Cast in Oblivion

by Michelle Sagara

  “We promised that we would have each other—but we’re Barrani.”

  Kaylin thought about this for a moment, looking at her feet. “So...what you’re saying is that you only had each other, and in some way, the promise was that you would only ever have each other?”

  Terrano nodded.

  Mandoran looked highly uncomfortable. “Not in so many words,” he murmured.

  But Kaylin now understood. “Sedarias is mad because in asking you all to wait, it’s like Teela is choosing me over the rest of you. Did she say that?”

  “No, of course not,” Terrano replied. “But she doesn’t have to say it. They understand it all, anyway. Sedarias feels betrayed. She won’t blame you,” he added quickly. “It’s not your fault. You can’t betray Sedarias in the way any of the rest of them can.”

  “Will you stop talking about us as ‘them’?” Mandoran snapped.

  Kaylin privately agreed with Mandoran, but then again, she could. “But she can blame Teela.”

  Mandoran nodded.

  “And you?”

  “I’m staying out of it. So is Annarion. Annarion understands why Teela wants him to wait. His brother wants him to wait a few centuries, as well—probably not for the same reasons. If Nightshade could tell Annarion that he is doing his level best to be reinstated in the High Court, Annarion might wait. But Nightshade won’t make that promise.

  “We’ve both lived with you. We’ve spent time with Helen. We sort of understand why Teela likes you, and no, we don’t feel betrayed. I get why Teela worries. You’re even more reckless than Terrano was, back in the day. I’ve been dragged into the weirdest things because apparently worry is contagious.

  “But—mortal or no—you’ve survived. Teela thinks it’s luck. Maybe it is. Annarion and I believe you’ll continue to survive. Teela is less certain. But we don’t feel that Teela has to ignore you or abandon you.”

  “And Sedarias does.”

  “No—look, it’s like Joey and his cat. If you were all trapped in a fire, he’d save the cat first.”

  “You’ve heard about his cat?”

  “Everyone in the office hears about his cat, and I’ve been in the office. People who have cats are fine with it. They get it. They understand. People who don’t are mystified. Why would a dumb animal be more important than another human being?”

  “So I’m the dumb animal in this analogy.”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  Kaylin shrugged. “I’d probably be more insulted, but Teela is Joey in this analogy, so I’m in good company.”

  “We’re trying to explain,” Mandoran continued. “And if you could get the Consort to reschedule for a month from now, I think it’d all settle down.”

  “I’ve been trying.”

  “We know that, too.” He met, and held, her gaze. “Tell me, honestly, do you think the Consort is right to fear us?”

  Kaylin didn’t answer.

  * * *

  The cohort decided to work in shifts. Teela, blue-eyed and rigid, nonetheless provided most of the practical resources as they attempted to confirm some of the Imperial observations. Kaylin expected that Teela would know everything the report contained, but was wrong. She knew most of it, but sometimes what she knew overlapped Diarmat’s knowledge in a way that made her eyes narrow.

  Terrano was conscripted by Helen, to Kaylin’s mild surprise. The reason the cohort worked over the documents in shifts was because they were down in the training room, also in shifts. Terrano was teaching. Or supervising, as Helen was teaching. Teela, however, joined them in their rotating shifts.

  Kaylin wasn’t certain how she felt about that. No, she kind of was certain: she didn’t like it.

  “Why, dear?” Helen asked. Of course Helen asked.

  She couldn’t answer her house without sounding like a petulant, insecure child. She knew that. But at the end of a day that had been way too long, when she was getting ready to fall face-first into bed, Helen asked again, and this time she could answer. Because this time, the only witness was Helen, who heard everything she ever thought while she was at home, but liked her in spite of that.

  “It isn’t in spite of it,” Helen said softly.

  “If you know, why do you want me to say it?”

  “Because sometimes saying it—where only you can hear it, but forcing yourself to find the actual words—is helpful. Or at least it has been for some of my tenants. Not all of them, of course; all of you are different individuals. But some found it helpful—almost as if saying it out loud was an exorcism. It released the words instead of allowing them to remain trapped in their thoughts, wearing deeper and deeper grooves.”

  This sounded like garbage to Kaylin, but she trusted Helen.

  “Teela’s my friend,” she said. “She’s Barrani. She’s part of the Hawks. She’s...mine.” And even saying it out loud, she thought: I’m an idiot. She didn’t own Teela. She didn’t own the Halls of Law. She didn’t own any Hawk but herself. “She has history with the cohort. They all know her True Name. I don’t. And I’m never going to. And I know she worries about me. I know she cares about me.”

  “She loves you, dear.”

  Kaylin couldn’t bring herself to say that out loud. “But.”

  “But?”

  “She trusted them so completely she gave them her name. Her True Name. For Barrani, that’s closer than family. That’s closer than friends. That’s closer than anything. I mean—I don’t think Barrani parents tell their own children their True Names.

  “I’m afraid of losing her. She’s known them for centuries. She’s known me for seven years. Almost eight. It’s a huge part of my life, but to her? To them? It’s nothing. And when she—when she disappears like that, when she...disincorporates... I’m afraid part of her won’t come back, because they’ve always been so important to her. I’m just a newcomer.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Believe what? It’s a fact, Helen. Facts exist all on their own.”

  “Yes, they do. It’s a fact that they know her True Name. It’s a fact that they’ve been an important part of her life since they first came together. And it’s a fact that their absence was as large a part of her life as their presence was. But when they were shut up in Hallionne Alsanis, she wasn’t there. She couldn’t hear them and couldn’t reach them. They’ve spent less physical time with her than you have. If you can believe that they’re that important—and yes, I won’t argue it—on the strength of so little time, believe that you are as important.”

  “She doesn’t trust me the same way.”

  “Perhaps not. But, Kaylin?”

  “What?”

  “Neither do you.”

  * * *

  The fact that Barrani didn’t need sleep was driven home by the dining room first thing in the morning—or Kaylin’s version of morning. Sleep had proved elusive, even in the face of exhaustion; Kaylin had had hangovers that still felt more cheery and energetic.

  The whole of the cohort was arrayed in the dining room when she reached it; papers were spread, admittedly in tidier piles, before them. Tain was reading, Teela was reading and Bellusdeo was reading. Even Maggaron had joined them, but Bellusdeo’s companion appeared to be concentrating on food, not Imperial words.

  Kaylin had no hope of reading and absorbing all of Diarmat’s report. She focused on the section involving Sedarias’s line—Mellarionne—and its various allies and enemies. That, and the High Lord’s alliances. Mellarionne did not support the High Lord, but had made a kind of peace with the Lord of the West March. She glanced at the Solanace details. Clearly Dragons considered the lineage important; all of the information about Coravalle was in the Solanace briefing. Coravalle supported both the High Lord and his brother, but that support might be imperiled if Annarion took—and passed—the Test of Name.

  Annarion had not surrendered
the family name. In theory, if he had the power, he could lay claim to the lands of Solanace, which were now entirely under the banner of Coravalle. He had not been declared outcaste—an oversight. He’d been presumed irrelevant, as good as dead.

  She could imagine the pressure placed on the High Lord; the High Lord could not forbid Annarion the test unless Annarion were declared outcaste. If Annarion could be made outcaste, that was the thin edge of the wedge; all of the cohort was likely to follow, except perhaps Eddorian, whose vastly diminished brother remained in the West March.

  The cohort, on the other hand, would absorb—were absorbing as food appeared—everything Diarmat had offered to Kaylin. And it seemed that Bellusdeo would, as well, although her absorption of written High Barrani came with greater effort. Thus, the advantage of not needing sleep, although Dragons used the word sleep in an entirely different way.

  But at least this morning the cohort seemed to be calmer. There were blue eyes among the bunch—but even those had a hint of green in them. Whatever they’d decided, the task of absorbing and evaluating all of the third-party information had become their priority.

  “Is the Consort’s dinner today?” Mandoran asked. Sedarias glared at him.

  Yes, Ynpharion replied.

  “Helen, can you do something about our clothing?” Sedarias glared at her sleeve.

  “Of course. But...prior experience suggests that you may be required to leave me at very short notice.”

  “Can you visually alter more practical clothing?”

  “It is harder than creating clothing the normal way,” was Helen’s doubtful reply. “But I will do what I can. I think, perhaps, the creation of jewelry and accessories might add a touch of the class you desire; their absence in an emergency will not be as dire. It is also likely that the Consort will not be convinced by simple illusion.”

  “I was hoping for more complex illusion,” Sedarias admitted. “We can possibly create clothing of our own—”

  “That will not be necessary,” Kaylin’s house said before Sedarias could finish. “To do so would be to alter what is effectively your skin.”

  “It’s worked for my people for the entirety of their existence,” Bellusdeo said cheerfully. Bellusdeo was smiling, golden-eyed, but she had said those words deliberately. It wasn’t a challenge, but it was a way of causing a knee-jerk revulsion in Barrani accustomed to thinking of Dragons as the enemy. What Dragons did, they would not do.

  She glanced at Mandoran, and reconsidered. What Dragons did, most of them wouldn’t do.

  To Kaylin’s mild surprise, Terrano had joined the group activity, although his reading contribution wouldn’t immediately be added to the group’s store of knowledge. Allaron still loomed over him, like a friendly giant, ready to grab the nearest limb should Terrano choose to flee.

  Kaylin wore the pendant that Emmerian had brought for her. She was afraid to lose it, although Helen usually knew where she’d put things down.

  “Yes, I do. You have a visitor,” Helen added.

  “Severn?”

  “Yes. He’s almost at the door.”

  Kaylin rose, although Helen was perfectly capable of letting Severn in and telling him—helpfully—where to go.

  * * *

  “That bad?” Severn asked when the door opened and he got a face full of morning Kaylin.

  “Probably worse. Well, yesterday was. Today—knock wood—hasn’t been so bad. But it’s early.”

  “Another argument?”

  Kaylin nodded. “Another argument, another dissolution of physical form. Right now, though, we’re reading Diarmat’s various reports about parts of the Barrani High Court and their political interactions.”

  Severn whistled. “Not light reading.”

  “No—but oddly boring in places. You want in?”

  He smiled.

  “You don’t think those reports are going to tell you anything you need to know.”

  “I’m aware of the Barrani High Court and the families that comprise it in its current composition.”

  Sometimes Severn’s answers were doors or windows, things that could be opened and looked through. Sometimes they were walls. This was a wall. As if to emphasize this, Severn said, “I’ve brought clothing suitable for dinner—is there somewhere I should leave it?”

  “In your room, dear.”

  Kaylin did not point out that Severn didn’t have a room, because obviously he now did.

  “He could leave things in your room, if you’d prefer?” Helen asked.

  Did she? And even if she did, did he? “No, it’s fine. Is it upstairs in the main hall with the rest of our rooms?”

  “Yes—it’s the door with the wolf mark.”

  “If it makes you feel better,” Severn said as he headed toward the stairs, “I’m not Teela or Tain. I’m not moving in.”

  “They’re not here permanently, either. You might as well stay while they do.”

  He stilled. “You think you need the support?”

  “I’ve got Helen for support. But...company that understands where I’m coming from might be nice.”

  * * *

  After breakfast, Kaylin was assailed with a completely unfamiliar thought: she owed Diarmat an apology. She’d thought him the most condescending, harsh teacher she’d ever have the misfortune of meeting. He now had competition.

  Sedarias was a ferocious drillmaster. When learning weapons, Kaylin was fine with bruises and the occasional sprained wrist or ankle. Etiquette on the Sedarias scale was like being screamed at by sergeants, but worse; there was no opportunity to alleviate any of the resulting humiliation and resentment by trying to beat another enterprising trainee in the drill yard.

  Bellusdeo, however, didn’t find Sedarias nearly as annoying as Diarmat. Kaylin couldn’t understand why, but thought, less than charitably, it was because Sedarias was only raking Kaylin across the figurative coals. To be slightly fair, it wasn’t only Kaylin. Mandoran and Terrano also came in for a fair amount of heat and invective, and Sedarias had astonishingly good Leontine pronunciation.

  “Look, the Consort knows what Kaylin’s like,” Mandoran finally said when they started hour two—or eighty, in subjective time. “By all accounts, she accepts it. Kaylin’s only mortal; she can use that to her advantage.”

  “And so will the Consort,” Sedarias practically spit. “She will use every possible weakness to her advantage. Imagine that she’s decided against us. She might approach the Halls of Law or the Human Caste Court in her offense. And even if she does not choose to do so, it puts the option in her hands.

  “As for you, what was that? What exactly was that? The Consort is the most elevated of all ranks—did you think you were going to shake her hand?”

  Kaylin had survived her early life by causing as little offense as she possibly could. Invisibility was a state she’d desired. She’d survived her later life because she was a Hawk and she had friends. She could survive now because she had Helen—a home of her own, pretty much until death. At this very moment she was trying to hold on to all three of these experiences because the desire to either shout at Sedarias—or strangle her—was becoming harder and harder to resist.

  Helen didn’t intervene, which made clear that she didn’t consider Sedarias’s lessons dangerous. Or possibly that she agreed.

  I certainly do, Ynpharion said. She would have raged—silently—at him because he was a safe target, but his internal voice held no smugness, no sense of the usual superiority. He was worried. He was worried for the Consort, not for Kaylin, of course—but he considered Sedarias’s manner and instruction to be utterly necessary.

  She wondered what it must have been like to be raised as Barrani, and swallowed.

  I survived. But, Kaylin, I would not have survived were I as ill-mannered as you. The Consort is indulgent because you are mortal. Or perhaps because you are
Chosen. It signifies little to the Court; her indulgence of a beloved cat would be considered similar. You are not, and will never be, what Sedarias is desperately trying to make you. But if the Consort is indulgent, she is the only one.

  What do you mean you wouldn’t have survived?

  I would have been considered a black stain upon the whole of my family. In order to remove that stain, they would have removed me. If your Helen permits, I will attempt to offer advice when the Consort arrives.

  And if the Consort permits?

  And if the Consort permits. There was a flicker of doubt in the words that she very seldom heard from Ynpharion.

  You think she won’t?

  I think, if your concern is the welfare of the people you have chosen to befriend, you must obey Sedarias in matters of deportment.

  * * *

  By dinner, the cohort had finished with Diarmat’s report. It had caused some argument and some disagreement. Teela’s actual, centuries-long experience was given more weight by the cohort than the documents offered by the Imperial service, but Teela was willing to trust the Imperial service’s observations. This clearly rankled the cohort, but not Kaylin; it was a Hawk’s view. Tain said almost nothing, although he looked with interest through the reports about Teela’s family, Danelle.

  He, like Kaylin, needed to read everything on his own; he was not part of the cohort, and did not have access to their memories or their perceptions.

  Serralyn, for instance, had read maybe a third of the reports. She hadn’t involved herself in the argument that Helen had chosen to relocate. Or at least, she’d kept her interaction to words that Kaylin couldn’t hear. Karian, of those involved in the argument, had become the most silent, the most withdrawn.

  What this meant in practical terms, however, was that he was now glued to Serralyn’s side, eyes closed, head flopped on her shoulder and the back of her neck. She didn’t appear to notice.