“Yes. But I invite you to think about appearances, Kaylin.”
“The wave didn’t hit the city.”
“No. It did not. The Oracles, however, were not widely bandied about. For many people—for almost all of them—the first warning of danger was the sight of the water itself, rising. The storm before it signified nothing, to them—it was merely weather.”
She nodded slowly.
“From their point of view—from what they could see—the Tha’alani went to the waters, and the waters rose.”
She closed her eyes.
“You understand our difficulty.”
She did.
“You yourself feared the Tha’alani. You do not do so now,” he added. “But you must understand the fear that people have.”
She nodded quietly.
“The Emperor understands it as well. He cannot, of course, explain the whole of what happened—and given the sparsity of reports generated by your office in the wake of events, I am not entirely certain he could explain it even if that was his desire. I am not, however, here to lecture you on the quality of your paperwork. I believe it best that some things remain uncommitted to paper.
“I, however, was fully debriefed. What I know, he now knows. He will not expose The Keeper, and no mention of the young Tha’alani man will leave the Court for that reason. Nor will the young Tha’alani man face the Emperor’s Justice, for that reason.”
The fact that the Emperor couldn’t reach him probably had something to do with it, in Kaylin’s opinion. She managed to keep this to herself. Instead, she returned to the matter at hand. “So this Richard Rennick wrote a…play. About the Tha’alani.”
“He wrote a play about the Tha’alani’s attempt to save the city, yes.”
“But all of it’s garbage. Because we’re not allowed to tell the truth.”
“Garbage is an unfortunate choice of word. Lose it,” he added, condescending to speak Elantran. He must have been serious. There were whole days where he affected complete ignorance of the language which most of the city actually spoke.
She picked up the sheaf of dog-eared pages. “Have you even read this?”
“I have. It is not, I believe, the current version, if that’s of any consequence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where we could prevail upon the Tha’alani at Court, we did. The effect that this had upon the playwright was…unfortunate.”
“What happened?”
“Ybelline and her companions were given a copy of the play. They read it with some concern.”
“I bet.”
“They returned the play to Mr. Rennick. Luckily Lord Tiamaris was at hand; he intercepted their corrections.”
“This would be lucky because?”
“They understand the Emperor’s concerns. Believe that they feel them even more strongly than the Emperor does. They are not…however…” His hesitation spoke volumes.
Kaylin almost winced. When the silence became awkward, she sighed and looked at Severn.
Severn nodded.
“They don’t know how to lie,” she said quietly. “And this…all of it…it must seem like one big lie to them.”
She’d managed to nudge Sanabalis’s brows toward his receding hairline, which had to count for something. On the other hand, the fact that his surprise was more due to her comprehension than their inability probably counted for something too.
“If the truth is supposed to ease people’s fear, Ybelline could learn to live with that. But in her world, lies don’t ease fear. So I imagine what she handed back to Rennick—or what she tried to hand him—was pretty much all of the truth she thought it safe to put out there.”
“Indeed.”
“And the Emperor’s version of safe to put out there isn’t the same.”
“Again, astute. We may yet make progress in your life as a student.”
“I think it would be easier than this. What did Rennick say?”
Sanabalis did wince, at that. “I think it best to ignore that. Suffice it to say that he did not feel his efforts to be adequately appreciated. Ybelline, however, did understand the difficulty, and if you must find a person to blame for your current assignment—”
“I won’t blame her.”
“—she suggested you. And Corporal Handred. She said she was confident that you would work in the interests of her people, but with a better understanding of the intended audience for the play itself.”
“Meaning my people.”
Sanabalis nodded. “Which reminds me of another matter Ybelline also mentioned. The Swords have stationed a small force adjacent to the Tha’alani Quarter,” he added, in a more subdued tone. “And before you ask, Kaylin, yes, it was entirely necessary.
“Ybelline has asked for your aid in the Quarter.”
“For my aid? What the hell happened?”
“However,” he added, lifting a hand in the universal I’m not finished, so shut up gesture, “you are to visit the Quarter after you report for duty.”
On the off chance that Kaylin decided to reverse the order, Sanabalis chose to accompany her to the Palace. This wasn’t the first time he’d done this, and to be fair, if he’d gone ahead, she would have gone to the Imperial Palace by whichever convoluted route took her to the Tha’alani Quarter first. But as she had to stop by the Quartermaster to get kitted out in appropriate dress uniform—and as the Quartermaster was still a touch angry, which wasn’t exactly the right word for his state (the right words couldn’t be used in polite company of any race, all of the Hawks being multilingual when it came to swearing)—she actually appreciated Sanabalis’s suspicion, because if the Quartermaster was willing to make her wait or suffer, he was not willing to piss off a Dragon Lord.
He was, however, unfailingly polite and friendly when talking to Severn. Severn did not lose expensive dresses.
She took the uniform from Severn’s hands and headed to the lockers, where she added a much cleaner—and longer—surcoat to the clothing she generally wore. If she were a Sword, she’d also get a thin chain hauberk that was shiny and clean, because those looked good; Hawks didn’t generally have them as part of their uniform, dress or no, although most of the human Hawks did own one.
She had managed to lose her daggers—where lose in this case meant that something magical had transformed them into part of a very elaborate yet somehow very skimpy dress—and had bought a single replacement. The other dagger was coming out of her pay.
But it wasn’t coming out of her hide, for which she should probably be grateful.
Severn straightened her surcoat. It had the usual embroidered Hawk, dead center, but the golden thread and the beading was so perfectly clean it almost hurt to look at the flight feathers. To this, Kaylin added a small, beadwork patch.
“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Severn told her. But he didn’t tell her to take it off, probably because he knew she wouldn’t. The beads survived anything. Which was more, she thought glumly, than could be said about the rest of the clothing she owned.
She took the time to clean her boots.
Severn caught her arm and said “There’s nothing to be nervous about.”
She winced. “That obvious?”
“You don’t generally care about your boots, no.”
“I just—Marcus hates it when I go to the Palace. I swear he sits by his damn mirror waiting to hear that I’ve been thrown in the dungeons or eaten or something.”
They started to walk down the hall, and Sanabalis took the lead.
“You aren’t reporting directly to the Emperor,” Severn replied. “So it’s unlikely that anyone you offend will have you eaten.”
“You’re sure?”
“Unless the Emperor’s decided that you really are a threat to his Empire, in which case he could dispense with the petty part of you actually annoying some high-ranking official, and go straight to the eating. He’s an Emperor. He doesn’t have to worry about the niceties of the Law.”
She squared her shoulders. Smiled at Severn. “I know I’m going to have to learn how to do this—how to talk with people who’ve never even approached the banks of the Ablayne. But I’m not good at lying. I’m not good at talking.”
“You talk all the time,” he said, with just the hint of a smile. He was already moving out of the way before she hit him.
“I talk to people who know more or less what I know, and who don’t bloody care if I say things nicely or not. I hate the idea that my career is riding on my ability to be someone else’s idea of polite.”
“I would dislike it as well,” Sanabalis said, with a hint of the same smile Severn had offered. “But if it’s of comfort, Kaylin, you will not feel this way in twenty years.”
She bit her tongue. Hard.
And he nodded in approval.
This was going to be a long assignment.
On the way to the Palace, she read as much of the play as she could. She’d seen some street theater in her time, but her entire familiarity with plays put on for an audience involved a lot of loud children and the Foundling Halls’ small stage. Marrin, the Leontine who guarded and raised the orphans in said Hall, had put aside one of the large rooms in the former manor for just that purpose. For most of the year it stood empty, but during Festival season, and at odd intervals throughout the year, the cloths were dragged off the various bits and pieces of furniture—and the paintings and candelabras—and the room was opened to the visiting actors.
Kaylin had been there for almost all of the plays that occurred at any time other than Festival; Marrin often called her in to help supervise. She didn’t always get the play—and some of the stories, which were clearly meant to be familiar to small children before they watched the play, were a mystery to her—but the men and women in their funny hats and wigs and makeup were universally friendly and warm. The kids loved plays; they would watch in near silence—near being as much as anyone sane could hope for—and laugh or scream at all the right lines.
Kaylin seriously hoped that this play wasn’t meant for those children, because they would have been bored to tears. And bored children were a special hell of their own.
As near as she could tell, Mr. Rennick had decided that a budding romance between two Tha’alani teens was a good idea—for reasons that made no sense to Kaylin. Having seen evidence of the Tha’alani concept of romance, Kaylin had no doubt at all that this would be first on the list of things that Ybelline had attempted to correct. Second on that list would be the disapproving parents. Third on that list would be the couple attempting to sneak off somewhere together so they could be alone.
She stopped herself from dumping the play out the window, and only partly because the Swords on the streets were in a bad enough mood they might stop even an Imperial Carriage and attempt to hand someone a ticket for littering.
“Does this ever get to the point?”
“Hmm?”
“I mean, does he even get to the docks and the damn tidal wave?”
“Well, yes—but the love story is meant to convey to the audience that the Tha’alani are as human as we are. And misunderstood love occurs in all species.”
“It does?”
“Well, in Mr. Rennick’s mind, yes. But I would say that he is not entirely wrong.”
“Oh. What does a Dragon romance look like?” she asked.
Sanabalis snorted. Kaylin swore she saw a small plume of fire erupt just above his beard. Which seemed to constitute his answer on that front, and Kaylin couldn’t offhand recall mention of a female Dragon at court. She was certain they must exist somewhere.
She wondered, briefly, what a Barrani romance looked like, and decided she probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between that and one of their assassination attempts. Instead, she said, “Look, the Tha’alani are like the rest of us. Sort of. But this whole romance—it’s just wrong. I think Ybelline would find the…the possessiveness, the sense of—”
“Ownership?”
“Don’t mock me, Sanabalis. What I’m trying to say is that they don’t experience love that way.”
“Which is not, in fact, what you did say.”
“Fine. The point is, they don’t. They don’t have the disapproving parents thing, and they definitely don’t sneak off for privacy.”
“Ah. Well, then, how would you structure a play in which it was utterly essential that the audience empathize with the Tha’alani?”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“I’d write about the years in which they were tortured like criminals because they wouldn’t serve the Emperor by reading other people’s minds for him. Because they couldn’t, without going insane, and driving everyone they knew and loved insane in the process.”
Sanabalis’s eyes shaded to orange. In Dragon eyes, this meant irritation. Red was anger, and in general, if you saw red Dragon eyes, it was probably the last thing you would ever see.
“Kaylin,” Severn said.
“It would work,” she told him, an edge to the words. “People could sympathize with that.”
“I believe it would cast the Emperor in an unflattering light.”
She said nothing. Loudly. But it didn’t last. “I’m sorry, Sanabalis.”
“Generally one apologizes for behavior one means to curb,” he replied stiffly. But his eyes shaded back to burnished gold.
“It worked for me,” she told him quietly. “Knowing that—knowing what they suffered—it changed the way I felt about them. Look—I understand why people are afraid of the Tha’alani. I know why I was. It never occurred to me that they wanted to be left alone. That they never ever wanted to read our minds. And the experiments conducted on the Tha’alani—it changed the way I felt about them. Forever.”
He nodded. “You understand, however, why that information could not be part of a public entertainment.”
She nodded slowly. “It’s just that it would work, that’s all.” She looked at Severn. “Did you ever fear them?”
“Yes. But my understanding of the Tha’alani was different.”
She had the grace to say, “You wanted to understand them.”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to hide from them.”
He nodded again. “It’s natural. Kaylin, I’m five years older than you are. Five years ago—”
“It’s not your age,” she said, swatting the words away. Willing to be this truthful. “It’s you.”
“Perhaps. But I have often found understanding my enemies gives me an edge when confronting them.” He paused and then added, “The first Tha’alani I met was Ybelline herself.”
“You met her first?”
“I was under consideration for the Shadows,” he told her. “Ybelline could read everything of note, and still remain detached. There are very few others who could. She was summoned. And it is very, very hard to fear Ybelline.”
Kaylin smiled at this. It was a small smile, but it acknowledged the truth: it was hard to fear her. Even though she could ferret all truth, all secrets, from a human mind. Because in spite of it, one had the sense that Ybelline could know everything and like you anyway.
Maybe that was something they could work with.
CHAPTER 2
Kaylin’s first impression of Richard Rennick could be summed up in two words: Oh, god.
She wasn’t fussy about which god, either. She was pretty sure she couldn’t name half of the ones that figured in official religions, and of the half she could name, the spelling or accents would be off. One of the things that living in the fiefs taught you was that it didn’t particularly matter which god you prayed to—none of them listened, anyway.
Rennick looked like an Arcanist might look if he had been kept from sleep for a week, and kept from the other amenities that came with sleep—like, say, shaving utensils—for at least as long, if not longer. His hair made her hair look tidy. It wasn’t long, but it couldn’t be called short either, and it seemed to fray every which way the light ca
ught it. He didn’t have a beard, and he didn’t have much of a chin, either. It was buried beneath what might, in a few long weeks, be a beard—but messier.
His clothing, on the other hand, was very expensive and had it been on any other person, would have gone past the border of ostentatious; on him it looked lived in. She thought he might be forty. Or thirty. It was hard to tell.
What wasn’t hard to tell: he was having a bad day. And he wasn’t averse to sharing.
He didn’t have manners, either. When Sanabalis entered the room, he looked up from his desk—well, from the very, very long dining table at which he was seated—and grunted in annoyance.
The table itself was what one would expect in the Palace—it was dark, large, obviously well oiled. But the surface was covered in bits and pieces of paper, some of it crumpled in balls that had obviously been thrown some distance. Not all of those were on the table; the carpets had their fair share too.
“Mr. Rennick,” Lord Sanabalis said, bowing. “Forgive me for intruding.”
Another grunt. Sanabalis didn’t even blink an eye.
“I would like to introduce you to Corporal Handred and Private Neya. These are the people Ybelline Rabon’alani spoke of when we last discussed the importance of your work.”
He looked up at that, and managed to lose some slouch. “I hope you last longer than my previous assistants.”
“You had other assistants for this?”
“Oh, not for this project. In general, the office of Official Imperial Playwright comes with assistants.” The sneer that he put in the words managed to remain off his face. Barely. “They won’t, however, allow me to hire my own assistants, and the ones they’ve sent me must have been dredged from the bottom of the filing pool.”
Kaylin gave Sanabalis what she hoped was a smile. She moved her lips in the right direction.
“We don’t intend to interfere in any way,” she began.
“Oh, please. Take a number and stand in line. If you somehow—by some small miracle—manage not to interfere, you’ll be the only people in this godsforsaken Palace who haven’t tried to tell me how to do my job.”