Ybelline stepped to the side of Tiamaris’s massive, and momentarily closed, jaw. “I am not conversant in all of the language,” she told him. “My translations therefore convey general meaning, but any error you perceive in tone could just as easily be mine as theirs.”
“Understood.”
Before either could speak, however, Effaron joined them. He glanced hesitantly at Kaylin, who nodded and held out her hand. “Mejrah thought this might be easier,” he said. “With less misunderstanding.”
“Good thought. Is she as scary as she looks?”
“Yes. But loved, for all that. She has made her offer on behalf of our people. What say the Dragons?”
“This,” Kaylin said, nodding to the only member of the Court who didn’t look human, “is Lord Tiamaris. He occupies lands across the river—which isn’t that far away—and he rules them. He’s offered your people a home there.”
“And in return?”
She repeated the words to Tiamaris, who nodded. “A fair question. Tell him that my lands have been scarred by war—and it is a war with which they might be familiar. There is much rebuilding to do, and in the end, the work itself is likely to be dangerous. I will protect them if it is within my power to do so. I require them to extend that protection—in my name—to both their own people and the others who also serve me.
“They will abide by my laws,” he added.
She repeated the gist of his words, and added a few of her own to soften them. He then repeated them—no doubt with a few of his own mixed in—to Mejrah, while Ybelline once again listened.
Only when Mejrah came forward with the big knife did everyone still. But she matter-of-factly sliced open a hand that looked as if it had already been scarred by similar cuts, and she made a fist of that bleeding palm.
A shout went up behind her back as word filtered at the speed of bad gossip through the ranks of her people. There were tears in those shouts, and fear, and joy, and relief. There was also the clashing of steel, but it seemed to be celebratory in nature, although it instantly got the attention of the Swords.
But Kaylin watched the blood drip toward the cobbles, and Kaylin saw that as the blood seeped between the stones, this new earth that the Maker had created in his brief passage absorbed it. And it returned blood to sunlight in an entirely different form: a red, red flower.
Mejrah, watching, had seen, as had Tiamaris and Effaron, and the old woman’s eyes did widen then, and the tears she had refused to shed fell in silence down her weathered cheeks.
She whispered a single word, and Kaylin thought she even understood it.
Home.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I think by now people are aware of the debt I owe my family for more or less patiently living with and supporting me through the highs and lows of writing any novel. Both my home team—my husband, my two sons, my parents—and my away team—my Australian alpha reader and sounding board, share credit and long-suffering status in equal measure.
But I think people are less aware of the other half of any book’s team, so I’d like to mention the fabulous job that the Luna Art Director (Kathleen Oudit) and her team have done for all of the Cast novels. The overall look, the consistency of type and design, the strong sense of a contemporary tone in an otherwise entirely other-world that those covers convey have really, really, helped these books reach their audience. People sometimes assume that authors choose or design their own covers—and believe me, you are grateful in my case that this is so not true. I can’t even draw consistent stick figures.
I would also like to thank Mary-Theresa Hussey, who shepherds the book—and me!—through the various stages, from lengthy first draft to finished novel, because she is patient and perceptive, and she gets these books. Had she not seen something in them from the very beginning, they wouldn’t exist.
CAST IN CHAOS
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6414-8
Copyright © 2010 by Michelle Sagara
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Worldwide Library, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book please contact us at [email protected].
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.LUNA-Books.com
Cast in Chaos Page 46
