Cast in Peril

by Michelle Sagara

  “The robes he wears,” Teela replied, “are as significant to the West March as the dress you also wear.”

  “And the tiara?”

  “It is also, as you surmise, significant. It is possibly more significant than the robes themselves. Or the dress.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Lord Andellen informed you that the Lord of the West March serves as the vessel for the regalia and its recitation.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “There have been exceptions.”

  “This is an exception?”

  “Clearly.” Teela slowly relaxed her grip. The small dragon had already lowered his wings, but his neck was now high, his head at a level with her cheek. He surveyed the moving crowd as if it could, at any instant, become an immediate threat. He was obviously smarter than he looked.

  “Nightshade will recite the regalia?”

  “No. The Lord of the West March will do that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Teela, would it kill you to explain something to me for once?”

  Teela glanced at the table, where the seated Lords were now watching Kaylin with barely veiled curiosity—and hostility. “In this case, or at least in this context, I do not think it would work in your favor, no.”

  Kaylin exhaled and nodded. “Are we going to eat?”

  “Yes. At the foot of the table.” Teela began to walk, and Kaylin followed her like a badly drawn shadow. Severn joined them.

  * * *

  Teela did not relax at all during the meal. She also ate very little and drank nothing that didn’t look like water. Her movements were minimal and deliberate, and her attention—her obvious attention—was given to any part of the room that didn’t have Nightshade in it. Since the room was huge, and since Nightshade occupied one seat—albeit the one to the right of the Consort—this shouldn’t have been hard. Apparently, it was.

  Nightshade, however, spared no glance for Teela; he spoke with the Consort. She spoke with him. He might have been a favorite of the Court and its High Lord, given her expression and the texture of her laughter, which spanned the length of the stone table and filled the echoing heights of the dining room’s ceiling. There was nothing fake in it; there was nothing glittering and constructed, either. The Consort appeared to be both relaxed and delighted. Kaylin recognized this; she’d seen both, in her time. Her time, however, had apparently passed, and eating very fine food between an utterly rigid Teela and a totally silent Severn emphasized the loss.

  * * *

  Dinner was awkward for Kaylin, but the rest of the High Court, excepting only Teela and Evarrim, took their cue from the Consort and slowly resumed their pleasant discussions. Which is to say, their discussions: Barrani could speak enchantingly and musically about the most torturous of murders. Wine, food, and water disappeared in large quantities as Kaylin watched. She did eat—she was hungry—but the food pretty much tasted like proverbial ash in her mouth. After the eating, no one excused themselves from the table; it wasn’t the Foundling Hall, after all. Barrani Lords remained, some seated, some rising to drift between seats to enjoy the company of others of their kind.

  Only when the Consort rose did that stop. People fell silent, again taking the whole of their social cue from her. Lord Nightshade rose with her and remained by her side. Kaylin paid attention because this hall had no obvious exits in a raised circle in the distance, unlike the previous hall. Or at least that’s what she told herself. She rose when the Consort rose, as well. At one time, she might not have noticed.

  The Consort bowed her head; white hair pooled down her shoulders and across her dress as she closed her eyes and lowered her chin. She lifted her hands until they were almost at the level of her chin; it looked as if she was praying, something the Barrani did not do. She spoke in a language Kaylin didn’t understand, although it sounded very close to High Barrani. It was frustrating; Kaylin initially assumed she couldn’t understand because she couldn’t hear, and she listened intently, closing her own eyes in order to concentrate fully.

  But what she did hear didn’t resolve itself into any known words; the familiarity of the syllables failed to cohere in equally familiar ways. She knew that the Consort offered thanks. She could assume that those thanks were offered to the way station or to its guardian, whoever or whatever that was—but no name, no rank, no title returned on the tide of those syllables by the time they’d drawn to a close.

  When the Consort again fell silent, she lifted her head, opened her eyes, and waited.

  Kaylin’s unasked question about the nature of exits from this particular hall was answered a few seconds later: the walls began to move. They didn’t become ethereal or transparent—that would have been too quiet and far less dramatic. No, they moved as if they were part of some giant stone clockwork. It was not silent; the ground beneath Kaylin’s feet trembled in a way that implied an earthquake without actually producing one.

  But as sections of wall began to recede, pulled away in all directions by that loud, grinding mechanism, halls—or the outlines of halls—were revealed. The dining hall was bounded on all sides by floors that did not match what had moments ago been the interior; they were stone, but they were a pale stone, not quite alabaster but not any marble that Kaylin had ever seen. At the corners of the far end of the room, doors now appeared.

  “What happens when you’re not traveling with the Consort?” Kaylin asked Severn. She asked it quietly, waiting until most of the Barrani Lords had departed for those doors. They seemed to know which doors to take; Kaylin saw no trail of light on the floor to guide their feet.

  “The hall never becomes enclosed.”

  “Why does it make a difference?”

  “Perhaps,” Teela said, “my ancestors had the same general patience with etiquette that you once had, and this was simply a method of enforcing correct behavior.”

  Something about the way this was said made Kaylin turn instantly. The Barrani Hawk was quiet for a long moment. Then she shook herself. “I will adjourn to my room. I cannot believe it contains any surprise more unpleasant than the dining hall did—and if it does, I will be able to vent some of my growing frustration.” She smiled as she said the last bit; it was a cold, hard smile.

  “The Consort outranks everyone seated in this room,” Severn said when Teela was gone.

  Kaylin nodded.

  “But absent the Consort, the ranks will settle out in a similar fashion. The Barrani do not travel in groups of equals; there are subtleties of lineage and birth order that govern all interactions.”

  “The Hawks—”

  “The Hawks, and the Barrani who wear it, are outside of the Court paradigm. When the Consort is not present, Kaylin, the Barrani with the highest rank will take the head of the table. It is his—or her—duty to offer the plea to invoke the station’s activities.”

  “Plea?”

  “Yes. The Consort is graceful and even happy to perform this duty.”

  “Most Barrani would sooner cut off their own tongues.”

  Severn smiled. “Indeed. But they open and close the hall in a similar fashion, unless they wish to avoid the way station. At most times of the year, they do. The stations are not seen and are not invoked often; the loss of comfort is less galling than the brief loss of dignity.”

  “It’s ritual,” Kaylin pointed out as Severn began to walk toward the door farthest to the left. “How much dignity do they stand to lose?”

  Severn shrugged. “They’re Barrani, remember.” Halfway down the hall, he continued. “No one can escape this hall without the permission of the ranking Lord—or Lady. If they wish to leave and the Lord does not agree, they have the option of attempting to kill the Lord and change, by his death, the balance of power. It is a very pretty jail.”

  And it was a jail, Kaylin thought, that had once housed a young Teela.

  “There are very good reasons why that attempt is seldom made,” he added. “The sta
tion enforces peace, even if that peace is Barrani by definition. Poison loses efficacy, if applied to drink or food.” He spoke as if he was certain. She didn’t doubt that he was.

  “How do you know this stuff?”

  “I was taught it.”

  “Yes, but by who?”

  Severn’s smile deepened. “You wouldn’t know the man.”

  “Was he?”

  “Was he what?”

  “A man? Because I can’t imagine anyone who’s not a Barrani Lord would know any of this stuff. Except maybe Evanton. And Evanton doesn’t travel.”

  “He was a Barrani Lord.” After a pause, Severn added, “He was also a Wolf.”

  * * *

  There were no lights in this hall, no subtle path to guide the two Hawks as they reached the door. The door opened into a hall that was easily wide enough to accommodate dragons in their flight form. It was also tall enough. It was, however, very fine. Although the walls were of stone and the floor of cold marble, there were veins of gold in the pillars that rose to the heights, and the odd glitter of something that might be a gem if it were removed and cut. Kaylin, trying to fit this hall into what she’d seen of the layout, gave up. Like the tree station, the cliff station apparently wasn’t bound by the laws that governed competent architects. Nor did it appear to be affected by the consequences that governed incompetent ones.

  But the squares of marble beneath their feet began to glow as they walked.

  This time, however, Severn’s path stopped outside one door, and Kaylin’s just kept moving. Given the new occupant in this particular station, she hesitated. Severn was equally happy. But he accepted it with the same quiet grace he accepted anything he couldn’t change.

  “I’m not willing to take the risk,” he told her as she opened her mouth. “Not with you—and you would be the one to be at risk if you attempted to stay in this room. Nightshade cannot control the station.”

  “You’re worried that’s where I’ll end up.”

  “Yes, but so are you.”

  “I— He always makes me nervous.”

  “I know. I’m only worried because you wear the blood of the green, and he wears its crown.”

  “Is that what it is?”

  “Yes. His robes are also ceremonial—I’ve seen paintings, but this is the first time I’ve seen them in life. They’re not as significant as the crown.” He touched the door and it swung open into a large, well-lit room. “Go,” he told her quietly and left her standing in the hall.

  But she knew why. If he didn’t leave now, he wouldn’t leave—and as the station had decided he was to occupy this room, failing to do so could be fatal. He was willing to take that risk with his own life. Kaylin, conversely, wasn’t.

  As his door swung shut—and at a far greater speed than it had opened—she began to walk.

  * * *

  Kaylin followed the light. She followed it with reluctance, because she was afraid she would end up in front of Nightshade’s door. But the small dragon on her shoulder was so relaxed he seemed to be sleeping; his eyes were shut, his wings were flat against his back.

  The halls widened and branched, but they were always very tall, and the walls remained unadorned cut stone. The only thing that interrupted the smooth, flat stone were door frames, also of stone, and their recessed doors.

  She was aware of Severn as she walked. Aware that he wasn’t sleeping, bathing, or even sitting still—which he so often did; he was pacing. He was pacing, his weapons in either hand. She couldn’t see him, although she knew by now it would be possible if she concentrated. She didn’t; she could feel the daggers in his hands as if their hands were momentarily one.

  The light continued to guide her until she stopped in front of a door that looked, to her eye, like any other door in the station so far. The small dragon woke then, stretching everything except the tail that loosely encircled her throat. There was no obvious door ward across the door’s center; there was no obvious knob or handle, either. She lifted her palm and touched the door, and it rolled open.

  She was buoyed for a moment by the hope that the room was otherwise unoccupied, because the room revealed by the opening door appeared to be empty. That lasted maybe ten seconds. Rooms in the station were complicated and large; there was never just one of them.

  Teela entered the main sitting room from an arch to the left. She wore a bathrobe and not the finer dress in which she’d sat, blue-eyed and almost silent, through most of dinner. Her eyes rounded.

  “Kitling? What are you doing here?”

  “Apparently,” Kaylin replied as she entered the room, “staying for the night.”

  Chapter 16

  Teela’s eyes were a shade of blue that could be mistaken for green, and to Kaylin’s surprise, the green deepened as the Barrani Hawk approached. “The station led you here?”

  Kaylin nodded. “I’d complain to the management, if I were you. I’d do it myself,” she added as she entered the room and the door shut—without help—behind her, “but I can’t find it. Is there a closet here?”

  “There is. It’s empty.” She paused and then added, “It was empty.” She turned, bathrobe catching the ambient, strange light, and led Kaylin from the sitting room to the bedroom. There was, as there’d been at the previous station, one bed. But as Kaylin had, in her youth, managed to sleep in a much, much smaller and lumpier bed beside Teela, it wasn’t really a problem. The closet, as Teela had called it, was on the right-hand wall as she entered. Unlike the previous station’s armoire, this closet was built-in, or at least the door implied that.

  Kaylin found her packs very close to the door, on the floor. “Yes,” she said to Teela, who hadn’t bothered to follow. “This is where I’m supposed to stay.”

  “Take a bath first.”

  “Will you help me with my hair?”

  “Of course,” Teela replied as one dark brow rose to near invisibility beneath the line of equally dark hair. “It’s always been my life ambition to be servant to a troublesome mortal.”

  * * *

  “The one thing I like about these stations,” Kaylin said, submerged in water that was on the edge of pleasantly warm, “is the lack of servants. No one’s rushing about, or hovering with towels, or watching me.”

  “I’m no one?”

  “You’re not rushing all over the place.”

  “I have some dignity.” It wasn’t, on the other hand, a strictly human variety. Teela had shed the bathrobe and slid into the bath beside Kaylin. Since it was a Barrani bath—which, by any normal definition, meant a pool full of warm to hot water—there was a lot of room. She spread her arms across the stone lip and kept her hair above the water.

  “So…do any of the other guests have to share rooms?”

  “I doubt it. The stations enforce peaceful coexistence.”

  “So I can assume the station wouldn’t dump me in a room that also contained Evarrim?”

  Teela laughed. Her eyes were still green; if it weren’t for the surroundings, they might have been in the office on a day that didn’t involve the investigation into the Exchequer. “That would be a safe assumption, yes. It would not be entirely correct.”

  “Great.”

  The Barrani Hawk laughed again. “He is powerful, Kaylin, but he is not in and of himself as dangerous as some of the other Lords.”

  When Kaylin turned a skeptical look on Teela, Teela said, “He is almost alarmingly direct for a Lord of the High Court. If he doesn’t like you, you will know; if he wants something that you possess—and he’s aware that your death is the only way to transfer that item into his own possession—you’ll also know. He does play games,” she conceded as Kaylin continued to stare, “but not with any great artistry.”

  “Is there a way to get the station to give me a room of my own?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “When you use the word ‘honestly,’ it usually means something different from when I say it.”

  Teela nodded genially and u
pended a pitcher of water over Kaylin’s head.

  Fifteen minutes later, Barrani hair clips notwithstanding, they were both soaked, and the marble floors had become a disaster waiting to happen. The small dragon absented itself after the first pitcher, squawking in outrage.

  Kaylin’s hair, on the other hand, felt a bit cleaner. “Who made the stations?” she asked, treading water in the pool’s center.

  “The Ancients,” Teela replied with a snort.

  “Why?”

  “They were probably tired of babysitting their creations. Us,” she added. “Either that, or they were bored and decided to be constructive. Think about it. You’ve had experience with the needs of children—a roof over their head, food, clothing, and a need to separate them before they blacken each others’ eyes.”

  Since this was a charitable description of the Foundling Halls on a bad day, Kaylin grimaced and nodded.

  “It takes a certain amount of concentration and effort on your part. It probably took a similar amount on the part of the Ancients. They had a better way of eliminating it, that’s all.”

  “Then why the harmoniste? Why the Teller?”

  Teela fell silent in a way that implied the silence would hold.

  “You were chosen,” Kaylin continued. “What did it mean for you?”

  “Not what it will mean for you,” Teela replied. “My circumstance was…different.” Her eyes were still green, but they were a darker shade of green. She looked at Teela’s wet face, framed by equally wet hair that reached into the water and flowed freely around her shoulders. Kaylin hesitated and then decided against pressing her. Everyone had reasons for silence and the secrets silence contained. No one knew that better than Kaylin.

  But…breaking that silence in Kaylin’s case had been like breaking shackles and chains. It was true: it had. But it was a choice she’d made, and the choice itself was part of the freedom.

  “Kitling,” Teela said, flicking water at Kaylin’s face, “you even think loudly. Your lips are moving.”

  “I’m worried,” Kaylin replied. “And waterlogged.”

  “That is the usual outcome of a bath.”