“I did. I had hoped the conversation might be private.” He glanced at Tiamaris as he said this. Kaylin didn’t. And she didn’t take her eyes from the dagger in his hands, either.
He noted this, and his eyes narrowed slightly.
Before he could speak, Kaylin did. “If you’re about to remind me who the boss here is, I need to remind you that I don’t work for you, anymore.”
“I spent a few months training you, girl.”
She shrugged. “They spent a few years.”
“And they pay you as well as I did?”
She exhaled. “Better, in most ways.”
He spit to the side. “I know what you’re paid.”
“And where I work, apparently.”
He lifted the dagger, and she smiled. It was not, to her surprise, a forced smile. “I’ve had a long week,” she told him softly. “And I’ve got a Dragon as a partner.” She closed her mouth on the rest of the words; they would have been a threat. And, she thought, they would have gone on for days, and once they’d started, she’d never be free of them. “I owe you nothing,” she continued. “You sent me to hang just to deliver a cheap thug’s message.”
His brows rose, and then he laughed. “When did you figure that out?”
She didn’t answer.
“I didn’t think you had it in you, to be honest,” he replied, still chuckling. “I should have paid more attention to you, Eli. I never cared much for stupid girls.”
And that, Kaylin thought, with a burning bitterness, was exactly what she’d been. Stupid. Terrified. Angry. Desperate to prove herself. And to whom? To what? This man. A fief lord who had—No.
I was thirteen, she reminded herself, forcing her hands not to curl into fists. She turned to Tiamaris. “I think we’re done here,” she told him curtly.
Tiamaris nodded. He didn’t shrug, but the nod was almost the equivalent, it was so careless.
“We’re not finished yet,” Barren said.
Tiamaris lowered the inner membranes of his eyes. “If you don’t wish to be finished,” he told Barren, speaking for the first time, “I’d suggest you make clear what your request is.”
“It’s not a request.”
“It is,” Kaylin told him. “I came here for my own reasons, but in the end? I don’t give a shit if you send a wagonload of personal letters across the bridge. Send them to the Hawklord. Send them to the Emperor.”
Barren grinned. “You’re bluffing.”
“Maybe. But you’re desperate. We’ve both got our cards on the table, and we can both see most of them. You want to play your hand now?”
The grin deserted his face. What was left in its wake passed for thoughtful, with Barren. Thought and Barren usually meant trouble for the poor sod he was thinking at. “You’ve gotten better at this game.” His eyes flickered, so briefly it might have been a trick of the light, to Tiamaris and back. She thought, if the Dragon Lord hadn’t been present, the game—as Barren called it—would have taken a turn for the deeply personal.
“No,” she told him quietly. “I stopped playing it years ago. That’s why I don’t live on this side of the bridge, in any fief.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Pretty mark, that.” He gazed at the nightshade that adorned her cheek. In this context, it was clear what he was inferring. And implying.
Don’t let him know that it hurts, Morse said, over the distance of years, the words so clear they might have been spoken yesterday. If he knows how to hurt you, he’s got you; he’ll never stop.
What about anger?
Same difference, Morse said. It’s all the same thing, in the end. Play it cool, Eli. Play it as cool as you can.
It was a very bad day when memories of Morse could somehow come to your rescue. “It is. It’s not generally my style, but I’ve grown into it.”
“I bet you have.”
Her hands did clench, then.
“You know,” he added, deliberately turning his back on her as he moved toward his desk, “at least I never felt the need to mark you to prove anything.”
She wanted, for just that moment, to kill him. To flay his skin off his body, while keeping the rest of him alive; to make him suffer and to make damn certain that he knew why. It was a blinding rage, a sudden, visceral desire.
“Private,” Tiamaris said.
Her rank cut through the worst of the rage. His fingers on her wrist—nothing more than a momentary, gentle pressure, cut through most of the rest.
What was left? What was left was ugly, but she could work with it. Barren turned, his lips twisted in a self-satisfied smirk.
“No,” she told him. “You had way bigger things to prove, didn’t you, Barren? It’s probably hard to be fief lord in name only.”
She had the pleasure—and it was, and it was dark and bitter and glorious—of watching him flinch, and of watching that flinch transform itself into an echo of the anger that had, seconds ago, immobilized her. He wanted to kill her.
And he couldn’t.
And he considered trying anyway.
But he recovered. Not as well as she had—but then again, a small voice inside her head told her, she’d had help. “I’m fief lord,” he told her grimly, “until I’m dead. After that, I don’t give a shit.”
“That’s the way the fiefs work,” she replied. She paused, pulled back the words, the desire to twist the knife in the unexpected wound she’d made. “What do you want, Barren?”
“There was a Dragon in the fiefs, near the interior border,” he told her.
She nodded. “There were two.”
“I only care about one of them.” He glanced at Tiamaris, and the gaze added, for now.
“You don’t ask people to fight Dragons unless you want to feed the Dragons lunch,” Kaylin replied. “And I’ve already been served as lunch once; not even I’m stupid enough to play that role again. You’re hedging. You tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you what I’ve got.”
But Barren had also managed—barely—to retreat from his rage. “Your friend,” he said, for he hadn’t addressed Tiamaris directly at all, “was he the other Dragon?”
Kaylin’s lips compressed in a tight line.
But if she had no intention of answering, Tiamaris felt no such constraint. And why would he? In the end, he was a Dragon; he had nothing to fear from Barren. “I was,” he replied.
“And you’re here with her now.”
“Obviously.”
Barren glanced at the guards who were now lining one side of the room. “You, and you,” he told two of them, “go drag Morse’s sorry ass up here.”
Tiamaris let them go. “Before you make plans based on my continuing presence, fief lord,” he told Barren, “I have a few questions to ask you.”
Morse appeared as the doors opened. Contrary to Barren’s stated demand, she had clearly not been dragged from the foyer to the office; she walked flanked by guards, but she walked slightly ahead of them, and they kept a respectful distance. As respectful a distance, Kaylin thought, as they would have kept had they been escorting the fief lord. She wondered if they were aware of it; she could tell that Barren was.
There was no strict etiquette that governed Barren’s guards. They did not salute the way Nightshade’s did; they did not bow formally and they did not offer other formalized gestures of respect. Morse met Barren’s gaze and nodded. She didn’t look away and she didn’t simper. Then again, she didn’t shrug and she didn’t speak, either. She stood in front of his desk, her hands loose by her sides, waiting.
“Your kitten’s grown claws,” he finally said.
Morse did shrug, then. “That’s what happens if you don’t drown them at birth. Fact of life.”
He smiled. It was a typical Barren smile. “I did try.”
Morse said nothing. Kaylin also said nothing, but this was harder.
Barren seldom attempted to bait Morse. Not never, but Kaylin couldn’t recall a single time it had worked in the past. Morse, lo
oking bored, waited. Barren might have let it drag on, but Kaylin—and more important, Tiamaris—were waiting. And listening.
“Did you have any trouble on the way here?”
Given the condition of Morse’s clothing, it didn’t take a brilliant or perceptive mind to notice. “Some.”
Barren’s expression shifted, his eyes narrowing. Morse gave real meaning to the word laconic, which Kaylin had acquired on the other side of the bridge. Then again, Barren seemed to know her well enough to understand what she meant, and Kaylin felt a mild twinge of envy at the brevity of the report. If she tried that with Marcus, she’d be writing out a detailed report for four days—a report he’d leave unread in prominent sight on top of one of the ever-shifting piles on his desk. She knew this from bitter experience.
“How bad?”
“It was a one-off.”
He spit to one side of the desk. “Where?”
At this, Morse did hesitate. He could read the hesitation; knew, before she answered, that he wasn’t going to like it. That much was clear to Kaylin. “Capstone.”
He swore. It was brief. “These two?” he asked, not bothering to look at the two Hawks who stood to one side of his desk.
“They’re alive,” Morse replied.
“Anyone die?”
“No one else was with us.”
“I told Carl—”
Morse shrugged. “Didn’t tell me. You’d’ve lost him,” she added, as if Carl were as significant as a hairpin.
Barren shrugged. It was like fencing, but without the weapons. He didn’t argue; no point. Kaylin had seen Carl fight. It wouldn’t have broken her heart to see him dead; she agreed with Morse’s evaluation. So, clearly, did Barren.
“One-off,” he said. “How bad?”
“Eyes.”
“Fuck. Any other damage?”
“One building’ll probably burn down. The roads there are pure shit anyway. Nothing happened to them that could make’em any worse.” Morse didn’t mention the fact that the people inside that building had escaped the flames. Barren, on the other hand, didn’t ask. Kaylin didn’t need a reminder of why she hated the fiefs, but it was there anyway.
“Were these two any good?”
“They’re alive,” Morse repeated.
“Would they still be alive if it hadn’t been broad daylight?”
Morse thought about it for a minute. Kaylin wasn’t sure if she did this to irritate Barren or not. She had never understood the way they interacted. Yes, idiot, but you were thirteen. Pay attention now.
“Good chance of it,” Morse finally told him.
Barren actually whistled. He turned to Tiamaris, as if he hadn’t been ignoring him until now. “What are your questions?”
“A moment.” Tiamaris now turned to Morse. “Is it unusual to get these creatures in broad daylight?”
“It’s unusual,” Morse replied, putting sarcasm into the second word, “to get them materializing way the hell up on Capstone. We’ve got an early alert system set up.” She frowned, and then turned to two of the guards. “Tell Seeley to check the two west posts.”
The guard nodded, and glanced at Barren. Barren nodded, as well.
Careful, Morse.
“Unusual for daylight, or at all?” Tiamaris asked, as if he had not noticed the brief exchange.
“Daylight.”
“I assume you have ferals during daylight now.”
“We’ve got ’em all the time.” The shrug she offered made clear just how much of a danger she thought they were. “But they don’t range farther than Old Holdstock. At least they haven’t, yet.”
“You think it’s going to get worse.”
Morse shrugged. Which meant yes.
“Thank you.” Tiamaris turned back to Barren. “My questions,” he replied with deliberate care, “all involve the previous fief lord.”
Everyone in the room tensed; Kaylin did, as well, but hers was an instinctive response to their reaction. It didn’t matter; she waited just as if she were still working for Barren and someone had been stupid enough to insult him.
Tiamaris was the only living thing in the room that seemed not to care. He waited without apparent concern; Kaylin was certain that the cockroaches and the mice which were so ubiquitous in the fiefs were about to expire from lack of oxygen, because they were probably also holding their breaths.
Barren didn’t shrug. But after a moment, he nodded grimly. “Morse,” he said, without looking at her, “clear the room.”
None of his guards were stupid enough to argue. Morse didn’t even have to tell them to leave; they were already heading toward the door. They did manage to scrape together a few shreds of dignity; they walked at a normal pace and they didn’t collide with each other in their hurry to get the hell out of the way before Barren said anything. Kaylin didn’t blame them; if Barren felt it was necessary to answer Tiamaris, he would; he was a pragmatic man.
He was also, however, ferociously proud. If he was going to answer questions he didn’t like, and anyone who wasn’t necessary happened to be around as witnesses, they’d have a lifespan, in days, that Kaylin could measure on one hand. If they were lucky.
When the door closed, Morse was still in the room. Barren did not appear to notice, and Morse—unlike the rest of his men—appeared to be in no hurry to leave.
“Ask,” Barren said to Tiamaris.
CHAPTER 11
“Before I begin,” Tiamaris said quietly, “I wish to make one thing clear. I owe allegiance to the Emperor, and only the Emperor.”
“Emperor doesn’t rule the fiefs,” Barren said. But he said it quietly; the words had no patina of boast wrapped around them.
“No. He is therefore unconcerned with the particulars of any single fief.” Tiamaris frowned. “Which means,” he continued, “that he doesn’t particularly care which fief is ruled by which Lord. He is unconcerned with the significance of the name of any one fief.
“The only thing that concerns him at all is that the fiefs be ruled. I am therefore free to participate—as I deem wise—in any defense of any fief. At the moment, I am in Barren. Where your concerns do not clash with my Lord’s, I am free—again, at my discretion—to aid you.
“You are not, however, my Lord.”
Barren nodded. He had never been stupid; he didn’t ask what the Emperor offered Tiamaris, and he made no attempt to better whatever it might be.
“This is not the first time that I’ve traveled these streets,” Tiamaris continued. “But it is the first time I have traveled through Barren. When last I came, the fief was Illien, and the fief lord, as well. I had no cause to meet him,” he added softly, “and I dared the Tower only twice. I survived.”
“You—you attempted to breach the Tower?”
Tiamaris nodded. He watched Barren carefully. After a moment, he said, “Did you not do the same?” His first real question.
Barren shrugged. As far as answers went, it was pure fief. Tiamaris was strictly an outsider; it wasn’t going to fly with him. But instead of repeating the question, Tiamaris asked a different one. “How well do you understand the fiefs?”
“I understand Barren,” he replied.
Fair enough, Kaylin thought.
“Barren does not exist in isolation—as you are no doubt now well aware. How well do you understand the fiefs?”
“I know what the Tower was,” Barren replied. It was half an answer.
“This is not a game,” Tiamaris told him. “I am not a rival. I have no interest in being chained to the fief. You call yourself fief lord,” he continued, “and the people in the streets of this fief accept that title as truth.”
“I am fief lord.”
“You have held the fief for ten years. I am willing to grant some truth to your claim; were there not some element of truth to it, Barren would have already ceased to exist.” He paused. “Your name.”
Barren’s eyes widened slightly. Only slightly. But for Barren it was an open admission of surprise. “Mor
se,” he said curtly. “Get out.”
Morse shrugged.
“Take Eli with you.”
“I’m afraid,” Tiamaris said quietly, “that that will not be possible. She is under my protection—where she goes, I follow.”
Had Kaylin been in a betting mood—and she wasn’t, which was rare—she would have bet that that was the end of the conversation. She would have lost.
“Morse,” Barren said again.
Morse turned and left the room. She glanced once at Kaylin just before the doors closed.
“What about my name?” Barren looked once at Kaylin. Every threat he had ever spoken existed in the silence of that gaze.
“The fief takes the name of its Lord. Or so lore implies. But there are very few men who are named Barren.”
Barren shrugged. “It’s a name,” he said.
“Was it yours, before you came here?”
The silence was tense and stretched. “No.”
Kaylin was almost shocked. Tiamaris, however, nodded. Damn the Dragon Court anyway.
“It was the fief’s name,” Barren said.
“It was,” Tiamaris replied, “the fief’s name. In a fashion. When did you attempt the Tower?”
Again, the silence was marked. Barren turned away. “Ten years ago,” he answered.
“How many times?”
Barren laughed. It was quiet and bitter. “Once was enough.”
“How much of it did you see?”
“I saw enough,” Barren replied. Evasion. “I learned enough to hold the fief.”
“To hold it,” Tiamaris replied, “for nine years.” He folded his arms across the breadth of his chest, obscuring the Hawk. “The Tower didn’t kill you. You have some strength.” He paused, and then said, “Did you meet Illien?”
Barren stiffened. “If Illien were alive, the fief would have had a name.”
“In theory, yes. That was not, however, an answer.”
“It was,” Barren replied. He turned to face Tiamaris again.
This time, it was Tiamaris who evinced surprise; it was as subtle a physical expression as Barren’s had been. “He was not dead.”
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