Cast in Flame (24 page)

Without preamble, he said, “There was some trouble along the Nightshade border last night.”

“...Trouble.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“There was a small, localized shadow storm. Some of the buildings on my side of the border were damaged; the border zone itself is, at the moment, untraverseable.” His eyes narrowed. “Given your expression, I assume this is not a complete surprise to you.”

“Oh, it’s a surprise,” Kaylin replied, shrinking a few inches. “There was some difficulty in Castle Nightshade last night.”

“Was it resolved?”

“He still holds the Castle.”

“And now, coincidentally, you have decided not only to visit my fief, but to bring at least one guest who would not, in my opinion, willingly visit had she many other options. And she is bringing strangers with her. They are Barrani?”

Kaylin chose the safe reply. “More or less.”

It was only safe when used on someone other than a Dragon.

“She means to say: they were, once,” Bellusdeo said, stepping in to rescue her from the growing orange of Tiamaris’s eyes. “They believe themselves to be Barrani now.”

“Were these friends guests at Castle Nightshade last night?”

“One of them was, yes.”

“Absolutely not.”

Tara, however, placed an arm on Tiamaris’s sleeve. He glanced down at her—her Avatar form was shorter than his mortal form—and snorted. There’d been a lot of visible smoke in this series of conversations. He fell silent as Tara turned toward Kaylin, her expression troubled.

“Lord Nightshade is not known for the risks he takes with his castle.”

Kaylin nodded. “The visitor was his brother. His younger brother. He—” she hadn’t intended to tell Tara what happened. She’d hoped Annarion would, and that Tara might understand, without prejudice, what no one else could. Given Tiamaris, that wasn’t going to be an option. “You know that Castle Nightshade was sleeping. I mean—you’re awake. Castle Nightshade wasn’t.”

Tara nodded slowly.

“Nightshade and his brother got into a bit of an argument.”

“Did the younger brother attempt to kill the Lord of the Castle?”

Kaylin shook her head emphatically. “He—the younger brother—is upset and disappointed in Nightshade and what Nightshade’s become. They haven’t seen each other for, oh, centuries.”

“But he did not attempt to harm Lord Nightshade?”

“No.”

“The Castle reacted to the presence of the younger brother.” It wasn’t really a question, but Kaylin nodded.

“The younger brother—his name’s Annarion, by the way—somehow spoke
to
the Castle. He’s not sure how. No one is. But the Castle...woke.”

“Annarion woke the Castle?”

“I think it’s more accurate to say the Castle woke itself. And...it’s not really a Castle, anymore.”

To Tara, for whom architecture was fluid, this wouldn’t necessarily mean much. Tiamaris’s eyes, however, widened. “And you want to bring this Annarion
here?
”

“Because Tara’s
already
awake. I met the Avatar of Nightshade. Awake, he’s...nothing at all like Tara. I’d be happy if I never saw him again, anywhere, for any reason. Tara’s already awake. Annarion can’t accidentally wake her, and if he
does
somehow speak to her in a way that he can’t speak to the rest of us, she’ll know exactly what he’s doing. She may be able to tell him how
not
to speak with Castle Nightshade in future. He’s very attached to his brother,” she added. “Knowing that he’s thrown the entire fief—and the Tower—into a state of chaos is probably killing him.”

Tiamaris said, “I dislike this intensely.”

But Tara’s grip tightened briefly.

“You wish to do this?”

The Tower’s Avatar nodded. “Kaylin wouldn’t bring people whom she knew to be a threat.”

“Kaylin is blessed by a profound optimism, one that frequently stems from equally profound ignorance.” He exhaled. “If Tara considers the risk worthwhile, I will allow it. But I do so with reservations.”

* * *

If Annarion and Mandoran were no longer Barrani in the strict sense of the word, they were considered Barrani by the average person bustling from one place to the next, where most of those average were mortals, and most of those mortals were human. Given that it was after-work hours, Kaylin’s tabard was in the mess of her locker; she wore her normal clothing.

So did Teela. Bellusdeo brought the average up; if her clothing was simple, it was simple for Court. Most of the people who passed her by didn’t recognize her for the Dragon she was; she was simply a tall, attractive woman. There may have been flirting.

The bridge across the Ablayne to Tiamaris was not heavily traveled in the evening. A pair of guards stood on the far side—that was new. They had apparently been informed that guests were expected. They weren’t Swords; they radiated nervousness when they stopped the party to ask their business, eyeing the three Barrani. Since it was nervousness due to perfectly reasonable fear, Teela chose not to take offense.

Neither did Annarion or Mandoran.

“I will never understand how you can live in such a crowded, noisy place,” the latter said, when they were well out of the guards’ earshot. “And the smell!”

“You get used to it.”

“I don’t see how.” The Barrani clearly didn’t bet as a pastime, because if they had, Mandoran would have been laying money on the figurative table, given his expression. Since the streets of Tiamaris weren’t as crowded or noisy, he subsided, although his outrage at the crowds and the smell were more entertaining than the slightly sulky boredom that surfaced in their place.

Since Mandoran could whine in the privacy of his thoughts, Kaylin assumed this was passive-aggressive criticism on his part. Given the tenor of rants in the office, it was mild; she didn’t particularly feel offended on behalf of Elantra. She did feel offended on behalf of mortals, but that was pretty much business as usual when dealing with Barrani.

Mandoran opened his mouth—again—and Teela glared. Annarion chuckled. His smile froze as he caught sight of the Tower of the fief of Tiamaris.

It was a white tower; something reflective at the heights caught light and scattered it across the rooftops of the much shorter buildings surrounding it. Kaylin wasn’t a student of architecture; she knew what she liked. What she liked mostly consisted of a roof that wasn’t leaking and walls that were more or less straight. Doors that actually opened and closed without getting stuck in their frames were good, too.

But she liked this tower. She liked the Lord who ruled it, and through it, the fief that bore his name. Barren, which is what the fief had been called before Tiamaris’s arrival, had been her home for six months. Jail would have been both safer and less soul-destroying. But if Tiamaris had been fieflord when she had arrived here, she would probably never have left. She might
be
one of the guards at the foot of the bridge.

Or one of the guards who patrolled the streets when the sun set. With luck—and plans to visit a residence on the sleepy street of Ashwood—they’d clear the fief before then. The evening streets were patrolled for a reason: Ferals hunted in them. Even with guards and a Dragon captaining their various squads, people still got unlucky.

A lot fewer of them, though.

“That is your Tara?” Mandoran asked, poking Kaylin in the ribs. “Don’t frown like that—this is the third time I’ve asked.”

“The frown comes with the face,” she told him. It deepened. Mandoran was not looking up. He was looking ahead. Ahead into what were, to Kaylin’s eye, empty streets. The streets were under construction—or at least two of the buildings were. She started to answer and fell silent as two people turned a corner and headed toward them.

She recognized them instantly. One was the Tower’s Lord, and one, the Tower’s Avatar.

* * *

Tiamaris was in full Dragon armor. Kaylin had seen him like this only a handful of times. She glanced at Bellusdeo, whose eyes had both narrowed and shaded to a copper-bronze as she caught sight of the Dragon Lord. Given the arrival of three Barrani—who were not by any stretch of the definition “frequent” visitors, she could almost understand why: he was trying to make a statement without stooping to inevitable threats or warnings.

As statements went, given the darkening eyes of all three of the Barrani, it was effective. It wasn’t Tiamaris’s natural armor that made Kaylin so uneasy, though. It was Tara’s dress.

Tara generally wore gardening aprons, and as she did the actual gardening, they were usually smudged with both fingerprints and dirt, especially around the knees. Today, all signs of the woman who insisted on growing
food
on her front and back lawns so that she might contribute something useful to the citizens of the fief were gone.

She wore a dress that would be at home in the Barrani High Halls. It was, as the Tower itself, ivory in color, and if it wasn’t made of stone, it looked about as friendly. The reflective material of the dress was gold thread, gold embroidery and beads of some sort. Two months ago, Tara was still getting the hang of the significance of nonmartial wear; she understood the use of armor in all its forms, but couldn’t quite grasp that dresses such as this one
were
the equivalent of armor in a more subtle battlefield. Even Kaylin had not been that naive.

The small dragon sat up on her shoulder and squawked.

Tiamaris stopped. He lifted a brow, and before Kaylin could clamp a hand over small and squawky’s big mouth, he replied. The large Dragon’s reply, on the other hand, shook the streets. If they’d been empty as a natural consequence of the time of day before, they’d be empty for other reasons now.

The only person—for a value of person that really needed work—who was not put off was the small dragon. He flapped wings once or twice—hitting Kaylin’s nose without apparent malice—and replied.

Mandoran said, out of the corner of his mouth, “Can you get him to
stop?
We’re going to be deaf before we reach our destination at this rate.”

The Dragon ensconced in the middle of the visiting party snorted, a reminder that apparently Mandoran needed. “If this will deafen you, your ears are fragile.”

“Pardon us for being created with vocal chords designed for actual speech,” Mandoran shot back.

“I consider it a design flaw; it is not, however, your fault,” was Bellusdeo’s equally friendly reply. Kaylin wanted to kick herself for even thinking that putting Bellusdeo and Mandoran in the same fief was somehow a good idea.

Clearly, she wasn’t the only one. Teela lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. Mandoran fell silent.

The small dragon squawked and squawked and squawked. It sounded like he was delivering a lecture. Given Tiamaris’s approaching expression, he probably was.

Tara, however, laughed.

Teela looked at her, her eyes narrowing. Annarion and Mandoran, however, were almost gaping. Kaylin cut the distance between the Tower’s Avatar and herself by jogging ahead. Tara opened her arms and caught the Hawk in a hug.

“I’m very glad you mirrored,” she said, in perfect Elantran.

“So you could prepare a welcoming party?” She glanced pointedly at the armored Dragon who was still staring at the Barrani as if they were a very tiny war band.

“Yes,” Tara replied, missing the gallows humor in the question entirely, which Kaylin found comforting. “Are you going to introduce me?” she asked without apparent guile. She held out a hand and very gently scratched the underside of a small, squawky chin; Kaylin’s constant companion not only allowed this, but seemed to somehow feel it was his due.

“This is...Hope,” Kaylin said, her voice dropping into the whisper range on the last word. Only Tara could fail to find the name maudlin or inappropriate.

“An interesting name. When did you choose it?”

“When I was in the West March. It’s a long story, but semirelevant—that’s where I first met Annarion and Mandoran. I’m stuffing this up; I’m terrible at formal introductions. Let me start again from the top. You know Bellusdeo.”

“Of course.”

Arm still locked around the Avatar’s, Kaylin turned to face the rest of her friends. “I don’t think you’ve met Teela?”

“You are correct. I’ve heard a lot about her, though.”

Teela, being Barrani, had Barrani hearing. She shot Kaylin The Look.

“She has not said anything bad,” Tara then told Teela directly. “She looks up to you.”

Annarion and Mandoran raised brows at each other; Mandoran grimaced. “That is not generally a terribly good idea,” he told Kaylin. “She can be a bit headstrong, and she likes to show off. If she knows she can impress you, she’ll—” He stopped speaking abruptly. Teela had not noticeably stepped on his foot.

Kaylin resumed introductions in a rush to stave off any further embarrassment. “This is Teela. She’s a Lord of the High Court, but we don’t call her Lord Teela at the office.”

“But she calls you Lord Kaylin at the office.”

“Yes—but only to embarrass me.”

Tara now looked confused, and Kaylin wanted to kick herself all over. “Being a Lord of the Barrani High Court is not generally considered embarrassing. Is it?” she asked this of Teela.

Teela’s lips twitched. “For those who are mortal, it demonstrably is.”

Annarion and Mandoran, on the other hand, wore expressions of full-on, dumbfounded outrage.

“It’s not embarrassing,” Kaylin told them both. “But—I don’t deal well with the stuck-up rich. The Hawklord—my boss—won’t send me out on any investigations that require, as he calls it, diplomacy. So—being
called
Lord Kaylin in the office...makes me look like a hypocrite. Which is why Teela does it. Most of the other Barrani don’t.”

“None of the other Barrani Hawks are Lords of the High Court,” Mandoran said. The statement tailed up a little at the end, as if it were a question.

“Not that I know of. But I didn’t know Teela was, either, for at least the first six years. She didn’t exactly demand to be called Lord—and none of the Barrani Hawks do it.”

“The Hawks, if Tain is indicative of their general demeanor, are slightly unusual,” Mandoran said. He turned, then, and offered Tara a perfect, elegant bow; it looked almost like a dance move, not that Kaylin had seen many dances. “None of them are Towers. I am Mandoran,” he added. “Of—”