Cast in Oblivion

by Michelle Sagara

  She was right. That something, however, did not come immediately.

  Sedarias now separated herself from the cohort and approached the thrones without escort. The bow she offered the High Lord was an echo of, a reinforcement of, the respect she had offered the Consort before she had entered the High Halls. She held this bow, as she had held the first, until she was given leave to rise. He greeted her by name—a name unadorned by the title that seemed so important to the Barrani. She was Sedarias of Mellarionne.

  Kaylin flinched inwardly at the mention of her family. Sedarias did not.

  The rest of the cohort then approached, one by one, as Sedarias had done.

  The High Lord spoke words of welcome and even seemed to mean all of them, but the Barrani were good at that. Kaylin wasn’t surprised to see Lord Evarrim standing to the side of the High Lord’s throne, and it occurred to her that Evarrim wasn’t good at lying or hiding his reactions. The thought that he might be the Barrani equivalent of Kaylin set her teeth on edge.

  On Evarrim’s brow, she could see the tiara of the Arcanum; a large ruby, lit from an unseen source of light, nestled within the tiara’s small peak. He wore robes of blue and green, the green a match for the color Teela always chose to wear when she came to Court. He was not young by the standards of the Barrani; she wondered if he had been alive when the cohort was sent to the green.

  His eyes—very blue—narrowed.

  So did the eyes of her familiar, and Spike was now a frantic vibration that set her whole left arm trembling. By some unspoken agreement, the Barrani of the High Court—and their various guards—kept their distance while the entirety of the cohort, and Tain, offered their respects to the High Lord and his Consort.

  But when Tain, who waited at the end of the line, had been released by the High Lord’s almost silent nod, the crowd began to move; spaces that had not existed when the Court bore witness were made now, as various people sought to approach the cohort. Many of them were no doubt curious, but even in that jostling, there was the echo of rigid hierarchy.

  This, Kaylin thought, was what Sedarias had expected. She wasn’t surprised when the first person to reach her said, “Welcome home, sister.”

  An’Mellarionne offered her a perfect bow that robbed his scant greeting of sincerity; it was a bow extended by people of power to people of power. It was not a familial gesture.

  No, it is not, Ynpharion said, a tinge of grudging surprise coloring his words.

  The head of Mellarionne wore the circlet Kaylin now associated with Arcanists; like Evarrim’s, his housed a ruby. It was smaller than the gemstone in Evarrim’s tiara, but brighter; it almost seemed to burn.

  “Coravante.” Sedarias chose to greet him entirely informally. “It has been long since I set foot in our ancestral home.”

  “And long, indeed, since Alsanis has opened his doors to visitors,” her brother replied. He turned to his attendant. Bressarian. “You have been much missed.” Had his eyes not been a deep blue, Kaylin would have believed him; the words themselves were warm, almost friendly.

  A lie is not successful if the person to whom you tell it has no desire to hear the words.

  “And you,” Sedarias said, her voice softer than Kaylin had ever heard it. “I would very much like to visit our home.”

  That lie, for instance, is poor. It is not what Coravante desires to hear.

  She can’t say anything he wants to hear, and she knows it. She’s not saying it for his sake.

  You are learning. It said something about Kaylin that Ynpharion’s approval actually meant anything to her.

  Nothing good.

  You can say that again. Now shut up and let me concentrate.

  Sedarias seemed to radiate youthful delight as she turned to the cohort and introduced them, one at a time, to her brother. It was interesting to watch their reactions. Annarion was stiff and formal. Serralyn was shy, almost demure. Mandoran was crisply formal, but seemed happy with the introduction. Terrano was almost silent. No, Kaylin thought, that was wrong.

  She’d assumed that his near-silence was due to the awkwardness of the situation, but as she watched, her eyes narrowing, she realized she was wrong. Entirely, completely and dangerously wrong. She hadn’t been introduced to the High Lord or the Consort; neither had Teela or Severn. But she’d watched the entire meet and greet as if it were the only significant activity in the room.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Coravante was old. He’d held his seat for a long damn time. He understood subtlety so completely he probably didn’t have any other way of interacting. Nothing about his face, nothing about his clothing, nothing about his tiara, implied Shadow, or Shadow’s taint. But it was a carriage sporting his crest, and containing his people, that had come to Helen and attempted to sneak right through her defenses.

  And she could see now, staring not at Coravante, who demanded focus and attention, but at his feet, that Shadow was present. A tendril, something so fine it was probably the width of three strands of Kaylin’s hair put side by side, seemed to come from the point of his elegant boots. It traveled a direct line to Terrano’s feet.

  She poked the familiar on her shoulder; he was both rigid and utterly silent.

  Your marks, Ynpharion said, are beginning to glow.

  She didn’t have time to curse, or she would have given in to the Leontine that was building behind her clenched teeth. Whatever Coravante had done, or was doing, Terrano was struggling to contain it.

  She moved quickly—far more quickly than the Barrani milling around the cohort. Someone stepped in her way. She might technically be a Lord of the High Court, but she was mortal and clearly needed to be reminded of her place. Sadly for the Barrani lord—whoever he or she was—she knew the place she needed to be, and it wasn’t groveling or waiting for implied permission to proceed.

  In a fair fight, she had no chance. In any fight, her odds were slim. But she wasn’t trying to kill them; she was trying to get them out of her way Right Now. And that, when they’d turned their backs with studied disinterest and barely veiled contempt, she could do.

  Ynpharion didn’t even try to stop her.

  Terrano’s back faced her; she reached for his left shoulder with her left hand, forgetting, for just a second, that Spike was in it. But Spike had tripped no alarms; no one in the Court had noticed his presence at all. Most of them noticed the familiar, and those that somehow hadn’t certainly noticed him now. He pushed himself off her shoulder, spreading his wings and squawking up a storm.

  She lost the wing cover as he left her, but didn’t need it now. Whatever her normal eyes could see was enough as her hand made contact with Terrano. Spike was their bridge.

  And if it weren’t for Spike, she’d have taken a step back. Or several. At a run.

  * * *

  Spike didn’t give her the peculiar vision that Hope did, but she didn’t need that vision now. Nor did he give her the abilities she instinctively put to use. She had seen something like this before—when the Shadows had wrapped themselves around Mandoran, holding him fast—but this was different. For one, it was worse. Much worse. Mandoran had some base resistance to the influence of the Shadow that Terrano did not have.

  Kaylin could feel the burning thread of Shadow throughout the entirety of Terrano, as if every part of the thread’s length had hooks. But they weren’t part of his body yet, although she had no doubt that that was their intent. Or Coravante’s intent. Terrano might end up leaving again. He might never return. He might cast away all of the trappings of his birth and his race—but that was his choice to make. Or not to make.

  Not Coravante’s.

  Terrano!

  Don’t shout—I’ll disincorporate. Pause. What in the hells are you doing?

  You’ve got Shadow throughout you, and it’s spreading.

  I can get rid of it on my own.

  Ca
n you get rid of it without transforming?

  The answer was no.

  Is that what he’s trying to make you do? Turn into something Shadow-like in front of the entire damn Court?

  Probably.

  You’ll get the entire cohort declared outcaste in under two seconds.

  Fine. Fine—but you’re going to need to hurry.

  No kidding. When he spoke, the Shadow seemed to shiver or shudder as Kaylin used the only useful power the marks of the Chosen had granted her: she tried to heal him. Healing mortals was simple—if exhausting. The body knew its correct shape, its correct form. She poured power into that instinctive knowledge, and the body took it, repairing the damage caused by injury, disease, childbirth gone wrong.

  Terrano’s body didn’t have a correct shape. It had the echo of a correct shape, but pouring power into what were technically injuries didn’t have the desired result. Of course not. Nothing about Terrano was simple. Nothing was ever going to be easy. Cutting out the wrong chunks—and there were clearly wrong chunks—probably wouldn’t work, either. But catching those threads and removing them?

  She’d done that before, for Mandoran. And in the wrong light—or the right light, hard to decide which—she could still see the effects of that disentangling on her hand: the threads of what had been a growing cocoon of Shadow had become a flat, harmless glove. She was used to having marks on her skin; the shadow threads had become a different type of mark, a different tattoo.

  The marks on her arms were glowing, but remained flat. The glove on her hand, however, had also begun to respond. She almost yanked her hand back, afraid now for Terrano in an entirely different way.

  Spike wouldn’t allow it.

  If you break contact, you will lose him. You have offered him the hospitality and protection of your home. Will you break that oath now, at the first real challenge he faces?

  I’m not at home. And I offered him Helen’s protection and hospitality. Mine sucks.

  Spike’s reply was not verbal; it was a rush of images that overlapped and metamorphosed before she could fully grasp them—not that she was trying very hard. Not now, Spike! He fell silent, but silence wasn’t withdrawal; he was still embedded in her hand and simultaneously embedded in Terrano’s shoulder.

  She wound the threads around her palm, or that’s what she felt like she was doing; her hand, however, wasn’t actually moving. Spike was frustrated. So was Kaylin. No matter how quickly she tried to spool this deadly thread, she gained no traction; there was never a point at which she could see an end to what must be gathered and extracted from Terrano. Nor was there an end to the damage it was causing him.

  Kaylin grimaced and continued to pull, pausing only for a second. Her familiar roared. She turned automatically as he dived into the crowd and in front of Terrano, hissing and squawking like a miniature, translucent storm.

  Chapter 17

  For the first time since Kaylin had touched Terrano, the Lords of the Court scattered. She was aware of their movement, although her eyes were closed; she could hear their feet against the perfect stone. She could hear sharply drawn breath.

  She forced her eyes open and saw Hope, hovering between Coravante and Terrano. His jaws opened on a jewel-red mouth as he inhaled. Coravante’s eyes were midnight blue and round; he lifted both hands in a gesture that was fluid, fast and complicated. She could see the movement of his fingers in the open air, as if blurred and broken into component parts; she could see the faint trail of light that accompanied them, fingers tracing a pattern of runes at chest level.

  Her familiar exhaled a stream of silver, sparkling smoke. It wasn’t aimed at the spell that Kaylin could now see hanging in the air; it was aimed at the stone flooring. But she thought the faint trace of sigils that were left in the air looked very much like her familiar’s breath. She felt no heat—Hope only looked like a miniature Dragon. He didn’t breathe fire. But regardless, the stone his breath touched melted almost instantly, the center of the circular cone causing...splashes.

  Coravante shouted. Lord Bressarian shouted. People who hadn’t identified or introduced themselves shouted—but they were farther away, and they didn’t matter. The only voices that did matter remained utterly silent; the High Lord and the Consort did not join in the momentary panic.

  Hope’s breath transformed the stones, and had Kaylin been here as a Hawk, months of paperwork and a permanent lack of promotion would be in her immediate future. If she were lucky. She was here as a technical Lord of the Court and, for the first time, considered it a huge plus. While the Barrani could respond, they couldn’t kill her because the laws of exemption didn’t apply to a human.

  She just hoped they remembered it as she saw the glint of steel.

  And realized that it wasn’t steel, because her eyes were closed. Light pierced her nonvision, as if she were staring at the sun; her ears began to ring, and voices and words overlapped and echoed.

  Come on, Terrano, she thought as she pulled on the strands of Shadow. They did not resist her. She could suddenly see an end to what she was trying to extract; Hope had severed the threads. Or Hope’s breath had. She wondered what she looked like, in the eyes of the gathered lords. Part of her didn’t care—vehemently. But part of her knew that she should, because the cohort was, in part, hers.

  Her hand burned as the last bit of Shadow was pulled free of its moorings within Terrano; it struggled and, in the end, whipped around to bite her wrist. And then, at last, it was still. She opened her eyes—really opened them, this time—and saw Terrano’s back. Her palm was pressed flat against it. She realized only then that she had not touched exposed skin, which was the way her healing normally worked. Nothing about Terrano was normal. Even for a Barrani.

  I’m good now, he said, the interior words spoken as if someone had a death grip on his throat. Which he wasn’t using.

  You’re not.

  Thank you, Mother. He was angry. None of the trembling that affected him appeared to be due to fear.

  Did he mean to kill you?

  With that? No. But to be free of its influence, I needed to move one step to the side—and I can’t do that here. Not with all these witnesses. Maybe, she thought, feeling a trace of his doubt, not at all. He surrendered with a tiny bit of grace. It’s not the same as what I taught some of them. It’s different.

  They’ve had some time to improve.

  Not a lot of time. Not for our people.

  Maybe not—but it wasn’t only Barrani you approached.

  Of course it was. I wasn’t involved with dragging humans into the mess. They were—they needed money.

  But mortals were involved, she countered. And mortals don’t have a lot of time compared to the rest of you. What exactly was the Shadow trying to do?

  Nothing. Coravante was in control.

  It wasn’t an answer, and she didn’t have time to press him. Barrani don’t like to be healed, she said, slowly flexing her palm.

  Yeah, well. There are worse alternatives.

  Not to some of the Barrani.

  And if I hated it, he continued, I couldn’t do anything about it, anyway; Sedarias would murder me. Slowly. She felt a flash of his grin as she lifted her hand, and then nothing at all. She didn’t own Terrano’s name—and even if she once had, it wouldn’t have done her any good. He didn’t have it now.

  Kaylin looked past Terrano to see her hovering familiar. “Hope,” she said, holding out an arm. He rotated in place, but closed his mouth and, after a few seconds, condescended to return to his place on her shoulder.

  All eyes were upon Kaylin as she straightened those shoulders, readjusted her posture and turned once again to face the thrones. She avoided looking at anyone but the High Lord and the Consort, but felt a little bit of Teela’s glare hit the side of her face.

  The Consort’s eyes had more blue in them than they usually did, but that blue faded
as she met Kaylin’s gaze. A half smile touched her lips and she shook her head almost ruefully, nodding. Then she rose.

  “Are your companions well?” she asked.

  Breath was held; Kaylin was probably the first person present to exhale. “Yes. I apologize for what might be my overreaction. They’re guests in my home, and not all of them are accustomed to a gathering such as this; I believe some find the honor done them almost overwhelming.”

  Sedarias’s glare joined Teela’s.

  “It is to be expected, surely,” the Consort said. “And for my part, I find it refreshing. If you and your companions would join me, I believe I am desirous of refreshments.”

  “Of course, Lady,” Kaylin replied. She noted that the Consort didn’t ask anyone else’s permission.

  * * *

  Ynpharion spoke as he joined the Consort. I am to convey the Consort’s gratitude. His words were about as natural as Kaylin’s to the Consort had been.

  For saving Terrano?

  For saving the cohort. What we saw was your solicitous intervention. You put a hand on Terrano’s shoulder.

  And the melting stones?

  His interior voice relaxed, for a variant of relaxed which meant he once again felt free to be annoyed. Everyone witnessed that. He is your familiar. You might suggest some subtlety on his part.

  I didn’t tell him what to do.

  No, and I would keep that firmly to yourself—if it is possible for you to keep anything to yourself. But yes, the familiar caused some concern in the Court. This, conversely, amused him. And the stones did melt. You understand, he continued when she failed to have the correct reaction to this fact, that those stones could withstand the hottest of Dragon breath? Your familiar is feared for a reason.

  If Coravante hadn’t attacked Terrano, my familiar would never have left my shoulder.

  Yes. But as you cannot say that Coravante attacked Terrano—although some will, of course, be aware of this—the familiar’s actions seem erratic and dangerous. I am certain that, in your absence, some of the lords will be calling for your expulsion.