Cast in Courtlight

by Michelle Sagara

  "Um, not really."

  "Did you not come to the lake?"

  "Uh, no."

  She had the attention of The Lady, as well. They were both staring at her, as if she were a particularly fascinating and intelligent growth that was alien in every conceivable way.

  Fair enough.

  "What did you see?" the Consort asked.

  "A table."

  "A table."

  "A big table, if that helps."

  The two Barrani exchanged a glance. "Why?" the Consort asked.

  "I don't know. Maybe because… it's words, and I tend to write at tables."

  "Not desks?"

  "Not so much." She thought of explaining her school experience. Decided it wouldn't make sense to them. "Most of the real writing I've done is usually at a big table. With maps on it."

  "Oh."

  The two Barrani woman gazed out into the lake. And then the older woman took her daughter's hand. "Are you ready?" she asked softly.

  Her daughter nodded without hesitation.

  "Wait—" Kaylin began, when it became clear what they were going to do. "You can't—"

  The Consort looked at Kaylin. "I am weary, Kaylin. I am dying. I know what you did for my son," she added softly, "but it would be no kindness to me." She gazed out bitterly across that moving sea and added, "I have been the Consort for many years. I have brought our young to the source, and I have awakened them. I have chosen their names, and every time I have done this, I have tried to choose names that will hold against the testing.

  "But I have failed so many of my people. You have seen the cost of that in the darkness below. Those whom I gave life are all my children, and I hear them. I know what they suffer. I will always know it," she added. "You bring hope to my sons and my daughter. You have sustained me on my journey here.

  "But I have earned the right to return my name to the source."

  "But—"

  "Perhaps, in time, I will be born again, from these waters," she added. "But may it be a long time in coming, if it ever does."

  Kaylin looked at The Lady, and found no help there. She wanted to shout she's your mother! But she had no voice for it.

  Because she could barely live with the knowledge of Steffi and Jade; had she had to endure their suffering and pain for eternity, she would have gone mad. Death would have been a blessing.

  And it was a blessing she couldn't withhold.

  "A midwife," the Consort told Kaylin, using the Elantran word as her daughter once again put a sustaining arm around her shoulders, "must be a title of great honor among your kind."

  She should have said something about how often that honor had caused her pay to be docked, but it would have been wrong. She saw the two through mist; her eyes were watering. She willed herself not to cry because she'd come all this way to bear witness, and damn it, she was going to.

  And then, The Lady and the Consort, the daughter and the mother, stepped over the edge of the path, falling straight and stiff into the luminous, moving source. There should have been a splash; there should have been a sound.

  But there wasn't. There was a single ripple, a movement of lines and curves and dots, before the source closed over them both.

  Kyuthe.

  The voice was familiar. She frowned and turned; there was no one else there.

  I am in the High Circle

  , the Lord of the West March told her, his voice almost gentle. We await you, now. You must return to us.

  But The Lady—She, too, must return on her own. You faced your test. You were allowed to face it. Allow her the same choice, and the same risk of failure.

  Kaylin nodded. Watched for a few minutes longer, and then, turning, she made her way back along the path. Without the Consort as a burden, the path was short and easily navigated, and she came out into the same forest she'd left. She followed the footpaths through the wild trees, and these led to the Consort's fountain.

  The path continued beyond it.

  And at its end—or beginning—the Lord of the West March was waiting. His eyes were bright and green.

  "I'm sorry," she began as she reached him. "Your mother—"

  But he lifted a hand to her lips and shook his head, looking down on her as if, for a moment, she were a child, and only a child. "Come, kyuthe," he said quietly. "You have a place of honor by the side of the Lord of the High Court."

  He offered her his arm, and she stared at it for a minute. Then she remembered her manners, or rather, the manners she was supposed to have learned. She took his arm, walking barefoot beside him, dwarfed in height.

  "How could you speak to me?" she asked as they walked.

  "You are my kyuthe," he told her quietly.

  "But—"

  "You have been at the Heart of my forest," he said softly. "And some part of you remains there, still. I will never remove it," he added. "It is a reminder. And a gift. And when you are long dead, it will still be both." He reached up and brushed her cheek, his fingers tracing Nightshade's mark. It did not burn, as it had when Lord Evarrim had tried to touch it in the merchants' guild.

  "Tell the outcaste," he said quietly, "that if this was some part of his game, it has still served us." He paused, "And tell him, also, that you will remain a Lord of the High Court until your death."

  "But what if I—"

  "You have a name," he told her quietly, "but it is not the name that grants you that right. Lord Nightshade held his, and still does. You owe us no fealty and no obedience while you walk with the wings of the Hawks. You owe us no subservience while you walk within the High Halls." He let his hand fall away from her cheek. "It is possible that my brother could remove the mark you bear."

  She was silent. "And if he can't?"

  "He will fail… that is all."

  "I thought it would kill me."

  "If any other man made the attempt, or if he made it in any other place, it would. But here, there is a chance."

  He held her gaze, his eyes still green. Very green. "But if you do not choose to take that risk, if you choose to bear that mark, you will still be welcome at Court."

  She nodded. And they entered the High Circle

  .

  He led her to the throne, and to the man upon it—and she saw that the man was the Lord of the Green. He nodded gravely to her, although he did not rise. "Lord Kaylin," he said. "Attend me."

  She came to stand by his side, in the shadow of his brother. Saw that the other Lords were now gathered, even Evarrim. Teela was in the distance, but Kaylin recognized her anyway; the Barrani Hawk nodded.

  "Lord Severn," the Lord of the Green—no, the Lord of the High Court—said, "attend me."

  And Severn, still bloody, bowed deeply and joined Kaylin and the Lord of the West March.

  "Now," the Lord of the High Court said quietly, before Kaylin could ask—and she was going to—"we wait."

  "Wait?"

  "For the Consort," he replied. His eyes were green; there was no blue in them.

  Kaylin nodded. She wanted to bite her nails. She wanted to talk to Severn. She wanted to fill the silence because when it came right down to it, the silence was getting on her nerves. She had never been good at waiting.

  Time passed. The light didn't change, but Kaylin's legs were stiff from running and her feet were sore. She wondered if they were still bleeding. She looked at Severn, and thought he probably did just fine as a dress officer; he was as straight and tall as the rest of the Barrani.

  Lirienne.

  Kaylin.

  When will we have waited for long enough?

  When she arrives.

  But what if she—

  When she arrives, kyuthe. There was a warning in the words.

  They waited. She couldn't see the moon, but it was there, above this false sunlight, this eternal day. She wondered what the streets were like; the Festival had been opened, the festivities—if you could call most of the activities that drunkards engaged in festive—were well under way. She wondered how many
drunk-and-disorderly charges were being filed. Wondered how many brawls had broken out, and how the Swords had handled it. Wondered, as well, if the desperation for money had resulted in murders. It usually did. That was Hawk work.

  This was harder.

  She waited.

  And then she heard it; the movement of something like bark against bark, the turning of a key in a lock—which, given that there wasn't a lock, should have been a clue—and she turned just a second before anyone else did.

  The Lady—ah, damn it, the Consort, came out of the side of the great tree, just as Kaylin had done. She should have been wet, but she wasn't; she should have looked tired, but she didn't. Her clothing wasn't dirty, and it wasn't torn, and it certainly wasn't smeared by blood. Her hair wasn't tangled or matted.

  But she wore white, and a small circlet gleamed platinum across her forehead—just over the wound that Kaylin had seen earlier.

  The Lord of the Green—the High Court, idiot—turned, and rose, and met his sister. They joined hands, the Consort smiling in a way that Kaylin had never seen the mother do. Her eyes were a dark shade of green, some blue at their depths.

  "Lord," she said, nodding.

  "Consort," he replied. And he led her to the other side of the throne. He did not resume his seat, however. Instead, he lifted his voice. "The gifts have been given," he said in a voice that was not a shout but that carried anyway. "And the Consort has returned."

  The Lord of the West March fell to one knee and bowed his head. Severn did the same. Kaylin started to follow suit, but the Lord of the High Court caught her hand and lifted her, an echo of their earlier flight. She was made to stand, but given everything, she wasn't that much taller than the men who were kneeling. Which was, oh, everyone else in the clearing except for the Consort.

  "There will be music," he told her quietly. "And song. Each song is part of the legacy of the High Halls. I fear you would stand a week if you listened to them all, and I excuse you if this is not your desire."

  She swallowed. "Severn, too?"

  "Lord Severn, as well, for I believe he has finished his… observations." As he said this, his gaze passed over Teela's bowed head. "And I believe that he will find nothing out of order, as the Officers of the Law are wont to say. It is odd that he had cause to arrive at all, for I have had no word of Lethe. He carried the flower as evidence, or he would not have been allowed to remain in the High Court. But such is the High Festival, and many things cannot be explained, even by those who have experienced them."

  She understood the warning he offered. And she understood that he would kill her if she spoke. It should have angered her or frightened her. But it brought her a strange sense of comfort instead—because the man who could hold these Halls had to be made of stone and steel.

  And he was, now, but she knew that it wasn't all he was. His mother had wanted something different for him than she herself had had. In the brother who loved him and the sister who would be the mother of their race for some time, she had provided him with that.

  He lowered his head slightly. "If you desire it, I will take from you the mark you bear."

  Kaylin reached up to touch her cheek, and realized, as she did, that she was cupping it almost defensively. She hadn't wanted it. She had hated what it meant, or what she thought it meant.

  But she might not have left the source at all were it not for the voice of Nightshade and his distant words.

  She smiled wanly. "Ignorance," she told him softly, "is not an excuse. Even mine. Especially mine."

  "Then what will you have?" he asked her quietly.

  She met his gaze, took a deep breath, and said, "A day of clemency."

  "I have granted you clemency, although you do not require it."

  "Not for me."

  "Ah. Your kyuthe?"

  "I don't think your brother—"

  "I meant Lord Severn."

  "Oh. No." She exhaled. "Lord Andellen," she said quietly.

  His eyes shaded blue. "You ask much."

  "For a day. For this day. Give him the High Court. Give him the High Festival and the rituals that will follow."

  "It is longer than a day," he said gravely. But he did not look entirely displeased. Then again, he didn't look thrilled, either. He turned to the Lord of the West March and said, "See that it is done."

  And the Lord of the West March bowed.

  "You will eat with us," he told her.

  She winced.

  "It is the only part of the ritual which you must attend, and I would be honored by it." He paused, and then added, "You won the right to be called a Lord of the High Court when you returned from the tower. But you took the test for reasons that I cannot comprehend, and having finished, having survived it, you did more.

  "Why?"

  She wanted to lie. But his gaze was pressing and cutting at the same time, and she couldn't retreat into the safety of silence, because it wasn't there.

  "Because," she said quietly, "I have my own dead to answer to. And I saw them here, in you. I saw Severn—my kyuthe—in your father. I saw myself in your brother. He honors you above all others, even himself."

  "He is foolish that way."

  "You—" She had no way to speak of love. Not to the Barrani. Oh, there was a Barrani word for it, but it was one of those words that was sung or written. She had never heard it spoken aloud without heavy sarcasm. Not between Barrani. They guarded all their weaknesses. So she couldn't tell him that the love his brother had for him defined his brother, in her eyes, couldn't tell him how much she wanted to preserve life because of that love.

  She said instead, "Because not all weakness has to be weakness. Weakness, strength, power, failure—they're just words, and we can define what the words mean if we have the will or the courage."

  "You can rewrite a life?" he asked, his smile heavy with irony. He looked at her mark for a long time. There was no suspicion in his gaze, or if there was, it was not for her.

  "No one can do that," she answered softly, aware of what he meant but unwilling to descend into his levity. "But we can give it a different meaning." She paused, and then in frustration said, "Because I'm mortal, and sometimes we need each other. We aren't perfect, and we aren't always smart, but we're what we have.

  "Sometimes," she added, looking at Severn, who stood a little ways off, "it's enough."

  And Lord Andellen arrived at the side of the Lord of the West March. He looked wary, but in a cautious way. He knelt before the Lord of the High Court.

  "Lord Andellen," the Lord of the High Court said in a voice very different than the one he had exposed—and that was the word for it—to Kaylin.

  Andellen lifted his head, and only his head; he did not rise.

  "You are welcome, should you choose to accept it, to the hospitality of the High Court. And while Kaylin Neya lives her span of years, and in her name, you will be welcome in the High Halls."

  There was gold in Andellen's eyes. Just… gold.

  This was so much more than she could have asked for. And he didn't ask Andellen about his allegiance to Lord Nightshade; he didn't ask him to revoke whatever vows bound them. He could have done either. She knew that his father would have. But this High Lord was a different man.

  She would have hugged the Lord of the High Court had he been anyone else, even the Hawklord. Instead, she turned away and quickly rubbed her palms over her eyes.

  They were bright and shiny when she turned back.

  And her stomach grumbled.

  There was a very awkward silence that bracketed the unfortunate noise, and then the High Lord laughed. So, too, did the Lord of the West March, and even the Consort's smile was one of joy and indulgence.

  Severn, on the other hand, snickered, and she could hit him. So she did.

  In the morning—and it was morning, although there hadn't really been enough night for Kaylin to appreciate it more than she usually did—she packed up what was left of the dress the Quartermaster had been so apoplectic about. The Lord o
f the West March was waiting for her, as was Severn; the former had taken leave of the gathering in order to escort her out of the High Halls.

  Seeing the dread with which she rolled up the dress, he offered to have it burned. She considered this with care.

  "You don't have to leave," he told her quietly, although Severn was listening.

  Given just how angry the Quartermaster was likely to be, the option had its attractions. But so did the real world, and geography that didn't change, and tests that didn't have such a catastrophic cost for failure.

  She looked up at the Lord of the West March.

  And he smiled. "It was a simple offer," he said, "and no offense is taken by your refusal. This place—you are now of it, but it will never be yours. You seek a type of flight that the High Court cannot provide you.

  "Tender my regards to Lord Sanabalis," he added quietly.

  She nodded. Samaran was waiting; Andellen had not left the High Circle

  . She had no doubt he would, eventually. But she didn't want him to leave yet.

  She glanced at Severn, who nodded genially. There wasn't much left to say. And besides—she had the Lord of the West March's name, and she could talk to him anytime she wanted.

  So she walked by his side until they reached the statues that stood at the front of the entrance, and when he reached their shadow, he bowed formally. "Hunt," he said softly, "and kill when you must."

  She nodded again, as if it made sense.

  And then the carriage rolled up, along the stones, and after ascertaining that the driver wasn't Teela, she let Severn open the door and help her in. She'd kept the Barrani dress because changing into what was left of the old one had about as much appeal as wearing something that hadn't been washed in so long it stood up by itself.

  The drive to the Halls of Law was peaceful, and involved no screaming pedestrians, which was a distinct improvement. Even the jarring movement of the wheels added a sense of reality and familiarity to the experience, and she treasured it.

  When she left the carriage, she left it at the front doors, and not the courtyard, and entered between two rather grumpy Swords. Festival had passed, all right; one had a black eye. And a scowl.

  She guessed he'd had as much sleep in the last three days as she'd had, and tried not to smile too brightly.