Cast in Deception

by Michelle Sagara

  Allaron, the easiest one to spot because he was abnormally tall for a Barrani of any gender, stepped neatly in front of Sedarias, as if Sedarias were in need of protection. Sedarias said something—barely audible but sharp as a knife—and he stepped to the side to let her pass, falling in beside her as if they were partners of long-standing. When Sedarias lifted an open hand in the region of Allaron’s chest, Kaylin frowned.

  She couldn’t see what Allaron’s response was until he moved; he handed Sedarias his sword. It was a sword that had, to Kaylin’s eye, been scaled for his personal use; it looked far too large for Sedarias, unless she meant to wield it in two hands.

  She didn’t. If she dressed the part of a lady of the court, she was nonetheless Barrani; arms that looked deceptively slender were perfectly capable of bearing that sword as if it were a long knife. The Barrani Hawks didn’t carry swords; none of the Hawks did. Clearly the cohort had been trained to their use. And of course they had. The entire purpose of their visit to the green had been to somehow transform them into super soldiers for use in the Draco-Barrani wars.

  The Barrani woman let go of the sword she’d been so keen on protecting; had she not, she would have lost her head; Sedarias didn’t open with either discussion or negotiation. Or words. Kaylin had seen Barrani attempt to kill each other, and had always been surprised by the amount of talk that could happen before they got down to business. Sedarias didn’t bother, and Kaylin both admired this and found it disturbing.

  The cohort ringed the two; although other blades existed, no other blade was lifted, by which Kaylin understood that this was somehow personal; Sedarias recognized the woman, which made her very old, in Barrani terms. Well, as old as Teela, at any rate.

  Given that the woman’s sword was still buried in stone, this seemed unfair—but fairness of a certain kind had never been the Barrani way. And in truth, Kaylin’s experience of life in the fiefs stopped her from being outraged. When faced with probable death herself, she’d never been one to stand on honor, either.

  She shifted her opinion, however, when the woman spoke a lightning crack of a word. Purple fire rose beneath Sedarias, lapping at the material of her skirts, and probably at the feet beneath them. Sedarias leapt instantly out of the circle in which they burned, but some of the fire clung to her clothing. Someone—Eddorian?—shouted a warning; there was no way to know if Sedarias heard it.

  And, come to think, it was unlikely that the warning had been shouted to Sedarias, which meant the incoming danger was aimed at someone whose True Name Eddorian didn’t know.

  She jumped up, her hand cocooned with strands of darkness, to see Terrano. Beneath his feet, as Sedarias’s, purple fire blossomed. He lowered one hand, and kept one raised as rain of the same color fell. He was pale, his clothing was singed, and the fire seemed to struggle to entrap him, to cling to him. “Don’t worry about me,” he told her, although his gaze was drawn to the fire at his feet. It was a larger circle than the one that had opened at Sedarias’s feet, and the color was subtly different.

  As it spread, Kaylin realized why it was wider: it was also meant to encompass her.

  Whatever she was doing was obviously having some effect—and if the Barrani woman considered it dangerous, it was positive, at least for Alsanis. Kaylin started to wind faster, and finally spared a frigid glare at her familiar.

  Her familiar sighed. Loudly. He smacked her face with his extended wing, as if to drive a point home: he couldn’t leave her shoulder to do anything else if she wanted to be able to do what she was doing, because she couldn’t see the threads without his intervention. “It doesn’t matter if I can see them or not,” she snapped. “I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing.”

  Terrano said, through clenched teeth, “You are an extremely unintelligent person. Do you honestly think that all he’s doing is letting you see?”

  Since the answer was more or less yes, Kaylin failed to give it. But she didn’t glare at her familiar again, didn’t demand to know why he wasn’t helping Terrano shield them, and didn’t send him buzzing off after the golden Dragon whose injury would probably end her career.

  Bellusdeo was roaring between breaths, which meant she was still alive. She was conversant with magic and at least rudimentary magical protections, and she fought like the warrior queen she had once been, before the Shadows had finally devoured her world. If there was anyone deserving of worry here, it was not the Dragon.

  She heard someone call her name again, and this time, her hand almost cramping because she hadn’t stopped once, she recognized the voice. At any other time, she would have frozen; now, she worked faster, which shouldn’t have been possible.

  It was the Consort. It was the Consort’s voice.

  The thought that the Consort was here, that she was in the West March, or worse, in the embattled Hallionne, was almost terrifying. This was not the place for the only woman who could bring life to an entire race. And the cohort were here. Terrano was here.

  Seething with fear and frustration, Kaylin turned to the familiar, but as she opened her mouth, the landscape suddenly changed. As if it had been shattered, the whole of the visual look of this enormous, open space broke, shards falling away to reveal something entirely different. The stones beneath her feet gave way, in an instant, to more earth-like dirt, and the giant, bladed words disappeared, to be replaced at random intervals by the trunks of looming trees. Above her head was sunlight, and beneath her feet, the greens and browns of the forests in the West March.

  Voices—besides the voice of the Consort, which became distinct and much louder—filled her thoughts in a clamor of sound and emotion. She turned to look at Sedarias, who was carrying a sword that was, even at this distant, red with new blood.

  “Terrano,” Sedarias said, the word both a question and command.

  “I’m fine.” His voice was muffled.

  Kaylin turned to look at him, and so did the more distant Sedarias. Terrano was not fine. His skin was livid with what appeared to be bruises, given their color; Kaylin, however, knew better. Looking down at her hand, she saw the frayed ends of what had been a web at the heart of Alsanis, and even as she did, her familiar finally withdrew his wing. He then shifted his head so his nose was pointed at Terrano.

  “I know,” Kaylin replied. As the wing left her face, the shadow left her palm; her hands were once again normal hands.

  “You are not fine,” Sedarias said. She returned the sword to Allaron, without pausing to make certain he was in place to take it, and stalked across the forest floor toward Terrano.

  Terrano took a step back as she reached for his arm; Kaylin could only see Sedarias’s back. But as Terrano could see her face—which was, by Barrani standards, as expressive as the faces of most of the cohort—he stopped moving and allowed her to touch his wrist.

  “We did not teach them this,” she said. She turned to Kaylin, her hand still wrapped around Terrano’s right wrist.

  “I think you taught them that words have power,” Kaylin offered.

  Sedarias did not looked pleased. She did not, however, look guilty, either. “You understand why.”

  Kaylin did. She approached Terrano as well. “Yes. But my understanding—or not—doesn’t change the consequences. It never has.” She held out her palm, and Terrano examined it as if she were holding a live cockroach up for his inspection.

  “Just let her examine you,” Sedarias told him; she released his wrist and folded her arms. “We’re about to have company. Significant company.”

  He deflated. “I don’t want the Lady to see me.”

  “I understand. I am not looking forward to this meeting with any great anticipation, either. She’s going to have questions.”

  “Are you two talking about the Consort? Hand, Terrano.”

  He grimaced and laid his palm against her own. It felt like a hand—a Barrani hand. “I don’t want you to change anyth
ing.”

  “That’s not how healing works.”

  “I saw what you did to the other Barrani. The Ferals.”

  “No you didn’t—you were too busy talking to Teela.”

  “Yes,” Sedarias said, “we were speaking of the Consort.”

  “There’s no way she could reach us here—not in so little time.”

  The two exchanged a glance.

  “Not entirely safely, no.”

  “Can you reach Mandoran, now?”

  Sedarias nodded. “He is not the problem. Annarion is.”

  Kaylin, four voices said at once.

  Give me a second. I just need to make sure Terrano doesn’t get dissolved by whatever spell it was. She closed her eyes. Hand to hand, she could feel Terrano’s physical form. To the eye, it resembled the Barrani, with a few notable exceptions. She had expected the appearance to be entirely superficial, and was surprised.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Finding the fire,” she snapped. “If you could shut up for a bit, I might even be able to make certain it doesn’t dissolve you.”

  Sedarias repeated the sentence in much more precise—and elegant—Barrani. “Apologies,” she said, dropping into Elantran. “He’s not familiar with your tongue. Teela’s concerned,” she added.

  “The entirety of the Elantran Barrani population should bloody well be concerned. I was hoping the Consort was speaking through a mirror or something similar. She can talk to the Hallionne from Elantra, and I assumed it was via mirrors.”

  “The mirror connections beyond your borders are nowhere near as complete as they are within your city. The Hallionne of old are very like your Helen; they distrust the networks required to maintain the connections.”

  “They’re easier to maintain than a portal that passes from the High Halls to—here.” She grimaced and closed her eyes. “Ummm, I need to concentrate on something other than fear or terror. Just—what in the hells is that purple garbage?”

  “Teela says you’ve been taking lessons in applied and practical magic.”

  “Not in the last month or two.” Ugh.

  “She says it is, in her opinion, very like the fires that mages can master and use as weapons.”

  “Elemental?”

  “Now she’s annoyed. No, she says, like the fire itself.”

  “The fire I summon is elemental.”

  “She says, ‘Fine, it’s nothing like the fire that you summon, and more like the fire anyone else would.’ But this fire does not, in her opinion as a former Arcanist, draw just from fire, but also from Shadow. She adds that you are now examining the possible fallout of such a summoning more completely than most of the Imperial Mages could, at least with regard to the effect on a living body.” In the distance, one of the cohort burst out laughing. Kaylin grimaced; she could imagine exactly why.

  “It’s not you,” Sedarias said, correctly divining the reason for the grimace. “She just made an observation about Terrano. And Mandoran. Mandoran did not approve.”

  “Terrano probably wouldn’t, either.” Terrano sounded waspish. “If you’re all just going to talk about me behind my back, I’m leaving.”

  Sedarias frowned. “You are not leaving while you are injured.” And to Kaylin, in more concerned Elantran, she said, “Teela’s afraid that this will harm you in some fashion.” There was a question in the statement.

  Kaylin snorted. “Tell Teela that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

  “I’m uncertain that she understands.”

  “If I’m not allowed to worry about her, she’s not allowed to worry about me.”

  “If it’s acceptable to you, I will refrain from repeating her response.”

  Terrano snickered.

  “It’s fine. Annarion doesn’t repeat much, either. Now—let me try to fix this. I’d personally rather not have Terrano become a mindless minion of Shadow.”

  “We are not mindless,” Spike offered.

  Kaylin shrieked in frustration, and Bellusdeo came over. She, like Terrano, looked like she’d been in a battle, and not necessarily on the winning side, especially her hair, which was decidedly ragged and singed. Normal fires, even elemental ones, were seldom much of a danger to Dragons.

  “I’m fine,” the gold Dragon said, in a tone that implied that it would be in Kaylin’s best interests to accept the words at face value. Since she was standing beside Kaylin, and the Emperor—who would not be happy accepting those words at face value—was hundreds of miles away, Kaylin decided to be smart.

  “What are you doing?” Terrano shouted.

  Since Kaylin hadn’t been doing anything other than examining the very unusual injuries, she said nothing.

  “I mean it!”

  “There’s something in the wounds you took. It’s not like whatever it was the Ferals did to the Barrani—but I think it would be, if you were actually physically completely Barrani. I am trying to remove it before it does whatever it’s trying to do.” But...she hadn’t. She hadn’t started. The last time she’d done this, she’d had to cut out the bad parts to stop the taint from spreading. And cutting out the bad parts meant cutting out the good parts they were attached to.

  On the other hand, Terrano didn’t seem to hate the idea of healers on principle the way the rest of the Barrani did, which was good because as Kaylin continued the contact with an increasingly reluctant Terrano, two things happened. First, behind the lids of her closed eyes, she could see the marks on her arm begin to shift color. Gray was more subtle than the gold they became.

  And second: the infection began to retreat. She realized then that it, like whatever it was that had seeped into Alsanis, poisoning him, was being pulled out. It was being wound around her own palm, her left palm, even if she wasn’t moving that hand at all. Terrano didn’t suffer pain gladly, and the withdrawal obviously hurt. She wondered, gritting her teeth, if Alsanis had felt a similar pain.

  “No, Lord Kaylin.” It was Alsanis. Or his voice. Kaylin was surprised at the sting of relief she felt, but kept her thoughts focused on Terrano.

  “I believe he feels that it alleviates some of the pain when he curses,” the Hallionne added.

  “Not my pain,” Kaylin muttered.

  * * *

  What felt subjectively like hours later, she finished. Since Terrano’s injuries were not severe enough to be life-threatening in the immediate future, she should have been fine—but she felt exhausted, and stumbled slightly when she rose. Terrano fell silent; he was glaring at her when she managed to open her eyes.

  “Alsanis,” she said, as Bellusdeo held out a discreet but steadying arm, “I thought I heard the Consort’s voice toward the end.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “Yes, I heard it or yes, I thought I heard it?”

  The question seemed to confuse Alsanis. “Both? She is not physically present, if that is your concern.”

  “But I heard—”

  “She is within Hallionne Kariastos’s domain. She spoke to me from within Kariastos.”

  “I thought the Hallionne weren’t connected?”

  “We are not connected. We are capable of communication, should we be awake. And as of your first passage through the West March, the Hallionne are all awake. She intended to walk the portal paths directly to me.”

  Kaylin stopped breathing for one long beat.

  “But she was convinced to wait.”

  “By who?”

  “Kariastos, initially, although I believe it was Bertolle’s word that carried the most weight. They could not reach me at all, and they were concerned about her eventual fate.”

  “And she decided to listen?”

  “Let us say that while the Consort is powerful and clever, finding a path that would lead to me without their will and their aid would have taken much, much longer
, and been far less safe. She is headstrong,” he added, as if he were talking about the cohort and not the effective Empress of the Barrani. “She is not a fool. She was—and is—very concerned about the current difficulties facing my children.”

  His children.

  Everyone else joined Kaylin in breath holding; Terrano exhaled first. “She doesn’t want them to leave, either.”

  “Did you tell the Consort about the delegation sent to the Emperor?”

  “Ah, no, Lord Kaylin. She is desirous of speech with you, and I believe it best that you convey your concerns in person.”

  “You said she wasn’t allowed to travel here.”

  “You,” he said, “will be traveling there. But not today.”

  * * *

  Alsanis was kind enough to allow Bellusdeo to fly out of this vast and cavernous forest, which meant Kaylin could ride on her back without having to enter a portal. Terrano joined them, which surprised both Kaylin and the Dragon; he was silent for the entire flight. Given his reaction to riding Dragon-back the first time, Kaylin was worried.

  “You don’t want to try flying yourself?” Bellusdeo asked, her voice a rumble of sensation beneath them.

  “No. Alsanis doesn’t like it.”

  “I have no objections,” Alsanis said. Although his Avatar was not present, his voice was. Unlike Helen, Alsanis could exist, in Avatar form, anywhere simultaneously. He had chosen not to in order to spare Bellusdeo another passenger.

  During the flight, Kaylin spoke with everyone namebound to her who had finally broken through whatever wall had existed between Alsanis and parts of himself. Ynpharion started, because while Ynpharion had remained behind in the High Halls instead of accompanying the Consort, he was still the Consort’s servant; she held his name. And while he had been somewhat deflated about being abandoned, he had come to understand very clearly why she wanted him there: he was her eyes and ears in the Court and its many halls. It was not known to the Court at large that he had surrendered his name to her.