Cast in Flame

by Michelle Sagara

  “Bellusdeo would be living here, as well. She is, as mentioned, a Dragon. In case you don’t get out too much, her gender is significant to the rest of the Dragons. It’s significant to those who don’t want there to be any more Dragons. She’s—”

  “The reason your former home was destroyed. Yes, dear, I know.”

  “Would she be safe here? Emmerian—”

  Bellusdeo cleared her throat.

  “Lord Emmerian, who is not present at the moment, is responsible for signing off on the security of any building she chooses to live in. He has a list of demands that are taller than I am. I’m not going to list them all because frankly, I don’t remember most of them. But they kind of all mean the same thing: Bellusdeo must be safe.”

  “And not her roommate?”

  “They don’t give a rat’s ass about her roommate.”

  “I,” Bellusdeo cut in, “on the other hand, do.”

  Helen nodded. “There is no need to glare at me like that, dear. I’ve been aware of that since you entered my front hall. I am sorry to say that if Kaylin chooses to live here, she will not have an entirely free run of guests.”

  Kaylin blinked. “Pardon?”

  “You will be as much my home as I will be yours,” Helen replied. “No one who means you harm in any way will be allowed through my doors. If they somehow manage to enter, they will not be allowed to leave—not the way they arrived.”

  “So...no thieves?”

  “It depends on the reasons for their theft.”

  “It does?”

  “Well, dear, it does to you.”

  Kaylin flushed. “I know what it’s like to be hungry,” she said. “And desperate. I just don’t think many hungry or desperate people are going to make it all the way to Ashwood. Not where it’s currently situated. And I’m a Hawk, so randomly killing people who intend harm without causing it first would be really, really career-limiting. And yes, it’ll still matter if it’s you and not me.”

  “Yes, I would accept Maggaron as well, if that’s what you desired.”

  Since that hadn’t been the question Kaylin was struggling with, she reddened.

  “You are worried about your marks?”

  “Yes.”

  “You needn’t be, dear. The marks reflect the Chosen, after all. There is nothing that you would do with them here that would threaten me.”

  As she spoke, Kaylin rolled up her sleeves. The marks were glowing a faint, luminescent gray. She hadn’t noticed because they didn’t hurt.

  Teela noticed; so did Severn. The silence around the table shifted.

  It was broken by the distant sound of howling.

  * * *

  Helen was the first to stand. She still looked like a delicate, frail old lady, but she moved like a Barrani. At her sudden, two handed gesture, the food on the table vanished. So did the cutlery, the dishes, and the teapot. “I think,” she said, gazing past them all into the evening sky, “it’s time we went indoors.”

  Severn had drawn his weapons, unwinding the weapon chain; Kaylin had drawn two knives, balanced for throwing. These were not her ideal fighting conditions. They were, on the other hand, the ideal conditions for the Ferals.

  And Kaylin had no doubt at all that the howls she heard were the voices of Ferals; they had haunted her nightmares for years. One of the things she loved best about visiting Tiamaris was the existence of his nighttime Feral patrols. She loved that Morse headed out with the earnest and dedicated to kill those Ferals before the Ferals could kill any of the fief’s residents. She loved that they didn’t have to cower in terror or run until they dropped—and died.

  She was side by side with a Dragon, a Norannir and three Barrani. She had no reason to cower or run.

  “The Ferals,” Teela said, “don’t always hunt alone.” She didn’t have to read Kaylin’s mind; she knew her well enough by now to make a really educated guess. “We’re not in Tiamaris or Nightshade,” she continued. “We’re across the Ablayne and beyond the fiefwalls. There’s no way there should be Ferals in the streets.” She drew her sword—the sword which she wasn’t allowed to carry while on active duty. “Mirror Jared,” she said. “And mirror the Hawklord. This may be major trouble.”

  Kaylin turned to Helen, and then turned back. “We don’t have a mirror connection here,” she said, voice flat.

  Teela grimaced. She glanced at Severn, in his civvies. “Corporal? One of us has to go to a neighbor’s and mirror in to the Halls.”

  “There is a slightly faster way,” Bellusdeo said.

  Teela glanced at her, and away.

  “I can go,” Annarion volunteered, as if Bellusdeo hadn’t spoken.

  Teela said nothing, at least not audibly. Given that Annarion was waiting for a reply, Kaylin guessed she’d said nothing privately, either. “You can’t,” Kaylin told him. “Neither you nor Mandoran would be a good choice. If there are Ferals in the city—if they somehow crossed the border in the wake of something more powerful—they’re probably heading here. For you two.”

  She glanced at her arms. The glowing soft gray of the marks had given way to traces of color; it made them vaguely opalescent.

  “We really need to go inside, Kaylin,” Helen said. “All of us.”

  Kaylin hesitated for one long moment.

  “If you are correct,” Helen continued, “and something is coming for your two friends, it is best not to meet them outside.”

  “We’re halfway prepared compared to most of the city,” Kaylin replied. “We’ve got weapons; we’ve got experience. If they’re left to wander the streets—”

  “They are not wandering. They are coming here. I doubt that they will pause in between to slaughter the citizens it is your sworn duty to protect. I have not attempted to engage with the mirror network of your city or your Emperor before—but I will make that attempt now if you will return to the house.”

  * * *

  “Living in the city for less than half your life has really had a profound effect on your attitude,” Teela said, as they followed Helen at an almost martial pace from her grounds to the main body of the house.

  “I was thirteen, Teela.”

  “And you’ve become so much more powerful in the intervening seven years that you can rush out into the streets and stand against a Shadow of unknown capabilities?”

  She’s right, Severn said. You are not the only Hawk in the city. You have access to magic that most of us don’t—but you don’t have control and you don’t have knowledge. If Helen’s right, they’re coming here.

  And if they leave a trail of bodies behind them in their so-called straight path?

  Then people die, same as they always did. You can’t save everyone, ever. If you think only about the deaths you didn’t prevent, you’ll break.

  She was silent.

  I’m not saying that you shouldn’t care. Your interference saved the Norannir. It saved the city. But you could interfere, there. Here, I don’t see it.

  I don’t want to be a coward.

  Severn said nothing.

  And I’m terrified.

  I know.

  But I don’t have a better way of not being a coward.

  Yes, you do. You can work with and through the fear—but letting it make you stupid will only get you killed. It won’t save other people. It’ll just mean you won’t be around to deal with the guilt. Silence for a beat; the back doors opened and Helen held them, waving everyone through. I’ve spent a lot of time living with guilt.

  She stared at him for one long minute, and then turned on her heel and marched into the house.

  * * *

  The doors they entered were not the same doors they’d left by. Those had been bedroom doors, in theory. These were glass-paneled dining room doors. Behind them was a dining r
oom table, with the large lighting that fancy houses boasted.

  Helen gestured at Mandoran. “Boys, do come away from the windows.”

  Teela’s brows lifted and her lips tugged up at the corner. Annarion glared at her, which caused her to laugh out loud. “They are not terribly biddable,” she told Helen, when she could speak again. The boys, as they were, did come away from the window, although Mandoran had to be dragged.

  “You’re certain we’re safe here?” Kaylin asked.

  Helen was silent for a beat too long. “I am certain that you are safer than you would be if you were outside. I am not, as I told you, what I was.”

  “You can change your structure.”

  “Yes, of course.” She glanced pointedly at Kaylin’s left shoulder, where the small dragon was doing his imitation of a gargoyle. The small dragon yawned, displaying teeth that were remarkably solid given the rest of his translucence. “They are almost here.”

  Kaylin moved toward the window that the “boys” had been gently forbidden; Helen said nothing. The moons were not quite full, and the street, given the trees on the grounds and the fence around the property, were at best obscured. She couldn’t see anything—but she could hear the howls of the approaching Ferals. She wasn’t Morse; she didn’t feel a surge of reckless excitement at the prospect of hunting—and, face it, butchering—the hunters.

  No, she still felt the stiffness of fear. And, damned Severn anyway, guilt. She’d escaped. She had. But she’d been beyond desperate; when she’d crossed that bridge on the night that her life changed, she hadn’t expected to survive. Hadn’t really wanted to.

  And now the fiefs were coming to her city. To the city she policed; to the streets she patrolled. She glanced at Helen, and prayed that Helen was right: they were coming here.

  “Or the High Halls?” Helen asked.

  Kaylin reddened as Teela arched one brow. “Ferals in the High Halls wouldn’t last a minute.”

  “They wouldn’t,” Teela added, “last ten seconds. It’s not the Ferals I’m worried about.” She lifted an arm, but Kaylin now saw what Teela saw. The moons were fading from the night sky.

  * * *

  Helen spoke three words Kaylin didn’t recognize. They weren’t magical foci. They were spoken softly and quickly—and they didn’t cause Kaylin’s arms to break out in a rash.

  “Kitling, can you reach Nightshade?”

  Annarion stiffened.

  Kaylin frowned. She didn’t generally make the attempt to speak to him by the name that bound them both; it was never an entirely comfortable experience. But as she looked up at where the moons had been, she understood exactly what Teela was afraid of, and she tried.

  Nightshade.

  Silence.

  Calarnenne.

  Silence. Kaylin turned to Teela. “He’s not—he’s not answering.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “How the hells should I know? He’s not—”

  “If he were dead,” Annarion replied, “you would know.”

  She wasn’t nearly as confident—but she was mortal. Maybe True Names—or at least their knowledge—didn’t affect mortals the way they affected Barrani; mortals didn’t have True Names.

  Except Kaylin did.

  “Helen, can you see the moons?”

  Helen frowned. “Yes.”

  “Because we can’t. Bellusdeo?”

  “I’m part of ‘we’, in this case. The sky is dark; I assume that something large has come between us and our former view.”

  Helen frowned. “It is a seeming,” she said. “The moons are still there. You were worried about the Ferals.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “You are not concerned about them now.”

  “Not as concerned. What’s coming with them?”

  Helen’s frown deepened. “They are not,” she said, shoulders sagging, “Shadows. They are not of the Shadows, but they can utilize some of the chaos of their substance.”

  “They.”

  “Yes. There are two. But Kaylin, one of them is not coming here.”

  * * *

  Kaylin had prayed to nameless, faceless deities for most of her life—they never answered. Now was so not the time for them to start.

  “Which direction is that one headed in?”

  “I cannot be certain. My awareness of the city external to myself does not extend very far at all these days. All information comes—in the end—from my occupants. I don’t suggest that you attempt to discover the information now, because one of them is almost upon my gates.”

  “How can you see them?”

  “They are not, in their entirety, part of this city; I am not, therefore, subject to the same informational limitations. It is how I sensed the two boys. It is,” she added, voice softening, “how they sensed them.”

  “Helen—what are they?”

  “I believe your Teela knows.”

  “She’s not my Teela.”

  “And I believe you have some suspicion yourself. You have encountered them while they slept.”

  Teela was now the color of bone; white-gray. Kaylin caught her by the forearm as she began to move away from the window. “You are not going out there.”

  “Says the woman who wanted to run into the streets with her daggers to confront Ferals.”

  “Fine. I accepted that it was stupid. What you’re thinking is way worse.”

  She caught Mandoran and Annarion exchanging a brief glance—and it was comforting, somehow. Even if they could practically think each other’s thoughts, they were looking for normal, visual confirmation of what they probably already knew.

  She glanced at Severn. He shook his head. There was no way he was going to take her place as Teela’s living shackle.

  “Helen.” Teela’s voice was ice. “Have you established mirror connections with the rest of the city?”

  “No, Lord Teela. It is not, at the moment, safe to do so. I am not a part of the mirror stream as it currently exists; I can slide into it and communicate through it, but to do so I have to open channels internally that are not completely secure.” The implication was clear: this was a very poor time to attempt to massage known vulnerabilities.

  “I’ll have to go now. In person.”

  “I cannot open the gates.”

  “If I understand what is happening now, the gates will cease to exist in minutes—if they survive that long. Word must be sent—any advance warning at all—to the High Lord.” Her eyes were the color of midnight; her voice was the temperature of winter. She started to leave, but Kaylin was still attached—firmly—to her arm. Teela was Barrani; she was strong enough to drag Kaylin from here to the High Halls without breaking a sweat. But she wouldn’t move as quickly.

  “You want word sent to the High Halls—I can do that, Teela.”

  Teela stiffened. “You’re certain.”

  Kaylin grimaced. If she hated to call Nightshade by use of his name, it was purely a matter of personal discomfort. For reasons of his own—reasons she had never tried to penetrate—he didn’t wish her harmed. Or dead. Neither did the Lord of the West March—but he was nowhere near the High Halls, and she wasn’t entirely certain her voice would reach him from the heart of Elantra.

  “Yes,” she said, straightening her shoulders and clenching her jaw.

  The third Barrani name she held had not been willingly given. She had seen it, in the heart of the space defined by a Hallionne, and she had reached out—literally—to grab it. She had spoken the name, and in speaking, she had anchored it.

  There was no way to release it; not according to Nightshade or Lirienne. Only if the Barrani died would she be free of his anger, his humiliation, and his hatred. It had gotten so bad at one point in the West March she had seriously considered forcing him to walk o
ff a cliff. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been a conveniently placed cliff, and by the time she’d found one, she’d calmed down.

  The return from the West March had not been nearly as difficult. She’d learned to compartmentalize his background resentment; when she couldn’t, she would speak to the Lord of the West March; his presence drowned out the other.

  Ynpharion.

  She felt an instant, sharp pain, as if a spike had been driven behind her eyeballs. Resistance. Fury. Suspicion.

  We. Do. Not. Have. Time. For. This.

  The sharp pain increased. Kaylin looked up at Teela and managed to unclench her jaws long enough to say, “What do you need said to the High Lord?”

  The tenor of Ynpharion’s struggle shifted from resentment and rage to stillness. Kaylin stumbled; it was almost as if she’d been fighting a literal tug-of-war, and he’d suddenly dropped his side of the rope. What is happening? he demanded.

  I don’t know how old you are, she replied, as Teela began to speak. But we have a problem. Well, the High Halls are about to have a problem, and it’s not small.

  “Tell the High Lord that An’Teela sends an urgent message.” She lifted her hand and raised her palm. Kaylin’s entire body crawled in response to the wordless gesture, although she saw no obvious use of magic on Teela’s part. “Two of the ancestors that once almost destroyed our kind have escaped the shadows and the fiefs. One, at least, is on its way to the High Halls.”

  And the other? She blinked as she saw the interior of the High Halls superimposed across Helen’s dining room. Ynpharion was on the move. Kaylin didn’t recognize the halls themselves, only the style: the height of ceilings meant to remind visitors of their lack of stature, the statues and small founts that adorned the passing walls. You said there were two.

  Teela said there were two.

  Where is the other if it is not on the way to the High Halls?

  Oh, in our backyard. If you’re lucky, you’ll have your freedom soon.