. “I am.”

“The border areas are often…amorphous. What is seen—”

“I don’t want to play this game.”

“Ah.” A brief smile. “Which game, then, would you indulge in, in its stead?”

“You’re aware that I’m currently resident in the Imperial Palace?”

The smile vanished. “I was not.”

“You are aware that the only home I’ve ever had I could truly call my own was destroyed yesterday?”

Silence. It was not an awkward silence—but it was. Nightshade resumed his seat, the table dividing them. “I was not.” He glanced at the small dragon. “How was it destroyed?”

“An Arcane bomb.” Her throat was inexplicably tight; it was hard to force words out. The small dragon rubbed the underside of her jaw with the top of his head.

He asked nothing, watching her.

“The magical signature left in the wake of the bomb is not currently in the records of the Imperial Order.”

He nodded, as if the information were irrelevant.

“But that same magical signature can be found in the fief of Tiamaris, near the border, where I saw the Barrani we believe to be involved in the disappearances.”

“And your question?”

“People have been disappearing from the fief of Tiamaris for the past week—that we’re aware of. How long have people gone missing from your streets?”

“If I say they have not?”

“I’ll redefine the word ‘missing.’” She pushed herself to her feet, feeling too confined by the stillness enforced by sitting. “Was the unnamed Barrani Lord buying people from your fief?”

“It is not, in the fief of Nightshade, an illegal activity. Imperial Laws have no jurisdiction here. Nor do they in any other fief; Lord Tiamaris may style himself after Imperial rule, but it is choice, not dictate.”

“Is Imperial gold currently in what passes for your coffers?”

“We use the resources we have, Kaylin, and we sacrifice the things of lesser import to us.”

She swallowed.

“You have done the same in your short past. Perhaps you comfort yourself by telling yourself you had no choice. If it will comfort you in a like fashion, pretend that I, likewise, felt I had no choice.”

“How?”

“Pardon?”

“How am I supposed to pretend that? You’re the fieflord here. If someone came to threaten you—in any way—the Castle would probably eat them. They wouldn’t make it out alive unless it also suited your purpose. You won’t—you probably can’t—starve. You won’t freeze. All-out magical assault probably couldn’t destroy these walls.

“Given all that, how am I supposed to pretend you had no choice?”

He raised a brow. “I am almost surprised that you’ve considered making that effort. Very well. Some two or three dozen of the people who live in the fief have been extracted from its streets, with my permission. I received compensation for their loss.”

“Where were they sent?”

“Why do you suppose they were sent anywhere?”

“Because there’s a door in Tiamaris that opens into the outlands.”

Nightshade’s eyes were indigo. “Do not go near that door,” he said, all pretense of civility lost. “Do not touch it.”

“It’s not in your fief, and yes, Tiamaris is well aware of its existence. He protects his citizens.”

“As the shepherd protects his sheep.”

Stung, she said, “No. As a decent ruler protects his people.”

“Is there no difficulty within this city that will not, eventually, entangle you? I ask it, Kaylin, if I cannot command it. You do not understand the danger.”

“I understand it better than any of the people who were lost to it!”

“Kaylin.” He rose, and the way he stood made her conscious of the difference in their height, their weight, and their reach. She stiffened, bending at the knees as if she would, at any minute, have to throw herself bodily out of harm’s reach. The small dragon reared once again, spreading his wings just behind her head, like a slender, glass fan.

Nightshade ignored him this time.

The small dragon had ways of making himself heard, at least when he wanted Kaylin’s attention; Nightshade, however, was not the kind of man one bit on the ear or chin. Instead of maintaining his rigid posture on her left shoulder, the familiar launched himself into the closing space between the fieflord and the Hawk, buoying himself up with the silent motion of delicate, translucent wings.

He looked, to Kaylin’s eye, tiny and fragile in his defiance, and she almost reached out to grab him and pull him back, but she didn’t want to injure those wings.

What Nightshade saw must have been different; he froze in place, lifting a hand as if to indicate harmlessness. Kaylin didn’t buy it. The small dragon wasn’t buying it, either. He lifted his neck and looked down at the fieflord before opening his jaws to exhale. The motion was that of a dragon in miniature, but what he exhaled, along with his high-pitched, barely audible roar, was not a gout of flame; it was smoke.

Opalescent, swirling gray spread like a dense cloud before Nightshade; it was amorphous enough—barely—that Kaylin could see the rise of the fieflord’s brows, the widening of his eyes. He moved—he leapt—to the left, rolling across the floor and coming to his feet as if he were an acrobat.

The dense smoke didn’t follow him, but it didn’t really dissipate, either; it hung in the air like a small cloud. A small, glittering cloud. They both stared at the small dragon, who pirouetted in the air, which was the only time he took his eyes off the fieflord.

Nightshade spoke three sharp words; the hair on the back of Kaylin’s neck instantly stood on end, and the skin across her forearms and legs went numb. The small dragon yawned and returned to his customary perch, which would be her rigid shoulders. He rubbed her cheek with the side of his face.

Three lines appeared beneath the cloud, pulsing as if they were exposed golden veins. Nightshade spread his hands; his fingers were taut but steady. His eyes were a blue that was so close to black Kaylin couldn’t tell the difference. All her anger—her visceral, instinctive rage—guttered. The whole of his attention was focused on the cloud, and as he moved his hands, the lines that enclosed it shifted in place, until they touched its outer edge. When they did, their color began to change. It was a slow shift from gold to something that resembled the heart of a hearth fire.

Nightshade spoke softly in Barrani; the words were so low Kaylin couldn’t catch them. The magical lines engraved in air brightened, losing their red-orange tint.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice almost as low as his. Barrani had better hearing.

“Step away from the containment,” he told her. “If you do not know what it is, I have some suspicion. It is not safe, not even in the Castle.” Although he spoke to her, he didn’t take his eyes off the cloud. Not even when the small dragon squawked. “You are mortal,” he continued. “Mortals walk the edge of hope; it is a sharp edge.

“The question you came to ask has only one answer—an answer you knew before you arrived. Would it truly have offered any comfort were I to lie? Or would your hope blind you so badly you might choose to believe?”