Cast in Shadow

by Michelle Sagara

  She met his eyes in silence.

  He shook his head. “Remember what Marcus told you,” he said, and reaching out, he brushed hair from the sides of her cheeks. His fingers were callused and rough, but his touch was gentle; it was a dichotomy that she had always liked.

  “What was that?” she asked, standing still a moment, a step below him.

  “You can’t save everyone.”

  She grimaced. “We have to try,” she said.

  “Trying is fine. Failing is inevitable. Don’t let it devour you.”

  “It’s not me that’s devoured,” she said bitterly.

  “Yes it is.” He lowered the polearm. “It’s just not only you.” He touched her shoulder with his free hand. “We’ll get the sick bastard.”

  “Won’t bring the boy back.”

  “No. But it’ll stop other boys from coming in like this. That’s what you think about. Remember it.”

  “Clint—”

  “I think the Hawklord’s waiting. I know Iron Jaw is.” He stepped aside.

  She walked past him, and then turning, touched his feathers. They jerked under her palms, but just this once, he let it be. She wanted to fly. And in a fashion, she did; she turned and ran through the Aerie hall toward the Tower of the Lord of Hawks.

  CHAPTER 8

  Instead of hitting the stairs to the Hawklord’s Tower, Kaylin banked left when she reached the office that was at the center of the Hawk’s nest, as the Hawk’s wing of the Halls of Law was often called by anyone who wasn’t a Hawk. She hoped to avoid Marcus, Teela, Tain—in short, everyone who wasn’t part of their mission.

  She was half-successful. The office was still crowded, but it was crowded in the way offices are when most of the people working in them have already sent their brains home and are packing up to follow: noisy, chaotic and not really all that productive. During a normal day, she half liked this, because it was possibly the best time for day’s end gossip, and gossip had a life of its own. She could find out who was engaged, who was no longer engaged, who had gained—or lost—weight; she could find out who had stomach troubles, who was pretending to be sick, and who had developed gout. Hanging around those lively desks, she knew which Hawks were working on which cases, who had scored tickets to any of the various balls, dances, concerts or plays that were the bane of a Leontine, who was pregnant, who was trying or who had birthed a child.

  But it seemed obscene, at times like this, that life could be normal. She knew this wasn’t fair, and she knew that she wouldn’t feel the same way when she managed to get a grip—but she also knew that she was, at best, a wet blanket. At worst?

  A spoiled brat.

  And it had been years since she’d lived up to that; it was no time to start a second childhood now. Not when she’d finally proved, after so much effort, that she’d managed to grow out of her first one.

  Behind the office lay the Tower; to the left down a long stretch of hall and through a set of fancy, heavy double doors, lay the rooms that the examiners occupied. The examiners were not, strictly speaking, Hawks; they served all of the Lords of Law. But when they chose to enter one of the three towers, they served discreetly at the behest of the particular Lord who ruled the tower they were called to. For this reason they were trusted by the Lords, and mistrusted by the Hawks, the Wolves and the Swords. Your own, you could count on. But someone who claimed no ties or loyalties?

  Still, if Kaylin were being truthful, there were always one or two who bore the crest of the Hawks and mimed the loyalty without ever letting it sink roots. At least the examiners were honest about it.

  She crossed her fingers—well, eight of them—and prayed that she’d find Red beside the body. Or that she’d find the right body. Murder wasn’t exactly uncommon in Elantra. But a lot of the murder victims never made their way here; this was a place of—as the Hawklord liked to call it—last resort.

  Here was where the special cases were delivered. And the boy? Special case was literally written all over a third of his body. It was written over a third of hers. She was dizzy, and stopped as she passed through the doors. Wondered if it was magic—because magic was the only guardian the doors required—or lack of sleep. Or food. But her arms ached; her thighs ached. Bad sign, all of it. She almost turned back.

  But she couldn’t. She owed the boy that much, whoever he was.

  She knocked on the first closed door, and made her first mistake. Her second knock netted two for two, and not in her favor. Third time was lucky—in some circles. But not hers. She’d almost given up, but some innate stubbornness made her venture to the fourth, and she didn’t have to knock—the door swung open when she touched it.

  Magic, of course, played no small part in its inward swing; her hand was tingling painfully as she withdrew it. She was always half-surprised that those magical whatsits didn’t actually leave scars or blisters.

  On the other hand, Red was there.

  She had no idea why he was called Red, because he wasn’t. His hair was black, except for the gray bits, and his beard, likewise colored. His eyes were brown, his skin a sun-dark shade, his hands laborer’s hands. Which, given his work, was a tad strange. He didn’t even wear red. It would have looked gaudy on him.

  But it was the name he answered to, when he bothered to answer, and she’d gotten used to using it, same as everyone else in the Hawks.

  “Red,” she said. “Thank god.”

  “Which one?”

  “Take your pick. I’m liberal.”

  He laughed. No one else in the room did. And as she looked, she realized that Red was to be the one mercy the room afforded. The Hawklord was there. Marcus—curse it—was there. Tiamaris. Severn. These, she could live with, even Severn.

  But the Imperial mages were there, and she hated the mages. They were pompous, arrogant, self-important and, above all, powerful. She never trusted powerful mages. The brief amount of history she’d been forced to endure before she’d been inducted into the Hawks had made it clear that all of the worst crimes facing the Lords of Law were instigated by mages—in the best of cases. In the worst? Caused by them. They were like walking death.

  Oh, she had nothing against a little magic; that could be found on every third street corner. It was the hoarding, the cold gathering, the expensive use that bothered her. It certainly bothered her now.

  “Private Neya,” the Hawklord said coolly, well aware of her distaste, “I trust you remember Callantine?”

  And they all had pretentious pseudo-Barranian names. Which was fine, if they were Barranian—but this one wasn’t. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Callantine?”

  “I don’t remember all of the Hawks,” the man replied. “She seems young for one.”

  The Hawklord’s expression was as clear a command as she ever got, but just in case she missed it, Marcus stepped in and surrounded her left shoulder with claws. He didn’t close them. Much.

  “I admit I’m surprised at the speed with which the fieflord surrendered this particular body,” the mage continued. “He’s newly dead.”

  She really, really disliked mages.

  “Kaylin,” the Hawklord said, ignoring the comment, “I want you present at the examination.”

  She nodded, but she tensed. The one thorough examination she’d witnessed had left her nauseous for days, and she had no desire to repeat the experience.

  “Red?”

  The examiner had already donned his gloves and picked up his scalpels. He handed one to Tiamaris, and the Dragon took it without comment. As if, Kaylin thought, he was used to presiding over such vivisections.

  “There’s not much to cut,” she said, without thinking. “He’s already been opened up pretty thoroughly.” She couldn’t keep the bitter anger out of her voice, and didn’t bother to try.

  Red glanced at her, and offered her a weary grimace. “I’m not going to cut much,” he said quietly. “But I want to examine the skin beneath the tattoos, and I want to take a look at the edges of those cuts, as
you call them. You don’t have to—”

  “Yes,” the Hawklord interrupted, voice grim. “She does.”

  Red frowned. “Lord Grammayre,” he began, but Marcus chose that moment to growl. As Leontine went, it was pretty monosyllabic, but it shut Red up.

  Kaylin looked at the wall on the far side of the door. It was one long mirror that started at waist height—her waist—and went up to the ceiling. She could see herself clearly in it, and wished she couldn’t; she looked like crap. Which was about how she felt.

  But the mark on her face? It was an intricate design of thin, dark lines now. Prominent. She lifted a hand to cover it, and caught Callantine staring at her cheek.

  “Lord Grammayre,” he said, “I would like to examine the girl after this is over.” He spoke in Barrani.

  “She’s a Hawk. She understands Barrani,” the Hawklord replied. “And I believe that the examination in question will be at her discretion.”

  Kissing the Hawklord was out of the question. And given his sense of humor, Kaylin didn’t—but it was a near thing. She tried hard not to look at Callantine as if he was something she’d managed to scrape off the bottom of her boots, and turned her attention to Red.

  Severn was standing beside him. Not so close that he got in the way, but close enough that Red was twitching.

  “Severn,” Kaylin said quietly.

  He looked up as if surprised to see her, he was that focused. Something about his expression made her move. Toward him. Her brain caught up with her slowly.

  “Don’t disturb Red,” she told him. “He needs a lot of space when he works.”

  Red said, “He knows. He’s only new to the Hawks…he’s been with the Wolves for a while now.” He glanced at Severn, and then back at the boy.

  Her eyes were drawn there as well.

  “He’s between ten and twelve,” Red said quietly. “I would say ten, but in the fiefs, food is scarce enough it’s hard to judge.” His voice was dry, almost uninflected. The first time Kaylin had seen him work, she had thought he was a monster. She’d been younger than, and the corpse on the slab had been older.

  In time, she understood—barely—that he had to be this dry, this distant, in order to do his job.

  It’s just a body, he told her, after that first time. It’s dead. It feels nothing. No pain. No fear. That’s what I think of, Kaylin. You think of what it must have been like to die. You wonder what they were thinking. How they were feeling. If they were terrified. I don’t. Because right now, there’s not a damn thing I can do to make it worse. And if anything I can do can help the Hawks find the killer, I think the dead will forgive me.

  She tried to remember that now.

  He cut very little to begin with. He examined the boy’s frozen mouth; pulled his eyelids up to look at his eyes. He spoke very little as his examination turned to the gaping, terrible wound that had once been an abdomen. It wasn’t bleeding.

  That was the other thing Kaylin had learned to appreciate, with time: bleeding meant life. It meant there was still a chance. And this boy? He’d had none.

  “Arms are bruised,” he told them quietly. A nebulous them; he didn’t bother to look up to see if anyone was listening. He might have been talking to the mirror. In fact, given Records, he probably was. “Wrists are cut—he was bound. No rope detritus in the scrapes…they probably used leather straps.”

  “Manacles?”

  Red shook his head. “Unlikely. If magic was involved. His ankles are likewise marked.”

  He continued to speak, and Kaylin lost track of his words. It took effort. She closed her eyes. Opened them. Took deep breaths.

  Marcus touched her shoulder; she barely felt him.

  “Hawklord,” the Leontine said curtly. He was the only Hawk who called him that in the line of duty.

  The Hawklord said, “She stays.” Just that.

  There would probably be an argument, but it would happen later. Marcus didn’t care for mages either, and he wasn’t about to show departmental divisions in front of them. He’d wait. But his fur was starting to stand on end. Normally, this would bother her. But nothing was normal, now.

  Oh, it was bad. It was worse than the first time she’d watched such work, Clint by her side like a comfortable rock.

  Because this was personal.

  “Records,” Red said. He laid his scalpel down beside the boy’s face.

  The Hawklord nodded and gestured. The mirror’s sheen began to move in an iridescent ripple, as if it were a serpent. A large one. She stared at the image that coalesced, hating it, mesmerized by it. It was another body.

  “Which one?” she asked quietly.

  “The previous body,” Red replied. “As you can see, Lord Grammayre, the cause of death, the method of death, is the same. Inch for inch, the cuts are identical.”

  The Hawklord nodded.

  “Arms,” Red told the mirror, and it obliged; the image shifted and changed. He had covered the boy’s abdomen, and now lifted his exposed lower arms. “I believe the marks are the same,” he told the Lord of the Hawks.

  “I concur,” Tiamaris added.

  “And the first of the three deaths?” the Hawklord asked.

  Red nodded; the mirror shifted. No faces were shown, and Kaylin was grateful for the lack. But only barely.

  Another set of arms—hard to tell that they weren’t the same, but the Records seldom botched a command—appeared, with the same intricate swirls running from inner elbow to inner wrist. “The same,” Tiamaris announced.

  Red began to tuck the arms under the heavy sheet. He pulled it up to expose the thighs, and they went through the same comparisons.

  Only when they had finished did Kaylin speak. And she spoke to the mirror. “Records,” she told it, voice shaking. It did nothing.

  With an angry snort she ducked between Marcus and Red, and made her way to the flat, huge silvered glass. She placed a sweaty, and not entirely spotless, palm against its surface and said, “Records, damn you.”

  “The mirror is not keyed to you,” Callantine began, in his arrogant, condescending ice-block of a voice.

  She had the satisfaction of seeing the mirror react. Too bad all of the reflective surfaces were inactive—she would have liked to see the mage’s face.

  “Time, seven and a half years ago. Victims from the fief of Nightshade. Tina,” she added quietly. She thought it would kill her to say the name.

  But only the good died young.

  “Inner arm, from elbow to wrist. Right and left.”

  The mirror struggled for a moment. Kaylin had no idea how the magic actually worked, and she didn’t much care. The natural curiosity of a mage had never been a part of her life. She did her job. She did it well. And she never asked too many irrelevant questions. Well, okay, she tried really hard not to.

  The tattoos came up in sharp, bright colors: black and white. She hated the pallor of dead skin.

  “Tina?” The mage said quietly. He was obviously not a frequent visitor, at least not for these files.

  “It was the name of one of the victims,” Kaylin replied, in the tone of voice she reserved for people who belabored the obvious.

  Callantine’s frown made it clear how much he appreciated being on the other end of condescension. “Her family name?”

  Severn answered before Kaylin could, which was probably a good thing. “She was born in the fiefs,” he said quietly, no apology and no contempt in the cool words. His scars spoke a different story, and in color; they were whiter than usual.

  “Ah, of course, of course. Continue,” Callantine said.

  But Red ignored him for the moment. “Tiamaris?” he said, speaking the name with just a trace of hesitation. Kaylin filed it away for later.

  “The same marks,” the Dragon said. His voice was flat. Kaylin wondered if that was what passed for exhaustion among the Dragons. They were a mystery to her. She wanted them to stay that way. After all, the Emperor was a Dragon, and nothing she had ever heard about him in office p
arlance suited the words “gentle” or “merciful.”

  “Reginald,” Lord Grammayre said quietly, “that will be all. Callantine and his assistants will examine the body now.”

  Had it been any other day, Kaylin would have snickered. Reginald. Red, however, ignored the name; he picked up his scalpels and his gloves, and vacated the slab. If standing ten feet away from the corpse could be said to be vacating.

  Callantine, whatever else she could say about him, was clearly an expert at his craft. He didn’t gesture, and he didn’t mumble—and Kaylin knew, from her short lessons about how to recognize magery before it killed you, that the lack of focal constraints denoted either great power, or certainty. Usually both.

  He touched the boy’s arms. She wanted to pry his hands off, and held her own in fists by her sides. Because it wasn’t reasonable, it made no sense, and it would get her in trouble for sure.

  “They are like the other marks,” the mage said, after silent moments had passed. “They are not…tattoos in any traditional sense of the word. They are not composed of ink or dyes.”

  “What are they composed of?” Kaylin asked.

  Callantine raised a brow and looked to the Hawklord for permission to answer her question. The Hawklord nodded grimly.

  “Flesh,” he replied. “To our spells, the symbols and the skin are no different. If it were not for the obvious visible artifacts, magic would not detect them at all.”

  “But they were laid there by magic.”

  His brows lowered. Kaylin had only barely managed to keep the accusation out of the words. “Yes,” he said curtly. “By magic.”

  “Whose?”

  “If we had an answer to that,” the mage replied, his careful composure fraying slightly, “there would be no more deaths.”

  And it came to Kaylin that this arrogant, smug, pretentious bastard was actually one of the good guys. He wasn’t a Hawk, but he wanted what the Hawks wanted. Hell, she thought, he wanted what all of the officers of the Lords of Law wanted. She would never go drinking with the son of a bitch, but she could work with him. Petulance was not an option. It was a strong desire, but it was not an option.