Cast In Courtlight (16 page)

“I wanted to thank you,” she said quietly, when the oars began to struggle with the moving current.

His look was as smooth and expressionless as glass. Dark glass. Clearly, gratitude was going to offer offense. Which was his problem.

“You helped me last night.” He said nothing, which was about what she expected. But after a moment, he looked at her; he and one other Barrani were not involved in the oaring. They were, however, carrying unsheathed swords.

“Why do you do it?” He had dropped formal Barrani, which was probably as close to Elantran as he was ever going to get. She understood that Barrani and humans had very little in common, but not even Tain had asked her why.

“Why do I help the midwives?”

He nodded. His glance met hers on the odd occasion it wasn’t absorbed by the approaching bank.

“If I don’t, people die.”

“People die all the time. Do you feel responsible for their deaths?”

“No.” Pause. “Sometimes. It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not there was anything I could have done to prevent them.”

“This matters to you.”

She shrugged.

“You have power. If you desired more, you would become
Erenne
.”

“I don’t want that kind of power.”

“Power is the only guarantee you have that your will is made manifest. There is no other kind.”

She frowned. “Is there much betting going on? About my being the
Erenne?
”

His look was odd; it changed the shape of his face. It took Kaylin a moment to realize that the man was almost
smiling
. Betting was universal. At least in the fiefs.

She kept that to herself. “If I became
Erenne
, if I became Lord Nightshade’s consort – ”

“They are not the same, Kaylin Neya.”

“Let’s pretend they are. If I did, how would I have power? The power in Nightshade is
his
. It begins and ends with him. And he lets nothing go.”

“No. But he is Barrani.”

“There’s no advantage in it.” She spoke like a fiefling.

“There is safety.”

“If I wanted safety, I wouldn’t wear the Hawk.”

“If you desire it, he might extend his protection to those of your choosing.”

She shook her head. “He’s Barrani,” she said quietly.

“Yes. What we wonder, Kaylin Neya, is what
you
are.”

“Just Kaylin.”

The boat bumped against the shore. The sky was not yet dark; danger, if it came, would not come from ferals.

“I believe,” Andellen said quietly, “that you have angered the Arcanists. I would consider that unwise.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Of course not… humans never do. What humans rarely survive long enough to understand is this – lack of offense is also a choice.”

Lord Nightshade was waiting for her when she arrived – nauseated and dizzy – in the front vestibule. Kaylin promised herself that one damn day she’d be able to either step through the portcullis and arrive where
she
wanted to, or she’d just have the damn thing melted down.

Saying so, however, fled her mind when she met Lord Nightshade’s eyes. Although she’d lived among the Barrani Hawks for the entire time she’d been one – and every day before that, when she’d wanted to wear the Hawk so badly – no eyes were as clear, or as cold, as Nightshade’s. She could see them clearly behind her lids when she closed them.

Not that she wanted to; there was always something about Nightshade that put her on edge. But on edge was a balancing act that she’d become good at over the years.

“Lord Nightshade,” she said, using the wall as a brace.

“Kaylin. You seem… tired.”

“
Green
is the word you want,” she replied in Elantran.

“Dinner has been prepared. I would normally require you to be more presentable, but I believe that you have failed to eat today.”

Damn it. She had. “It was a busy day.”

“It must have been, if you’re so lacking in imagination you offer that as an excuse.” He waited beneath a chandelier, absorbing all the light it cast. Which, given he was wearing black, should have been more difficult.

His expression was set in a graceful frown.

Kaylin’s was a moving grimace, just shy of actual pain. She pushed herself free from the wall and wobbled a bit on knees that really weren’t meant to support her weight. Or anyone’s, at the moment. But he did not approach her, did not offer a hand or an arm. He simply waited. And that was all she wanted, at the moment. That he wait. That he allow her the illusion of strength, or failing that, the illusion of an absence of weakness.

“How fares the Lord of the West March?”

“He’s well,” she said, approaching him in something that approximated a straight line.

“I gather he must be. There has been some difficulty in the Arcanum.”

“Difficulty?” She didn’t ask him how he knew.

“Lord Evarrim has been unusually active.”

“It’s the Festival season,” she offered. She’d reached his side, and as she did, he turned toward the hall.

“It is a rare season that sees fire in the Arcanum.”

“Fire?”

“I believe that is the word for the thing that consumes wood and causes smoke, yes.”

She glared at the side of his face. “What caused the fire?”

“To the casual observer? An experiment gone wrong. I believe that will be the official report tendered the Imperium. The Imperial Order of Mages,” he added, as if he expected her not to know the word. Given that she didn’t, she settled for grinding her teeth.

“To the less than casual observer?”

“Ah.” He had led her down a hall that she had not seen before. Then again, geography in the Castle itself defied both understanding and description. Kaylin had a Hawk’s training; she
remembered
what she saw.

But there was nothing remotely familiar about the hall she now traversed. She wondered if it would always be like this.

“While the Castle is mine, yes,” he replied.

“A precaution?”

“It would be. But no, it is simply an artifact of the Castle itself. I understand it, I can follow it. But my servants see a different path when they approach the same room we now repair to, and they walk different halls. Were you to wander without my guidance, you might eventually find yourself in the dining hall – but the passage there would be less… convenient.”

He reached out to touch her cheek. Or she thought he had; she could feel the cool tips of his fingers against her skin, tracing the pattern of deadly nightshade almost gently. But his hands remained by his sides.

She was
really
tired.

“You did not suffer in the High Hall.”

She shook her head. “Not more than I usually suffer when I’m with Teela.” In fact, given that they hadn’t actually been drinking, a lot less.

“And none made comment?”

Again, the ghost of his hands touched her face, lingering at the base of her jaw. “The Lord of the West March noticed,” she said at last. Her voice was higher than she would have liked.

“And he did not attempt to have you killed?”

She shook her head. “I – I liked him, I think. Not that he wouldn’t kill me tomorrow if it was useful to him – he’s Barrani, after all. But he didn’t seem to really care one way or the other.”

“Perhaps he was content to be alive.”

“He wasn’t precisely dying,” she said softly.

“How can you recognize dying in the Barrani?”

She thought about the guard Teela had so efficiently dispatched. “I can recognize death,” she said at last.

“They are not the same, I think.”

“Obviously not.”

A set of doors opened in the hall ahead. She could see, glimmering in the center of the nearest of the two, a golden flower. Palm-magic.

“You may open any door in the Castle without worry,” he told her, his voice as gentle as his hands – or his non-hands – had been. “I understand that you are not comfortable with the magic that graces my doors. They are there for privacy, and for minimal protection… you require none of the former and a great deal of the latter. It renders the doors superfluous. Come.”

He entered the hall ahead of her. She followed in his wake, almost stepping on the edge of his robe as she stumbled. She’d forgotten just how dirty she was. And the scent of food drove pretty much anything but hunger out of her mind entirely. When she was seated, when her plate appeared, as if by magic, in front of her, and when she had actually started to eat, he sat across from her. The table that had seemed narrow was actually very wide – it was also too damn long. Mess Hall in the Halls was probably smaller than this single room.

“You asked an intelligent question,” he said quietly. “About the Arcanum. I will answer it now. To the less casual observer, the explosion that resulted in fire might appear to be a backlash.”

Chew. She had to remember to chew. The swallowing was a little too intensely reflexive. “Backlash?” More words meant less food.

“If a spell is set,” he told her quietly, “and if it is complicated, it requires an anchor. Very often the anchorage is provided by a person. In some cases, that is considered too much of a risk.”

“So you think this was anchored by something.”

“Indeed.”

“And it broke.”

“As you say.”

She frowned. “You also think I should know this already, don’t you?”

“I believe these explanations would be considered condescending by the rest of your compatriots, yes.”

“We did set off a spell,” she said as she drained the glass by the side of her plate. Or tried; most of it came back out with a distinct lack of dignity. “What is this?”

“Not water,” he said with a pleasant smile. As if he ate with ill-mannered humans every day. Messy, ill-mannered humans. “The nature of the spell?”

She tried to speak around the fire in her throat. After a coughing fit that would have had the Hawks snickering for days, she managed to get control of her tongue; she knew her face was red. “It was meant to kill whoever tried to open a certain door.”

“How?”

“Mostly? By ripping them into tiny bits, if I had to guess.”

Lord Nightshade frowned; it was the frown of thought, not disapproval. “I do not think that such a spell would be anchored in the Arcanum,” he told her after a pause. “Would you care to tell me why?”

“Because they’d expect it
to
be set off.”

“Correct. Perhaps you managed to pay attention in your classrooms in the upper city.”

“I had to pay some. Hamish used to throw erasers at the back of my head.”

His expression made clear that he found the anecdote less amusing than she did. Which wasn’t hard.

She ate more slowly as hunger receded. “You think it had something to do with the Lord of the West March.”

“I can tell you the minute it happened, if it is of interest.”

She shrugged. “Not really. I can’t tell you when he woke up to the minute, so there’s not much to compare.” She set her fork down. “Tell me about the High Court.”

“Can you not access your vaunted Records?”

“Not without being suspended.”

“Ah. Then it seems that those who have your interests at heart prefer you to be without the information.”

She nodded. “They expect that I’ll be able to avoid the High Court.”

“Then they are optimistic in a fashion that I am not. You are aware that he is the younger son of the castelord.”

She nodded.

“You are also aware that the castelord has a surviving older son.”

She nodded again.

“He also has a daughter.”

“I knew that, too. Do you think it was the older son?”

“The Lord of the Green?”

“Is that what he’s called?”

“By those who are conversant with the High Courts, yes.”

“Him, then.”

“Historically, it would be a good guess.”

She smiled. “And this would be one of the times when lack of historical knowledge isn’t a liability?”

“It is said that the brothers are fond of one another.”

“And you believe it.”

“I have seen them. I believe it.”

“The sister?”

“She has nothing to gain by the death of either brother. The Barrani Court has its place for her, and that place will not change.”

“Then who would want to kill him? And please don’t tell me that he’s a Barrani High Lord as if that were enough of an answer.”

“No.” He had not eaten at all. “I am not yet certain, Kaylin.”

“People seem to think that the death of the Lord of the West March might cause a war.”

“The Lord of the West March is not an empty title. Humans use empty titles, but it is seldom that a Barrani Lord finds one. He is popular, in the fashion of our kind. And he is, as you have guessed, unusual.”

“I guessed that, did I?”

“You must have. If I am correct, there was only one way to wake him.” His eyes were a mix of emerald and blue. He stared at her intently.

She swallowed air. Food went down with it, and she dropped her fork; emptiness had been replaced by something a little too crowded for comfort. She chose her next words with care. “I can’t speak of it.”

“He understands what the mark you bear means.”

“He didn’t make exceptions.”

“No.” He lifted the stem of an empty glass and gestured, his fingers running along the rim. She wasn’t particularly surprised when the glass filled. “He gave you his name.”

She kept her face carefully blank.”

I could almost hear it, Kaylin.”

“But he – ”

“When
you
spoke it. I know what you saw,” he added softly. “And I will not speak of it. You planted the Hawk,” he added, “in the heart of the Lord of the West March.”

She nodded.

“Do you understand what that portends?”

“No.”

“He must understand it. I would not have been surprised had he killed you. He did not, however, and that saves me much difficulty.”

“Because?”

“You bear my mark,” he replied, as if that was answer enough.

“The mark of an outcaste.”

“Of a surviving outcaste Lord.”

She was smart enough to understand the difference. “He told me to ask you something,” she said, lifting her own glass. The candlelight bent as she stared through the clear liquid. She wasn’t quite brave enough to drink any more of it.