He shrugged. “I waited for you, Kaylin, because the tale had only barely begun. I will hear the rest of it, I will be tested by it, and I will test it. But now, I will do so without fear of somehow distorting or destroying its beginning in the process.
“And I think it not a coincidence that it is the first Tower claimed by a Dragon Lord, and that the Dragon Lord is one of your companions. Ravellon is waking, Kaylin. It was waking before you were born. It has its champion, also a Dragon Lord, and of the Dragons, one of considerable power before his transformation.” He set his goblet upon the table, beside the food she couldn’t bring herself to touch.
“My actions were, in all ways, constrained by what little information I took from that first encounter. I knew two things—that you bore my mark, and that you held my name. The latter was far more disturbing than the former, although the former was…unsettling. I might,” he added quietly, “have changed my own past had you no knowledge of my name.
“I admit,” he continued, rising and leaving the confines of the couch, “that I was curious. I was not certain how you could take my name. The mark was inconsequential. I was surprised at how easily it was laid upon you. I had not expected that. You had no defenses at all.” His smile was odd.
“You had no defenses when you first entered my portal. You had no defenses when you visited my Castle, and when you at last came to the forest at its heart.
“I did not…expect…what occurred on that day. You woke the voices and the presence of the Ancients. Kaylin…you were almost destroyed while I watched.
“And then I understood. There was only one way to preserve you, and it was the answer to my question. You did not take my name. I gave it.”
“You did,” she said. And this time, it was almost a revelation. Nightshade had given her his name. She hadn’t asked. She had barely understood what it meant. No, she thought with a grimace, she hadn’t understood it at all. Not until she had gone to the High Court. Perhaps not even then.
She had Nightshade’s name. She never thought about it when she could avoid it, which was most of the time. She almost never attempted to use it; today was the first time since the High Halls.
Yes, he replied.
All conversations with Nightshade were going to be like this. Her thoughts, the things she struggled not to put into words, were just as clear to him as the words she did say. Maybe clearer. She grimaced again. Lifted her hand to her cheek.
Why did you take the risk?
I told you, Kaylin. You were the beginning of an ancient tale, a true tale, the like of which I have heard only once. And to reach that beginning, you had to survive.
“Did you take the fief of Nightshade because you were waiting for me?”
“Not entirely, no. But I understood, when the opportunity arose, what I was meant to do. No, it is not, and was not, a matter of fate. That is Dragon fare, or misguided mortal belief. The Barrani do not believe in fate or destiny.”
She said nothing. Tried to think of nothing. Managed to think of Teela, which, given Teela, sort of proved his point. He drifted toward her, his feet utterly silent against the carpeted floor. She started to take a step back, felt the edge of the couch against her calves, and stopped moving.
He was now standing so close to her she could reach up and touch his face. “Will you keep Nightshade?”
“I will.”
“Even if—”
“It is as much part of me as my name, Kaylin. Death will part me from the fief and the Castle. Nothing else. In that, I am a traditionalist. I am not a Dragon, but there are similarities. I keep what is mine.” He cupped her unmarked cheek in the bend of his palm; his hand was warm, but dry.
Kaylin’s mouth was dry; she wanted to close her eyes. “When you marked me—”
“Yes,” he said, his voice soft and that little bit too close to her ear, “I marked you because you were, in my past, marked. I understood that it would bind us. I did not know when you would take my name, or how, and I wanted at least that binding. I found the thread of the tale again, when I at last met you, and I was not willing to relinquish it easily to accidental death or loss.”
“And now?”
“Now, you are here, and you are alive. You have survived what even my kin have seldom survived—an encounter with one of the most powerful of the living Dragon Lords. You are Chosen, but you are only beginning to understand what that means, and I have no intention of freeing you now.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I told you—”
“You told me only part of the truth.”
His brow rose. His eyes darkened a shade. She would never have thought that dark blue was safer, but in some ways, it was. For her. “Very good,” he said softly, his tone sharper and colder.
She opened her mouth to speak, and he swallowed the words, almost literally. His lips caught hers, and his hands, which were warm and smooth and dry tightened almost imperceptibly around her cheek and the line of her jaw, holding her face in place.
She felt desire; she couldn’t even be certain it wasn’t her own, it was so tangled up in the mark and the name and the nearness of him. But she couldn’t move, and didn’t, not to draw back, not to push him away. This much, she had in her because this much had never happened, not in Barren, and not in the nightmares that Barren had left her.
But when his hands moved, when he shifted, when his body was fully flush against hers, she stiffened. Desire gave way to something darker and colder and wilder—but it was the wildness of a cornered animal. She froze, opened her eyes, saw the lights in the room dimming.
He froze with her, and then very carefully stepped back before she could push him away. His eyes were that odd shade of blue, and they were clear and unblinking.
“I see,” he said, and his voice was lower, rougher. He lifted his hand, touched her cheek—the marked cheek, this time—before withdrawing. Heat left the mark as he moved toward the low table, turning his back. She had no words to offer. Nothing to say.
She tried.
He shook his head as she struggled with even the first of the words. “I should have killed Barren,” he said. “I should have killed him, but I was not certain that would not destroy the future in which we first met.
“I am willing to wait, Kaylin. Unlike your mortal, I have forever.”
She was almost shocked at the words, because she couldn’t avoid feeling what lay beneath their surface: a grim possessiveness, a violent desire, anger, disappointment. All things she knew well. All things she had experienced, time and again, in the White Towers of Barren after her first—and her only—betrayal of the man who had called the fief his own.
But the fieflord of Nightshade had withdrawn, and stood at a distance, all motion stilled; he didn’t look at her, didn’t allow her to see his expression—not that that made much of a difference with the Barrani, in the end. He didn’t ask her what she wanted, didn’t ask her if she wanted, didn’t ask her when she might.
He asked nothing. It was not what she expected. Not from a fieflord. Not from Lord Nightshade. His hands were curved like scythes by his sides. After a few minutes had passed, he said, “You will, of course, want to leave.”
CHAPTER 9
“There may be some difficulty,” he added. When he turned, his eyes were sapphire, and it wasn’t the depth of the blue that alarmed, but the hardness. “The portal,” he added, when she failed to reply.
She swallowed, nodded, remembered where the day had actually started, and why she had gone to Evanton’s in the first place. It was surprisingly difficult. “Do you—did I tell you why I was there?”
“In the Keeper’s domain, or the echo of it?”
She nodded.
“I believe you did. And I will say, now, that you have cause for concern. You went to visit the Oracular Halls, did you not?”
“I did.” She hesitated. “I don’t think the fief is in any danger.”
He raised a dark brow. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I have heard
tales—tales only—of the endless way. I have heard, as well, of the Devourer.”
“Devourer.”
“They are stories, Kaylin. Some would dignify them with the word histories. I was not one of them, until this afternoon, and were it not guaranteed to be…interesting…I would have preferred to remain skeptical. But what you did—”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“What you did in the Keeper’s domain implies that those tales are indeed based in some part in truth, and I do not have the re sources at my disposal to ascertain how much truth. It is possible, however, that you know someone who might.”
“Who?”
“The Arkon of the Royal Library.”
She winced.
“Or the Avatar of the Tower of Tiamaris.”
“I admit I like that one better,” she replied. “But what exactly are these tales I’m supposed to ask about? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a Devourer—”
“No, you possibly haven’t. But if you study some of the oldest of your human religions, I can almost guarantee that there will be some mention of exactly that in their Genesis stories.”
“I like this less and less.” According to Sanabalis, humans weren’t native to this world. It had only barely occurred to her to wonder how they’d got here. And from where. “Is there any other way out of the Castle?” she asked, without much hope.
The answer was no. It was a silent, cool no, with a hint of disapproval for the very strong desire to never cross the portal threshold again in her life. But he led her out of the room, offering her his arm at the door.
She took it; she didn’t need another warning about the Castle’s fickle geography. She just needed to leave; to get back to Severn before Marcus shredded all possibility of the promotion she’d been chasing for two years. She needed to speak with Tara and Tiamaris; she needed—although she really disliked the idea—to speak with the Arkon.
And she needed to do all of this before her early-evening appointment with Everly in the Oracular Halls. She tried not to resent the banks of endless gray nothing that had eaten up so much of her day, and failed miserably.
But when Lord Nightshade reached the foyer and the closed door that led to the outside world, he glanced down. “I will never be your Tara,” he said quietly. “I will never expose myself as she has done, nor will I lessen the ability of the Castle to protect itself by having so much of it rooted firmly in the outer world.
“But I will not send you through the portal alone today, nor will I summon you through it again until the…current difficulty…is resolved. Come, Kaylin,” he added.
He scooped her off her feet; she had time to stiffen, time to breathe, time to throw her arms lightly around his neck and turn her face toward his chest before he began to walk.
Try not to listen, he told her.
She didn’t ask him what he meant, because as they passed into the surface of the door, all light shattered, flying out in irregular shards into the blackness of the Castle’s portal. The darkness shuddered and undulated; she felt it as if it were a living thing, pressing in on all sides. And she heard it roar. Or she heard something roar. Lifting her hands, she covered her ears.
She felt Nightshade’s chuckle. I fear, he told her, as the roar came again, broken this time into what sounded like the discarded refuse of syllables from too many known languages, that that is perhaps not the most effective way not to listen in this space. The anger and the desire had ebbed from his voice; it was velvet again. Velvet over the usual cold steel.
She almost found it comforting. No, she did find it comforting. And any day, any series of events, that could make that comfortable didn’t bear thinking about for long.
He laughed. He seldom laughed. She clung to the sound because it was strange, welcome, and infinitely better than the other voice that currently occupied the same damn space.
But when they emerged, she felt no disorientation, no rebellion from her stomach; the world didn’t lurch and spin as her eyes tried to reorient her vision to something resembling reality.
“No,” he said, as he set her gently down on her feet. “You passed through the portal in my sphere. I think, until the current difficulty is better understood, I will meet you on this side of the portal.”
“Why?”
“I am not entirely certain you will exit the portal in the appropriate place, otherwise.” He smiled. “Your discomfort is mildly amusing. Your loss would be less so. Give my regards to Lord Tiamaris,” he added.
The sun was lower than Kaylin had expected it would be, which was good; although she felt as if she’d spent half an eternity in the middle of nowhere, she hadn’t. Either that or she’d emerged on the wrong day. Nightshade hadn’t mentioned time one way or the other, and she hadn’t thought to ask. Nor was she about to try now. She knew where she was; she knew it wasn’t anywhere close to dark, and she knew where the nearest border crossing was.
Before she’d cleared the walk that led to the Castle—which was now missing the hanging cages that had been such a despised and terrifying symbol of power in her childhood—she ran into Lord Andellen. Sadly, head slightly bowed, thoughts on, of all things, geography, that was literal. He managed to catch her before she bounced; she’d been walking quickly, and he wore armor.
She grimaced. “Sorry,” she said, slightly red-faced. “I didn’t see you there.” The Barrani guards of Nightshade had always worn real chain or even plate, unlike the more common mortal thugs, who often made do with cheap and dirty leather. Andellen however was not dressed as one of Nightshade’s guards. He wore a tabard that she’d never seen before, and he wore both a helm and a plate chest that looked as though they should have been in a display case. They were golden.
What kind of idiots tried to make armor out of gold? Probably no one. And if it was Barrani, it probably only looked that way. But then again, what kind of idiots tried to make armor that looked like gold?
“You were no doubt preoccupied,” was Andellen’s grave reply. He bowed. “Lord Kaylin.” When he rose, the gravity was heavier. “The High Lord bids me tell you, should I encounter you, that there is some difficulty occurring near the heart of the outer city.”
She almost laughed. Didn’t. “You were at Court?”
“I was. You might recall that the High Lord convened Court during the difficulty in the fief formerly known as Barren.”
“Well, yes, but that was weeks ago.”
He raised a brow. “I begin to understand why you were given permission to absent yourself. It was, indeed, a scant few weeks ago. And the session itself has not yet come to a close.”
“But—”
“Yes?”
“But…you’re here.”
He nodded, still grave. “You appear to be in a hurry. May I assume that the warning that was to be offered, should I encounter you in person, is no longer necessary?”
She nodded. “We’ve had days of it. I’ve spent several hours at the Oracles’ Hall, and I’m due back there this evening. I’ve also spent several hours walking through a literal rain of blood, among other things. Speaking of which…”
“Perhaps I will offer escort, if you are leaving the fief.”
“I am.”
He fell in beside her. His stride was not her stride, but he slowed his step in such a way that he didn’t outpace her. “The matter of Shadow storm was much discussed,” he continued, when she didn’t immediately begin to speak. “As was the matter of a Dragon fieflord.” His smile was slight, but wry. “Apparently, a Dragon fieflord is of more concern than either an undying Lord or an Outcaste one.”
“Did they discuss Illien at all?”
“Only briefly. Illien has not…returned to Court. As far as we are aware, what is left of Lord Illien still resides within the Tower of Tiamaris. Lord Tiamaris has not seen fit to make overtures of any kind to the High Halls, although the High Lord is aware that Lord Tiamaris is still considered a member of the Imperial Dragon Court.
“It is no
t, entirely, to the liking of the Barrani High Court.”
It wouldn’t be. Kaylin frowned and then took a right at Kiln road, and Andellen paused. “Lord Kaylin?”
She looked back. “What?”
“You are perhaps too preoccupied. The Ablayne is this way.”
She started to tell him she wasn’t heading toward the Ablayne and remembered—before she spoke—that the borders in the fief were unstable in unpredictable ways. It was faster, if nothing went wrong, to go the way she’d intended, but given the day? She decided she’d try wisdom, instead of haste.
The bridge that led across the Ablayne and into the fief that had been called Barren for most of Kaylin’s life wasn’t empty, and she thought better of wisdom when she saw the three wagons waiting on something at the bridge’s far end. It wasn’t a wide bridge, but she could squeak past the wagons by turning sideways and scraping bridge rails with her butt. Which was not how she wanted to spend the next fifteen minutes. On the other hand, walking through the water in her kit didn’t seem like a terrific option, either. She glanced at Andellen in his plate. It was Barrani plate, and probably wouldn’t notice an influx of Ablayne.
On the other hand, wearing the Hawk on this side of the bridge actually did serve a useful function; none of the milling and slightly annoyed merchants—or their guards—tried to elbow her over said rails and into the river when she had to push them, more or less politely, out of the way. Since no one who was actually breathing would attempt to elbow a Barrani in any gear over the rail, they made it across the bridge in only ten minutes.
The idea that a wider bridge was needed into the fiefs was as foreign as native Dragon, to Kaylin. But clearly she could still learn something new every damn day.
Andellen paused at the fiefside foot of the bridge. “These are?”