Cast In Courtlight (12 page)

She stopped. The voice was familiar. It was distant, but not in the way that Severn’s words had been distant.

“Hello?”

“Do not touch those marks in this place.”

It was Nightshade. Lord Nightshade. She turned, looked, saw an endless series of living columns. There was no movement, no sign of him.

“They’re – I think they might come off.”

“Do not,” he said again, his voice fading. “I am far from you, and you are far from yourself. Leave, if you can.”

She shrugged. “There doesn’t seem to be a convenient door.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Where are you?”

“I am both close and far, as you are close and far. You have my name,” he added softly. “Remember it.”

“I… do.” Even in sleep. “But I… don’t think it’s a good idea to speak it here.”

His laughter was a surprise to her; it was almost youthful. “You are a strange child,” he said when it had trailed into silence. “What do you do, Kaylin Neya?”

“I – ” She frowned.

“Where are you?”

“In a big damn forest.”

The silence that followed her words was heavy, a different silence. She could not interpret it, who’d been offered the space of so many other silences simply by touching a stranger’s skin. “Kaylin,” he said in the tone of voice she
least
liked, “what have you done?”

It was, of course, a tone she was familiar with. Severn used it. Not many of the Hawks did, though; they had to drill with her sooner or later, and she sometimes forgot the rules.

“Teela dragged me to Court,” she said curtly.

“To Court, Kaylin?”

“To the – to the Barrani High Court. Because the Lord of the West March was

– wasn’t – ” Frustrated, she tossed the sentence out and started again. “I think he’s been poisoned. I think he’s dying. But not dying. I
don’t understand
it.”

“I cannot come to you,” he replied, as if she’d asked.

“No. You can’t.” The minute she said the words, they were true. As if words had that power in this place.

“Words have power in all places,” he replied. She hated it when he did that.

He couldn’t even see her face, so the convenient “you’re an open book” excuse was beyond them both.

“I can’t leave if he doesn’t wake up.”

“You are not as foolish as you often appear. You are, unfortunately, far more reckless. I would have bet against it, were I offered odds.”

She almost laughed.

“I
do
live in the fiefs,” was his wry reply. And it hid nothing from her; she could sense his worry.”

I don’t know how to make him wake up. But I thought – ”

“Careful, Kaylin.”

“I don’t know his name,” she said, flat now. “I don’t have any way of finding him here. He’s lost. I’m lost. I thought if I could plant something – ”

“Plant something?”

The rich loam of the soil was beneath her hands as she bent. She knelt, and felt it, damp, against her knees. Which meant she wasn’t wearing her old pants. Looking down, she saw that she was, however, wearing her tunic, and it was a good deal cleaner – and longer – than it had been minutes or hours ago. The Hawk was a thing of gold and flight. Death or freedom.

His silence was not a comfort.

She wanted to cling to his voice because she didn’t want to be alone here. And she hated herself for the weakness because it meant she was buying into the illusion.

“It is not illusion,” he said.

So much for morale.

She looked at her arms, above the wrists. “Nightshade,” she whispered, “you’ll just have to trust me.”

“Oddly enough, I do. I trust you to be Kaylin Neya.”

She chose to make the effort not to be insulted, and said, “For you, I could do this.”

“Yes. For me. But you have my name, and it binds us. Were you to heal me, you would be a part of what you see.”

“Would I see forest?”

Silence.

She responded in kind, but she didn’t stop. Her fingers made impressions in the dirt, and the dirt turned her nails a rich, dark black. Digging was easy. It gave her something to do with her hands, and that was better than wandering around like an idiot pilgrim.

When she’d made a furrow a hand’s depth in the dirt, she looked again at her arms. At the symbols that graced skin, that seemed more solid in this place than they had ever seemed. They didn’t burn or glow; they just
were
.

They had been written by the Old Ones in ways that no “new ones” – that being anyone living, or having lived, in the last millennia – could understand. Certainly not Kaylin, whose grasp of the historical was accurate to the day The one she was living in.

They had been changed by death and sacrifice, the sigil shapes shifting and altering almost imperceptibly with time. And they had been altered again, when she had returned to the heart of Castle Nightshade.

What they meant now, no one knew.

She studied them all, her eyes tracing thick curves and thin, as if they were a mandala that moved with her, lived in her. They looked the
same
at first glance. They looked the same at a tenth glance, and a few solid glares.

But there were differences. Very subtle differences.

Probably imaginary ones, given how long she’d been staring.

She chose one at random. Her fingers brushed its surface, and she felt it again, like a raised welt with sharper edges. Her nails were short enough to be useless and long enough to be dirty. She struggled to use them for some time, but they were blunt instruments.

So she reached for her daggers.

They weren’t there. At least not the ones she was familiar with. She’d bought them with her own money, and she’d paid a small fortune in trade with a mendacious man who had actually been capable of some magic.

What was left in their place was dagger shaped. It even had a hilt. But it was translucent and fine, like a sliver of worked glass. It shone blue.

Blue was bad. This kind of blue, like a sliver of sky, reminded her of magic, and she
did not
want to lay it against her skin. Although curiosity had its uses, she had a bad feeling that shedding blood here would be costly.

“It will.”

“Thanks.” She sat in front of a trough of dirt, feeling like a pig. She was tired, and her stomach was rumbling.

Not the words, then. Not the marks.

They were hers, but they
weren’t
hers.

And there was only one thing that she now wore that she valued. The Hawk shone gold.

Removing it was harder than she expected.

Laying it in the furrow, folding the tunic so that it could rest an inch below the space she’d managed to dig was worse.

Worse still, burying it. She had to close her eyes.

“Well done, little Kaylin.” The voice was so soft now she could barely catch the words.

It’s not real
, she told herself as she stood and took a step back. But it was real. It was the only thing that was.

And because it was real, the ground closed over it. The scratches she’d made in its soft surface vanished; the rough, loose texture of new-turned earth smoothed out, as if the forest floor had flexed its hand and made a flat fist.

She watched a tree grow.

It was unlike any other tree in the forest. It was a pale color, and its bark was soft, almost golden in hue. There was no almost about its leaves; they shot out as branches unfurled, as roots spread beneath her feet, pushing her back. Even stumbling, she still sought sight of the sky through the bower of the other trees. Seeking sky, she caught gold instead. The leaves were like feathers, flight feathers, and they hung in the air as the branches that bore them rose, bursting toward the sky. She watched; astonishment was too meager a word for what she felt… It should have gone on forever.

Instead, the leaves began to fall. The breeze carried them. The wind swept them into the other trees, and where gold touched green, color happened. Red, yellow, burgundy, a riot that spoke of autumn, and the change of seasons.

When she looked down – when she could bear to look down – she saw that she still wore her boots. And that she wore an undershirt and loose-fitting pants.

It was better than being naked. But not by much.

She walked over to the trunk of what was now an immense tree, and wondered at the nature of age. It was of a height with the forest although it resembled no other tree that grew there, as if, although it was bound by the forest’s rules, it was also bound by hers.

She leaned against the smooth, smooth trunk and picked up a leaf. It turned to dust in her hands, but it was a golden dust that made her skin shimmer.

A shadow crossed her hand as she stared at it, and she looked up. A Barrani man stood before her, his eyes the green of the leaves before they turned.

“You’re the Lord of the West March?” she asked quietly.

He nodded; he barely spared her a glance. She would have mumbled something about gratitude, but his gaze had gone up to the leaves above, and he was staring in wonder. She almost hated to break the trance. She understood what he saw.

But she understood, as well, that they could not remain here forever. So she cleared her throat.

He looked down at her then. He was tall, even for a Barrani. “You are Kaylin

Neya,” he said.

“That’s what I’m called.”

“Ah. It is a title?”

“A name.”

His brow rose. His eyes narrowed. “It is not a name,” he said quietly. “There is only one name here.”

“Yours, I take it.”

But he stared at the tree. “And yet… I read it, there, in the leaves. You are a bird of prey. Whose jesses do you wear?”

“The Hawklord’s,” she replied, rising.

He bent and lifted a golden leaf. In his hands, it didn’t crumble. Then again, ice probably wouldn’t melt in his mouth, either.

He looked at her face. Frowned. Reaching out, he touched her cheek. Her right cheek. “Nightshade,” he said.

“It’s a plant.”

His smile was odd. “It is, as you say, a plant. I do not believe it grows here.”

“No.”

“And yet he sent you.”

“No!”

“No?”

“I came.”

“Bearing that mark, you dared the Court?”

She frowned. “How do you know where you are? You aren’t – ”

“I am aware.” For just three words his voice held the ice of impassable distance; he was a man accustomed to power, or at least the respect best called fear. Then again, he was a Barrani High Lord. Not all of them could be as uncharming as Lord Evarrim.

“It was Teela.”

“Teela?”

“Anteela.”

“Ah. My cousin. The rebel.”

“That’s not what we call her.”

“We?” His frown was more subtle this time, but then again, this time she wasn’t calling his knowledge into question. “You – you’re a Hawk?” He spoke the words slowly, as if only aware that she’d spoken them.

“A Ground Hawk.”

He looked at the leaves that had scattered, touching the heights of other trees. “That is not all you are,” he said at last. “But you are not lying.”

She shrugged. “It’s not one of my skills.”

“Even were it, you would not be able to use it here.”

“Look,” she said, her hands sliding up to her hips and perching there, “if I understand the situation correctly, you’re dying. You’re going to stop me?” His smile was more perturbing than his frown. “I was lost,” he said. “You
are
human.”

“More or less.”

“This is not the place for you.”

No kidding.

“What did you do here?”

“I… planted something. It grew.”

His eyes were a shade of green. Just green. “Anteela must trust you. She has grown addled, and in so short a time.” But he held out a hand. “It must be part of the nature of mortality.”

“What must?”

“To be worthy of trust. You only have to manage it for a brief span of years. If you live forever, the task is more difficult.” He held out a hand.

She stared at it.

“Do you know her name?”

“Do you?”

He laughed. “The Barrani do not trust each other.”

“Well, then, she hasn’t grown as stupid as you think. She doesn’t trust me that much, either.”

He shrugged. “I would not. You bear the mark of – ”

“Yes, yes, I know. I don’t mean to rush you, but I think we have to leave.”

“Yes,” he said, gazing above her head. “Here, when night falls, there will be no dawn.”

“Good. How do we leave?”

He looked down again, one brow rising. “You came here without knowing how to return?”

She shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“I do not want to know what you consider a
bad
idea.”

She looked away. “Asking you your name.”

He touched her hand and she looked up.

“There are those among my kin who would die before they surrendered their name.”

“That… seems to be the choice.”

His eyes were still bright, and still green. He hadn’t grown any shorter, either. He released her hand and walked to the trunk of the tree that had grown from the tunic. Wordless, he touched it, and his lashes fell. “There is perhaps another way,” he said, his eyes closed. “But it would be poor gratitude for your daring.” His hands crept up the surface of smooth bark, and he tilted his face as they moved; gold leaves fell about him in a shower of warmth and color.

Hawk’s feathers.

When his eyes opened, they reflected gold. She had
never
seen a like color in the Barrani before. It was as if he were hollow, and the leaves themselves the only thing that filled him.

“You have given more than you know,” he said quietly, “and you may yet regret it. I will not say – or have it said – that an ignorant human is capable of going where a Barrani High Lord will not.”

“What will you do with my name?”

“Wake you,” she whispered. And knew it for truth. Had known it before she touched his still face in a room a world away. He whispered a single word.
Lirienne
. His eyes did not leave her face, although the gold in them faded.

She hesitated.

“You are afraid.”

She nodded.

“Why?”