This caused some confusion. Helen could read minds, or hear thoughts, but none of Kaylin’s current thoughts seemed to suit the very worried question. “Saw when?”
“When you looked at the outcaste, at the end. You perceived him as...an Ancient?”
“I’m not certain that I saw it accurately. I was somewhere slightly off-kilter and looking through the familiar’s wing from wherever I actually was. Mandoran might understand it better.”
“Mandoran did not see what you saw. We have discussed what he did see. He is recovering, but he will need to recover here.” To the familiar, in a softer voice, she added, “Thank you.”
The familiar warbled.
“And me?”
“You are clean,” Helen replied.
Kaylin lifted her hands. Shadow still gloved them like dark, fine lace. Or like a different kind of mark.
“I know, dear. I can see. But it is yours now.”
This wasn’t what Kaylin wanted to hear.
“Yes, I’m sorry. But I do not consider it in any way harmful.”
“Is it inert?”
“I am not certain I understand the question. It will not, however, attempt to alter your base physical structure without your guidance.”
“Explain Shadow to me.”
“I believe I’ve done that before, to little effect.”
“Try again?”
Helen was silent for a long moment—long enough that Kaylin thought she wouldn’t reply. But at length, she did. “Without some element of Shadow, there is no mortal life.”
“...I don’t think that’s what you said the last time.”
“Mortality is change. From your births to your deaths, you are in a constant state of flux. There is no single you; your identity evolves, unravels and is remade. It is a constant process. The Kaylin of five years ago is not you. The Kaylin of ten years from now will not be you. The separate states of you are continuous, contiguous. They are connected. But they are not the same.”
“But the Barrani—”
“The Barrani and the Dragons are both similar and dissimilar. Both require Names to live. But it is not true that they require Names to exist. Without Names, however, they do not exist as Dragons or as Barrani.”
“Mandoran and Annarion—”
“They are edge cases. They are not their Names; their Names are only tenuously a part of who they have become. It is enough—barely—that they can function. The Names are fixed, Kaylin; they are solid. They are unchanging. They are the heart of the immortal.”
“But, Helen—the Name of the outcaste—”
Helen fell silent. After a long pause, she said, “That was not a Dragon’s name.”
Squawk. Squawk.
“Then you must explain it. I will speak with the Tower of Tiamaris,” Helen added, almost gently. “I believe Lord Tiamaris has access to some of the other Towers.”
“Speak with Nightshade as well, if he’s here.”
“I will. He will not give me leave,” she added with a grim smile, “to speak with his Tower, and I have a thing or two I would like to say to his Tower.” None of it good, though all of it, in Helen’s opinion, clearly long overdue.
“Good. But what exactly are you going to tell them?”
“That Ravellon is waking.”
“Pardon? Ravellon is a place, right? You’re saying it’s sentient?” Kaylin rose from the water. “What do you mean when you say it’s waking?”
“I will speak with Tara,” Helen said again. “While I have had more exposure to you, Tara has known you for longer. She may be able to explain what seems obvious to me.” Helen shook her head. To the familiar, she said, “Explain it. That appears to be your job.” And walked out.
The familiar warbled. And flopped.
* * *
Bellusdeo returned home four hours after Kaylin and Moran had. It was late. It was very late. The floor shook with the roaring.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Helen said, as the sound diminished. “I wasn’t expecting poor Bellusdeo to express herself so forcefully.”
“Please don’t tell me she’s angry at the Emperor.”
“As it happens, no, she’s not. She is very angry at the outcaste. Her attempts to kill him failed, and she was not alone. The Emperor has—wisely, in my opinion—informed her that her involvement is too visceral and too personal to be entirely safe, and this has not made her any happier.”
“I thought you said she wasn’t angry at the Emperor.”
“She’s not. She is, however, angry at herself, because she knows the Emperor is right.”
Which, as Kaylin knew, was vastly worse. She dragged herself out of bed and headed down the stairs.
To her surprise, Teela and Tain were with the golden Dragon. Kaylin stood frozen at the height of the stairs, and finally said, “You went out drinking.” Her tone was very flat as she crossed her arms.
“No taverns were burned down in the process,” Tain said.
“Not completely,” Teela added. She glanced at Bellusdeo.
“You were in the infirmary,” Bellusdeo pointed out.
“You didn’t even take Maggaron.”
“Maggaron is sulking because I went to the Aerie and confronted the outcaste without him. I am sulky enough for a small army, and if we’re being honest, he was making me feel guilty.”
“He wouldn’t—”
“Not on purpose, no. If he were trying, I wouldn’t care.”
“So you called Teela and Tain?”
“As it happens, Teela happened to be in roughly the same spot when things were over. She suggested it.”
Teela shrugged. “I did. She looked tense.”
Going out drinking with Teela and Tain was like running an obstacle course—with angry people on either side of it.
“You look terrible,” Teela added.
“Thanks, Teela. I was sleeping.”
Bellusdeo had the grace to flush. She didn’t apologize, but Kaylin wasn’t expecting one. She fully understood why the Dragon was unhappy, and was fairly certain she would have done the same thing. Mostly because she often had—she just didn’t have the innate volume of Dragons.
Looking up the stairs, Bellusdeo straightened her shoulders. “Now,” she said, “it’s time to face guilt, grovel and apologize.” She climbed up three steps, stopped and turned to look back at Kaylin. “I’m sorry.”
Kaylin wondered if she were dreaming.
* * *
Kaylin expected Moran to return to the Aerie the next day, and was surprised when Moran came home to Helen. She also came home to Helen the following day, and the day after, lingering. The mirror room was...busy. Moran largely ignored it, which caused Helen to purse her lips with mild—but obvious—disapproval.
Mandoran joined them for dinner on the third day, looking pale, exhausted and bored. Annarion joined them as well, looking concerned. He had come, in the past few days, to some state of compromise with his brother. Kaylin didn’t ask what it was. If it were dangerous to Annarion, Helen was certain to tell her, because Annarion certainly wouldn’t.
“What happened?” Kaylin asked Mandoran.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Could it be any better than getting stuck in a wall?”
“The wall was not my fault.”
“And this was?”
“No. This was worse than the wall. I’m once again confined to the house.”
Kaylin glanced at Helen, who nodded. She was worried about him. To Kaylin’s surprise, Moran was worried, as well. She wondered if that was why Moran had stayed. The Caste Court—which apparently still existed—was vastly more deferential in its communications with Moran than it had ever been. But deferential or not, the praevolo didn’t want to talk to them.
He said, “I blame you.”
“Me? This was my fault?”
“What the hell were you doing with your hands, anyway?”
“I was trying to—”
“Heal me,” Bellusdeo rumbled. “Which I’m certain you won’t imply was a waste of effort.”
Mandoran grimaced. “What are you doing with that now?” He was still staring at her hands.
Kaylin shrugged. “Don’t know. It’s like the marks of the Chosen—it’s on my skin. I can’t feel it. It’s not active.”
“Helen. Talk sense into her.”
“I have been trying, dear.”
Helen hadn’t said much—at all—about the Shadow gloves. This probably meant that Mandoran was thinking, and Helen was answering the part of the conversation no one else could hear. She was about to demand that she be included, when a chime sounded.
Moran rose.
“Yes,” Helen said. “It’s for you.” She turned and walked out of the dining room to answer the door. Moran hovered near the table.
“Who is it?” Kaylin asked.
“I believe her name is Lillias,” Helen replied. “And she believes Moran is expecting her.” To Moran, Helen’s disembodied voice said, “Should I show her to the dining room?”
“No! No. If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with her in my rooms.”
“Of course I don’t mind.”
* * *
Kaylin rose as Moran left the dining room.
“Maybe they don’t want company?” Bellusdeo suggested. Dragon suggestions generally came across as commands.
“I—”
“I’m teasing. You’ve been fretting about Lillias ever since you first met her. Go on.”
Kaylin followed Moran and entered the foyer as Helen opened the door. Lillias stood on the other side of it, looking very uncertain. Looking, Kaylin thought, as uncertain as Kaylin herself would have looked if she’d had to stand at the door of this house while living in her own apartment.
Her apartment had been home. It had been convenient. But it had been what Caitlin called “modest” and what Teela called something vastly less complimentary. Without Evanton’s intervention, Lillias would never have come here. She would have walked halfway up the street, realized that it was far too fancy, far too snooty, for someone like her, and retreated. Kaylin, however, was dressed the way she always dressed; she was not fancy and not particularly well turned out, as Teela liked to call it.
“Lillias,” she said, channeling her inner Caitlin, and holding out both hands.
Lillias exhaled a few inches of stiff height. “Kaylin.”
“Did you see her?”
“Every Aerian in the city saw her. It was difficult to explain to my employer,” she added with a wry grimace. “I don’t usually drop everything and run out to stand in the middle of the streets.”
“Rooftops are probably better, at least in my experience. No wagons or carriages.”
“Experience which you do not need to share,” Moran told her. She came to stand beside Kaylin and said, to Lillias, “If you let her start talking that way, she won’t stop. You will hear all kinds of hair-raising stories about her childhood.”
Kaylin released the older woman’s hands, and Lillias held them out to Moran, who hesitated briefly before she took them. Moran bowed her head.
Lillias smiled down at her bent head, and then up—at Helen. “You’ve been taking care of the fledgling,” she said—in Aerian.
“I’ve done what I can. It is very seldom that I have Aerian guests.”
“She’s grown stronger. You should have seen her when she was a child.”
Moran’s head didn’t rise. It fell. It fell to Lillias’s shoulder and rested there.
“What was she like?”
“Lost. Lost, and without kin. It’s hard, to be without kin. It’s hard to lose the people who love you when almost no one loves you. She was afraid of heights, did she tell you?” she added, to Kaylin. There was an almost maternal fondness in her, and Kaylin realized then that it had always been there—but it had been swamped by anxiety and fear. Lillias had no reason to be afraid for Moran now.
“But she’s Aerian.”
“Yes. An Aerian fledgling, afraid of heights. She was afraid to fly, and flew very late, for a child. Had she been living in the heart of the Reaches, she would have been forced to fly much earlier. But when she flew—ah, when she finally conquered that fear...” She put her arms around Moran.
Moran said nothing. Kaylin wanted to leave them, to give them privacy, but they were standing in the foyer, in the doorway, and Lillias was looking at Kaylin while she spoke.
“Fledgling,” she said, arms around Moran, whose face couldn’t be seen, “I am grateful for your offer. You have given meaning to something I doubted had meaning in my darkest hours. You’ve made my actions heroic, just by existing. But...the action remains the same. I didn’t do what I did to become a hero. I did it because you were my charge, and I was responsible for you.
“I did it because you had finally learned to fly. And when you flew—ah, Moran, when you flew—it was the very heart of flight. I had never seen a flight so beautiful. I have learned to live with all of the consequences, because in my heart I know that were I to be thrown into the past, were I to be given the same choice, I wouldn’t change it. I couldn’t.
“You think that you ruined my life.”
Moran said nothing. Lillias’s arms tightened.
“It wasn’t you, child. It was never you. You think if I had wings, I could fly. I could have a life. But, fledgling, I have a life. I won’t lie—it was hard. Change is hard. Loss of family is shattering—but you know that just as well as I do. The only thing I worried about was you. I always, always worried. Now, I don’t have to.
“But let me pretend. Let me say that if, knowing what I know, I could go back in time. I could change my decision. I could let you die.”
Moran stiffened, but didn’t pull away.
“I would have wings. I would have flight. I would have family. And I would have had to buy those things with the life of a child. Never mind that you were praevolo. You were a child. Do you think my life would have been better with wings when I could never, ever respect or trust myself again?
“Oh, I could tell myself I had no choice. But that would be a lie. Others might believe it, but I never could. I had a choice. And I made it. And if I could never change my decision, this is the life I was meant to have. The Aerie is not my home. It hasn’t been home for half my life. Even with you there, it couldn’t be my home now. The only person who would welcome me is you.”
“That’s not true,” Kaylin began, because Moran didn’t speak.
“I found a home with people who accepted me. Is that not what you did, in the end?” She asked the question of Moran.
Moran remained silent. Kaylin joined her.
“But I will visit, if you wish.”
Moran said—without lifting her head, “Visit me instead of Evanton. Come flying with me, instead.”
Lillias swallowed. After a long pause, she nodded, which Moran couldn’t see. “I will. I will, Moran. Come, I think we are blocking the door.”
She glanced at Kaylin, who pointed up the grand staircase and mouthed directions.
* * *
“I will keep her room as it is,” Helen said before Kaylin could speak.
They had both watched the slow progression up the stairs toward Moran’s room in silence.
“She will not stay. She is praevolo. I believe she was born because there has been some corruption of the Reaches. Think of her as a living Tower, but without the absolute control of her environment that Towers exert. She must be in the Aerie to affect it. And she knows this.
“She knows that she can return here. Sh
e knows that this small piece of home will always be waiting for her. It will be here tomorrow. It will be here in decades.”
“What if I die? What if the new tenant—”
“Hush, Kaylin. It will take time to find a new tenant. It took time to find you. I will keep Moran’s room as it is while she lives.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from CAST IN HONOR by Michelle Sagara.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My home team (Thomas, Daniel, Ross) did not strangle me during the writing of this book. My mother probably wanted to, but: sunk costs.
I wrote the entirety of this book on a twelve-inch MacBook, which is light enough that I could carry it off to the local Timothy’s, get coffee and work. When I walk in the door, the people are already pouring coffee before I get to the counter; I’ve been pretty consistent. This wasn’t actually my idea, but the MacBook was a gift, and in the way of significant gifts, I felt I had to use it fully to the best of my abilities to even begin to justify it >.<.
So: special thanks to Terry, because he was right. Working in a noisy, crowded coffee shop is actually much easier than working at home, largely because the noise is not actually my problem. Crying children? Not my responsibility to comfort, because their mothers are right there. Phones ringing? It’s not my phone, and answering a stranger’s phone is not considered remotely good manners. Arguments? I don’t have to referee them. Is the toilet stuck? Not my problem.
The only responsibility I have while there is writing.
“The impressively detailed setting and the book’s spirited heroine are sure to charm romance readers, as well as fantasy fans who like some mystery with their magic.”
—Publishers Weekly on Cast in Secret
Looking for more incredible stories in the Chronicles of Elantra from New York Times bestselling author Michelle Sagara? Collect the complete series today:
Cast in Moonlight (novella)
Cast in Shadow
Cast in Courtlight
Cast in Secret
Cast in Fury
Cast in Silence
Cast in Chaos