Cast in Courtlight

by Michelle Sagara

  Which is pretty much how she felt about the seventy knives, forks, spoons and other things that she had failed to learn the correct use for back in school.

  They expected her to eat with her hands. It was a relief. Probably the only one she was going to feel.

  The Lord of the High Court watched her, and she realized that relief was bound to break sooner or later; she wasn't accustomed to being the object of theater.

  Which this was, more or less.

  Severn had bound her hand. The blood had seeped through the binding, blending with green until it was just a dark stain. She saw it every time she moved her right hand, and she would have eaten with her left hand, but she wasn't left-handed. Besides which, her left hand was numb and heavy; it responded slowly when she tried to use it.

  Teela approached her as she sat, Severn by her side. He ate more than she did, and with more comfort—but then again, even dirty, the Hawk that glittered between strains of dirt was still the Hawk: it was a source of pride. Not so what remained of the dress.

  "Lord Kaylin," Teela said, kneeling to join her.

  Kaylin started to say don't you start, too, but Severn touched the back of her hand in warning. The same warning that he had often given in the fiefs, when noise might mean discovery, and discovery might mean death.

  "Lord Teela," Kaylin began. "Lord Anteela."

  Teela raised a dark brow. But she smiled. She did not, however, touch bread, cheese or fruit. "Lord Severn," she said, inclining her head.

  "Lord Anteela." He swallowed before he spoke. Kaylin hadn't. Gods, she hated Court. And uncomfortable silence seemed to be part of Court.

  "It is unusual that the test of the Halls is faced by two," Teela told them quietly. "And it is that fact, more than your mortality, that will be spoken of for centuries."

  "Why?"

  "Not one of the Barrani Lords has ever faced the tower with another by his—or her—side."

  Kaylin shrugged.

  "It is not the lack of willingness on the part of the Barrani," Teela added with just the hint of Hawk's frown. "But on the part of the High Halls itself. You know something of the Barrani, but you do not fully understand the ties that bind us, one to the other. It has been tried before," she said quietly, "and it has never succeeded.

  "How did you manage this?"

  Kaylin frowned, and looked at Severn.

  Severn—damn him—shrugged.

  "He wasn't willing to leave me," Kaylin replied. "He followed. He usually does what he wants. I can't imagine a building would stop him. I can't."

  Teela shook her head. But she lifted a hand and she placed it above Kaylin's wounded palm. Before Kaylin could speak, she touched the hand, gripping it firmly.

  When she withdrew, her eyes were… almost golden. She said nothing, but she said it loudly; her shoulders were rigid. "Kaylin," she whispered, and then, in Elantran, added, "what have you done?"

  Kaylin shook her head. But the contact told her something that she had never clearly felt before: Teela had a name. Oh, she'd known it; she'd learned that much from Nightshade. But knowing it intellectually, and feeling it as if it were a force, were not the same. And would never be the same again.

  Kaylin didn't answer. And Teela, after her momentary outburst, didn't seem to expect an answer. Or, in fact, want one. She withdrew her hand and put it back in her lap, and her smile seemed natural and unfeigned.

  But the surprise she'd shown was uncharacteristic enough that it drew attention. And red robes—unwelcome, even here—bore down upon Kaylin as Lord Evarrim of the Arcanum approached.

  He knelt, as Teela did; not in supplication, but in mimicry of companionship. It was pretty poor mimicry; he might have been a Leontine for just that moment.

  He was not pleased. That much, she could see in the lines of his face, although they hadn't changed much. His eyes were a dark blue, his skin pale. His forehead, however, was weighed down by circlet and ruby.

  "Lord Kaylin," he said. "Lord Severn." To Severn, he inclined his head, the bastard. Kaylin put the bread that had been an inch away from her mouth down.

  "Lord Evarrim." She hoped he could see bread crumbs.

  "Your companion appears unscathed," he said genially. Or would have, if she could have closed her eyes and pretended she was listening to someone else talk. The words themselves sounded friendly. Which was enough of a warning.

  "I'm clumsier," she offered cheerfully. "Bread?"

  "I have eaten," he replied coolly, staring at the broken loaf as if it were a cockroach. "I am curious, Lord Kaylin. What did you see when the tower opened to you?"

  "A lot of stairs," she replied, with a pasted-on smile that she was aware was entirely unconvincing.

  "And nothing else?"

  "Oh, a lot of other things. Brass railings, walls. Stone. Stuff."

  His frown—and he did frown—was pronounced. She might have gained the title of Lord, but she hadn't gained much ground on the battlefield of Evarrim. She was mortal, in his eyes. She found it oddly comforting.

  "Nothing else of interest?"

  She shrugged. "Of interest to an Arcanist? I doubt it. You've seen the tower," she added.

  "I have. Many centuries before you were born."

  "Well, it probably hasn't changed much."

  His smile took her by surprise; it was momentary and genuine. "So," he said. "You are not entirely foolish."

  "Not entirely, no."

  "Very well. Guard your secrets. It will be important that you learn to do so now—because now, you have secrets worth guarding." He started to rise, and she turned back to the food.

  He grabbed her hand. Grasped it, as Teela had done, but without warning and without friendship.

  And she felt the force of his name in the touch as if it were fire, or worse; as if it could scorch the skin and flesh from her hand and leave nothing but seared bone beneath it.

  He felt it, too. He drew back slowly, but he let go quickly. And his eyes were blue that went on forever, deepening. "So," he said again. And rose.

  She waited while he tendered his respects to the Lord of the High Court, making a note of how he did it. Apparently, when rising in the presence of said Lord, obeisance was required. She could learn this. She had to.

  But what interested her was not his brief obeisance; it was the look the Consort gave her. It passed through the Lord and the supplicant, and it was meant for Kaylin, and Kaylin alone. There was weariness in it, and the burden of inestimable years.

  The burden, Kaylin realized, of being mother to an entire race for far, far too long.

  Kaylin loved the midwives. She loved what they did. They charged money for it—but Kaylin expected to be paid for performing her duties as a Hawk, and pay didn't lessen her pride in those duties. Midwives had leeway; they charged when they could. Where money was absent, they went anyway, and they brought life into the world. They saved life, in the bringing.

  And in the Consort, to her lasting surprise, she saw a mother—and also a midwife. But a midwife who had worked alone, with no companion and no apprentice, with no Kaylin to call when things were at their grimmest and death at its closest. A woman who was responsible for breathing life into the sleepers—but worse, and she saw this clearly, too—responsible for the shape of who they would become.

  In some sense, she defined the whole of their lives. Not the fact of it, as mortal midwives did everywhere, but the whole of it. It was a staggering responsibility.

  She whispered a word. Leoswuld.

  And the Consort smiled. It was both sad and grim, and the edges of the expression were hard.

  It was not just the Lord of the High Court who would pass on the gift of his life, she thought. The Lady would, as well.

  And then she frowned. Saw more.

  She rose, brushing crumbs off her ruined skirts, and she offered a perfect bow to the Lord of the High Court. But it was the Consort she approached.

  "Come," the Consort said quietly. "There is a fountain beyond the tree… it is
mine. No one will approach us there who does not wish to face my wrath."

  Kaylin nodded. She cast a backward glance at Severn, and Severn read her expression. He nodded once and returned to his food. To the conversation between he and Teela, which was broken by silences, the way streams are by large rocks.

  The fountain was so simple, so unadorned, that it looked out of place in the garden. It boasted no fine statue, no alabaster arms, no pillars, no funny fish. It was a burble of water in a stone basin that was wide enough at the lip to accommodate sitting. The Consort sat, and she indicated, by the simple dip of her head, that Kaylin should join her.

  Kaylin said, "You know their names."

  And the Consort raised a pale brow. "Is it mortal, to speak so bluntly and without recourse to grace and idle pleasantry?"

  "I can't speak for anyone else," Kaylin replied. "But we feel time differently. Or I do, at any rate," she added, thinking of the teachers in the Halls of Law who could drone on for hours without pause for anything but breath. And sometimes she wondered, given the color they often turned in her presence, if they bothered with that.

  "Then be mortal," the Consort replied. "For time, here, is drawing at last to an end. For me," she added quietly. "The leoswuld is coming, and I am bound to it."

  Kaylin frowned, trying to decide, in the space of that expression, how blunt she could be. It didn't take her long, but she was Kaylin. "If I had to guess," she said, trying to speak with tact or what passed for tact, "I'd say you aren't bound to it, you're driving it."

  The Consort's silence was oddly textured, and music seemed to play in its shallows. It was a strange music, something that was just within range of hearing, but contrived to escape its reach.

  "It is not a horse or a carriage, to be so driven," she said at last. "But Kaylin—I think you've seen the source."

  Kaylin could have lied. Or tried, at any rate. She could have bluffed; she was slightly better at that. She could have played the confusion card, which was kin to the stupid-me-what-was-I-thinking card, and which occasionally got her out of difficult situations.

  She didn't. She nodded.

  "Then you understand," the Consort said quietly.

  "But I don't."

  "Can you have truly seen—and touched—the source of life, and come away unchanged?" Her eyes were green and bright, but they were also slightly narrowed. She did not suspect Kaylin of lying; she was trying, in her way, to bridge the gap that race imposed. It was a big damn gap, and there were no obvious bridges.

  "No," Kaylin said quietly. "Not unchanged."

  The Consort nodded. "You chose a name," she said.

  Kaylin nodded. And then she frowned. "How do you know—"

  "I can see that you bear one," the Consort replied. And then, in a slightly different tone, "Or two." And she met Kaylin's gaze and held it. Expecting answers.

  Kaylin lifted her left hand. It was numb, and it tingled; it hadn't stopped. She could flex her fingers but movement was difficult. She could not, however, see the word she had lifted from the river of words; she could see the lines of her hand, the mound of her palm, the strange geography of her flesh.

  And knew, then, that she was looking for something else—after all, who thought of their own damn hand as geography?

  "I kind of had to take two," she said, as if confessing a crime. "I—" She winced. "I couldn't leave unless I did."

  "But your companion bears no such… change."

  "No."

  "Why is that?"

  "He didn't need to."

  The Consort frowned.

  "We don't like change all that much," Kaylin said. "I would have thought Barrani—who change so little—would like it even less."

  "There are some changes we contemplate. But if we abhorred all change, there would be no leoswuld. You understand my burden," she added quietly.

  And Kaylin swallowed and nodded. "But only part. I don't think I could do what you do for the rest of my life—and my life is pretty damn short."

  The Consort said nothing.

  "You do know their names."

  "I know some part of them," she replied. "Just as a mortal mother knows some part of their children. It is not the holding of a name," she added quietly, "but it is not entirely unlike. When I was younger—" She looked away, at the rippling surface of water. As if the sight of it offered strength.

  As if speech required it. And maybe speech did.

  "Few of our kind are born. We are not like mortals. We exist between the cracks of history, part of one age and part of the other, but not wholly one or the other.

  "When I was younger, I did not see as clearly, and I did not have the strength to choose as wisely" She waited.

  Kaylin wasn't certain for what. "Can you read the words?"

  "I can read them in the same fashion that you did," was the reply, which wasn't much of one.

  "I didn't."

  "Then perhaps I can read them more clearly. I will not ask what you did. Each Consort must find her own way."

  "Not a Consort, here," Kaylin said quickly.

  "No. Perhaps not. But the Barrani who pass through the tower do not find the source. Only the Consort is led there."

  "You had to take the test?"

  "Oh yes, Kaylin. And pass it."

  "But there was—"

  "There was only one daughter to the High Lord of that time. Yes. But leoswuld is the gift that we pass to our kin. And what I pass to my daughter is part of the path that will guide her to the Source. From there, she must return on her own, as all Barrani do, who face the High Halls."

  "And if she fails?"

  The silence was terrible; even the water seemed to freeze.

  "Never mind."

  "No, I will answer. If she fails, another must stand in her place, without the gift I have given. And if she is not strong enough, if she is not determined, we must wait until one comes who is, and the children that are born must die, in truth, for without the word, we have no life. It has happened before," she added.

  "But—"

  "Yes?"

  "But this waiting—I don't understand. You can't wait for the birth of another—" Kaylin froze.

  "No. It is not upon a new generation that we will rely. The women will come. They will come at need, one after the other, and they will try the Tower."

  "Your daughter?"

  "She is my youngest. I think she has the strength." She paused, and then said, "The Lord of the Green is my oldest, and he was born when I was very young. His birth was a gift, or so I thought it at the time. And I went to the source, carrying him, and I chose for him a name that seemed auspicious." Again she was silent, but this time the water moved. The wind moved. She was beautiful in a way that didn't make Kaylin feel dirty or ungainly. A lie.

  Kaylin had to clear her throat. "The Lord of the Green—"

  The Consort touched Kaylin's hand.

  The lights that dotted this tranquil, sparse place brightened until they were white; Kaylin blinked against the sudden brightness. She could see the Consort clearly—and only the Consort; even the fountain had vanished.

  I ask you not to interfere.

  I don't understand.

  I know. I know, child. But I chose his name, and I have come to understand what that choosing entails. It is bitter to me, but life has grown bitter to me. I ask you again—because I cannot command it, and because the Lord of the High Court cannot—do not interfere.

  But he's—his name—

  I know. It was a mother's voice. A mother's pain. I know what you are. I see it. You are a Hawk, and it defines you. You fly and you hunt. Fly, little Hawk, and hunt. But do not interfere.

  Kaylin almost promised. She even tried, because she thought—for just a moment—that the promise would offer peace to this strange and beautiful woman.

  But her lips—if she was moving them at all—wouldn't open. She couldn't say the damn words.

  And she recalled something Nightshade had said. You cannot lie to me. Not like th
is.

  It wasn't meant to be a lie. It was meant to be the truth. But it was riven from her.

  The Consort's smile was a bitter one, but there was no anger in it; just the guttering of something that might have been hope.

  I'll try, Kaylin said. It was all she could force herself to say.

  And the Consort lifted a hand and touched the mark upon Kaylin's cheek. She whispered something that sounded like a name. Like Nightshade's name. But there was no anger or hatred in the whisper. Just pity and pain.

  She let go, and the world returned. "Go now, and speak with my son. My younger son," she added with a grim smile. "He is waiting, and he presses upon me. He will not disgrace himself by interrupting us, but he is impatient."

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Lord of the West March was, indeed, waiting. And he was waiting along the path that led to the fountain. He hadn't stepped over the invisible line that clearly stated Cross This and Die, but he must have been lingering awfully close, given the color of the Consort's eyes.

  On the other hand, given the resignation in her expression—and it was open enough that Kaylin found it obvious, where so little Barrani expression was—it wasn't the first time he'd done it. She wondered, then, what he'd been like as a child. And how much he'd changed. She had a suspicion if she asked his mother, the answer at the moment would be "Not at all," and decided against it.

  "Kyuthe," the Lord of the West March said, choosing the intimate form over the formal one. His bow, however, made up for the lack of the title Kaylin didn't want anyway. "Your companion was weary, and has returned to my wing with your guards. I promised them that I would personally see you there in safety."

  She imagined that he had, and that the weight of that promise would have broken the backs of lesser mortals. It didn't seem to bother him.

  "I will leave you, Kaylin," the Consort said, also choosing to forgo the title. "For I fear my son has much he wishes to discuss, and any who pass the test are often weary." It was a warning to the Lord of the West March, and he accepted it with grace.