Michelle Sagara (36 page)

“It’s my preferred title, yes.” She hesitated, and then said,
“I heard you’re leaving the West March.”

He seemed unsurprised. “Yes. I have spoken with the Lady, and
she has agreed to allow me to accompany her party back to the High Halls. I will
present myself to the High Lord.”

“You’re not a Lord of the Court.”

“Not yet.”

Kaylin felt her stomach drop, the way it would have had she
jumped off a cliff. Her brows rose, her eyes rounding; she couldn’t stop them.
“You can’t seriously be thinking of taking the test of name?”

“Can I not? My brother has, and he has survived.”

“I don’t mean to insult you,” she said, in even Elantran. “But
you didn’t do a
great
job of holding on to it the
last time.”

His brows rose, and color came to his cheeks. He didn’t,
however, argue.

“Look,” she continued, when Nightshade failed to speak, “you
can go to the High Halls. But the name—”

“I will have
no standing
in the
High Court unless I take—and pass—that test. And I require standing. In the end,
we all will.”

“If you fail, your name will be lost!”

He stared at her. “Of course.”

She stared right back.

“You cannot think that I would fail a test that even a mortal
could pass?”

“Everyone else in the history of the High Halls who
has
failed hasn’t been mortal.”

“I am aware of that. My brother all but insisted you undergo
that test.”

She started to argue, and faltered. “I am not,” she said, with
greater dignity, “his brother or his kin. I’m—as you point out—merely mortal.
One of the masses. If I failed, he lost nothing.”

For some reason, this made Annarion more angry, not less.
Kaylin was used to judging Barrani mood by eye color; in Annarion’s case, it
wasn’t necessary. “Is this what he told you?”

“He didn’t need to say it,” she replied, gentling her voice.
“I’ve worked with Barrani for almost half my life. I understand most of their
attitudes.”

“Marking someone was considered barbaric, even in our youth.
Did you agree to this?”

“Why are you even asking the question when you already know the
answer?”

His brows rose; his lips twitched. He looked very much like his
brother then. “I wish to hear my brother’s defense.”

“He doesn’t
have one.
”

“No. But even that admission would tell me something; it is why
he refuses to speak. Can you bear that mark and not understand even this about
him?” He looked at Nightshade. “Brother, what have you become in my absence?”
His voice broke.

Kaylin felt it like a blow, and couldn’t say why. She lifted a
hand almost involuntarily. “He gave me his name. Annarion—he
gave me his name
.”

Nightshade’s eyes darkened. He said, and did, nothing. Not even
in a way that Annarion couldn’t hear.

Annarion stared at his brother’s graven face. “Teela asks me to
tell you, Private Neya,” he said, “that two wrongs don’t make a right. She
expects this to mean something to you.”

Kaylin winced. Teela would be listening. Of course she would.
And she’d probably have about a hundred things to say about it in the morning.
She considered taking the portal paths and hoping that she landed someplace
close to Elantra just to avoid them.

“But, Lord Kaylin, understand the difference: his name was his
to offer, just as mine was mine to offer. What you did not offer, he should
never have taken. And he would not have, when I knew him. He would not have.” He
turned to Nightshade then. “How can time change a man so?”

“I owe you no explanation,” Nightshade said softly. “Nor do I
owe the High Court one; I am Outcaste. The matters of the Court are not—”

“You can say that, even now, when you came as Teller?” Annarion
demanded, his voice rising.

“The crown came to me.”

“Will you play these games with
me?
”

Nightshade smiled. “All of the best games are for the highest
stakes.”

Kaylin thought Annarion would hit him. She stepped between
them, facing the younger man and seeing, beneath his fury, his bewildered pain.
“You were gone,” she said. “You were lost. Do you think it meant nothing? Do you
think it caused no pain?” She hesitated; he marked it.

“Teela’s not happy.”

“Teela is never happy. You’ll have a few centuries to get
acquainted with this fact.” She caught his arm. “Come back to your room.”

“Do you think to protect him?” Annarion demanded.

Kaylin shook her head.

“Do you think, then, to protect me?” He laughed. He laughed out
loud; it was a bitter, but genuinely amused sound.

Kaylin tightened her grip on his arm; the small dragon
hissed.

Annarion’s brows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

The dragon squawked.

“If you do not watch your tongue—”

“Wait, wait—you can
understand
him?”

Annarion looked confused. “Yes.”

She turned narrowed eyes on the dragon, who shrugged his wings
and refused to meet her gaze.

“Lord Kaylin—he is yours and you can’t understand him?”

She exhaled. She turned to Nightshade, whose eyes had lightened
slightly. “Can you understand a word he’s squawking?”

“No, Lord Kaylin.” He met—and held—his brother’s gaze. “I have
given you what advice I can. If you will not consider it, if you will not accept
its hard-won wisdom, I will leave you.”

“I will return home.”

“There
is no
home, Annarion.”

“There must—”

“I am
Outcaste.
If you wish to earn
the scorn of the Court, you may come to visit the fiefs—but you will find no
home to your liking there.”

“Our line—”

“You will recall our cousins? Their children hold the
line.”

Annarion’s eyes darkened. “And you dare to tell me that I am
not to take the test of name? You can stand there and talk to me of
unnecessary
risk? I am severely disappointed in you,
Calarnenne. You have abandoned the responsibility of our family and our line; do
not even dream of demanding that I do the same.” He turned, Kaylin still
attached to his arm, and walked away.

Go with him. If I am not to strangle him
with my own hands, I would not have him perish. I am, however, seriously
tempted; I have not been this angry since...

Since you last saw him?

Or perhaps just after. You will find him a
staunch ally in future—if he survives. He is young. He will not become
someone you would approve of when he is reckoned adult by our people, but
while your lives overlap, he will be someone that you can understand. And
perhaps you will understand him better than I.

Teela is almost as old as you are, and I
approve of her.

You do not know all of her history; no
more do you know mine. Annarion’s, however, is within the grasp of your
brief life to date. Mortals have a saying: Be careful what you wish for. It
is...vexing. I will not see you in the West March again.

Kaylin was halfway down the hall when Nightshade added,
I am in your debt, Chosen.

* * *

When Kaylin returned to her room, Teela was in it.

“I assume Alsanis okayed this?”

Teela shrugged. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she
stood—instead of lounging across a convenient flat surface. “I want to warn you
not to interfere,” she said. “But I hate to waste my breath. What are you going
to do with him?”

“Annarion?”

“Of course.”

“I’m not sure I’m going to tell you,” Kaylin replied, removing
clothing as she made ready for sleep, attempt two. “Especially if I don’t want
him to know.”

“She has you there,” another voice said. Mandoran appeared in
the doorway, balancing a tray that had ten people’s worth of food on it.

Kaylin’s jaw dropped.

“What?” Teela said, slowly relaxing her arms. She glanced
around the room and eventually ended up on the bed. Sideways.

“Nothing.” Kaylin stopped undressing and felt, for a moment, at
home. Mandoran wasn’t Tain, but Teela was absolutely Teela. “Did you come to say
goodbye?”

Mandoran laughed. Kaylin fell almost instantly in love with
that laughter. It held affection, knowledge, and sheer delight.

Teela glared at him, which made him laugh louder.

“She’s not staying,” Mandoran said.

“If I weren’t feeling lazy,” Teela told him, “I’d leave. You
could have my conversation for me and I’d be spared the effort.”

“You’re—you’re not staying?”

“Don’t make that face.”

“Your eyes are closed, Teela. You can’t see my face.”

“I have the expression etched in memory. And I can see what
Mandoran can see when he’s not laughing so hard he’s crying.”

Which, of course, made him laugh more.

“I was going to stay. Not for long. But...I can hear them now.
They can hear me. They can truly speak to each other. They don’t need me here.
Whereas you?”

“I’m not a child.”

“No, of course not. If you were a mortal child you’d be under
Marrin’s wing, in the foundling hall; I actually pity the people who are stupid
enough to try to hurt any of her orphans. But you’re going to be living with a
dragon. You have the Halls of Law. You’re no doubt going to have an ambitious
and disenfranchised Barrani Lord, and you have the world’s most annoying
pet.”

The small dragon squawked.

Mandoran’s eyes rounded just before he fell over laughing.
“Don’t ask,” he said, holding up a hand. “I’m not going to tell you what he
said; Teela would only kill him. Or try. Don’t worry about Teela,” he added.
“She’s not like Annarion; she’s tough.”

“Annarion—”

“He believes in people. Even when Teela was one of us, she
believed in no one
but
us, and it took her some time
to come around. Annarion’s more optimistic.” His smile faded. “He’s very upset
about his brother. We’re worried that he’ll do something stupid. So, Teela’s
going back to Elantra with you.”

Kaylin was so grateful and so relieved she had no words. Which
is why she didn’t miss the next thing Mandoran said.

“And I’m coming with her, too.”

“What?”

“Well, I thought I’d take a look at the High Halls, visit
what’s left of my family, and maybe join the Hawks.”

“Do
not
make that face, kitling,”
said the Barrani Hawk whose eyes were still closed. She was massaging her
forehead. “He can’t possibly get into more hair-raising trouble than you
did.”

“But he’s—”

“You were
thirteen
when you started
tagging along with us. If you’re telling me Mandoran can get into more trouble
than a cocky thirteen-year-old mortal...”

“Yes?”

“You’re wrong.” She opened her eyes. “Mandoran is leaving
now.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. You can leave the easy way or the hard way.”

He laughed. “If it makes you feel better, Lord Kaylin, she’s
not going back strictly because she’s terrified of the new ways you’ll attempt
suicide.”

“I have never attempted—”

“It’s because of Eddorian. Iberrienne has not been declared
Outcaste, yet. The Emperor—a
Dragon,
” he added, with
genuine disgust, “has ordered his death. But the Barrani might be able to
contest this; the execution is not a public matter. At least, if Teela’s right.
She’s going to talk to the High Lord, the Hawklord, and possibly the Emperor. I
think she thinks it would help you, as well, although we’re not quite clear
how.”

Because Severn wouldn’t be sent out again. Severn wouldn’t have
to kill Iberrienne.

Mandoran headed toward the door after Teela propped herself up
on one elbow.

* * *

In the darkness of Alsanis’s night, Kaylin heard singing
in the distance. She glanced at Teela, or at what she could see of Barrani
profile. “Can you hear the Consort?”

“Yes. She has always had a beautiful voice.”

“Do you know the song?”

“Yes.”

“Teela—”

“You saved them. You saved them when they didn’t know they
wanted to
be
saved. I didn’t know it, either. They
were only barely aware of their names; not aware enough to use them. They
couldn’t hear me—but they couldn’t hear each other, either. Now we can. They’re
not what they were. But I’m not what I was.

“What we did was stupid. It was reckless. It was willful.”

“You mean the names?”

“You see? You
have
been paying
attention.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No. I will. I’m certain I will. But, no.” She fell silent for
a long moment. “I had no idea, when I picked you up in the Halls, that this is
where it would lead.”

Kaylin closed her eyes.

“I think Nightshade had hopes—and that angers me.”

“Teela—”

“If you’re going to tell me that at least they were hopes you
approved of, save your breath. Every criminal feels justified in his actions.
Every single one. Are you going to keep interrupting me?”

“No.”

“Hah. Where was I? Even if I had known, I wouldn’t have risked
you. If the choice had been mine, you would have been packed up and sent back to
the Halls.”

“I had the dress.”

“Yes. Which is why the choice wasn’t mine. It’s odd. My life
has revolved around the day my mother died. My life in the High Court has been
tainted by it; my family has certainly changed because of it. Only when I was in
the Halls of Law was it irrelevant. And I valued that. I valued it highly. You
were part of that life, not this one. I was enraged when Nightshade marked you.
I was even less happy when you got lost and wandered into the test of name. His
hand was behind it. Don’t bother denying it.

“But now, I’m wondering what he saw that I didn’t—or couldn’t.
I wouldn’t have risked you here. Yet without you, we would—all of us—still be
trapped. You’ve freed them. You’ve freed Alsanis. You’ve freed Barian.”