His expression was set in a graceful frown.
Kaylin’s was a moving grimace, just shy of actual pain. She pushed herself free from the wall and wobbled a bit on knees that really weren’t meant to support her weight. Or anyone’s, at the moment.
But he did not approach her, did not offer a hand or an arm. He simply waited.
And that was all she wanted, at the moment. That he wait. That he allow her the illusion of strength, or failing that, the illusion of an absence of weakness.
“How fares the Lord of the West March?”
“He’s well,” she said, approaching him in something that approximated a straight line.
“I gather he must be. There has been some difficulty in the Arcanum.”
“Difficulty?” She didn’t ask him how he knew.
“Lord Evarrim has been unusually active.”
“It’s the Festival season,” she offered. She’d reached his side, and as she did, he turned toward the hall.
“It is a rare season that sees fire in the Arcanum.”
“Fire?”
“I believe that is the word for the thing that consumes wood and causes smoke, yes.”
She glared at the side of his face. “What caused the fire?”
“To the casual observer? An experiment gone wrong. I believe that will be the official report tendered the Imperium. The Imperial Order of Mages,” he added, as if he expected her not to know the word. Given that she didn’t, she settled for grinding her teeth.
“To the less than casual observer?”
“Ah.” He had led her down a hall that she had not seen before. Then again, geography in the Castle itself defied both understanding and description. Kaylin had a Hawk’s training; she remembered what she saw.
But there was nothing remotely familiar about the hall she now traversed. She wondered if it would always be like this.
“While the Castle is mine, yes,” he replied.
“A precaution?”
“It would be. But no, it is simply an artifact of the Castle itself. I understand it, I can follow it. But my servants see a different path when they approach the same room we now repair to, and they walk different halls. Were you to wander without my guidance, you might eventually find yourself in the dining hall—but the passage there would be less…convenient.”
He reached out to touch her cheek. Or she thought he had; she could feel the cool tips of his fingers against her skin, tracing the pattern of deadly nightshade almost gently. But his hands remained by his sides.
She was really tired.
“You did not suffer in the High Hall.”
She shook her head. “Not more than I usually suffer when I’m with Teela.” In fact, given that they hadn’t actually been drinking, a lot less.
“And none made comment?”
Again, the ghost of his hands touched her face, lingering at the base of her jaw.
“The Lord of the West March noticed,” she said at last. Her voice was higher than she would have liked.
“And he did not attempt to have you killed?”
She shook her head. “I—I liked him, I think. Not that he wouldn’t kill me tomorrow if it was useful to him—he’s Barrani, after all. But he didn’t seem to really care one way or the other.”
“Perhaps he was content to be alive.”
“He wasn’t precisely dying,” she said softly.
“How can you recognize dying in the Barrani?”
She thought about the guard Teela had so efficiently dispatched. “I can recognize death,” she said at last.
“They are not the same, I think.”
“Obviously not.”
A set of doors opened in the hall ahead. She could see, glimmering in the center of the nearest of the two, a golden flower. Palm-magic.
“You may open any door in the Castle without worry,” he told her, his voice as gentle as his hands—or his non-hands—had been. “I understand that you are not comfortable with the magic that graces my doors. They are there for privacy, and for minimal protection…you require none of the former and a great deal of the latter. It renders the doors superfluous. Come.”
He entered the hall ahead of her. She followed in his wake, almost stepping on the edge of his robe as she stumbled. She’d forgotten just how dirty she was. And the scent of food drove pretty much anything but hunger out of her mind entirely.
When she was seated, when her plate appeared, as if by magic, in front of her, and when she had actually started to eat, he sat across from her. The table that had seemed narrow was actually very wide—it was also too damn long. Mess Hall in the Halls was probably smaller than this single room.
“You asked an intelligent question,” he said quietly. “About the Arcanum. I will answer it now. To the less casual observer, the explosion that resulted in fire might appear to be a backlash.”
Chew. She had to remember to chew. The swallowing was a little too intensely reflexive. “Backlash?” More words meant less food.
“If a spell is set,” he told her quietly, “and if it is complicated, it requires an anchor. Very often the anchorage is provided by a person. In some cases, that is considered too much of a risk.”
“So you think this was anchored by something.”
“Indeed.”
“And it broke.”
“As you say.”
She frowned. “You also think I should know this already, don’t you?”
“I believe these explanations would be considered condescending by the rest of your compatriots, yes.”
“We did set off a spell,” she said as she drained the glass by the side of her plate. Or tried; most of it came back out with a distinct lack of dignity. “What is this?”
“Not water,” he said with a pleasant smile. As if he ate with ill-mannered humans every day. Messy, ill-mannered humans. “The nature of the spell?”
She tried to speak around the fire in her throat. After a coughing fit that would have had the Hawks snickering for days, she managed to get control of her tongue; she knew her face was red. “It was meant to kill whoever tried to open a certain door.”
“How?”
“Mostly? By ripping them into tiny bits, if I had to guess.”
Lord Nightshade frowned; it was the frown of thought, not disapproval. “I do not think that such a spell would be anchored in the Arcanum,” he told her after a pause. “Would you care to tell me why?”
“Because they’d expect it to be set off.”
“Correct. Perhaps you managed to pay attention in your classrooms in the upper city.”
“I had to pay some. Hamish used to throw erasers at the back of my head.”
His expression made clear that he found the anecdote less amusing than she did. Which wasn’t hard.
She ate more slowly as hunger receded. “You think it had something to do with the Lord of the West March.”
“I can tell you the minute it happened, if it is of interest.”
She shrugged. “Not really. I can’t tell you when he woke up to the minute, so there’s not much to compare.” She set her fork down. “Tell me about the High Court.”
“Can you not access your vaunted Records?”
“Not without being suspended.”
“Ah. Then it seems that those who have your interests at heart prefer you to be without the information.”
She nodded. “They expect that I’ll be able to avoid the High Court.”
“Then they are optimistic in a fashion that I am not. You are aware that he is the younger son of the castelord.”
She nodded.
“You are also aware that the castelord has a surviving older son.”
She nodded again.
“He also has a daughter.”
“I knew that, too. Do you think it was the older son?”
“The Lord of the Green?”
“Is that what he’s called?”
“By those who are conversant with the High Courts, yes.”
??
?Him, then.”
“Historically, it would be a good guess.”
She smiled. “And this would be one of the times when lack of historical knowledge isn’t a liability?”
“It is said that the brothers are fond of one another.”
“And you believe it.”
“I have seen them. I believe it.”
“The sister?”
“She has nothing to gain by the death of either brother. The Barrani Court has its place for her, and that place will not change.”
“Then who would want to kill him? And please don’t tell me that he’s a Barrani High Lord as if that were enough of an answer.”
“No.” He had not eaten at all. “I am not yet certain, Kaylin.”
“People seem to think that the death of the Lord of the West March might cause a war.”
“The Lord of the West March is not an empty title. Humans use empty titles, but it is seldom that a Barrani Lord finds one. He is popular, in the fashion of our kind. And he is, as you have guessed, unusual.”
“I guessed that, did I?”
“You must have. If I am correct, there was only one way to wake him.” His eyes were a mix of emerald and blue. He stared at her intently.
She swallowed air. Food went down with it, and she dropped her fork; emptiness had been replaced by something a little too crowded for comfort. She chose her next words with care. “I can’t speak of it.”
“He understands what the mark you bear means.”
“He didn’t make exceptions.”
“No.” He lifted the stem of an empty glass and gestured, his fingers running along the rim. She wasn’t particularly surprised when the glass filled. “He gave you his name.”
She kept her face carefully blank.
“I could almost hear it, Kaylin.”
“But he—”
“When you spoke it. I know what you saw,” he added softly. “And I will not speak of it. You planted the Hawk,” he added, “in the heart of the Lord of the West March.”
She nodded.
“Do you understand what that portends?”
“No.”
“He must understand it. I would not have been surprised had he killed you. He did not, however, and that saves me much difficulty.”
“Because?”
“You bear my mark,” he replied, as if that was answer enough.
“The mark of an outcaste.”
“Of a surviving outcaste Lord.”
She was smart enough to understand the difference. “He told me to ask you something,” she said, lifting her own glass. The candlelight bent as she stared through the clear liquid. She wasn’t quite brave enough to drink any more of it.
“And that?”
“Kyuthe.”
“Ah. I assume that Anteela used the word.”
“She did. And he implied that she—that she didn’t have the right to use it.”
Lord Nightshade was silent a moment. His gaze did not leave her. He was utterly still. He might have been a statue of black marble, burnished to catch light.
“He called you kyuthe.”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“And you don’t understand why.”
“No. But he said that ignorance excused nothing. Am I in trouble? I mean, in more trouble?”
“It depends, Kaylin. You have the eyes of the Arcanum upon you. I would not have said more trouble could be possible.” He rose; she watched him as if she were no longer an active participant in her own life. Watched him move, listened to the rustle of dark cloth, the almost absent fall of feet. He came around the table slowly, and she felt his presence as shadow, a thing cast by light, a thing that said light was absent.
She felt the lack of movement just as keenly; her cheek was warm. He stood beside her, and above, as if he were bower. Or waiting cage.
“The Hawk is more than a symbol,” he whispered, his words too deep to tickle, too quiet to resonate. “And you offered him all that it means. To you. He was on the edge of our twilight, although you could not see it clearly, and he accepted what you offered.”
“How do you—”
“It grew, Kaylin. It grew, there. The Lord of the West March is like—very like—the Barrani of old. What you saw was real, in its fashion. You left it there. He accepted it.”
“It was the only way I could call him,” she whispered.
“Yes. And your instincts are far sharper than you know. You called, he heard. He came. What you offered, he could have destroyed. Did he?”
She shook her head.
“I did not see the shadow of that loss upon you, and it tells me much. As he knew it would. You had no words for what you did, although if you struggled, you would find them. Words have power, but the power of words are not yours…you found a different way.
“But you gave, in some measure, what he returned. He knows you. If he speaks your name, Kaylin, you will hear it, and you will be bound in some fashion to him.”
“But we don’t have names. Not those ones.”
“No. You are mortal, the learning of your name is simply the sum of what can be known. It is not always the sum of what you claim to know. They are not the same. But you left him something of value, and he retains it. You offered, and he accepted. The Lord of the West March does not use the word kyuthe lightly—he is not Anteela. He has not been exposed to the frailty of mortality.” His hands touched her shoulders.
“Kaylin,” he added, “the castelord has called High Court. From the West, and the East, from the mountains and the seas, from the forests that man has not yet encountered, the Barrani have come at his call. They are not numerous yet, but their presence will be felt in Elantra. It is felt now, by the Emperor.”
“Why now?”
“That is the only question that needs be answered. If you understand it, you will understand the whole of this game. The Lord of the West March was seen as a threat. Had you not interfered, he would have died.
“But he is not—he has never been—a fool. He must have been prepared for a hundred different attacks. This one was subtle, and it succeeded—but it should not have succeeded. What does this tell you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know what was done.”
“What is not as important as how. Think on that.” She felt the chair slide; she moved with it. She even started to rise, but her legs were like jelly. And her eyes were too heavy.
“Can I think tomorrow?”
She felt, rather than saw, his smile. “Tomorrow, then. Do you not have an appointment with Lord Sanabalis?”
She was lifted, and cradled; she could see candles flare and fall silent, their voices stilled. “Is there anything about my life you don’t know?”
“Lord Sanabalis is one of the world’s ancient powers,” Lord Nightshade told her as he carried her out of the room. “And when the ancient powers move, they are felt. He is not without guile, and not without cunning, but he has been content these many years to serve the Dragon Emperor. If he has consented to teach you, you are honored, whether or not you know it.
“Sleep. I will watch you.”
It was night, she thought. In the fiefs. And at night, only one other had ever watched her sleep. She wanted to tell him this, but she couldn’t hold on to the words, just the fear.
“You love too easily,” he told her. “Perhaps, in our youth, we once did the same. It was a different season, and it will not return to us, no matter how much we might wait. But what we learned in that youth, we hold as truth now. I would not have made the mistakes you made, Kaylin.
“But I would not have hated Severn for his choice, either. I would count myself in his debt.”
And what of the dead? What of Steffi and Jade? How would you repay the debt you owed them? How would you forgive Severn for their deaths?
He brushed hair from her face. “By learning, little one. By learning never to let the innocent be weapons that could be used against me.”
His words were like the lull a ship
knows in harbor. “Did it take a long time? To learn that?”
“I never said it was a lesson I had to learn, but I have often learned from the mistakes of others. And yes, Kaylin Neya, for others it was costly, and it took many, many years.”
“More than I have?”
“Many more.”
She was silent for a moment, surrendering wakefulness. “Good.”
When she woke, she woke to light. But it wasn’t sunlight; it didn’t cast the shadows by which she told time. She wore her clothing, she did not wear her boots. Those had been tucked neatly against the wall, and looked so out of place they were almost embarrassing. Then again, the same could be said of everything she owned.
The room itself was empty; a single flower blossomed in red-and-blue above the lip of a silver vase on a table beside the bed. She stretched experimentally. Her arms and legs were stiff, but the pain of the previous day had left them.
The mirror stood at the opposite end of the room; she could see herself—and only herself—in its surface. No angry growls had broken her sleep. She got up, changed one uniform for another, and put on pants that didn’t have slashes or holes. She pulled her hair down, removed the stray bits of wood that had managed to lodge there, and then tried to brush it. She really resented the Barrani their hair.
As she buttoned her sleeves, she paused, and rolled them up; she inspected the marks on her arms with care. One day, she would read them.
She wondered what would happen then, if they would kill her, or if they would slip away, their story finally told.
A knock interrupted her rare introspection. She hurriedly buttoned her sleeves and then shouted at the door. It opened.
Lord Nightshade stood in the frame. If he was unaccustomed to being shouted at through a closed door, it didn’t change the general friendliness of his demeanor. Then again, knives probably wouldn’t. “You will be late,” he told her quietly, “if you do not leave soon. I have had food. You may take it with you.”
She nodded, fetched her offending shoes, and shoved her feet into them, knotting the laces.
“Kaylin.”
She looked up.
“You were dreaming.”
And looked back down again. If she dreamed much, she generally didn’t remember them, and given her life, she counted that on the plus side of the ledger.