Cast In Fury (18 page)

“I don’t know a lot about the Leontine Quarter,” Severn said quietly, as she slowed. “I’ve only been here a handful of times, and it was tense each time. They are not very unlike the Tha’alani.”

“People aren’t afraid of them in the same way, and it makes more sense to be afraid of people who seem to look like you. In this day and age, people aren’t afraid of being eaten, but they are
always
afraid of being caught out.”

He nodded. “That house?”

She nodded in turn. It was very similar to Kayala’s home on the exterior. In the dark, Kaylin would have said they looked the same.

But in
this
dark, there were differences.

“What was her name?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“Yes, I did. She said her name was Arlan. Sarabe, however, says that isn’t her name, and of the two, I’m inclined to trust Sarabe.” She shrugged. “It was just a name. She could have called herself ‘dog-eater’ for all I cared. I was here to help deliver a baby. The birth—it shouldn’t have been hard, but it was. I wasn’t sure why. She didn’t have small hips, and there was only one cub. But I don’t know Leontine physiology all that well—and if you do, don’t share. She was exhausted and weak. I assumed it was because of the labor.

“I didn’t think I’d see her again. I’ve delivered a lot of babies to women I’ve never met before or since. It’s not my job to ask them questions, it’s only my job to save their lives.”

Severn nodded again. “Fair enough.”

“Do you want to wait for me here?”

“If it’s required, yes. But I’d like to test that first.” He looked at her again. “There were no men here when you came?”

“To a Leontine birthing? None at all. They like living.”

He chuckled at that.

“Not that she could or would have hurt anyone, but that’s by no means always the case. Especially not to listen to Marcus.” The smile that had crossed her lips faded into a momentary grimace of pain.

Kaylin approached the hanging that separated inside from outside at this time of year. This time, like last time, the night had obscured the colors of the fur that were woven into it; she had literally no idea what it looked like. The last time she’d been here, she hadn’t cared.

There was a brass bell to one side of it, and she touched its still rim nervously. The last thing she wanted to do at this time of night was ring it. But she had a feeling she wouldn’t have to.

Nor was she wrong. As she stood in front of it, weighing her options, the hangings moved. A familiar face peered out from behind the curtain, eyes shining faintly in the light of the twin moons. Here, the streets were moonlit or dark; the magestones that lit the rest of the city were absent. If the Leontines were taxed—and until this moment it hadn’t occurred to Kaylin to wonder—that money did
not
go toward brightly lit nightscapes. Then again, the Leontines had exceptional night vision. Came with the fur and fangs, as Marcus—damn it—would say.

But this time, Kaylin knew the color of the Leontine fur was both distinctive and dangerous—for her.

“I’m here,” she told the woman softly.

“Alone?”

“No.”

Silence. It was awkward, but it didn’t last. “You were to come alone—”

“At the moment,” Severn said, keeping a respectful distance—which in the case of a Leontine was entirely too far away, “I don’t consider it safe for her. Do you?” He also walked toward the hanging, from which the woman had failed to emerge.

She cringed and seemed to grow…smaller. “You heard,” she said to Kaylin.

“I practically live with your sister’s husband,” Kaylin replied. There was no birthing emergency to hush her voice or lend her the strength to be gentle. “There’s no way I wouldn’t have found out.”

“Come in,” the woman said, after another pause. “Both of you. We can’t talk here.”

Pointing out that the streets were empty didn’t seem to be required. Kaylin nodded and stepped through the curtain that divided the world into inside and outside.

Kaylin stepped into the hall and Severn followed her; the Leontine woman said nothing as he entered. Kaylin barely noticed. What she noticed, instead, was the lack of light. Moonlight didn’t breach walls, and there were no lamps. She took a hesitant step forward, and then another, but there was no way her eyes were going to acclimatize here.

It hadn’t been this dark the last time she’d visited. She frowned. “I came through a different door last time,” she said, letting the last couple of words rise in question.

No answer.

“Severn—”

Metal against metal, in the darkness; Severn considered it dangerous enough to draw his blade. Kaylin turned suddenly to the side, flattening herself against the wall in one easy pivot. Her hands fell to her daggers, and they left their sheaths, scraping scabbard as the blades cleared them. She swore; she
had
to get to Elani street to get these damn things enchanted.

“Back out,” Severn said softly.

The hair on the back of Kaylin’s neck did the sudden stand to attention that spoke of magic. Or paperwork, on the wrong day.

“I don’t think that’s an option,” she said, equally quietly. The words seemed loud in the darkness.

But not louder than breathing—or growling.

“Blink,” Severn told her tersely.

She did. When he used that tone of voice, there was no room for question or argument.

She heard something clatter against the ground and there was, some ten feet away, the sudden glow of magelight. He’d thrown it. He’d known enough to bring something with him.

Standing above that light, shoulders bunched and ready, was the largest cat Kaylin had ever seen. It wasn’t a Leontine—it was an animal. But it was black and sleek and huge; it had a mane that trailed off into shadows. The fangs that hung out of its mouth were at least as long as Leontine fangs, and she guessed the claws she couldn’t see as clearly weren’t much less deadly.

It was the only thing she could see—the woman who had invited her in was nowhere in sight. “Nice kitty,” she said softly.

“Nice kitty?”

It leaped.

There was magic in the room. It was, like all magic, sharp and unpleasant. Leaping, tensing, bringing daggers to bear, she could feel it. But she could feel the rumble of the great cat’s growl more clearly and she did
not
want to get in its way.

It had other plans.

Kaylin had time to wonder why it was the Tha’alani that were so feared before claws sheared their way through the thigh-side of her pants as if it were sodden cheesecloth. The pain was sharp and clean; it wasn’t just the leather that had been sliced open. The damn thing moved so
fast.

She rolled to her feet; the cut was bleeding, but claws hadn’t severed muscle; nothing was stopping Kaylin from moving. She didn’t move as fast as the cat, and if she had come alone, that would have been fatal.

But Severn was there, and if claws could slice through flesh, so could blades—and he’d drawn his; she could hear the singing of chains tightening and dangling as the blade flew.

She could hear the roar of the cat as it turned, could see its shadows, diffuse and huge, cast by the single source of light in the room. Its shoulders bunched, muscles hardening as it tensed to leap.

Kaylin threw a dagger.

The flash of metal caught light and was extinguished by those muscles, the darkness of that fur; the hilt disappeared as the cat spun to face her. Severn’s blade came down in the distance, and the cat snarled in fury, turning again.

And it struck Kaylin, as the cat turned, that it was clumsy, for all that it was fast; that it didn’t understand exactly what it was doing.

She knew, then. Or thought she knew. She drew away from the wall, standing in the light, and slowly sheathed her remaining dagger. Then she held out her hands, palms out, a universal gesture.

Severn’s expression was hidden; the light granted that much. “Kaylin—”

The cat snarled.

Turned.

“We didn’t come here to hurt the baby,” Kaylin said quietly. The words were firm and cool; Marcus—had he been here and not in some cage in the center of the quarter—would have recognized his training. He might not have appreciated the use to which she put it.

“I birthed your son,” she continued, as the cat hunched its shoulders. “I licked his lids clean. I did
not
come here to kill a baby.”

“But they will,” a new voice said, as the darkness opened again, and spit out a tall Leontine that Kaylin didn’t recognize. “They’ve seen you now. They have no choice.”

“No!” Kaylin shouted, as the cat tensed to leap. Its eyes were golden, she thought, and wide, although that could have been the reflection of too little light in the darkness. “I claim the right of kin, sister to Sarabe. I claim the right of Pridlea.”

The Leontine stranger had cat’s eyes, but they narrowed in a very human way. “Impossible,” he said flatly.

“You are no part of the birthing,” Kaylin told him, just as flatly. “You weren’t there. You didn’t witness.”

“There
is
no Pridlea.”

“But there is,” Severn said, standing, blades in hand. All this time, he had said nothing, done nothing. He did not sheathe his weapons, but maybe it wasn’t important—he was male, after all.

“Upon the open plains,” Severn said softly, “and in the forests, there were Pridlea. The children, the mothers. The fathers were inconsequential. The children were everything.

“And she remembers,” he added softly. “How could she not? She is what they were.”

The cat turned its head toward him, acknowledging him for the first time.

“It was the Pridlea that kept the children safe from their fathers. It was the Pridlea that protected the birthing mothers. The Pridlea that licked fur clean, offering warmth and food and life.

“If she cannot claim that right,” he added, glancing briefly at Kaylin, “
no one
can. And if she claims it, neither you nor I can gainsay it, except by killing them all.”

“The child,” the Leontine said coldly, “is
mine.
”

The black cat hesitated for another moment, its head now swiveling in three directions. And then it seemed to shrug, and it padded slowly and gracefully across the room to where Kaylin stood.

It sniffed the air around her, and Kaylin stood very, very still. Then it nudged Kaylin’s wounded thigh, and a great, rough tongue darted out from between massive jaws and began to lick it clean. Kaylin winced. She would have liked to say it tickled, but sandpaper was probably softer.

“The right of Pridlea,” Kaylin said softly, and lifted her head.

“You have no such right here.”

“But I have. And she’s accepted it.”

The Leontine roared. Severn pivoted toward him, both blades out. It would not be a clean fight. But Severn wasn’t fighting to make a point here; he’d fight to survive. Kaylin didn’t like the odds.

“Marai,” the Leontine said curtly. “Come.”

The cat stayed where it was. Kaylin knelt, slowly, until her lips were as close to the great twitching ears as she could safely put them. She was keenly aware that her throat, though it was not bared, was a lot more exposed than she would like it to be.

“Go,” she whispered to the cat. “Marai,” she added, lifting the name that had been spoken so imperiously and making it almost a plea. “Go and get our son. We’ll stall.”

Marai growled softly.

Kaylin added, “Please.”

The cat suddenly bolted into the darkness behind the Leontine male. He turned, his claws extended toward her exposed back, and Severn was there in an instant, parrying.

Kaylin felt her hair stand on end as the Leontine leaped back, away from those blades. “Severn!”

He wasn’t there.

Fire was.

Gods curse him, he was a
mage.
And the fire that had left his hands now burned through rug and wooden table, catching the edges of hangings across the wall. Smoke flared, greasy and black. Had it been a normal fire, it would have taken time to spread. Magical flame was under no such restriction.

But the fire itself? That was real. It couldn’t be called back. Kaylin shouted a warning, but Severn was beyond it; his blades flew as he began to spin them in front of his chest. They moved fast, catching light until light was a transparent wall, traced by the moving blades, the winding chains.

She saw the Leontine clearly for a moment longer, and then he changed; she saw it through the black haze of smoke. He had been taller than Marcus, and it seemed that he crouched—but when he unfurled from that crouch, he was no longer what he had been. Gray furred, long fanged, he was a giant cat.

He leaped over the tongues of flame and past Severn—down the hall that had swallowed Marai.

Offering a single choice Aerian curse, Kaylin took a deep breath and ran through the spreading flames after him.

The snarling and the roaring that came out of the darkness in the corridor she traveled was louder than the slowly growing crackle of flame. If fires had conversation, this was it: heated, broken, ugly. The weapon she had sheathed came to hand as she drew it, counting seconds, measuring all lives in the rectangular home by those beats of time. In all, it was a lousy way to measure life.

She traced the noise of fighting back to one room, the hanging in the frame now rumpled awkwardly across the floor.

“Kaylin.” Severn. At her back, as always. She didn’t even turn at the sound of his voice. “We need to get out.”

“That’s not the only door,” she replied, back against the wall, catfight growing louder inches away. “It’s not the one I entered the first time.”

“It’s the one we know—”

“We need to get Marai and her cub out.”

He said nothing else, but she felt him move past her in the hall. Her fingers caught his shoulder; more than that, she couldn’t do without dropping or sheathing her blade. “Be careful—”

Fire erupted. A dragon’s breath would have been just as hot, and just as contained—barely—by the rounded curve of archway that formed a Leontine door. They didn’t bother with fiddly things like hinges.

Gods, her skin
ached.
Magic was so damn strong here, it was almost a taste in the air—sharper and harsher than the black smoke of burning wood and hair-rugs. She could see that Severn was standing; could see where the fire had almost hit him. But he hadn’t dropped his blades or lifted his hands at the sudden appearance of angry, red-orange light.