Selected praise for Michelle Sagara’s

CAST IN

SHADOW

“Intense, fast-paced, intriguing, compelling and hard to put down, Cast in Shadow is unforgettable.”

—In the Library Reviews

“Michelle Sagara has created one of the most intriguing worlds I have ever read.”

—Fallen Angel Reviews

“Deep, dense and passionate …”

—Romantic Science Fiction and Fantasy

“No one provides an emotional payoff like Michelle Sagara. Combine that with a fast-paced police procedural, deadly magics, five very different races and a wickedly dry sense of humor—well, it doesn’t get any better than this.”

—Bestselling author Tanya Huff

About the Author

Michelle Sagara has written fourteen novels since 1991, when her first book, Into the Dark Lands, was published. She’s written a quarterly book review column for the venerable Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for a number of years, as well as dozens of short stories (or novellas, to be more exact).

In 1986 she started working in an SF specialty bookstore, where she continues to work to this day. She loves reading, is allergic to cats (very, which means they crawl all over her), is happily married, has two lovely children, and has spent all of her life in her native Toronto–none of it on Bay Street.

She started reading fantasy almost as soon as she could read, and fell instantly in love with Narnia; her next fantasy discovery was Patricia McKillip’s Forgotten Beasts of Eld. She moved on to The Hobbit, which led to her discovery of the life-changing The Lord of the Rings.

Her greatest hope for her writing is that someone will read it and be moved by the same sense of magic and mystery that she finds in the books she loves.

She will talk about writing, bookselling and books forever if given a chance. You’ve been warned.

Cast in

Shadow

Michelle

Sagara

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This is for Chris Szego, who read it first, and gave me exactly the encouragement I needed at exactly the right time.

Acknowledgments

Terry Pearson, Tanya Huff and

Rhiannon Rasmussen all read the initial

proposal and outline while I fretted, because

I’m good at that. The fretting. They even

wanted to read more, and did. Also, my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, for giving the book a home, and for asking the right questions to keep it on track. Consider them the away team for this book.

The home team: My husband, Thomas West

(whose last name I also write under),

my children, my parents and my son’s

godfather, John Chew, and his wife, Kristen;

my brother Gary and his wife, Ayami.

The Tuesday night and Thursday night crew.

Thanks.

CHAPTER
1

Black circles under the eyes were not, Kaylin decided, a very attractive statement. Neither was hair matted with old sweat, or eyes red with lack of sleep. She accepted the fact that on this particular morning, mirrors were not going to be her friend. Luckily, she didn’t have many of them in the small quarters she called home. She got out of bed slowly, studiously avoided the short hall that led from her bolted doors to the kitchen, the closets and the large space she lived in otherwise, and lifted clothing from beneath a rumpled pile, examining it carefully.

It sort of looked clean.

She pulled the linen tunic over her head, cursed as her hair caught in the strings that secured it and yanked, hard. Shadows fell over the ledge of her single window, stretching across the floor at an ominous angle. She was going to be late. Again.

Pants were less tricky; she only had a few, and chose the black leather ones. They were, at the moment, the only ones she owned that weren’t cut, torn or bloody.

She’d have to ask Iron Jaw for a better clothing allowance. Or more time to spend the pittance she did have.

The mirror in the hall began to glow, and she cursed under her breath. She’d clearly have to ask him on a different morning.

“Coming,” she muttered.

The mirror flashed, light hanging in the room like an extended, time-slowed bolt of lightning. Iron Jaw was in a lousy mood, and it wasn’t even lunch. He hated to use the mirrors.

She buttoned up her pants, pulled on her boots and sidled her way toward the mirror, hoping that the light was the effect of lack of sleep. Not much hope there, really.

“Kaylin, where the hell have you been?”

No, the mirror this morning was definitely not her friend. She pulled her hair up, curled it in a tight bun and shoved the nearest stick she could find through its center. Then she picked up the belt on the table just to the left of that mirror and donned it, adjusting dagger hilts so they didn’t butt against her lower ribs.

“Kaylin Neya, you’d better answer soon. I know you’re there.”

Putting on her best we-both-know-it’s-fake smile, she walked over to the mirror and said, sweetly, “Good morning, Marcus.”

He growled.

Not a particularly encouraging sign, given that Marcus was Leontine, and had a bad habit of ripping the throats out of people who were stupid enough to annoy him. His lower fangs were in evidence as he snarled. But his eyes, cat eyes, were wide and unblinking in the golden fur that adorned his face, and his fur was not—yet—standing on end. His hands, however, were behind his back, and his broad chest was adorned with the full flowing robes of the Hawks.

Official dress. In the morning. Gods, she was going to be in trouble.

“Morning was two hours ago,” he snapped.

“You’re in fancy dress,” she said, changing the subject about as clumsily as she ever did.

“And you look like shit. What the hell were you doing last night?”

“None of your business.”

“Good answer,” he growled. “Why don’t you try it on the Hawklord?”

She groaned. “What day is it?”

“The fourth,” he replied.

Fourth? She counted back, and realized that she’d lost a day. Again. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?”

“Brains,” he snapped. “And survival instinct. The Hawklord’s been waiting for you for three hours.”

“Tell him I’m dead.”

“You will be if you don’t get your ass in here.” He muttered something else, a series of growls that she knew, from experience, meant something disparaging about humans. She let it pass.

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Dressed like that? You’ll be out in thirty-five. On your ass.”

She put her palm on the mirror’s surface, cutting him off and scattering his image. Then she went to her closet and began to really move.

Bathed, cleaned, groomed and in the full dress uniform of the Hawks—which still involved the only intact pants she owned—Kaylin approached the front of the forbidding stone halls ruled by the three Lords of Law: The Lord of Wolves, the Lord of Swords and the Lord of Hawks. At least that’s what they were called on official documents and in polite company, of which Kaylin knew surprisingly little.

The Swords were the city’s peacekeepers, something ill-suited to Kaylin; the Wolves were its hunters, and often, its killers. And the Hawks? The city’s eyes. Ears. The people who actually solved crimes.

Then again, she would think that; Kaylin had been a Hawk for the entire time she’d been involved on the right side of the law, and didn’t speak about the years that preceded it much.

By writ of the Emperor of Karaazon, the Halls of Law were the only standing structures allowed to approach the height of the Imperial palace, and the three towers, set against a wide stretch of expensive ground in the shape of a triangle, flew the flags of the Lords of Law: the Hawk, the Wolf and the Sword. From her vantage, they could hardly be seen; she was too close. But from the rest of the city? They never rested.

Neither, she thought, did the people who served them. She was damn tired.

The front doors were always manned, and she recognized Tanner and Clint as they lowered their pole-arms, barring her way. It was the Hawk’s month for guard duty; they shared rotation of that honor with the Swords. The Wolves, lazy bastards, weren’t considered fit for dress duty. Or ritual entries.

She hated ritual.

Clint and Tanner didn’t love it much better than she did.

“Kaylin, where the hell have you been?” Tanner asked. It was the refrain that punctuated too much of her daily existence.

“Getting cleaned up, if you must know.”

Tanner was, at six and a half feet, tall even for a human. His helm was strictly a dress helm, and it gleamed bronze in the afternoon sunlight, running from the capped height of his head down the line of his nose, as if it were a bird’s mask. To either side of the metal, his eyes were a dark, deep brown.

Clint shook his head, and the glinting helm’s light left an after-image in her vision. But he smiled. He was about two inches shorter than Tanner, and his skin was the dark ebony of the Southern stretch. She loved the sound of his voice, and he knew it.

It wasn’t the only thing she loved about him.

“You’ve got to give up the moonlighting,” he told her.

“When the pay here doesn’t suck.”

He laughed out loud, his halberd shaking as he began to lift it. “You really didn’t get much sleep, did you? Iron Jaw has ears like a Barrani—he’ll have your hide on his wall as a dartboard.”

She rolled her eyes. “Can I go now?”

“Your doom,” he said, his voice still sweet with the sound of amused laughter. But his expression gained a moment’s gravity as he leaned forward and lowered that voice into a fold of deep velvet. “Sesti told me.”

“Sesti told you what?”

“What you were doing the past two days.”

“Tell her to piss off next time you see her.”

He laughed again. She could spend all day making him laugh, just for the thrill of the deep rich tones of that voice. But if she did it today? It would be her last day. She smiled. “That won’t be until his naming day.” Aerian men were forbidden the birthing caves—unless those caves held the dead or the dying. Even then, they could come to claim their wives, no more. Kaylin had never understood this.

“When are you off duty?” she asked him.

“About two hours.”

“You haven’t been home yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Sesti had a boy. Healthy, but his feathers were a mess. Took us three hours to clean ‘em down.”

“Always does,” he said with an affectionate shrug. “Go on. Iron Jaw’s been biting anyone who gets in reach.”

She nodded, walked past and then turning, reached out to touch the soft, ash gray of Clint’s wings. They snapped up and out beneath her fingers.

“You haven’t changed in seven years,” he told her, turning. “Don’t touch the flight feathers.”

If the exterior of the Halls of Law was forbidding, the interior was hardly less so. The front doors opened into a hall that not even cathedrals could boast. It rose three storeys, and across its vaulted ceilings, frescoes had been painted—Hawk, Wolf and Sword, trailing light and shadow in a grim depiction of various hunts. Sunlight streamed in from a window that was at least as tall, and certainly more impressive; the colors of the paint were protected from sunlight, and always on display, a reminder to newcomers of what the Halls meant to those who displeased their rulers.

But this hall was not meant to intimidate; it was built with a practical purpose in mind—which wasn’t true of many of the Imperial buildings. The Aerians that served the Lords of Law did not walk easily in the confined, cramped space of regular human halls. Clint, armed and armored, could easily take to the air in the confines of the rising stone walls, and high, high above her, the perch of the Aerie loomed; she had seen him reach it many, many times. Aerians circled above her, against the backdrop of colored fresco, and as always, she envied them their ability to truly fly.

The closest she’d ever gotten involved a long drop that had almost ended her life. She wasn’t eager to repeat it.

And if the Hawklord had really been waiting for three—close to four—hours now, she didn’t give much for her chances. She began to run.

To the east of the Aerian hall, as it was colloquially called—and never in the hearing of one of the three Lords—stood another tall set of doors, adorned by another set of guards.

She recognized them both: Teela and Tain. They were sometimes called the twins by anyone who had no experience with the subtle temper and cruelty of the Barrani; they were seldom called that twice by the same person. Delicately built, they stood slightly taller than Clint, slightly shorter than Tanner.

Some people found the Barrani beautiful; Kaylin wasn’t so certain, herself. They looked ethereal, delicate and just ever-so-slightly too perfect. Which made her feel solid, plain and grubby. Not exactly a way to win friends and influence people.

They wore the gray and gold of the Hawks in a band across their foreheads; their hair—gorgeous, long, black as the proverbial raven’s wing—had been pulled back and shoved neatly beneath it. Human hair—at least in the ranks of the Hawks—was not allowed that length; it got in the way of pretty much anything. But the Barrani? No such restrictions were placed on them.

Of course, having seen them in a fight, Kaylin was painfully aware that those restrictions would have been pointless.

Teela whistled. At six foot nothing, she wore armor that suited her fighting style—which is to say, none at all. But she carried a large stick. “You’re late,” she said.

Kaylin had to look up to meet her emerald eyes. And emerald? They really were. Hard, sharp and a little brittle around the too perfect edges. That and a stunning, endless shade of deep, blue green. “That’s news?”

“No. That’s the sound of me winning the betting pool.”

“Good. I was rooting for you—and now I want my cut.”

“You’ll get it,” she said with a grin, “if you survive old Iron Jaw.”

“I’m not worried about Iron Jaw. Tain, tell Teela to shut up and get the hell out of the way.”

“What, do I look stupid?”

“Usually.”

“Not that stupid.” He grinned; the row of his perfect teeth had been chipped in one fight or another. When Kaylin had first been inducted into the Hawks, Tain was the only Barrani she could always recognize when he stood among a group of his own people because he had a visible flaw. His only flaw. “Oh, I should warn you—”

“Save it for later.”

He shrugged, lazy and slow. “Remember, Kaylin, I did try.”

She was already past them, and she spent what little breath she had left cursing the fact that the damn halls were so long.

Old Iron Jaw’s desk was huddled in the center of about a dozen similar desks, and distinguishable only by the presence of the Leontine who occupied it. Well, by that and the long furrows he’d dug there over the years when his claws did their automatic extension and raked through the surface of dense, heavy wood. This happened when he was annoyed, and the person who had annoyed him had the good fortune not to be close enough to bear the brunt of those claws instead.

For good reason, no one with brains got close to an angry Leontine. Iron Jaw—called Sergeant Marcus Kassan to his considerable face—was one of the very few who had managed to make it into the Hawks—Leontines were a tad on the possessive side, they didn’t share space well, and they responded to an order as if it were a suicide wish and they were magic wands.

Iron Jaw, among his own people, would be called the Leontine word for kitten—and its only equivalent in human speech was, as far as Kaylin could translate, Eunuch. No one used it in the Hawks.

He growled when he saw her. It was a low, extended growl and he didn’t bother to open his mouth to make it.

She lifted her chin, exposing her neck in the universal gesture of submission. It was only half-fake. In spite of his legendary temper, his surliness and his habit of making the word martinet a hideous understatement, she liked him. Unlike most of the Barrani, whose lives were built on so many secrets and lies they were confounded by something as inelegant and boring as truth, Iron Jaw was exactly what he appeared to be.

And at the moment, that was pissed off.

He leaped over his desk, his shoulders hunching with a grace that belied his size, and landed in front of it, four inches from where Kaylin stood her ground. His eyes were wide and his breath—well, it was cat’s breath. Never a pleasant thing.

But she knew better than to run from a Leontine, even this one. He let his claws touch her throat and close around the very thin membrane of her skin.

“Kaylin,” he growled. “You are making me look incompetent.”

“Sorry,” she said, breathing very, very carefully.

“Where were you?”

“Getting dressed.”

The claws closed slightly.

There was no way around it; she told him the truth. “I was with Clint’s wife, Sesti. Sesti of the Camaraan clan,” she added, feeling an edged claw bite skin. Knowing that she bled, but only slightly. “She had a difficult birthing, and I promised the midwives’ guild—”

He snarled. But he let his hands drop. “You are not a midwife—”

“I am—”

“You’re a Hawk.” But his fangs had receded behind the generous black curl of what might loosely be called lips were they on someone else’s face. “You used your power.”

She said nothing for a minute. “I couldn’t do that. It’s forbidden by the Hawklord.” Which was more or less true. Well, more true. Kaylin was, as she was loath to admit, a tad special for an untrained human. She could do things that other human Hawks couldn’t. Hell, that other humans couldn’t. The Hawks knew about her, of course.

And the Hawklord? Better than any of them, he had his reasons for mistrusting the use of that power. But what the Hawklord didn’t see, didn’t hurt. As long as he didn’t hear about it.

“Well. Sesti will owe you. Which means Clint will pay.” Marcus wouldn’t tell the Hawklord. Not for something like this. Leontines had a strong understanding of debt, obligation and family. After a moment, his perpetual lack of blinking made her eyes water. “How was the birth?”

“The baby’s fine. The mother’s exhausted.”

“Was it a close thing?”

She shuddered. She’d been late once or twice when the midwives had called her—but that was in the early years, and when she’d clearly seen the cost, she had never been late again. They would have called it a miracle, in the Hawks, if she could make them believe it. “Close enough. But they’ll both pull through.”

He shrugged, and leaned back against the desk. It actually groaned. “More, I’m certain, than can be said of you. The Hawklord is waiting. In his tower.”

Could things be any worse?

She made the climb up the stairs unescorted, although guards flanked the closed doors on every landing. They nodded, and one or two that knew her well enough either shook their heads or smiled. They were almost all human or Aerian; the Barrani were trusted, but only to a point. On a good day, she might take the time to ask them what the Hawklord wanted.

This wasn’t a good day.

She made the landing of the last set of stairs, stopped to catch her breath and shake her legs out and then straightened her shoulders, adjusting her sloppy belt. It was two notches too big, again. And she hadn’t had time to punch a few extra holes.

Her hair was a flyaway mess, and her cheeks, she knew, would be a little too red for dignity—but she often had to choose between dignity and living another hour. She paused at the unattended door, and placed her palm against the golden symbol of the hawk that adorned its lower center. It was a tall door.

Magic trickled up her hand like a painful, frosty flicker. She hated it, and gritted her teeth as it passed through her skin. Of all the things she had had to learn to accept with grace, this was the hardest: to leave her palm there while magic roved and quested, seeking answers.

It was apparently satisfied; the doors began to swing open.

They opened into a round, domed room: the height of the Tower, and the face it showed to all but the most trusted of the Hawklord’s advisors. Given what she knew about the Hawklord, that that number was higher than zero should have come as a big surprise.

She bowed before the doors had fully opened. Because she wore the uniform of a Hawk, a bow was required. Had she worn any other uniform, she’d probably have had to throw in a long grovel as well as a bit of scraping.

“Kaylin Neya,” the Hawklord said coldly.

She rose instantly.

Met his eyes. They were like gray stone, like the walls of the round room; they gave no impression of life, and they hinted at nothing but surface. His face, pale as ivory, heightened their unusual color; his hair, gray, fell beyond his back. He was not Barrani, but he might as well have been; he was tall, proud and very cold.

But his wings crested the rise of drawn hood, and they were white, their pinions folded. Hawklord. It was not because he was Aerian that he was Lord here.

“Hawklord,” she said.

His face grew more stonelike.

“Lord Grammayre,” she added.

“I have been waiting for half of a day, Kaylin. Would you care to offer an explanation for the waste of my time to the Emperor?”

Her shoulders fell about four inches, but she managed to keep her head up. “No, sir.”

He frowned, and then turned toward the distant curve of the shadowed room. In it, she saw a small well of light. And around that light, a man.

Some instinct made her reach for her daggers; they were utterly silent as they slid out of their sheaths. That had been a costly gift from a mage on Elani Street who’d had a little bit of difficulty with a loan shark.

“I have, however, no intention of embarrassing the Hawks by allowing you to speak on their behalf. I have a mission for you,” he added, “and because of its nature, I wish you to take backup.”

Great. She looked down at her boots, and the low edges of the one pair of pants she now owned that wasn’t warzone material. “Lord Grammayre—”

“That was not, of course, a request.” He held out a hand in command, but not to her. “I would like to introduce you to one of your partners. You may recognize him; you may not. He has been seconded from the Wolves. Severn?”

She almost didn’t hear the words; they made no sense.

Because across the round room—a room that now seemed to have no ceiling, her vision had grown so focused—a man stepped into the sun’s light.

A man she recognized, although she hadn’t seen him for years. For seven years.

In utter silence, she threw the first dagger, and hit the ground running.

He was fast.

But he’d always been fast. His own long knife was in the air before she’d run half the distance that separated them; her thrown dagger glanced off it with a sonorous clang. Everything in the Hawk’s tower reverberated; there could be no hidden fights, here.

“Hello, Kaylin.”

She snarled. Words were lost; what remained was motion, movement, intent. She held the second dagger in her hand as she unsheathed the third; heard the Hawklord’s cold command at her back as if it were simple breeze in the open streets.

The open streets of the fiefs, almost a decade past.

His smile exposed teeth, the narrowing of eyes, the sudden tensing of shoulder and chest as he gathered motion, hoarding it.

Left hand out, she loosed a second dagger, and he parried it, but only barely. The third, she had at his chest before he could bring his knife down.

Too easy, she thought desperately. Too damn easy.

She looked up at his lazy smile and brought her dagger in.

Light blinded her. Light, it seemed, from the sound of his sudden curse, blinded him; they were driven apart by the invisible hands of the Hawklord’s power, and they were held fast, their feet inches above the ground.

Her eyes grew accustomed, by slow degree, to the darkness of the domed room.

“I see,” the Hawklord said quietly, “that you know Severn. Severn, you failed to mention this in your interview.”

Severn had always recovered quickly. “I didn’t recognize the name,” he said, voice even, smile still draped across his face. He moved slowly, very slowly, and sheathed his long knife, waiting.

And she looked up at his face. He wasn’t as tall as Tanner, and he wasn’t as broad; he had the catlike grace of a young Leontine, and his hair was a burnished copper, something that reddened in caught light. But his eyes were the blue she remembered, cold blue, and if he had new scars—and he did—they hadn’t changed his face enough to remove it from her memory.

“Kaylin?”

She said nothing for a long, long time. And given the tone of the Hawklord’s voice, it wasn’t a wise expenditure of that time.

“I know him,” she said at last.

“That has already been established.” The Hawk’s lips turned up in a cold smile. “You seldom attempt to kill a man for no reason in this tower. But not,” he added, “never.”

She ignored the comment. “He’s no Wolf,” she told the man who ruled the Hawks in all their guises. “I don’t care what he told you—he doesn’t serve the Wolflord.”

He chose to ignore her use of the Lord of Wolves, her more colloquial title. “Ah. And who does he serve, Kaylin?”

“One of the seven,” she said, spitting to the side.

“The seven?”

She was dead tired of his word games. “The fieflords,” she said.

“Ah. Severn?”

“I was a Wolf,” he replied, as if this bored him. As if everything did. He ran a hand through his hair; it was just shy of regulation length. “I served the Lord of Wolves.” Each word emphasized and correct.

“You’re lying.”

“Ask the Lord of Hawks,” he told her, with a shrug. “He’s got the paperwork.”

“No,” the Hawklord replied quietly, “I don’t.”

Severn was silent, assessing the tone of the Hawklord’s words. After a moment, he shrugged again; the folds of his robes shifted, and Kaylin heard the distinct sound of cloth rubbing against leather. He was not entirely unarmored here.

Too bad.

“I was a Shadow Wolf,” he said at last.

“For how long?” She refused to be shocked. Refused to let his admission slow her down.

“Years,” he replied. Just that.

She didn’t believe him. “He’s lying.”

“I didn’t say how many,” he added softly. As if it were a game.

“He is not lying,” the Hawklord told her. “Believe that when the unusual request for transfer between the Towers arrives, we check very carefully. When the man who requests the transfer is of the Shadows, our investigations are more thorough.”

“Thorough how?”

“We called in the Tha’alani.”

She froze. She had faced Tha’alani before, but only once, and she had been thirteen years old at the time. She had sworn, then, that she would die before she let one touch her again. The Tha’alani were an obscenity; they touched not flesh—although that in and of itself caused her problems—but thought, mind, heart, all the hidden things.

All the things that had to stay hidden if they were to be protected.

They were sometimes called Truthseekers. But it was a pal try word. Kaylin privately preferred rapist as the more accurate term.

“He subjected himself to the Tha’alani willingly,” the Hawklord added.

“And the Tha’alani said he was telling the truth.”

“Indeed.”

“And what truth? What could he say that would make him worthy of the Hawks?”

But the Hawklord’s patience had ebbed. “Enough to satisfy the Lord of Hawks,” he told her. “Will you question me?”

No. Not if she wanted to be a Hawk. “Why? Why him?”

“Because, Kaylin, he is one of two men who understand the fiefs as well as you do.”

She froze.

“The other will be with us shortly.”

After about ten minutes, the Hawklord let them go. Mostly. The barrier that held Kaylin’s arms to her side slowly thinned; she could move as if she were under water. Given that she was likely to try to kill Severn again the minute she got the chance, she tried hard not to resent the Hawklord’s caution.

“Feel all better now that that’s out of your system?” Severn asked quietly.

She wanted to cut the lips off his face; it would ruin his smirk. “No.”

“No?”

“You’re not dead.”

He laughed and shook his head. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you Elianne?”

“Tell him to let us go and you can find that out for yourself.”

“I doubt the Lord of Hawks would take the orders of a former Shadow Wolf. Although given your tardiness and his apparent acceptance of it, he’s a damn site more tolerant than the Lord of Wolves was.”

“Try.”

He laughed again. “Not yet, little—what did he call you? Kaylin? Not yet.”

The Lord of Hawks watched them with the keen sight of their namesake.

“You want to send us into the fiefs,” she said at last, trying to keep the accusation out of her voice.

“Yes. It’s been seven years, Kaylin. Long enough.”

“Long enough for what? Three of the fieflords are outcaste Barrani—I could live and die in the time it took them to blink!”

The Hawklord turned his full attention upon her. “I think I have been overly tolerant,” he said at last, and in a tone of voice she hadn’t heard since she’d first arrived in this tower. “You are either Hawk or you are not. Decide.”

Her silence was enough of an answer, but only barely. “The third is coming now.”

The door, which had probably closed the moment Kaylin had fully stepped across its threshold, swung open again.

A man walked into the room. He wore no armor that she could hear beneath the full flow of his perfect robes. Her hearing had always been good. “Lord Grammayre,” he said, bowing low.

“Tiamaris,” the Hawklord replied. “I would like to introduce you to Kaylin and Severn. You will work with them.”

The man rose. His hair was a dark, dark black—Barrani black—but his build was all wrong for Barrani. He was a shade taller than Teela, and about twice her width. Three times, maybe. His hands were empty; he carried no obvious weapon. Wore no open medallion. The hand that he lifted in ritual greeting, palm out, was smooth and unadorned.

Kaylin and Severn could not likewise lift hand—but their background in the fiefs hadn’t made the gesture automatic. Lord Grammayre was under no such disadvantage; he lifted his ringed hand in greeting, and lowered his chin slightly.

“Tiamaris has some knowledge of the fiefs,” he told them both. Tiamaris lowered his perfectly raised hand, and turned to face them.

Something about the man’s eyes were all wrong; it took Kaylin a moment to realize what it was. They were orange. A deep, bright orange that hinted at red and gold. Her own eyes almost fell out of their sockets.

“You have the privilege,” Lord Grammayre told her quietly, “of meeting the only member of the Dragon caste to ever apply to serve in the Halls of Law.”

Severn recovered first. He laughed. “It’s true, then,” he said, to no one in particular.

That rankled. “Like you’d know true if it bit you on the ass.”

“You really are a mongrel unit.”

“No, Severn,” the Hawklord replied softly. Too softly. Had it been anyone else speaking, Kaylin might have dared a warning kick.

She hoped Severn hung himself instead.

Severn fell silent.

“The Hawks have always been open to those who seek service under the banner of the Emperor’s Law. Where service is offered it is accepted, by whoever offers it. Tiamaris has chosen to make that offer, and it has been accepted, by the Three Towers. And the Emperor. If the Wolves choose different criteria upon which to accept applicants, that is the business of the Lord of Wolves; if the Swords choose to retain only the mortal races, that is likewise the concern of their lord.

“I would, of course, be pleased to explain your mission. But I have spent precious hours in this tower, and I have other duties to which I must attend. The Lords of Law meet within the half hour.” He reached into the folds of his robes and pulled out a large gem.

Even Kaylin could see it glow.

He held it a moment in his open palm. “This contains all of the information the Hawks have been able to gather about your mission. Some of it was placed within the gem by the Tha’alani, some was placed there by Wolves and Swords. You will study it,” he added quietly, “and it will tell you all you require.

“If you have questions, contain them. You will have to find answers on your own. You will speak to no one of what you see within the gem. It is spellbound, and it will enforce that command.”

He hesitated a moment, and then, lifting his hand, he gestured. Kaylin fell an inch to the ground and stumbled, righting herself.

“Kaylin.”

She turned. Saw that he held out both his open hand and the large gem it contained—to her. For just a minute she considered the wisdom of a different occupation.

But her past would follow her out the doors; here it was hidden. Without a word, she held out a hand, and he dropped the crystal into the shaking curve of her palm. Blue light seared her vision; her fingers closed instinctively.

She was surprised when she didn’t throw it away.

“Interesting,” the Hawklord said softly. She thought he might say more, but the meeting with the Lords of Law clearly demanded his full attention. “You are dismissed,” he said quietly. “You may speak with Marcus. Tell him that you are to be equipped in any reasonable manner. Remind him that the equipment is not to be logged.

“That is all.”

CHAPTER
2

Judging by the quality of the silence, which had gone from absolute to cryptlike, Iron Jaw still hadn’t recovered his good humor, such as it was. The people who usually occupied the desks in line of sight seemed to have developed an extended case of lunch. Kaylin’s stomach really wanted to join them. Either that, or to lose the breakfast she hadn’t had. She couldn’t quite decide which.

Severn. Here. Her hands were fists, which, given that one of them was clutching something with sharp edges, was unfortunate. If it hadn’t been years since she’d badly wanted to kill someone—and face it, she wasn’t angelae—it had been years since she’d tried. Her timing, as always, was impeccable.

Marcus looked up from his paperwork. She wondered which poor sacrificial soul had delivered it. She didn’t envy them.

“Well?” He growled.

She shrugged. Not really safe, given his mood—but she was in a mood of her own. “We need a safe room,” she told him, waving the crystal she still clutched.

His brows rose, or rather, the fur above his eyes did. When it settled, he looked annoyed. Nothing new, there. “West room,” he said, curtly. “And those two?”

“Ask the Hawklord.”

His lip curled back over his teeth, and she decided that his mood trumped hers. “Severn,” she said curtly. “Formerly of the Wolves.”

“Here?”

“I said formerly.”

“And the other?”

“Tiamaris. He’s a …”

The low growl deepened. The Leontine slid around the desk, paperwork forgotten.

Tiamaris stood his ground. Stood it with such complete confidence, Kaylin wondered if anything ever shook him.

“That’s a caste name, isn’t it?” the Leontine asked.

“That is none of your concern, Sergeant Kassan,” Tiamaris replied. His voice gave nothing away. Kaylin was impressed. Not that he knew Marcus’s rank—anyone who knew the uniform could see that—but that he knew his pride name.

Marcus drew closer, and as he did, he gained height—or at least his fur did. It was a Leontine trait, when the Leontine felt threatened. That usually only happened in the presence of his wives or his kits.

Severn sat on an empty desk and folded arms across his chest, smirking. Kaylin almost joined him. Almost.

But she didn’t want to be where he was; she had decided that a long time ago. Wouldn’t think about it here, because if by some miracle Marcus didn’t go feral, she might, and she didn’t want to be the cause of an office death. Not when the Hawklord had made clear what the price of that death would be.

“Tiamaris, you said?” Marcus’s growl could sometimes be mistaken for a purr. Kaylin kept a flinch in check as she realized Iron Jaw was actually speaking Barrani. It was the formal language of the Lords of Law, and as he was allergic to most forms of formal, he seldom used it.

Tiamaris raised a dark brow. They were almost of a height. Marcus continued to close; Tiamaris continued to mime a statue. Inches fell away.

Men. “Actually, Marcus, I said it,” Kaylin lifted the crystal as if it were an Imperial writ.

To her surprise, Marcus actually turned to look at her. But if his gaze was fastened on the crystal she held, his words were for Tiamaris. “This is my office,” he said quietly, each word textured by the full growl of a Leontine in his prime. “These are my Hawks. If you … choose to work here, you accept that.”

“I choose to serve at the pleasure of the Lord of Hawks,” was the neutral reply. It, too, was in Barrani. Kaylin realized that she had not heard Tiamaris speak in any other language since he’d entered the tower.

Kaylin tried again. “We’re to be kitted out,” she began. “And the Hawklord—”

“He told me.” He turned his gaze back to Tiamaris. “This isn’t finished,” he said quietly.

“No,” Tiamaris concurred, in an agreeable tone of voice that implied anything but. “It’s barely begun. Sergeant?”

“Take the West room,” he replied, eyes lidding slowly. Kaylin knew, then, that Tiamaris was close to death. Would have been, had he not been a Dragon. “Kaylin, show them.”

She took a deep breath. Thought about telling them all that she wasn’t their babysitter. Thought better of it a full second before her mouth opened on the words. “Right.” She offered a very sloppy salute, palm out but not exactly flat. It was also, she realized, as Iron Jaw stared at it, the wrong hand.

“You two, follow.”

“Whatever you say,” Severn told her, sliding off the desk. “Lead on, Kaylin.”

The West room was one of four such rooms, and they were all just as poetically named. The Leontines didn’t really go in for fancy names. Near as Kaylin could tell, the Leontine word for food translated roughly as “corpse.” Some accommodations had to be made in culinary discussions.

When Marcus had first taken the job, the safe rooms—like all of the rest of the rooms in the labyrinthine Halls of Law ruled by the Hawklord—had been named after upstanding citizens, people with a lot of money or distant relatives of the living Emperor. Marcus had pretty much pissed in every possible corner in the Hawks’ domain, and after he’d finished doing that, he’d fixed a few more things. Starting with the names.

Still, in all, West was better than some seven syllable name that she wouldn’t be able to pronounce without a dictionary. Now if he’d only do something about the damn wards on the doors….

Before she touched the door, she turned to Tiamaris. “Don’t antagonize him,” she said quietly.

“Was I?”

She didn’t know enough about Dragons to be certain he had done so on purpose. But she knew enough about men. “Marcus crawled his way up the ladder over a pile of corpses,” she replied. “And we need him where he is. Don’t push him.”

For the first time that day, Tiamaris smiled.

Kaylin decided that she preferred it when he didn’t. His teeth weren’t exactly like normal teeth; they didn’t have the pronounced canines of the Leontine, but they seemed to glitter. His eyes certainly did.

She pushed the door open and walked into the room.

“Severn,” she said, the name sliding off her tongue before she could halt it, “sit down. Tiamaris?”

“Kaylin?”

“We can’t proceed until the door is closed—the gem is keyed.”

“Ah.” He crossed the threshold into the small, windowless room. It looked like a prison cell. On the wrong days, it was. And the prisoners it contained? She shuddered.

The door slid shut behind him. Severn sat, lounging across a chair as if he were in his personal rooms. Tiamaris sat stiffly, as if he weren’t used to bending in the middle.

And Kaylin stood between them, between the proverbial rock and a hard place. She looked at Severn. Looked at the familiar scars that she’d never forgotten, and looked at the newer ones.

She wanted to kill him.

And he knew it. His smile stilled, until it was a mask, a presentation. Behind it, his blue eyes were hooded, watchful. His hands had fallen beneath the level of the plain, wooden table that was the only flat surface that wasn’t the floor.

“Are you really a Hawk?” He asked casually.

“Are you really a Wolf?”

They stared at each other for a beat too long.

“Kaylin,” Tiamaris said quietly. “I believe you have business to attend to.”

“I’m a Hawk,” she replied.

“Why?”

“Why?” Her hand closed around the crystal. “Yeah,” she said to Tiamaris. “Business. As usual.”

There had been a time when she would have answered any question Severn had asked. Any question. But she wasn’t that girl, now. She had no desire to share any of her life with him. Instead, she looked at the crystal. Some hesitance must have showed, because Tiamaris raised a brow.

“You are familiar with these, yes?”

“I’ve seen them,” she said coldly.

“But you’ve never used one.”

She shoved nonexistent hair out of her eyes, as if she were stalling. Her earlier years in the streets of the fiefs had proved that lies were valuable. Her formative years with the Hawks had shown her that they were also usually transparent, if they were hers. At last, she said, “No. Never.”

“If you would allow me—”

“No.”

Another brow rose. “No?”

The word sounded like a threat.

“No,” she said, finding her feet. “The Hawklord gave it to me. You try to use it, and if it’s keyed, we’ll be picking you out of our hair for weeks.”

His smile was not a comfort. He held out his hand. “I have the advantage,” he told her softly, “of knowing how to unlock a crystal.”

After a pause, in which she acknowledged privately that she was stalling, she said, “Why is he sending a Dragon into the fiefs?”

Tiamaris shrugged. “You must ask him. I fear he will not answer, however.” His eyes narrowed, gold giving way to the fire of red. “I confess I am equally curious. Why has he chosen to send an untried girl there?”

“I’m not untried,” she snapped. “I’ve been with the Hawks for seven years.”

“You’ve been with the Hawks,” he replied, “since you were thirteen. By caste reckoning, you were a child, then. You reached your age of majority two years ago. In accordance with the rules of Law, you have been a Hawk for two years.”

“Caste reckoning,” she snapped, “is for the castes. I grew up in the fiefs. Age means something else, there.”

“So,” Tiamaris said, splaying a hand across the table’s surface. “That was true.”

She looked at him again. How much do you know about me? Which wasn’t really the important question. And why?

Which was. “You’ve been a Hawk for a day, if I’m any judge.”

“Two,” he replied.

“It takes longer than two days to make a Hawk.”

He shrugged. “It takes only the word of the Hawklord.”

He was, of course, right. She cursed the Lord of the Hawks in the seven languages she knew. Which wasn’t saying much; she could only speak four passably, but she was enough of a Hawk that she’d picked up the important words in the other three, and none of them were suitable for children or politics.

Languages were her only academic gift. She’d failed almost every other class she’d been forced to take. Lord Grammayre had been about as tolerant as a disappointed parent could be, and she’d endured more lectures about applying herself than she cared to remember. At least a third of them had been delivered in Aerian, he’d been that annoyed; it was his habit to speak formal Barrani when addressing the Hawks, although when frustrated he could descend into Elantran, the human tongue.

“The crystal,” Tiamaris said.

She’d bought about all the time she could afford. Grinding her teeth—which caused Severn to laugh—she put her left palm over it; caught between her palms, the crystal began to pulse. She felt its beat and almost dropped it as it began to warm; warmth gave way to heat, and heat to something that was just shy of fire.

She’d touched fire before; been touched by it. Someplace, she still bore the scars. But she’d be damned if she let a little pain get in her way. Not in front of these two.

The crystal was beating. She felt it, and almost recognized the cadence of its insistent drumming. After a moment, she realized why; it had slowed, timing itself to the rhythm of her heart.

Which was too damn loud anyway.

“Here we go,” she said softly.

Kaylin.

The Hawklord’s voice was unmistakable. She relaxed, hearing it; it was calm and almost pleasant. An Aerian voice.

Kaylin, witness.

The fiefs opened up in her line of sight; she lost track of the room. She could see the boundaries that marked the criminal territories colloquially called the fiefs; they occupied the western half of the riverside, swallowing all but the Port Authority by the old docks. The view was top side, high; someone had flown this stretch. Someone had carried the unlocked crystal, linked to it, feeding it images, vision, the certainty of knowledge.

Grammayre? She couldn’t be certain.

The Lords of Law were the fist of the Emperor; they owed their allegiance and existence to his whim. This was a truth that she had faced almost daily for seven years. The Hawks, the Wolves and the Swords were not soldiers; they were no part of the Imperial army.

But they were allowed arms and armor, by law; in their individual ways, they kept the laws of the city of Elantra. And if that wasn’t a war, she didn’t want to see one. No one loved the guards who served the Lords of Law, but almost no one crossed them. Not outside of the fiefs.

Within the fiefs?

Old pain crossed her features, distorting them. She closed her eyes. Her vision however, was caught in crystal; she watched as the fiefs drew closer, undeniable now. Saw the boundaries beyond which the Lords of Law had little sway, held little power, and all of that power theoretical.

The armies would have more, but the Emperor seldom allowed the armies to crusade within his city.

And so the fiefs continued to exist.

In the fiefs, the slavery that had been abolished for a generation and a half still existed in all but name. Whole grand houses, opulent, golden manses, opened their doors to visitors, and within those doors, the rich could purchase anything. A moment’s illegal escape, in the smoke-wreathed rooms of the opiates. A moment’s pleasure, in the private parlors of the prostitutes. And a death, here or there, if one’s tastes shaded to the sadistic.

Sordid, storybook, the fiefs made their money off those who would never dream of living within their borders.

And the fieflords ruled. They had their own laws, their own armies, their own lieges—everything but open warfare. Open war in the city would bring the army down upon them all. This was understood, and it was perhaps the only thing that kept the fieflords in check. But in Kaylin’s experience, it wasn’t near enough. People lived and died at their whim. Money ruled the fiefs; money and power.

But the people who lived in them, who lived in the old buildings, the crumbling tenements, the small, squalid houses, had neither. They made what living they could, and they dreamed of a time when they might cross the boundaries that divided the one city from the other, seeking freedom or safety in the streets beyond.

They might as well have lived in a different country.

“Kaylin?” Tinny, robbed of the threat and grandeur of a Dragon’s natural voice, she heard Tiamaris.

“Can you see it?”

Silence. A beat. “No,” he said quietly. “The gem is, as you claimed, keyed to you. It appears you are to be our conduit to the investigation.” He didn’t sound pleased, and she knew she was being petty when she felt a moment’s satisfaction.

But the satisfaction was very short-lived; the view dipped and veered, rolling in the sky. Clint had once taken her up in the air. She’d been with the Hawks for a handful of weeks, and she was thin with the hunger that dogged most children in the fiefs; he’d caught her under the arms, and she’d clung to him, determined to fly with him.

But she had found the distance from Clint to ground overwhelming. She couldn’t follow what she saw; couldn’t do anything but shut her eyes and shiver. Wind against her face, like it was now, was a reminder of what she wasn’t: Aerian, and meant for the skies.

But he’d held her tight, and his voice, in her ear, became an anchor. He teased a sense of security slowly out of her fear, her frozen stiffness, and she had at last opened those eyes and looked. He took her to his home, to the heights of the Aeries in the cliffs that bordered the southern face of the city.

His home was not the home she had fled.

Not the home that the crystal’s flight was returning her to.

The first fief passed beneath her shadow. She saw the tallest of the buildings it contained, and saw the gallows and the hanging cage that lay occupied beside it. Someone had angered the servants of the fieflord here, and they meant it to be known; the cage’s occupant—man? Woman? She couldn’t tell from this distance—was clearly still alive.

The voyager didn’t pause here; he merely observed.

From a distance, she was encouraged to do the same. But she had seen those cages from the ground; had watched a friend die in one, had discovered, on that day, what it meant to be truly powerless.

She struggled with the crystal, but she was overmastered here. The Hawks—her place in the Hawks—had given her the illusion of power. And the Hawklord was going to strip her of it before he let her leave. To remind her—as she had not reminded herself—that she was still powerless, still young.

This is the domain of the outcaste Barrani fieflord known as Nightshade, his voice said.We do not, of course, know his real name. It is hidden by spells far stronger than those we can comfortably use. Not even the Barrani castelords dare to challenge Nightshade in his own Dominion.

She closed her eyes. It didn’t help.

You know this fief.

She knew it. Severn knew it. They had lived, and almost died, in its streets. And Severn had done much, much worse there. The desire to kill him was paralyzing. It was wed to a bitter desire for justice—and justice was a fool’s dream in the fiefs.

There are deaths here which you must investigate. More information is forthcoming.

The crystal shifted in her hands, becoming almost too hot to hold. She held it anyway as her view suddenly banked and shifted.

She was on the ground. The smell of the streets, overpowering in its terrible familiarity, filled her senses. She staggered, stumbled, stood; she looked down to see that her tunic—an unfamiliar tunic, a man’s garb—was red with blood.

She felt no pain, but she knew that this memory was courtesy of the Tha’alani, and she hated it. It was different in all ways from the distant observation of the Hawklord; it was full of terror, of pain, of the inability to acknowledge or deny either.

She stumbled in the streets, and her arms ached; she was carrying something. No, he was, whoever he was. He stumbled along the busy streets; the sun was high. Some people watched him from a distance, open curiosity mixed with dread in their unfamiliar—blessedly so—faces. None approached. None offered him aid with the burden he bore. And when his strength at last gave out, when his knees bent, when his arms unlocked in a shudder that spoke of effort, of time, she saw why; saw it from his eyes.

A body rolled down his lap, bloody, devoid of life.

He screamed, then. A name, over and over, as if the name were a summons, as if it contained the power to command life to return.

But watching now as a Hawk, watching as someone trained to know death and its causes, Kaylin knew that it was futile.

The boy—ten years of age, maybe twelve—had been disemboweled. His arms hung slack by his sides, and she could see, from wrist to elbow, the black tattoos that had been painted there, indelible, in flesh.

She had seen them before. She knew that it wasn’t only his arms that bore those marks; his inner thighs would bear them, too.

She screamed.

And Severn screamed in quick succession as she inexplicably lost contact with the gem.

Her hands were blistered; her skin was broken along the lines of the rigid crystal. And so were Severn’s. He dropped the crystal instantly and it hit the table with a thunk, fastening itself to the wooden surface.

She thought it should roll.

It was a stupid thought.

“What are you doing?” She shouted at Severn, the words ground through clenched teeth, the pain in her hands making her stupid.

“Prying the gem away from you,” he snapped back, composure momentarily forgotten.

“Why?”

He shrugged. The shrug, which started at his shoulder, ended in a shudder. “You didn’t like what you were looking at,” he added quietly.

“And it matters?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer.

“That was brave,” Tiamaris said, speaking for the first time. “And very, very foolish. The Hawklord must have gone to some expense to create this crystal. It is … obviously unusual. Kaylin?”

She shook her head. Actually, she just shook. She wanted to touch the gem again, and she wanted to destroy it. Torn between the two—the one an imperative and the other an impossibility—she was frozen.

Tiamaris said quietly, “I owe you a debt.” The words were grave. His eyes had edged from red to gold, and the gold was liquid light.

“Debt?”

“I would have taken the gem. It would have been … unwise. It appears that the Hawklord trusts you, Kaylin. And it would appear,” he added, with just the hint of a dark smile, “that that trust does not extend to his newest recruits.”

But Severn refused to be drawn into the conversation; he was staring at Kaylin. His own hands had started to swell and blister.

“Did you see it?” she asked him, all enmity momentarily forgotten. He was Severn, she was Elianne, and the streets of the fiefs had become that most impossible of things: more terrifying than either had ever thought possible.

He shook his head. “No,” he said, devoid now of arrogance or ease. “But I know what you saw.”

“How?”

“I’ve only heard you scream that way once in your life,” he replied. He lifted a hand, as if to touch her, and she shied away instantly, her hand falling to her dagger hilt. To one of many.

He accepted her rejection as if it hadn’t happened. “I was there, back then,” he added quietly. “I saw it too. It’s happening again, isn’t it?”

She closed her eyes. After a moment, eyes still closed, she rolled up her sleeves, exposing the length of arm from wrist to elbow.

There, in black lines, in an elegant and menacing swirl, were tattoos that were almost twin to the ones upon the dead boy’s arms.

She was surprised when someone touched her wrist, and her eyes jerked open.

But Tiamaris held the wrist in a grip that could probably crush bone with little effort. Funny, how human his hands looked. How human they weren’t.

She tried to pull away. He didn’t appear to notice.

But his eyes flickered as she drew a dagger out of its sheath with her free hand. She’d moved slowly, and the daggers made no sound—but he was instantly aware of them.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you. Lord Grammayre is not known for his tolerance of fighting among his own.”

“Let go,” she whispered.

He didn’t appear to have heard her. “Do you know what these markings mean?” He asked. His inner eye membrane had risen, lending opacity to the sudden fire of his eyes.

“Death,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he replied. He studied them with care, and after a moment, she realized he was reading them. “They mean death. But that is not all they mean, Kaylin of the Hawks.”

“This isn’t—this isn’t Dragon.”

“No. It is far older than Dragon, as you so quaintly call our tongue.”

“Barrani?”

His lip curled in open disdain.

“I’ll take that as a no.” She hesitated. These patterns had been with her since she had gained the age of ten, a significant age in the fiefs. Not many children survived that long when they’d lost their parents.

“Where did you get these?”

“In Nightshade,” she whispered.

“Who put them upon you? Who marked you thus?”

It was Severn who answered. “No one.”

“Impossible.”

“I saw them,” Severn replied. “I saw them … grow. We all did. They started one morning in Winter.”

“On what day?”

“The shortest one.”

Tiamaris said nothing. She wanted him to continue to say nothing, but he opened his mouth anyway. “I saw the bodies,” he said at last. “And the tattoos of the dead did not just, as you say, ‘start.’ They were put there, and at some cost.”

“Not hers,” Severn said quietly.

Tiamaris frowned. “There is something here,” he said at last, “that even I cannot read.”

“Do you—do you know someone who can?”

“Only one,” Tiamaris replied, “and it would not be safe for you to ask him.”

“Why?”

“He would probably take both arms.”

Severn said, “He could try.” And his long dagger was suddenly in his hand.

Kaylin looked at it. Looked at Severn. Understood nothing at all. “How do you know how to read this?” she whispered.

“I am considered a scholar,” was his cautious reply. “I dabble in the antiquities.”

Which meant magery. She didn’t bother to ask.

“Let me go,” she said wearily, adding command to the words.

To her surprise, Tiamaris withdrew his grip. “You are interesting, Kaylin, as the Hawklord surmised. But I am surprised, now.”

“At what?”

“That the Hawklord let you live.”

Kaylin said nothing.

Again, for reasons that made no sense, Severn said, “Why?” His hands had once again fallen beneath the surface of the table.

“Your story … is strange. And you must understand that the deaths in the fiefs some years ago were also investigated.”

The deaths. Seven years ago. She shuddered.

For the first time since she’d met Tiamaris, his expression went bleak. The way distant, snow-covered cliffs were.

“You were there, back then,” she said softly.

“I was there.”

“And you weren’t a Hawk.”

“No.”

She lifted a shaking head. Looked down at her arms. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, even now, eyes upon her face. “But in the end, the killings stopped. Does the Hawklord know of these?”

She nodded. She almost matched his bleakness. “He knows almost everything about me.”

“And he does not suspect that you were involved in the incidents.”

Her eyes rounded. She was too stunned to be angry; that might come later.

“You don’t understand, and clearly Grammayre did not see fit to inform you. As I will be working with you, I will. The first death must have occurred—and Lord Grammayre would be acquainted with the approximate time—on the day you say these appeared. On the same solstice.”

The silence was, as they say, deafening. And into the silence, the shadow of accusation crept.

“She had nothing to do with the deaths of the others,” Severn snapped. “They were all—”

Kaylin said, “Shut up, Severn.”

To her surprise, Severn did.

“I believe you” was the quiet reply. “Having met her, I believe you.” Tiamaris looked across the table at Kaylin; the table seemed to have grown very, very long. From that distance, he said, “You said that it had started again. Tell me what you think has started.”

She swallowed. Her mouth was very dry. “The deaths,” she whispered at last. “In Nightshade. I thought—when the first body appeared—I was so certain I would die next. Because of the marks. We all were.” “All?”

Her lips thinned. She didn’t answer the question. It wasn’t any of his damn business. A different life.

“What happened?”

She shook her head. Inhaled and rose, placing tender palms against the hard surface of scarred wood. “I didn’t die. I don’t know why,” she said at last. “But I do know where we’re going.”

“To Nightshade,” Severn said quietly.

“To Nightshade.” She started toward the door. Stopped.

She turned back to look at Severn, who had not risen to join her. “It’s not finished,” she told him softly.

He said nothing, but after a moment, added, “I know. Elianne—”

“I’m Kaylin,” she whispered. “Don’t forget it.”

“I won’t. Will you?”

She shook her head, and instead of murderous rage, she felt something different, something more dangerous. “I won’t forget what you did, in Nightshade.”

He said nothing at all.

“I need to get something to eat. Meet me in the front hall in an hour. No, two. Be ready.”

“For the fiefs?” He laughed bitterly.

Tiamaris, however, nodded.

She left the room, walking quietly and with a stately dignity that she seldom possessed. Only when she was certain she’d left them both behind did she stop to empty the negligible contents of her stomach.

Marcus was there, of course. As if he’d been waiting. He probably had. He placed velvet paw-pads upon her shoulder, and squeezed; she felt the full pads of his palms press into her tunic. Warmth, there.

“Kaylin.”

“I don’t want to go back,” she whispered, in a voice she hated. It was a thirteen-year-old’s voice. A child’s voice.

“Don’t tell me where you’re going. If I’m not mistaken, you’re bound.” He glanced at her blistered palm and his breath came out in a huff that sounded similar to a growl.

It was a comforting sound, or it was meant to be. If you knew a Leontine. She knew this one.

“But I can guess,” he added grimly. “Come. The quartermaster has given me what you requisitioned.”

“I didn’t—”

“The Hawklord understands where you’re going,” Marcus said quietly. “And he was prepared. He was not, I think, prepared for losing the half day. He’s docked your pay.”

“Bastard,” she whispered, but with no heat.

His hand ran over her rounded back. As if she were his, part of his pride. “I brought you this,” he said, when she at last straightened, her stomach still unsettled.

She knew what he held.

It looked like a bracer, but shorter, and it was golden in sheen. Three gems adorned it, and to the untrained eye, they were valuable: ruby, sapphire and diamond.

But Kaylin knew they were more than that. “I won’t lose control,” she started.

His eyes were as narrow as they ever got. “It wasn’t a request, Kaylin. I know where you’re going.”

“He told you?”

His nose wrinkled as he looked at the mess around her feet. And on it.

“Oh.”

“Put it on,” he told her, in a voice that brooked no refusal. A sergeant’s voice.

“Marcus—”

“Put it on, Kaylin. And if I were you, I wouldn’t remove it for a while.”

She took the bracer from his hands and stared at it. It had no apparent hinge, but that, too, was illusion. She touched the gems in a sequence that her fingers had never forgotten: blue, blue, red, blue, white, white. She felt magic’s familiar and painful prickle at the same time as she heard the unmistakable click of a cage door being opened.

“Did he tell you to make me do this?” she asked bitterly.

“No, Kaylin. I think he trusts you to know your own limits.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” he said softly. But he waited while she slid the manacle over her left arm. “In as much as you can know them, I do.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know what it means.”

And she did. “I—I haven’t lost control since—”

“You weren’t in the fiefs, then.” He paused for just a moment, and then added, “Kaylin, your power—no one understands it. Not even the Hawklord. He’s kept it hidden. I’ve kept it hidden. He is the only one of the Lords of Law who knows what can happen when you lose it. And he’s the only one who should.”

She closed her eyes. “The Hawklord—”

“Trusts you. More than that, he shows some affection for you. I have come to understand his wisdom. Even if you can’t be on time to save your life or my reputation.” He turned away, then. “Leave the mess. I’ll have someone else clean it up.”

She still didn’t move.

And heard his growling sigh. He turned back. “What you did with Sesti, what you did with one of my own pride-wives, is not something that either the Hawklord or I could have predicted could be done.”

“Sesti was—”

“Kaylin. You wouldn’t have gone to Sesti if you thought she’d survive the birthing on her own. You would never have risked the exposure. You’ve been damn careful. You’ve had to be. But you saved her, you saved her son. You saved mine. I wouldn’t make you wear this if you were going someplace where I thought you’d have to—”

She lifted her hand. “It’s on, Marcus,” she said, weary now.

The last thing she wanted to think about was power.

Because she’d discovered over the years that it always, always had a price, and someone had to pay it.

CHAPTER
3

You’re an hour late,” Severn snapped.

“You had something better to do?” She ran a hand across her eyes and winced; it was her blistered hand.

“Than being stared at by a bunch of paper-pushing Hawks?” He spit to the side.

“We didn’t ask you to transfer,” she snapped back. Not that she was fond of being stared at, either—but she was used to it, by now. Besides, it meant that Marcus’s fur had settled enough that the rest of the office had decided it was safe to come back to work.

“In the event that it comes as a surprise,” Tiamaris said, in his deep, neutral tone, “Kaylin is not known for her punctuality. She is known, in fact, for her lack—even by those outside of the Hawklord’s command.”

Used to it or not, no one liked to be reminded that they were a public embarrassment. Kaylin flushed.

“Here,” Severn said, and tossed her a vest. It was made of heavy, molded leather, and it was—surprise, surprise—her size. It was the only armor she wore. “Your quartermaster moves. You’re sure you’re just a Hawk?”

“What else would I be?”

His expression shifted into an unpleasantly serious one. “A Shadow Hawk,” he said quietly.

“I don’t live in the shadows,” she murmured uneasily.

“Since when?”

When she offered no answer at all, he added, “Put the armor on, Kaylin.”

She grimaced.

Another habit that had come from the fiefs; you didn’t want anything weighing you down, because if you had to bolt, you were doing it at top speed, and usually with a bunch of armed thugs giving chase. Severn had changed; he wore leathers without comment. They suited him.

He also wore a long, glittering chain, thin links looped several times around his waist like a fashion statement. She doubted it was decorative.

But she had her own decorations.

Neither of them wore the surcoats that clearly marked the Hawks—or any of the city guards. No point, in the fiefs, unless you wanted to be target practice.

“You’ve got expensive taste,” he said, staring at the edge of the manacle that peered out from beneath her tunic. The gold was unmistakable. “I guess you get better pay than the Wolves do. We don’t even get a chance to loot the fallen.”

Tiamaris eyed them both with disdain.

“Where’s your armor?” she asked the Dragon. Anything to change the subject.

“I don’t require any.”

She raised a brow. She’d heard that a dozen times, usually from young would-be recruits. But then again, none of them had ever been a Dragon.

“We’re not covert,” she snapped.

“No one is, in the fiefs.” His shrug was elegant. It made boredom look powerful.

Severn had a long knife, a couple of obvious daggers.

She had the rest of her kit, her throwing knives, the ring that all Hawks wore. She twisted the last almost unconsciously.

“Why were you late this time?” Severn asked quietly.

She started to tell him to mind his own business, and managed to stop herself. She was about to go into the fief of Nightshade with him. She wanted to kill him. And she knew what the Hawks demanded. Balancing these, she said, “I went back for the rest of the information in the damn crystal.”

“Without us?”

She nodded grimly.

“How bad?”

“It’s bad,” she said quietly. Really, really bad. But she didn’t share easily. “There were two deaths. Two boys.”

His expression didn’t change. He’d schooled it about as well as she now schooled hers. “When?”

“Three days apart.”

Tiamaris’s brows rose. “Three days?”

She nodded quietly.

“Kaylin—I’m not sure how aware you were of what happened the last time … you were a child.”

“I was aware of it,” she whispered. “Because I was a child in the fiefs.”

“There were exactly thirteen deaths a year for almost three years. We could time them by moon phase,” Tiamaris added. “The Dark moon. At no time in the previous incident did the deaths occur at such short intervals.”

She nodded almost blankly.

“Where did the new deaths take place?” Severn’s voice was harsh.

“Nightshade,” she said bitterly, shaking herself. “The fieflord must have been in a good mood. We didn’t lose anyone while we were investigating the deaths.”

Severn whistled.

“Timing or no, it was the same,” she added hollowly. “As last time. The examiner’s reports were also in crystal.”

“And the Hawks’ mages?”

She nodded. “Their reports are there as well. Or rather, their précis on the findings. It’s all bullshit.”

“What kind of bullshit?”

“The unintelligible kind. You take magic exams in the Wolves?”

He shrugged. “Take them, or pass them?”

In spite of herself, she laughed. “Me, too.” And then she forced her lips down, thinning them. Remembering Severn’s last act.

He knew, too. He looked at her, his gaze steady. “Elia—Kaylin,” he corrected himself, “it wasn’t—”

But she lifted a hand. She didn’t want to hear it.

Severn took a step closer, and her hand fell to a dagger. He ignored it. Her hand tightened.

Rescue came from an unexpected quarter.

“If you’re both ready,” Tiamaris said, glancing at the very high windows in the change rooms, “we’re late.”

“For what?”

“There are only so many hours of daylight, and not even I want to be in the fiefs at night.”

The Halls of Law receded slowly.

Tiamaris was tall; his stride, long. Kaylin had to scamper to keep up, and she hated that.

She might have been taller had she not hit her meager growth spurts in the winters. That had been in the fiefs, and food had been scarce. Now that food wasn’t? She hadn’t gained an inch. She was never going to be tall. And Tiamaris? He’d probably never gone hungry in his life.

No, be fair. She had no idea what a Dragon’s life was like. She only knew her own. And she knew that Severn, damn him, had no problem matching the dragon step for step. Severn? He’d gone hungry as well. Bone hungry, thin, gaunt with it. They’d weathered those seasons together.

She was veering dangerously close to the land of what-if, and she gave herself a harsh, mental slap. She’d bandaged her hand, but she clenched it nervously, looking at Severn’s back. He’d grabbed the crystal. He’d tried to save her the pain. Why?

She could almost imagine that he’d really changed. Had emerged from the fiefs, become something different. She hated the thought. And why? Hadn’t she? Wasn’t that exactly what she’d done?

Glancing up, she saw the flag of the Hawks on its tower height, and she stopped a moment, hoping to hear its heavy canvas flap in the wind. But she was earthbound. Funny, how it was the unreachable things that had always provided her anchor.

No, she thought, almost free of the shadows cast by the Towers. She hadn’t changed anything but her name. And now she was going back home.

Because she served the Hawklord, and the Hawklord commanded it.

The richest of the merchants liked to nest in the shadows of the Halls; they lined the streets, their expensive windows adorned by equally expensive dress guards and clientele. There were jewelers here—and what good, she thought bitterly, did they do? You couldn’t eat the damn things they produced, and they didn’t stop you from freezing to death in the winter—and clothiers, a fancy word for tailor. There were swordsmiths, fletchers, herbalists and the occasional maker of books. When she’d first heard of those, she’d snuck in with a pocketful of change to see what betting odds were being offered, and on who. Oh, that had kept the company in laughs for a week.

What was absent were brothels, which lined the richer parts of the fiefs. Here, in the lee of the Halls, there were no girls on window duty, beckoning the drunk and the young, idle rich; she’d found the lack hard to get used to.

She had known some of the girls who worked in the brothels, but not well; they were keen-eyed and sharp, and they often recruited the unwary. Not that Kaylin had ever been lovely enough to be in danger of that particular fate.

But she didn’t pity them. Not those girls. There were others, on darker streets, where windows were forbidden because they hinted at freedom. She’d seen them as well. Seen what was left.

Not all of the buildings that stood around the triangular formation of the Halls of Law were stores; the guilds made their homes here as well. And not all of the guilds were adverse to the presence of the Hawks. Kaylin frequented the weavers’ guild, and the midwives’ guild, almost as a matter of course. But she stayed away from the merchant guild, because it reeked of money and power, and she recognized that from a mile away. She thought that many of the men who had purchased membership in the merchant’s guild also purchased other services in the fiefs, but it was something that wasn’t talked about. Much.

And when she’d first arrived? Well, she hadn’t talked much either.

“Kaylin?” Tiamaris touched her arm and she jumped, turning on him. His brow rose, breaking the sudden panic.

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped.

“You really haven’t changed much, have you?” Severn said, eyes lidded. She couldn’t read his expression, but the scorn in his voice was unmistakable.

Takes one to know one was not a retort she could be proud of, so she didn’t make it. Near thing, damn him.

“What is it?” She kept the irritation out of her voice by dint of will.

“You’ve slowed.”

“Sorry. I was thinking.”

“They forbid that, in the Wolves.”

In spite of herself, she smiled. Severn had always made her smile. Always, until he hadn’t. He saw the change in her expression, and he fell silent.

They walked.

The streets opened up; horses were the mainstay of the merchants and the farmers who traveled up Nestor street. Nestor followed the river that split the city, crossing the widest of its many bridges. It was home to many lesser guilds, to lesser merchants and to the one or two charitable buildings that she thought worth the effort. The foundling halls, for one. She frequented those as well, but was more careful about it. Today she didn’t even acknowledge it with a glance. Because Severn was with her.

Foot traffic stayed to either side of the road, and merchants were not above taking advantage of this. Her stomach growled as she passed an open baker’s stall.

Severn laughed. “Not much at all,” he said, shaking his head.

They were eating as they crossed the bridge over the Ablayne River; Kaylin stopped to look at the waters that ran beneath it. She wanted to turn back. Hawklord, she thought, as if he were a god who might actually listen, I’ll go. I’ll go back to the fiefs. Just give me any other partner Even Marcus.

Severn stopped beside her, and that was answer enough. She drew away, dropping crumbs into the water. Something would eat them; she didn’t much care what.

The streets on the wrong side of the river would still be wide enough for wagons for blocks yet, but the traffic was thinner. In the day, the outer edges of the fiefs seemed like any other part of the city. If you stayed there, you’d probably be safe; patrols passed by, a stone’s throw from safety.

“Did that crystal of yours tell us where the hell we’re going?” Severn asked her.

“Which hell?” Actually, all things considered, it was an almost appropriate question. “Yeah,” she said. “Brecht’s old place.”

“Brecht? He’s still alive?”

“Apparently.” She shrugged. “Might even be sober.”

Severn snorted. And shrugged. His hands, however, stayed inches away from his long knife. One of these days—say, when one of the hells froze over—she’d ask if she could take a look at it. From the brief glimpse she’d had, it was good work. “So much for dangerous. Why Brecht?”

“He found the second body.”

Severn winced. “He’s not sober,” he said.

An hour had passed.

They’d wandered from the outer edges of the fief into the heart of Nightshade, which had the distinction of being the closest of the fiefs to the high city’s clean, lawful streets. Because of its tentative geography, it also had the distinction of having more of an obvious armed force than the fiefs tended to put on display.

Kaylin and Severn knew how to avoid those patrols. Even after seven years, it came as second nature.

Tiamaris was grim and quiet, and he followed where they led—usually into the shadowed lee of an alley, or the overhang of a rickety stall—when one of these patrols walked by.

And patrol? It was entirely the wrong word. It reeked of discipline and order, and in Nightshade, they were almost swear words. They certainly weren’t accurate.

“Why exactly are we hiding?” Tiamaris asked, the seventh time they rounded a sudden corner and retreated quickly.

They looked at each other almost guiltily, and then looked at Tiamaris. Severn’s laconic shrug was both of their answers.

“You’re a Dragon?” Kaylin said, hazarding a guess that was a pretty piss-poor excuse. She knew that maybe one in a hundred of the petty fief thugs would recognize a Dragon for what he was, and he’d probably do it a few seconds before he died. Or after; in the fiefs some people were so stupid they didn’t know when they were dead.

Tiamaris raised a dark brow; his eyes were golden. He didn’t feel threatened here. And because he didn’t, he probably wouldn’t be. That was they way it worked.

“Fine,” she said. She unbent from her silent crouch and looked askance at Severn. His lazy smile spread across his face, whitening the scar just above his chin. It was the last scar she’d seen him take, and it had been bleeding, then.

“I should probably tell you both,” she added, keeping apology out of her voice with effort, “that the Hawklord has strictly forbidden all unnecessary death in the fiefs while we’re investigating.”

“Define unnecessary.” Severn’s face was a mask. Wolf’s mask. She could well believe he’d found a home in the Shadow Wolves. The Shadows—Hawk, Wolf and Sword—usually said goodbye to their members in a time-honored way: they buried the bodies someplace where no one would find them. She couldn’t understand why he’d left them. Or why they’d let him go.

Didn’t, if she were truthful, want to.

She shrugged. “Ask the Hawklord. It was his command.”

“Interesting,” Tiamaris said quietly.

“Interesting how?”

“Rule of law in the fiefs is defined by the fiefs. Even the Lords of Law accede that this is the truth.”

She shrugged.

His frown tightened. “Are you always impulsive?”

She shrugged again. “I’m always late, if that helps.” And then, because his condescending tone annoyed her, she added, “You think he doesn’t want to annoy the fieflord.”

“I think he feels it imperative that we don’t.”

“And that implies that we’re here with the fieflord’s permission.”

“Not, legally, a permission that is his to grant, but yes, that is what I think.”

She turned the words over, thinking them through. After a moment, she glanced at Severn. He nodded. “I’m thinking,” she said slowly, “that I really don’t like this.”

Severn smiled. “I’m thinking that it’s time for a bet.”

“You haven’t changed either,” she said. The smile that crept over her face was a treacherous smile. She couldn’t—quite—douse it. Think, she told herself grimly. But thought led to the past, and the past—it led to darker places than she could afford to go today.

She pulled back. “What bet?”

“Well,” he said, nodding to the east, “there are four armed men coming this way.”

She nodded.

“And we’re not ducking.”

Nodded again.

“They’ll probably take it as a challenge.”

Three times, lucky. “And so?”

“So we’ll probably have to fight.”

Tiamaris said, in his crisp, bored Barrani, “I think that unlikely.”

“Don’t interfere, and we will.”

“And what will that prove?” Kaylin asked, ignoring Tia-maris.

“Nothing.”

“And the bet?”

“We fight.”

“Some bet.”

“And whoever pulls a real weapon first—you or me—loses.”

“What’s the debt?”

“I win, you let me explain.”

“No.”

“Then don’t lose, Kaylin. Here they come.” His smile was a thin stretch of lip over teeth. It made her feel every one of the five years that had always separated them.

“Fine.”

Tiamaris rolled his eyes. “You are children,” he said, just shy of open contempt. The words were Barrani—she wondered if the Dragon condescended to speak any other language when dealing with mere mortals—but the tone wasn’t. Quite. He folded arms across his broad chest and leaned back against the faded wood and brick of an old building.

The men closed in. They were armed; they carried naked blades. One sword, she thought, a short one, and three knives that were as long as Severn’s weapon.

“Hey, hey,” one said. He was a tall man, and his face was knife-thin, his eyes dark. “You’re visitors, I see. You’ve probably forgotten to pay the toll.”

Severn said nothing.

“You pay us, we’ll let you pass.”

Kaylin added more nothing.

The man smiled. “You don’t pay, and we’ll double the tolls, and extract them from your purses. Oh, wait, you don’t seem to have them.” He shrugged. Without turning, he said something in mangled Barrani. Kaylin understood it and tensed.

But her hand didn’t fall to her daggers, her throwing knives or her small club. Instead, she widened her stance and waited, watching them carefully. They wore some armor; it was piecework, and it wasn’t very good. But they weren’t slugs; they moved.

Two to one odds gave them some confidence; it was clear that Tiamaris had no intention of interfering, and he became just another part of the landscape. In the fiefs, this was not uncommon. In fact, given it was the fiefs, there were probably people up windowside, in the relative safety of their tiny homes, crouching and making bets with their roommates. Betting was the pastime of choice in the fiefs, especially when it involved someone else’s messy death.

“How well did they train you, in the Wolves?” Kaylin asked.

“Watch and see.”

“Like hell.”

He laughed.

She might have added something, but there was no more time for words.

She should have let Severn take the leader, because they were both the same height, and the advantage of height was not her friend. There was an advantage in lack of height, but it usually involved doing one’s best to look harmless and pathetic, and she’d given up that route when she’d left the fiefs to find the Hawklord.

Being a woman? Meant nothing, to the fieflord’s thugs. Hell, she’d seen women in their ranks who were far more vicious than the men when they wanted to be.

The city ladies made femininity a triumph of style, and honed their tongues instead of their daggers. Kaylin knew that seven years in the city had failed to make a mark when she swung in before Severn could.

The leader wasn’t stupid, but he was overconfident; she wasn’t armed, and she wasn’t dressed like a flashy guard. He swung the dagger wide, choosing its edge as a threat, and not its point.

Damage, not death; not yet.

His loss. She let him swing, raising the bracer that caged her; the knife’s edge sheared through linen threads, and bounced up at an angle, leaving his ribs exposed. She was inches from his side before he could bring the long knife down, and she raised her leg to deflect his awkward kick.

She swung in, one-two, breath coming out like short, sharp punctuation as she applied the whole of her considerable training to a single point. She felt bone snap; heard him grunt. He was good; she gave him that. He did no more than grunt.

But he didn’t have much opportunity; her fist rose, opening at the last minute into flat palm as it clipped the underside of his chin, snapping his head up. She hit him in the Adam’s apple, and he stumbled backward.

Severn’s snap-kick sent him into the two men who were coming up behind him. He didn’t hit them dead on; they’d already started to separate. But he did hit their right and left arms, putting them off balance.

Rules in the fiefs were pretty simple. Honorable fights were for stories, idiots or dead people.

Kaylin was already on the move, going for the man with the long knife on the left; Severn had the man with the short sword in his sights. She had the impression of height, width, dark hair; she could see a flash of red as the man with the sword swore, again in mangled Barrani. No doubt at all who these men served.

The man she now faced, off balance, was heavier than his leader. He wasn’t any better armored, and he was cautious—but overbalanced and cautious were a poor combination. She let gravity take its toll on her opponent. He was fighting it, but that meant he was fighting on two fronts. She launched into a roundhouse kick, grounded her foot, spun on it, and finished with a back kick. Nothing broke this time, but the man staggered, dropping his weapon as he clutched his stomach.

The fourth man came in on her right.

He’d had enough time to survey the fight, and just enough time to pick his target; she obviously appeared to be the weaker of the two. It annoyed her. Marcus would have had her hide—although he considered humans to have so little hide it was almost not worth taking—had she let the annoyance get the better of her.

She did the next best thing; she kicked his knee. Hard. She caught him on the side of the leg, and he grunted; he swung his long knife in, and she twisted her arm up in an instinctive, almost impossible position, to deflect it. Thankful for cages, for just a minute. There wasn’t a weapon in the city that could go through that bracer. The blow drove her arm into her chest, and she threw her weight onto her back leg, snapping a kick with her front one.

He grabbed for her leg. He was too slow; it brought his chest in close enough that she could hit him. She did, throwing her fists forward and butting the underside of his chin with her head.

She heard his jaw snap shut.

And then he went flying as Severn caught the side of his head with an extended side swing. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

And he wasn’t carrying a weapon. Then again, neither was she. She straightened up. “Two and a half,” she said calmly.

“Two.”

“Yours was an assist. I had him.”

Tiamaris, however, had had something different: enough. “If you insist,” he said in cold and perfect Barrani, something to be feared in the fiefs, “you can play these games until sunset. But if you’ve finished proving some vague human dominance theory, we have work to do.”

Killjoy. She caught his expression, however, and slammed her teeth down over the word.

“Training in the Hawks isn’t bad,” Severn said, as he fell in step beside her, shortening his stride.

“Wolves obviously know what they’re doing,” she replied, grudging the words. “We’re even here.”

He nodded. “Why are you in such a hurry?” He asked Tiamaris’s back. “Brecht won’t be sober.”

He wasn’t. And he wasn’t clean either. Not that it made that much difference; Brecht ran a bar, and the smells that lingered in the daytime were already overpowering enough.

“Is he even alive?” Severn asked, from the vantage of the open door. There were no lights, and the windows were all shuttered. Brecht had always been damn proud of the fact that he had windows. Well, one of them, anyway. The ones near the door were pretty much boards, these days.

“He’s alive,” Kaylin replied, grimacing. “He’s not conscious, but he is alive.” She stood over the ungainly heap that Brecht usually became when he’d emptied too many bottles. Counted the empties beside him, and whistled. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to wake him up.”

“Hang on,” Severn said. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“Where you going?”

“The old well.”

She laughed. “Don’t forget a bucket. This isn’t the city market.”

“Good point.”

Brecht sputtered a lot when the water hit his face. He had to; he had been in the middle of a very noisy inhale. His eyes were red and round when they opened, and he grabbed an empty, cracking it on the hardwood of his personal chair. It shattered in about the right way, leaving him with a suitable weapon. Not that he was in any shape to wield one.

Kaylin stood in front of him, and held out both palms, indicating that she meant him no harm. Or, judging from the water that now streamed down him as if he were a mountain, no more harm. He swore a lot, which she expected.

He even got up, although he wobbled. His legs were like large logs.

“Brecht,” Kaylin said softly. “Sorry about waking you, but we need to talk.”

“Bar’s closed.” This wasn’t evidence that he was actually awake; Brecht could say this in his sleep. She’d seen it.

“We don’t want to talk when the bar’s open,” Kaylin replied. “Too many people. And some of them, we’d have to kill.”

“Not in my bar.”

She shrugged. “We’d try to take the fight outside.”

He closed his eyes and rubbed water off his face. Didn’t work. Dropping the bottle, or the half of it that he still held, he tried mopping his face with his apron. Given that that, too, was soaked, it didn’t help much either. The swearing that followed, on the other hand, seemed to do him a world of good.

He shook himself, like a Leontine waking, and then his bloodshot eyes narrowed. “Is that Elianne? And Severn? Together?”

Before she could frame a reply, he muttered, “I’ve got to drink something better than swill.” But he continued to stare at her, and after a minute, he snorted. Water flew out his nostrils. “Do that again,” he added, “and you won’t be.”

“Together?”

“Alive.” He frowned. “Who’s the nob?”

“Tiamaris. He’s a—a friend.”

Suspicion, which was his natural expression, chased surprise off his face. “A friend of who?”

“Mine, sort of. Look, Brecht, we need to—”

“Yeah, I heard you. You need to talk. Tell you what. You go behind the counter and get me a bottle of—”

“No,” Severn said.

Brecht cursed him for a three-mothered cur. All in all, it was almost affectionate. “What do you need to talk about?” he said after he’d finished.

She started to speak, stopped and waited.

He lost about four inches in height. “I should have known,” he said softly. “Look, Elianne—”

“I’m called Kaylin, now,” she said quietly.

“Shit, I barely remembered the old name.” Which was probably true. “You got out,” he added. “We heard about it. I thought it was a lie—I thought you were dead, like the others.”

She closed her eyes. She could not look at Severn.

Severn said nothing.

“But it’s started again,” the old man continued. His hands were over his face when she opened her eyes. Old hands, now. Seven years had changed him. “Connie’s lost her boy. I found him.”

“What did you do?”

“I sent a runner. You don’t know him,” he added. “He came after your time. I sent a runner to the damn Lords of Law.”

She nodded.

But Severn didn’t. He stepped in, toward Brecht, and grabbed him by the shirt collar.

“Severn—” she began.

“He’s lying,” Severn said. Menace enfolded the scant syllables.

“Lying? Why?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell us, Brecht?” Before she could say another word, Severn’s long knife was in his hand. Brecht was no fool; he didn’t even try to reach for a bottle.

“Severn, this is stupid. Look—the Lords of Law have the body,” she snapped.

“They have it now. Brecht, who did you send the runner to?”

Brecht was absolutely stone still.

And Kaylin, caught by Severn, by the change in him, was still as well. But she was a Hawk. She’d spent seven years under the harsh tutelage of both Lord Grammayre and Marcus. The hair on the back of her neck began to rise, and her arms goose-bumped suddenly.

She looked at Tiamaris and saw that his eyes were a deep, unnatural red; that he had already turned away from the pathetic bartender and the not so pathetic Shadow Wolf.

Toward the door. The open door.

In it, the answer stood. And he smiled. “Why, to me, Severn,” he said softly, in perfect Barrani. “Thank you, Brecht. You’ve done well, and you will be rewarded.” His Elantran was also perfect, and she was surprised to hear it. Then again, Brecht probably didn’t speak any Barrani worth listening to. Unless you liked inventive cursing.

Kaylin wasn’t certain that that reward wouldn’t be death; Severn’s eyes were black. She knew what that meant. Hated it. Without thinking, she reached out and grabbed his knife hand, curling her fingers round his wrist.

He stared at her. Stared at the hand that she had willingly placed around his wrist. Understood what she was asking, understood that she would never ask in words.

Severn slowly released old Brecht and turned at last to face the outcaste Barrani lord known, in this fief, as Nightshade.

CHAPTER
4

He was tall.

Taller than either Teela or Tain; taller than Tiamaris. He had hair that was a shade darker than ebony, and it was long; it slid down his back like a cape.

Teela and Tain made her feel ungainly, clumsy and plodding. Nightshade—lord of this fief—made her feel worse: young again. Afraid. Just standing there, in the door, his hands idling against the wooden frame. They were ringed hands, and she hated that.

In fact, had she not been so unsettled, she would have hated him. But, like the rest of the Barrani, he seemed above any emotion she might offer. His eyes were cold, emrald-green; they did not blink once. She hoped it stung. She knew it wouldn’t.

“So,” he said quietly, sliding back into Barrani as he withdrew his hands from the door frame and stepped into the bar. He gestured without looking back, his fingers flicking air as if he were brushing away a speck of dust.

Behind him, two guards followed; they were, by their look, Barrani as well.

Three. Against a single Barrani, she and Severn had a good chance—on a very lucky day. But against three? None whatsoever.

Her hands fell to her daggers.

The fieflord raised a dark brow. “Do not,” he said softly, “insult my hospitality. Had I wished you harm, you would never have reached this … place.” He glanced around the innards of the bar.

She said nothing. She had heard his name whispered for years. In the fiefs, it was common. Outside of them, his name was also known, but the Hawks at least didn’t feel any need to speak it with respect, on the rare occasions they used it at all. She’d gotten used to that. She’d forgotten too much.

Kaylin had never met the fieflord. Was certain that she would have remembered even a passing glimpse, had she had one. Because although the Barrani had all looked alike to her when she had joined the Hawks, and it had taken months to become used to the subtle ways in which they differentiated themselves when they could be bothered, she would have known that this one was different.

She almost called him Lord Nightshade, and that would have been too much. Too much fear. Too much reaction.

As if he could hear her thoughts, his gaze met hers. “So,” he said softly. “You are the child.”

Not even that word could make her bridle.

He moved toward her, and Severn moved, slowly, to block him. The Barrani at the fieflord’s back moved less slowly, but with infinitely more grace. They were cold, deadly, beautiful—and utterly silent.

“Severn,” the fieflord said quietly. “It has been many years since we last spoke.”

Kaylin couldn’t stop her brows from rising. “Severn?”

Severn said, quietly, “Not enough of them.”

The fieflord moved before either she or Severn could; he backhanded Severn. And Severn managed to keep his footing. “I will, for the sake of hospitality, tolerate much from outsiders,” the fieflord said. “But you were—and will always be—one of mine. Do not presume overmuch.”

“He’s not yours,” Kaylin said sharply, surprise following words that she wouldn’t have said she could utter until they’d tumbled out of her open mouth. She spoke forcefully in Elantran, her mother tongue. Barrani, if it came, would come later; to speak it now was too much of a concession. Or a presumption. Either way, she didn’t like it.

A black brow rose; she had amused the fieflord. Then again, so did painful, hideous death by all accounts.

“And do you claim him, then, little one?”

“The Lord of Hawks does,” she replied.

He reached out slowly, his hand empty, his palm exposed. Gold glittered at the base of his fingers, but he carried no obvious weapon. His fingers brushed her cheek.

As if she were a pet, something small and helpless.

“The Lord of Hawks has no authority here,” he replied softly, “save that which I grant him.”

“He has authority,” Tiamaris said quietly, speaking for the first time.

The fieflord’s hand stilled, but it did not leave her face as he turned. His eyes, however, widened slightly as he met the red of Dragon eyes. Unlidded eyes, they seemed to burn. “Is she yours?” He asked casually, and this time, he did let his hand fall away.

“She is as she says.”

“She has not said who she serves,” the fieflord replied. “And if I am not mistaken, she was born in the fiefs.” He turned to look at her again.

“I—I serve—the Hawklord. Lord Grammayre. And so does Tiamaris.”

“Really?”

“I have offered him my service,” Tiamaris replied softly, “and it has been accepted. While I am here, I am his agent.”

The fieflord surprised Kaylin, then. He laughed. It was a rich, lovely sound, and it conveyed both amusement and something she couldn’t quite name. “Times have changed, Tiamaris, if you can serve another.”

“I have always served another,” was the cold reply.

Kaylin had never seen a Dragon fight. Had a bad feeling that she was about to. The Barrani guards had forgotten Severn, forgotten her; they were drawn to Tiamaris as if he were the only significant danger in the room. Which was fair. He was.

The fieflord, however, raised a hand, and the Barrani stiffened. She knew some of the silent language of thieves, and saw none of it in the gestures of the fieflord. They knew him well enough that that gesture was command.

“It is strange,” the fieflord said softly. “I know both you, Tiamaris, and the young man called Severn by his kind. But the girl? She is at the apex of events, and I have never met her.” He held out a hand, then.

She stared at it.

“Leave her be,” Tiamaris said, and his voice, soft, was suddenly louder than Marcus’s at its most fierce.

“I intend her no harm,” the fieflord replied. He had once again turned the full emerald of his eyes upon her, and she could not help but believe his words. “And I intend to make clear to the people of my lands that I intend they offer her none. Will you gainsay me?”

“I will not have you mark her.”

The fieflord said, quietly, “She is already marked, Tiamaris.”

To that, the Dragon offered no reply.

Which was too bad; it might have helped her make sense of the fieflord’s words. She stared at his hand; he did not move it. After a moment, it became clear to her that he intended her to actually take his hand.

“I am not patient,” the fieflord said, when he realized that she wouldn’t. “And I have little time to spare. You are here because of the sacrifices, of course. And it is in my interest to see an end brought to them as well.”

Still she stared. Might have gone on staring, dumbfounded, had Severn not said, curtly, “Take his hand.”

Her fingers touched the fieflord’s palm, and he closed his hand around hers.

Magic coursed up her arm. Her right arm. She was rigid with the shock of it, and angry. She tried to pull free, and wasn’t surprised when she failed.

“What are you—”

“Silence.”

She could feel the magic as it rode up her shoulder, sharp light, and invisible. She hated magic. But she bit her lip and waited; she was already committed.

Severn swore.

Tiamaris’s brows rose. “Lord Nightshade,” he began, but he did not finish.

The magic broke through her skin, questing in air as if it were alive. She could see it. Judging by the expressions of her companions, everyone could. It twisted in the space just above her, and then it coalesced into a blue, sparkling shape, like a ward.

It touched her cheek, in the exact same place that the fieflord had. A lesson, for Kaylin, and one that she would not forget: he did nothing without cause.

“You bear my mark,” he said quietly. “And in this fief, it will afford you some protection.” He paused, and then added, “This is a fief. It will not protect you from everything. Mortal stupidity knows no bounds. But in the event that you are harmed by any save me, they will pay.”

He let her hand go, then. “Now, come. It is late, and we have far to travel.”

“Travel?” Her first word, and it wasn’t terribly impressive. Then again, Severn said nothing at all.

“You are invited as guests to the Long Halls of Nightshade,” he replied, with just the hint of a bow. “But sunset is coming, and in the fiefs—”

She nodded. In the fiefs, night meant something different.

Her skin was still tingling a half hour later. The fieflord walked before them, and the Barrani guards, behind. Sandwiched in an uncomfortable line between these two walked Severn, Kaylin and Tiamaris, the wings of their namesake momentarily clipped.

“Severn,” she said, in a voice so soft he should have missed it.

Severn nodded, although he didn’t look at her.

“My face—what happened?”

“You—you’ve got a blue flower on your cheek,” he said quietly.

“A flower?”

“Sort of. It’s nightshade.”

“It’s what?”

“Nightshade,” Tiamaris said quietly. “The namesake of the fieflord. It’s a … herb,” he added.

“I have a tattoo of a flower on my face?”

Severn did look at her then, his brow arched. “You would have liked a skull and crossbones better?”

“Or a dagger. Or a sword. Or even a Hawk. A flower?”

“A deadly one,” Tiamaris said, with just the hint of a smile. “But it is very pretty.”

Had he not been a Dragon, she would have kicked him. Or had she not been shadowed by armed Barrani. As it was, she glowered.

Which broadened his smile. Dragon smile. “You should feel … honored. In a fashion. This is the first time that I have seen a human bear the mark of the fieflord.”

She turned the words over, picking out the information they contained. “How often have you seen him mark anyone else?”

“Not often,” Tiamaris replied, his eyes now lidded. “And no, before you ask, I am not going to tell you when.”

She frowned. “Does the Hawklord—”

“Lord Grammayre knows much,” he replied. “And if he feels it necessary to enlighten you, he will. Until then, I suggest you pay attention to the—”

Cobbled streets. Badly cobbled. She caught her boot under the edge of an upturned stone and tripped. Severn caught her arm before she made her way to the ground.

“Severn?”

“What?”

“When did you meet the fieflord?”

“Back when we were both in the fiefs,” he said. But he didn’t meet her eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to know.”

“All right, I guessed that. Why?”

He shook his head. “Don’t ask, Kaylin.”

She heard the change in his tone, and she suddenly didn’t want to know. “You know where we’re going?”

“No. When I spoke to him, he didn’t invite me into his Hall.”

“Should we be worried?”

The look he gave her almost made her laugh. It would have been a shaky laugh. She held it. “I mean, more worried?”

And he shook his head and cuffed hers gently. “You haven’t changed at all,” he said, with just a hint of bitterness.

The manor of the fieflord was not a manor. It was a small keep. Stone walls circled it, and beyond their height—and they were damn tall—the hint of a castle behind them could be seen, no more. The stone work of the walls was in perfect repair, and that made it suspect in the fiefs, where nothing was perfect.

The castle would have looked ridiculous had she not been in the presence of the man who ruled the fief from its heart. She’d lived most of her life in Nightshade, and she’d only once come near the keep. Rarely come down the streets that surrounded it. She’d spent a good deal of time honing her skills at theft, and no one survived stealing anything from the fieflord or his closest advisors. And in the end, they were happy enough not to survive; it was all the stuff in between that was terrifying.

She saw no one on the streets. It was not yet dark, but they were empty. She wondered if they’d been cleared by the Barrani guards, or if people were just unusually smart in this part of town. She didn’t ask.

The tall, stone buildings around the keep were better kept than those at the edges of the fief, but they were still packed tightly together, and they still felt old. As old as anything in the outer city. Shadows moved in the windows, or perhaps they were drapes closing; the movements were quick, furtive and caught by the corner of a wary eye.

Between some of those windows, gargoyles, carved in weathered stone, kept watch like sentinels on high, smooth wings folded, claws extended about the edge of their stone bases. She had often wondered if the gargoyles came to life when the last of day waned. She was careful not to wonder it now. Because in the shadow of the fieflord, it seemed too plausible.

The road to the keep was wide; a carriage could easily make its way to the gate, pulled by four—or even six—horses. But the gates themselves were behind a portcullis that discouraged visitors.

They certainly discouraged Kaylin.

She turned to Tiamaris, but Tiamaris didn’t blink. He nodded, however, to let her know that he was aware of her sudden movement.

“Welcome,” the fieflord said softly, “to Castle Nightshade.” He stepped forward as they approached the gates, and he placed a hand upon the portcullis.

It shivered in place, but it did not rise.

“Follow me,” he said. “Do not stop. Do not hesitate, and do not show fear. While you are with me, you are safe. Remember it.”

He spoke to Kaylin in his resonant Barrani, and although she’d spoken nothing but Elantran, she knew he knew that she understood him perfectly. Then again, she was a ground Hawk; all of the Hawks had to speak Barrani, or they weren’t allowed on the beat. She wondered, now, why she had thought it was such a good idea.

It seemed, to Kaylin, that he spoke only to her.

Dry-mouthed, she nodded.

He stepped forward through the portcullis. As if it were shadow, and only shadow. Drawing breath, Kaylin looked to either side for support, and then did as he had done: She stepped into the gate.

It enfolded her.

She screamed.

When she woke, her head ached, her mouth was dry and she would have bet she’d had a terrific evening with Teela and Tain in the bar down the street—if she could remember any of it. That lasted for as long as it took her to realize that her bed was way too soft, her room was way too big, her door lacked bolts and had gained height and her windows were nonexistent.

That, and she had a companion.

She reached for her daggers. They weren’t there. In fact neither were her leathers. Or her tunic, or the one pair of pants she had that hadn’t been cut to pieces.

Lord Nightshade stood in the center of the almost empty room. If there were no windows, light was abundant, and it was both soft enough to soothe the eye, and harsh enough to see clearly by. The floor beneath his feet was marble and gold, and he seemed to be standing in the center of a large circle.

“You will forgive me,” he said, making a command out of what would, from anyone else, have been an apology. “I did not expect your passage here to be so … costly. Your former clothing was inappropriate for my halls. It will be returned to you when you leave.”

The when sounded distinctly like an if.

She wasn’t naked. Exactly.

But her arms were bare to the shoulder, and she hated that. She never, ever wore anything that didn’t fall past her wrists, and for obvious reasons. The thick distinct lines of swirling black seemed to move up and down her forearms as she glanced at them. She didn’t look long.

Dizzy, she rose. Her dress—and it was a dress of midnight-blue, long, fine and elegantly simple—rose with her, clinging to the skin. It was a pleasant sensation. And it was not.

Teela and Tain were the Barrani she knew best, and they never came to work dressed like this. It made her wonder what they did in their off hours. Which made her redden. She wondered who had changed her, and that didn’t help.

But the fieflord simply waited, watching her as if uncertain what she would do. She lifted her right arm, and saw that the gold manacle still encased it, gems flashing in sequence. A warning.

“Yes,” he said softly. “That was … unexpected. I have not seen its like in many, many years—and I suspect not even then. Where did you get it?”

“It was a gift.”

“From the Lord Grammayre?”

She nodded.

“It did not come from him. Not directly.” He stepped outside of the golden circle inlayed upon the ground and approached her. But he approached her slowly, as if she were wild. “My apologies,” he said, less of a command in the words. “But I wished to see for myself if you bore the marks.”

“And now?” she asked bitterly.

“I know. If you are hungry, you may eat. Food will be brought. These rooms have been little used for many years. They are not fit for guests.”

“Where are my—where are Severn and Tiamaris?”

“I found it convenient to leave them behind,” he replied gravely. “But they are unharmed, and they know that you are likewise unharmed. If they are wise, they will wait.”

“And if they aren’t?”

“These are my halls,” he said coldly. “And not even a Dragon may enter them with impunity.”

“But he’s been here before.”

The fieflord raised a brow. “How do you know that, little one?”

“I’m not called ‘little,’” she replied. She wanted to snap the words; they came out sounding, to her ears, pathetic.

“And what are you called now?”

“Kaylin. Kaylin Neya.”

His other brow rose. And fell. “Interesting. Yes, you are correct. Tiamaris has indeed visited the Long Halls. If any could find their way in, uninvited, it would be he. But I think, for the moment, he is content to wait. It will keep your Severn alive.”

“He’s not mine,” she said. And I don’t want him alive. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words to the fieflord. Didn’t want to know why.

He held out a hand.

She tried to ignore it. But she found herself lifting hand in response. As if this were a dream. He took the hand; his skin was cool. Hers was damp.

“These are the Halls of Nightshade,” he said quietly. “Come. There are things here I wish you to see.” Without another word, he led her from the room.

She expected the doors to open into a hall.

So much for expectation. They opened instead into what must have been a forest. Not that she’d seen forests—not up close—but she’d seen them at a distance, when Clint had taken her flying to the Aeries of his kin. Here, the trees grew up, and up again, until they reached the rounded height of a ceiling that she could only barely glimpse through the greenery.

She walked slowly, her hand still captive to the fieflord’s, but he seemed to be in no hurry. And why would he? If he didn’t manage to get himself killed, he had forever. Time meant nothing to him.

At his side, in waking dream, it could almost mean nothing to her. She touched the rough surface of brown bark, and then moved on to the smooth surface of silver-white; she touched leaves that had fallen across the ground like a tapestry, a gentle riot of color. All of her words deserted her, which was just as well; she didn’t have any fine enough to describe what she saw.

And had she, she wouldn’t have exposed it. Beauty meant something to her, and she kept it to herself, as she kept most things that meant anything.

“There is no sunlight,” he told her, as if that made sense. “But outcaste or no, I am still Barrani Lord—they grow at my whim.”

“And if you don’t want them?”

He gestured. The tree just beyond the tip of her fingers withered, twisting toward the ground almost as if it were begging. She stopped herself from crying out. It was just a plant.

She didn’t ask again, however. And she kept her wonder contained; she looked; she touched nothing else. He had offered her a warning, in subtle Barrani fashion. She took it.

“Where are we going?”

“To the heart of this forest,” he replied. “Be honored. Not even my own have seen it.”

“Your children?”

His brows drew in. “Are you truly so ignorant, Kaylin?”

“Apparently.”

His hand tightened. It was not comfortable. Another warning. But he chose to do no more than that, and after a pause, he surprised her. He answered. “I have no children. I am outcaste.”

Outcaste was a word that had meaning for Kaylin, but in truth, not much. Although one human lord served as Caste-lord for her kind, the complicated laws of the caste did not apply to the rank and file. It certainly didn’t apply to the paupers and the beggars who made a living—or didn’t—in the fiefs. The Leontines, the Aerians and the humans—mortal races all—were not defined in the same way by caste; they were more numerous, and their lives reached from the lowest of gutters to the highest of towers. Not so, the Barrani.

“I spoke simply of my kin, those who chose to follow me. The forest speaks to them, but it speaks in a language that is … not pleasant to their ears. They will not hear it, and remain. And I am unwilling to release them.

“I release nothing that is mine.”

She said nothing for a while. For long enough that she found the silence uncomfortable. Not awkward; awkward was too petty a word. “Did you build this?”

“The forest?”

“The … Long Halls.”

“No.”

“The castle?”

“No. I have altered it over the years, but in truth, very little. It was here, for the taking.” His smile was thin. “I was not, however, the first to try. I was the first to succeed.”

“It had other occupants?”

“It had defenses,” he replied. “And I forget myself. You ask too many questions.”

“Questions are encouraged, in the Hawks. When they’re not stupid.”

“Indeed. Here, they are not. The answers can be fatal.” He stopped in front of a dense ring of trees; their branches seemed to interlock at all levels, as if they had deliberately grown together. She didn’t like the look of them. But then again, at the moment she didn’t like the look of herself, either. What she could see, that is; the dress, the funny shoes, the bold, black design on her arms. She drew her arms down.

His hand came with one. “You do not understand the marks you bear,” he said, his voice a little too close to her ear.

“And you do?”

“No, not completely. But I understand some of their significance. In truth, I’m surprised that you still survive.”

“Why?”

He smiled, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted his hand and touched the trees that barred their way. They shuddered. There was something terrible about that shudder, something that looked so wrong she had to turn away. It was as if the trees were silently screaming.

But they parted. Like curtains, like great rolling doors, their limbs untwining, their trunks shifting. Roots moved beneath her feet—or something did. She really wanted to pay less attention.

“Come,” he said, when there was room enough for passage.

Her hand fell to her hips, and came up empty. Daggers, of course, were someplace else. But the desire for them, the reflex, was still a part of her. And it was growing stronger.

“Nothing will harm you here,” he told her, the smile gone. “You bear my mark. You are in my domain.”

I’ve lived in your fief for more than half my life, and it wasn’t ever safe. But she said nothing. And it was hard.

The trees were not as thick as they appeared; the darkness of their branches curved above like a roof or a canopy, but it lasted a scant ten feet, and then it was gone.

They stood in a great, stone room, beneath the outer edge of a domed ceiling that gave off a bright, green light. And as they walked toward the center of the room, that light grew brighter, changing in hue. She looked up; she couldn’t help it.

Above her, carved in runnels in the smooth, hard stone, were swirling patterns that were both familiar and foreign. She lifted a hand. An arm.

“Yes,” the fieflord said quietly. “They are written in the same tongue as the mark you bear. It is known as the language of the Old Ones.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“No one does. There is not a creature alive that can read the whole of what is written there. But I have never seen the writing glow in such a fashion. I believe that the room is aware of your presence.”

“But who—or what—are the Old Ones?”

His frown was momentary, but sharp. But he surprised her. “Once,” he said softly, “you might have considered them gods.”

“But the gods—”

The derision was there in the cold expression the word evoked. “Mortal gods?” He shrugged. “Mortal gods are mortal. They exist at the whim of your attention, and your attention passes quickly.”

She didn’t like the room. He continued to walk; she stopped. But although he was slender, he pulled her along, her feet scudding stone. Dignity forced her to follow, given how little of it she had.

She forgot the ceiling, then.

The floor itself was alive. Where she stepped, light seemed to squelch like soft mud, and it flared in lines, in swirling circles, in patterns.

“Here,” he said softly, and stopped. “Go no farther, Kaylin. And touch nothing if you value your life.”

If she’d valued her life, she’d have stayed out of the fiefs. She nodded.

In the center of the room, laid against the floor in sapphire light, was a large circle. It didn’t surprise her much to see writing across it. She couldn’t read it, of course; it was almost the same as the writing that was carved high above her head. But it was different. It seemed to move.

“This is the seal of the Old Ones,” he said quietly, “and from it emanates the power that defended the castle against intruders.” Against, she thought, the fieflord.

She stared at the seal. The writing seemed to sharpen, somehow. Light flared, like blue fire, and it grew in height along the patterns that had birthed it. She watched as it reached for the ceiling. Watched, forgetting to breathe, as the light from the ceiling dripped down.

When they touched, she cried out in shock, and then in pain; her arms were on fire.

“Stay your ground,” the fieflord said, but his voice seemed to come from a distance—a growing distance. She reached out almost in panic, and was instantly ashamed of her reaction.

She would have reached out for Severn that way, once. And she’d already paid for that. She made fists of her fingers.

“Kaylin, stay your ground.”

Her tongue was heavy; too heavy for speech. She wanted to tell him that she was staying her damned ground, but she couldn’t, and probably just as well.

The light was a column now.

She felt it, an inch from her face, from her hand. Her hand was moving toward it, fingers twitching, as if pulled by gravity. She’d fallen once, from a great enough height that she’d had time to think about just how much of a pain gravity was.

She’d choose falling any time.

She heard the fieflord. She felt his presence. But her hand moved, continued to move. Her skin touched blue fire. Blue fire touched her.

For just a moment, she could see, in the pillar of light, something that looked like a … man. The way that the Barrani fieflord did. But worse. She could not make out his features, and she knew that she really, really didn’t want to.

Her hand sank through the light.

She heard a single word.

Chosen.

And then a different light flared; the golden manacle slammed into the pillar and it refused to move farther. She pushed against it with half of her weight and none of her will. She was losing ground.

She cried out; she couldn’t help it. Years of training fled in the panic that followed. She could see only light, could hear only the indistinct murmur of a stranger’s voice, could feel nothing at all beneath her feet. She had feared the night all her life; this was worse. Her feet were moving. Toward the light, toward the pillar, toward what it contained. She bit her lip, and she tasted blood.

And then, just before she entered the column, before she lost herself entirely, the shadows came, and they came in the shape of a dark, precise crest.

She didn’t recognize it. It didn’t matter.

She hit it and froze.

The light scraped against its edges, seeking passage the way sun does through stained glass. But this lattice offered nothing; it wasn’t, as it had first appeared, a window. It was a wall.

It was a wall with something written across it. She stared at it as the light flared, brighter now, and she understood the word in the same way she understood hunger, pain or fear: instinctively.

She could still taste blood. She could not feel her lips. But they moved anyway. Barrani was one of the languages that the Hawklord had insisted she study, and if she hadn’t been his most apt pupil, she’d learned. She’d always learned any real lesson he’d decided to teach her, even the ones that scarred.

Her lips moved over the syllables; she had to force them. She couldn’t make a sound, but it didn’t matter.

Calarnenne.

The light went out.

“My apologies,” the fieflord said softly. His arms were around her waist, his face against her neck. Black hair trailed down her shoulder in loose, wild strands. Pretty hair.

She tried to speak.

He lifted a hand and pressed his fingers gently against her lips. “No more,” he said softly. “You have done enough. I have done enough. Come. We must leave this place.”

Her knees collapsed.

Teela would have laughed at her. Tain would have shaken his head. But the fieflord did neither; he caught her before she hit ground, lifting her as if her weight were insignificant. He cradled her against his chest, and because he did, she saw blood well against the soft fabric of his odd tunic.

It was hers. Her cheek was bleeding.

“I … can walk.”

He smiled grimly. “You can barely speak,” he said, “and if you touch the ground again, I am not certain that I will be able to stop you from touching the seal.”

There were so many questions she wanted to ask him.

Only one surfaced, fighting its way to the top. “Calarnenne?”

“Yes,” he replied grimly. “My name. Do not speak it, Kaylin.” His eyes were as blue as the light had been, and just as cold.

“Your name.”

“I should kill you,” he replied.

“Why?”

“Because you are now a bigger threat than even the Dragon.”

She shook her head. She knew that. “Why did you—why your name?”

He stopped walking, but he did not set her down. The trees were above them now, and she found their dark presence almost comforting. “The mark,” he said, touching her wounded cheek, “was not enough. You know the Barrani,” he added, his fingers brushing blood away gently. “How many of them have given you their names?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

The frustration on his face was the most familiar expression she had yet seen. It reminded her of the Hawklord. “None,” he said curtly. “Because if they had, you would know.”

When this didn’t seem to garner the right response, he shook her. But even this was gentle.

“If you called their names, they would hear you. They would know where you were. And if they were not strong, they would be drawn to you. Names have power, Kaylin.” He paused. Frowned. “They have power, if you have the power to say them.”

And then he spoke the whole of her given name, her new name. “Kaylin Neya.”

She felt it reverberate through her body as if it were a caress.

He laughed, then.

CHAPTER
5

He took her back to the rooms she had woken in, and there, she found her daggers. Her clothing, however, was nowhere in sight. When her brows rose, he smiled. His smile was so close to her face it was almost blurred; she could pretend it was something else.

Her arms ached. Her head hurt. And her cheek? It continued to bleed.

The fieflord set her down upon the bed. He reached out to touch her cheek and she shied away—which overbalanced her. She really was pathetic. “Don’t.”

The word displeased him; his face fell into its more familiar, cold mask. “I have no intention of harming you,” he replied. “And I seek to take no screaming mortal children to my bed. Those who are fortunate enough to come to the Long Halls come willingly.”

“Willingly.” She snorted.

“Kaylin, I have perhaps made an error in judgment, and you have paid for it. Do not presume overmuch.”

Another warning. Too many warnings. She fell silent. But she did not let him touch her again, and he didn’t try. They were quiet for some time.

“My clothing?” she asked at last.

“It will return to you when you leave the Long Halls. It is, as I said, unsuitable.” He rose. “We will return you to your Hawks for the moment.”

She waited until he had reached the door; when he did, she rose. “I want to cover my arms,” she said.

He said nothing; he simply waited.

Her legs were wobbly, and she made her way, clumsy and entirely graceless, toward him. When he offered her an arm, she bit back all pride and took it; it was either that or fall flat on her face.

Teela had taken her drinking when she had been a year with the Hawks. It had been something like this, but with more nausea. Not a lot more, though.

When he opened the door, the forest was gone.

In its place? A long hall. Funny, that. She felt magic as she walked through the door, and she swore under her breath. It was a Leontine curse. It would have shocked Marcus, if anything could.

“You will be weak for two days,” he told her quietly, “if only that. Eat what you can eat. Drink what you can drink. Do not,” he added softly, “be alone.”

“Why?”

“I do not understand all of what happened, Kaylin. But I understand this much … by presence alone, you activated the seal. In my life, I have never seen it burn. And believe that I, and the mages at my disposal, have tried.

“It is not, however, of the seal that I speak.”

“Your name,” she whispered.

“Indeed. The giving of a name is never an easy thing. It is, in essence, the most ancient and most dangerous of our rituals. It is a binding, a subtle chain. In some people, it destroys will and presence of mind.”

“You mean—”

“I did not think it would have that effect upon you, but it was a risk.”

Her brows rose. He smiled, but it was a sharp smile. “Barrani gifts,” he said softly, “have thorns or edges. Remember that.”

Like she could forget.

“I would take the name from you,” he added softly, “but I think I would find it difficult. And if the taking of the name was costly to you, the giving was costly to me.” Clear, from the tone of his voice, which one of the two mattered more.

“Do not let go of my arm,” he told her quietly. “We will meet some of my kin before you are free of the Hall, and two who have not seen the outer world for much, much longer than you have been alive. They will be drawn to you.” His lips lost the edge that was his smile. “They will not touch you, if they see the mark—but it bleeds, Kaylin, and you will not let me tend it.”

“I couldn’t stop you,” she said quietly.

“No. But in this, I have chosen to grant you volition. It is another lesson.”

The Hall was, as the name suggested, long. It was tall as well, but not so tall as the great hall that opened into the Halls of Law. No Aerian wings graced the heights; they were cold, serene and perfect. Funny, how lack of living things could make something seem so perfect.

They walked for minutes, for a quarter of an hour, passing closed doors and alcoves in which fountains trickled clear water into ancient stone. She didn’t ask where the water came from. She didn’t really want to know.

But when they came at last to the Hall’s end, there were tall doors, and the doors were closed. An alcove sat to the left and right of either door, and in each, like living statues, stood a Barrani lord.

She could not tell, at first glance, if they were male or female. They were adorned by the same dark hair that marked all of their kind, and it, like their still faces, was perfect. Their skin was white, like alabaster, and their lids were closed in a sweep of lashes against that perfect skin.

She heeded the warning of the fieflord; she held his arm. He walked beside her until the Barrani flanked him, and then he said, softly, “The doors must be opened.”

Eyelids rolled up. Nothing else about the Barrani moved. Kaylin found it disturbing.

The doors began to swing outward in a slow, slow arc. She stepped toward them, eager to be gone; the fieflord, however, did not move. She turned to look at him, and her glance strayed to the two Barrani on either side of her.

They were speaking. Their voices were unlike any Barrani voice she had ever heard, even the fieflord’s: they were almost sibilant. They reminded her of ghosts. Death that whispered the name of Nightshade.

But when they reached out to touch her, she froze; the dead didn’t move like this. Fluid, graceful, silent, they eyed her as if she were … food.

“Peace,” the fieflord said coldly.

They didn’t seem to hear him. Icy fingers touched her arms. Icy fingers burned. Unfortunately, so did Kaylin.

The hand drew back.

“She is yours?” one of the two said. His voice was stronger now, as if he were remembering how to use it. The words held more expression than any Barrani voice she had heard, which was strange, given that his face held less.

“She is mine,” Nightshade said quietly.

“Give her to us. Give her to us as the price of passage.”

“You forget yourselves,” he replied. He lifted a hand, and thin shadows streamed from his fingers. They passed over her shoulder, around the curve of her arm, without touching her. She froze in place, because she was suddenly very certain that she didn’t want them to touch her.

“They smell blood,” he said quietly.

It made no sense.

“They are old,” he added softly, “and they have chosen to reside here in Barrani sleep. They are also powerful. Do not wake them, Kaylin.”

“You rule here.”

“I rule,” he said softly, “because I have not chosen to join them. They are outcaste, and they have been long from the world.” He paused, and then added quietly, “They were within the castle grounds, even as you see them, when I at last took possession. They fought me. They are powerful, but they seldom speak.”

“They’re speaking now.”

“Yes. I thought they might. You have touched the seal,” he added.

“Will they leave?”

“No. They are bound here, but the binding is old and poorly understood. Blood wakes them. It is a call to life.”

The lesson, then. She raised a hand to cover her cheek.

“She bears the mark,” one of the two said. It confused Kaylin until she realized they weren’t talking about the fieflord’s strange flower; they were talking about the ones on her arms. “Leave her here. Do not meddle in the affairs of the ancients.”

“She is mortal,” the fieflord replied. “And not bound by the laws of the Old Ones.”

“She bears the marks,” the Barrani said again. “She contains the words.”

“She cannot.”

Silence then. Shadows.

“She is almost bound,” a flat, cold voice at last replied. “As we are bound. We grant you passage, Lord of the Long Halls.”

Kaylin passed between them in the shadow of the fieflord, but she felt their eyes burning a hole between her shoulder blades, and she swore that she would never again walk through a shadow gate, not even if her life depended on it. She’d been hungry before, but never like they were, and she didn’t want to be whatever it was that satisfied that hunger.

“You will not speak of them here,” he told her.

“I—”

“I understand that you will speak with Lord Grammayre. I understand that, if you do not speak well, he will summon the Tha’alani.”

She shuddered. “He won’t,” she snapped.

“You already bear the scent of their touch. It is … unpleasant.”

“Only once,” she whispered, but she paled.

“Do not trust Lord Grammayre overmuch,” he said softly.

“Your name—”

And smiled. “Not even the Tha’alani can touch it. No mortal can, if it has not been gifted to them, and if they have not paid the price. The name, Kaylin Neya, is for you. If he questions you, answer him. I give you leave to do so.”

“Why?”

“Because the Lord of Hawks and the Lord of Nightshade are bound by different laws. We have different information, and I am curious to see what he makes of you, now.”

He stepped through the doors, and they began to close slowly behind them. When Kaylin turned back to look, she saw only blank, smooth walls. But at their edges, top and bottom, she saw the swirled runic writing with which she was becoming familiar.

“Not even I can free them,” he said quietly. “I tried only once.”

She started to say something, and to her great embarrassment, her stomach got there before she did; it growled.

His beautiful black brows rose in surprise, and then he laughed. She wanted to hate the sound. “You are very human,” he said softly. “And I see so few.”

Which reminded her of something. “Severn,” she said.

“Yes. Perhaps the last of your kind that I have spoken to at length.”

“Why?”

The laughter was gone, and the smile it left in its place was like ebony, hard and smooth. “Ask him.”

“He won’t answer.”

“No. But ask him. It will amuse me.”

When they left the next hall, she heard voices.

One was particularly loud. It was certainly familiar. She closed her eyes, released the fieflord’s arm, and stumbled as she grabbed folds of shimmering silk, bunching them in her fists. She lifted the skirt of her fine dress, freeing her feet, and after a moment’s hesitation, she kicked off the stupid shoes, the snap of her legs sending them flying in different directions. The floor was cold against her soles. Cold and hard.

Didn’t matter.

She recognized both the voice and its tenor, and she began to run. The lurching movement reminded her of how weak her legs were. But they were strong enough. She made it to the end of the hall, and turned a sharp corner.

There, in a room that was both gaudy and bright—as unlike the rest of the Halls as any room she had yet seen—were Severn, Tiamaris and the two Barrani guards that had accompanied the Lord of Nightshade.

The guards held drawn weapons.

Severn held links of thin chain. At the end of that chain was a flat blade. She had never seen him use a weapon of this kind before, and knew it for a gift of the Wolves.

And she didn’t want to see him use it here.

“Severn!” she shouted.

His angry demand was broken in the middle by the sound of her voice. It should have stopped him.

But he stared at her, at the dress she was wearing, at the bare display of shoulders and arms, her bare feet, at the blood—curse the fieflord, curse him to whichever hell the Barrani occupied—on her cheek, before he changed direction, started the chain spinning.

And she knew the expression on his face. Had seen it before a handful of times in the fiefs. It had always ended in death.

This time, though, she thought it would be the wrong death. She moved before she could think—thought took too much damn time, and she came to stand before him—before him, and between Severn and the fieflord, who had silently come into the room as if he owned it.

Which, in fact, he did.

“Severn!” She shouted, raising her hands, both empty, one brown with the traces of her blood. “Severn, he didn’t touch me!”

Severn met her eyes; the chain was now moving so fast it was a wall, a metal wall. He shortened his grip on it, but he did not let it rest.

“Severn, put it down.”

“If he didn’t touch you, why are you dressed like that?”

“Put it down, Severn. Put it away. You’re here as a Hawk. And the Hawklord wants no fight with the fieflord. You don’t have the luxury of dying. Not here.”

If he did, she wasn’t so sure that his would be the only death. “Don’t start a fief war,” she shouted. Had to shout. “He didn’t touch me. I’m not hurt.”

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

“The mark is bleeding,” she snapped back. “And I don’t need you to protect me, damn it—I’m a Hawk. I can protect myself!”

He slowed, then. She had him. “I don’t need protection,” she said again, and this time the words had multiple meanings to the two of them, and only the two of them.

His face showed the first emotion that wasn’t anger. And she wasn’t certain, after she’d seen it, that she didn’t like the anger better.

“No,” he said at last, heavily. The chain stopped. “It’s been a long time since I could. Protect you.”

Tiamaris, Dragon caste, said in a voice that would have carried the length of the Long Halls, “Well done, Kaylin. Severn. I believe it is time to retreat.” And she saw that his eyes were burning, red; that he, too, had been prepared to fight.

“Your companions lack a certain wisdom,” the fieflord said, voice close to her ear.

“What did you do here, fieflord?” Tiamaris’s voice was low. Dangerous.

“What you suspect, Tiamaris.”

“That was … foolish.”

“Indeed.” He made the admission casually. “And I am not the only one who will pay the price for it. Take her home. She will need some time to recover.”

Severn slowly wrapped the chain round his waist again. He stepped forward and caught Kaylin as her knees buckled. His grip, one hand on either of her upper arms, was not gentle. Kaylin did not resist him.

“The deaths, fieflord?” Tiamaris said quietly. Or as quietly as his voice would let him.

“Three days,” the fieflord said, “between the first and second.”

“And it has been?”

“One day since the last death. If there is a pattern, it will emerge when we find the next sacrifice.”

“Why do you call them that?” Kaylin looked up, looked back at him.

“Because, Kaylin, it is what we believe they are. Sacrifices. Did the Hawklord not tell you that?”

No, of course not, she thought, bitter now. Bitter and bone-weary.

“You will return to the fiefs,” he added softly. “And to the Long Halls.”

“The hell she will,” Severn said.

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then the fieflord turned and walked away.

It was, of course, night in the fiefs.

And they were walking in it. Or rather, Severn and Tiamaris were walking; Kaylin was stumbling. Severn held her up for as long as he could, but in the end, Tiamaris rumbled, and he lifted her. He was not as gentle as the fieflord, because he was not as dangerously personal.

She preferred it.

“Kaylin,” Tiamaris said quietly. “Do you understand why the fiefs exist?”

She shrugged. Or tried. It was hard, while nesting in the arms of a Dragon.

“Have you never wondered?”

“A hundred times,” she said bitterly. “A thousand. Sometimes in one day.”

Tiamaris frowned stiffly. “I can see that Lord Grammayre had his hands full, if he chose to attempt to teach you.”

“I don’t need history lessons. They won’t keep me alive.” The words were a familiar refrain in her life; they certainly weren’t original.

“Spoken like a ground Hawk,” Tiamaris replied.

She shrugged again. Although he wore no armor, his chest was hard. “I believe,” he said quietly, “that I will let Lord Grammayre deal with this.”

“No,” she said, tired now. “I think I know what you’re asking.”

“Oh?”

“You’re asking me if I’ve ever wondered why the Lords of Law don’t just close the fieflords down permanently.”

“Indeed.”

“Hell, we’ve all wondered that.”

“There is a reason. I think you begin to see some of it. The fiefs are the oldest part of the city. They are, with the exception of ruins to the West and East of Elantra, the oldest part of the Empire; they have stood since the coming of the castes.

“I … spent time in the fiefs, studying the old writings, the old magics. I was not alone, but over half of the mages sent with me did not survive. The old magics are alive, if their architects are not. There are some places in the fiefs that could not easily be conquered without destroying half of the city, if they could be conquered at all. They almost all bear certain … markings.”

Her head hurt, and she didn’t want to think. But she made the effort. “The tattoo,” she said faintly.

“Yes. It is the only living thing I—or any one of us—has seen that speaks of the Old Ones. It is why you have always been of interest.”

“Have I?”

He said nothing, then.

In the dark of the fief’s streets, shadows moved. They were pale white, a blur of motion that hunched three feet above the ground. Severn cursed.

Kaylin was still dressed in the finery of Nightshade, but she wore her daggers again; she hadn’t bothered to change, because there was no privacy, and she wasn’t up to stripping in front of everyone. Severn had taken her clothing. “What?” she asked. Too sharply.

“It’s the ferals,” he said.

She really cursed. She had always been able to outcurse Severn.

In the moonlight—the bright moon—she could see that Severn was right: the ferals had come out to play. And if the Hawks weren’t bloody careful, some poor child would come out in the morning—to play—and would discover what the ferals had left behind.

She’d done it herself, once or twice. Whole nightmares remained of those experiences.

“Severn?”

He was already unlooping the long chain. “There’s only two,” he said softly. Nothing in his voice hinted of fear. Nothing in his posture did either. She wondered if he had changed so much that he felt none.

She hadn’t.

Tiamaris set her down. “Don’t move,” he told her grimly. Her hand had already clutched a throwing knife; it was out of her belt, and the moonlight glinted along one of its two edges. But her hand was weak, and she knew she didn’t have the strength to throw true. Wondered if this was the fieflord’s way of getting rid of her.

Her eyes were already acclimatized to the moonlight. She could see the four-legged lope of the creatures that dominated the fief streets at night. They were not numerous; they didn’t have to be. If you were lucky, you could weather the stretch of a night and never see one.

Unlucky? Well, you only had to see them once.

She hadn’t seen them as a child. But later?

Later, Severn by her side, she had. She was caught by the memory; she could see Severn now, and Severn as he was. The seven years made a difference. The weapon that he wielded made a bigger one.

Hand on dagger, she stood between Tiamaris and Severn, and she waited. The quiet growl of the hunting feral almost made her hair stand on end; it certainly made her skin a lot less smooth; goose bumps did that.

The ferals weren’t as stupid as dogs. They weren’t as lazy as cats. They weren’t, as far as anyone could tell, really animals at all. But what they were wasn’t clear. Besides deadly. She felt the tension shore her up. Found her footing on the uneven ground, and held it.

The last time she had faced ferals, she had stood in Tiamaris’s position, and between her and Severn, a child had cowered. Lost child. Stupid child. But still living.

She didn’t like the analogy that memory made of the situation.

Severn waited, his chain a moving wall. He wasn’t even breathing heavily. He spoke her name once, and she responded with a short grunt. It was enough.

The ferals leaped.

They leaped in concert, their jaws wide and silent. The moonlight seemed to cast no shadow beneath their moving bodies, but then again, it was dark enough that shadows were everywhere. Severn’s chain shortened suddenly as he drew it in, and then it lengthened as he let it go.

Feral growl became a howl of pain; a severed paw flew past Kaylin’s ear.

Tiamaris had no like weapon; he waited.

The feral that had leaped at him landed feet away, and it bristled. Tiamaris opened his mouth and roared.

That, Kaylin thought, wincing, would wake the entire damn fief. But she watched as the feral froze, and then watched, in astonishment, as it yelped and turned tail. Like a dog. Had she really been afraid of these creatures?

The one facing Severn lost another paw, and then lost half its face. It toppled.

“Kaylin?”

She shook her head.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “Where there are two, there are likely to be more.”

But Tiamaris said, softly, “Not tonight.” He picked Kaylin up again, and he began to move.

They crossed the bridge over the Ablayne in the moonlight. The Halls of Law loomed in the distance, like shad-owlords. “Kaylin,” Tiamaris said quietly, “the Hawklord will be waiting.”

“All right,” she said, into his chest. “But I’d better be getting overtime for this.”

If Kaylin slept—and she did—the Halls of Law never did. The crew changed; the guards changed. The offices that were a conduit between one labyrinth of bureaucracy and another, however, were empty. She was grateful for that. Severn had cleaned the blade of his weapon, and he’d looped it round his waist again. But he didn’t leave.

The guards at the interior door were Aerian. Clint wasn’t one of them, but she recognized the older men. They were a bit stuffier than Clint, but she liked them anyway.

“Holder,” she said.

He raised a brow. “You went on a raid dressed like that?”

“I wasn’t on a raid.”

“Oh, even better. Look at your cheek. It’s—” he frowned.

“It’s stopped bleeding,” she offered, but she had grown quiet herself. In the fiefs, it had seemed disturbing to bear a mark—but it had also seemed natural in a fashion that now entirely escaped her. Holder’s dark eyes narrowed. “Hawklord’s waiting for you,” he said at last, lowering his weapon. “And you’d better have one helluva good explanation for him.”

She nodded and went through the doors. Or rather, Tiamaris did, carrying her. Severn trailed behind.

When they reached the main office, she was surprised to find Marcus still on duty. He was not, however, surprised to see her, which made Kaylin look up at Tiamaris with unguarded suspicion.

“I sent word,” he said quietly. “I made use of one of the mirrors in the castle.”

“But the mirrors in the castle can’t possibly be keyed to—” She saw his look and shut up, fast.

“You got her out,” Marcus said, his words a growl. He was tired. Tired Leontine was better than angry Leontine—but only by a whisker. His were bobbing.

“In a manner of speaking,” Tiamaris replied coldly.

Whatever existed between the sergeant and the Dragon was always, Kaylin thought, going to be an issue. But this time, Marcus let him pass without comment.

Severn stopped, though. “I’m not going up,” he said quietly. “I’ll wait for you here.”

“I’ll be a while,” she replied, without much hope. “Go home.”

He met her gaze and held it. And she remembered that she’d never really been able to tell Severn what to do. Oh, she’d always given him orders—but he’d chosen which ones he wanted to follow, and ignored the rest. She would have said as much, but he was angry. Tense with it, waiting to spring.

“Kaylin,” Marcus said.

She shored herself up so she could look over Tiamaris’s shoulder.

The Sergeant snorted. “You shouldn’t be in the fiefs. Tell the old bastard I said so.”

“Yes, sir.”

The tower passed beneath her. It was interesting to see it from this perspective; interesting and a tad humiliating. “I can walk,” she muttered.

“You will have to, soon enough,” Tiamaris replied. He climbed the stairs without pause until he reached the doors that were, as always, guarded. Here he paused and set Kaylin on her feet.

She recognized neither of the two Aerians, and this was unusual. But one, grim-faced, nodded to Tiamaris. “The Lord of Hawks is waiting,” he said quietly. “He bids you enter.”

Tiamaris nodded.

Kaylin stared at them both for a moment, and then she moved past the guards and placed her palm on the door’s seal, grimacing. Great way to end a very long day.

But the Hawklord must have been waiting, because the door rolled open, untouched. Startled, she watched before she remembered that two strangers were staring at her. Then she squared her shoulders and entered the room. Lord Grammayre was indeed waiting, but not in the room’s center; he stood, instead, in front of a long, oval mirror on the east side of the rounded wall. Their eyes met in reflection; his were cool.

Bad, then. There were days when she could actually make him smile. Days when she could make him laugh, although his laughter was brief and grudged. There were also days when she could make him raise his voice in frustration. All of these, she valued.

None of these would happen tonight.

“Lord Grammayre,” she said, bending stiffly at the waist before she fell to one knee. She had to place a hand on the ground to keep her balance; in all, it was a pretty poor display.

Tiamaris, in theory a Hawk, did not bend or kneel. He offered the Hawklord a nod that would pass as polite between equals. “Lord Grammayre,” he said quietly.

“Tiamaris. You almost lost her.”

Tiamaris said nothing.

“Kaylin. Rise.”

She rose. She hated formality in this tower more than she hated almost anything—because formality meant distance, and distance was the thing he placed between them when something bad was about to happen. Usually to her.

“Kaylin, I wish to ask you what happened in Castle Nightshade.”

She nodded.

“You will come to the center of the circle before you answer, and you will stand there until I have finished.”

She grimaced, but that was all the resistance she offered.

Tiamaris surprised her. “Give her leave to sit,” he said quietly. “If she is forced to stand, I don’t think she’ll make it through the interview.”

“She is a Hawk,” the Hawklord replied coldly. A warning.

“She is a human,” the Dragon replied.

The Hawklord’s pale brows rose slightly, and he glanced at Kaylin. After a moment, his wings flicked; it was the Aerian equivalent of a shrug.

She made her way to the brass circle embedded in stone; she knew what it was for. “Don’t cast until I’m in it,” she whispered.

If he heard her, he didn’t show it. But he did wait.

He approached her, and stopped. His feet grazed the circle as he reached out to touch her cheek. “This is a Barrani mark,” he said.

She said nothing.

“Nightshade.” The word sounded a lot like swearing. But colder. “Why?”

“He thought it would protect me.”

“I doubt that, Kaylin,” the Hawklord replied. “I doubt that very much. Tiamaris, can it be removed?”

“Not easily,” Tiamaris replied. “And not at all without the permission of the Lord who made the mark. Not from a human.”

Kaylin heard the distinct that you don’t want dead that he didn’t say.

“The likelihood of that permission?”

“In my opinion? None whatsoever.”

“As I thought.”

“I can probably cover it up,” she offered. She’d become good at that over the years; black eyes and red welts never made the office staff feel secure.

Tiamaris shook his head. “Grammayre, have you taught her so little?”

“I have taught her,” the Hawklord replied, distinct edge in the words, “what she is willing to retain.” To Kaylin, he added, “The mark can be hidden from mortal sight. The Aerians might not recognize it. Most of the humans won’t. But the Leontines will smell it, and the Barrani? You could cut off your cheek and they would still know. Don’t,” he added, as if it were necessary, “try.”

He lowered his hand, but did not leave her; instead he reached down and lifted the arm that was bound by the bracer. He looked at it, and then he touched it carefully, and in sequence, his fingers dancing over the gems as hers had done.

It didn’t open; it was a different sequence. He frowned. Stepped out of the circle. She reached out without thinking and grabbed both his hands; she was that tired. His brows rose a fraction; she felt the rebuke in the expression, and she forced her hands to let go.

But as he stepped outside the circle, his expression softened slightly, allowing a trace of weariness to show. “I trust you to tell me the truth as you perceive it,” he said quietly. “But I do not trust the Lord of Nightshade. The spell is not a punishment.”

He lifted his hands, and his wings rose with them, until they were at their full span. Like this, she found the Hawklord beautiful in a way that she seldom found anything beautiful. And he knew it. Had always known it. This was as much mercy as he was willing to offer. It shouldn’t have made a difference, but it did.

He began to question her, and staring at his wings, at the particular length of his flight feathers, she answered him.

She told him of the Long Halls. She told him of the forest. And then, haltingly, she told him of the room beyond the trees. The circle that surrounded her turned a distinct shade of gold each time she finished speaking.

But when she spoke of the pillar of blue flame, he lifted a hand.

“Kaylin,” he said softly, “are you certain?”

She nodded.

“Tiamaris?”

“She has seen what none of the surviving Imperial mages has seen,” the Dragon said quietly, his flawless Barrani tinged with caution. “I am intrigued by her words, but I do not doubt them.”

“Why?”

“You know well why. She bears those marks.”

The Hawklord nodded grimly. “But what do they signify? Why does she bear them?”

“That has always been the question, Grammayre. The answer is of concern to the Emperor.”

“I know. Kaylin—show me your arms.”

She lifted them; they shook.

Tiamaris walked over to the circle’s edge, but he did not cross it. He did, however, frown. “I wish to see visual records,” he said, distant, his eyes a pale gold.

The Hawklord frowned in turn; he gestured at the mirror and spoke three words in quick succession; the mirror began to glow. Kaylin really hated mirrors.

The surface of this one shimmered and shifted; when it cleared, she was looking at her arms writ large; the Hawklord wasn’t short, and it was his mirror. Tiamaris looked at the mirror for some time, and then looked down at her arms. “They’ve changed,” he said softly.

The Hawklord frowned. He came to stand by the side of the Dragon, and he, too, examined the symbols that covered Kaylin’s inner arm from wrist to elbow. “It’s subtle,” he said at last, “but you are correct.” He looked at Kaylin, his eyes clear, almost gray. Magic.

“Aside from the mark of the outcaste, I see no difference in her,” he said at last.

“Remove the bracer, Grammayre, and look again.”

The Hawklord hesitated. Then he shook his head. “Not yet,” he said quietly. “Kaylin, you have done well. Go home.” He paused, and then added, “Do not remove the containment until I give you orders.”

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