Cast In Fury (30 page)

“I—”

“You did not tell me why you chose to visit,” he continued, when the sentence was abruptly truncated. “You did not tell me if the sister—Marai, I believe, is her name—was present. You failed to mention her at all.

“I can only assume that this oversight on your part was deliberate.”

She said nothing. It wasn’t the safest thing to do, but she was a miserable liar.

“Her sister, however, may be more forthcoming. Kaylin, this is
not
a game. There is a danger here, and it is profound. I will not ask you how you came to be at the mage’s home. I am aware that were it not for that coincidence, we would not now be aware of the danger we face, and I am not unmindful of that debt to you.

“But it is not a danger that will affect only the Quarter. It is a danger that threatens the entire city. Marai was marked, and the wisdom of the Elders was overruled. She was not destroyed—at birth—as she would have been on the plains. And on the plains, it would have been far safer to allow her to live.”

“She did nothing wrong—”

“Kaylin.”

“No. I’m a
Hawk,
Sanabalis. There are
laws.
She did
nothing
wrong.”

“And you are certain of this?”

She stopped, because she wasn’t.

“I see,” Sanabalis said.

“What of her sister?”

“Sarabe?”

Kaylin nodded.

“She has been closely watched,” he replied. “And she is not connected—yet—with the stranger.” He was silent for a long moment. “I would see her destroyed,” he said at last, and heavily.

All of the hair on Kaylin’s neck stood on end.

“But that decision is not in my hands.”

“But it
is.
You can tell them what to do—and what
not
to do—and they’ll listen to you. They’ll listen to
you
in a way that they wouldn’t even listen to their own. If you tell them that you don’t think she’s a danger—”

“You counsel me to lie?”

“She’s
not
a danger. Sarabe has had her children, and she won’t risk having more. All of hers were girls, and they survived. And why the
hell
is it just boys that are considered a danger?”

“We do not know,” he replied. “It is perhaps because women
can
give birth, and the imperative to breed among mortals is physical, and requires some continuity and stability of form. It overrides much else, and on levels that simple magic cannot easily dislodge.”

“She’s Marcus’s wife,” Kaylin said. “She has a Pridlea, and children of her own. She’s done nothing wrong. She’s lived with the judgment of others all her life simply because she was born the wrong damn color. I don’t care if you want her destroyed—you don’t
know
her. I do. And you can’t legally destroy her,” she added. “It would be murder.”

“It would be a matter for the Caste Court,” he replied levelly.

“The hell it would.”

“I think you’ll find—”

“Marcus was willing to
die
to protect her—” Her brain caught up with her mouth and closed it down.

“I see. So he suspected.”

Severn gave Kaylin a long, inscrutable stare.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice slightly thicker, the syllables a little too distinct. “I won’t
let
it remain a matter for the Caste Courts. I was there and I’m not Leontine.”

“You were forbidden to be there.”

“No, I wasn’t. I was forbidden to interfere in Marcus’s case. This is entirely different. If Sarabe and Marai won’t take the matter to the Imperial Courts,
I
will.”

“No one is likely to thank you for it.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass. We have
laws,
and they’re not written with specific exceptions for people you
think
might be dangerous. If we could kill everyone who
might
be a danger, there wouldn’t be any bloody Arcanists.”

“A fair point.”

“Dragons,” Severn said, joining the conversation quietly and unexpectedly, as he so often did, “are not known for their sense of fairness.”

“No indeed, we are not. But I’m curious, Private Neya. The Hawk, of course, is yours to wear, but if you did not endanger it in pursuit of the truth about your Sergeant and his theoretical crime, what
did
bring you to the Quarter?” His eyes were amber, and seemed to glow faintly in the nightscape, as if lit from within by the fires that were legend.

The bastard
knew,
she thought. He
knew.

Her hand fell to her dagger hilt; she had just enough sense of self-preservation not to draw it.

“This is not a game, Private,” he said quietly. “It is not a lesson. I am not your teacher here—you are not my student. There is more at risk than you can imagine.”

“Is there more at risk than there was when I developed my marks?”

He was silent for a long moment.

“Is there more at risk than there was when those children were taken by an
Outcaste
Dragon as sacrifices?”

She thought he might lie, and was prepared to tear through whatever reply he chose to make. But he lifted a hand, instead. “No.”

“But I’m not dead.”

“No. But in
your
case, Private Neya, there were mitigating circumstances. The danger you presented—and still present in your ignorance—could be weighed against the possibility that you might
also
do more good, and preserve more life, with the powers that none of us fully understand. There was the healing, for one.” He paused and then added, “There was the freeing of the dead Dragon. There was also the disaster that you averted when Donalan Idis kidnapped the Tha’alani child, for another.

“In the case of the Leontines? There is no mitigating factor. The most—the very most—that we can hope for is that the marked will live quiet, unremarkable lives and die without giving birth.”

She thought of Marcus. Of Kayala. Of Graylin and Reesa and Sarabe. All the lives touched by an unremarkable life. The happiness—and no doubt the tears—of living day to day, and loving. She straightened her shoulders and said, “But people like these Leontines are the
reason
we have laws, Sanabalis. They live their quiet lives, as you call them. They don’t threaten other people—on purpose,” she added quickly, when his mouth opened. “They love, they’re loved, they have their work to do, and they do it. The farmers are all unremarkable—to people who don’t know them and don’t have a clue about their lives—but without them, the city would starve.

“I made my oaths when I accepted the Hawk. People like Sarabe—they don’t
deserve
to be judged by people who think life can be reduced to—to math.”

“She will be judged, not by me, but by her own people.”

“I’m her own people,” Kaylin said grimly. “I practically grew up in that Pridlea.”

“I am aware of that,” he replied coolly. “I will give you my word that I will not harm the Pridlea this eve. Will that suffice?”

She wanted more. But she had
also
lived in the fiefs, and she knew a final offer when she heard it. She indicated a grudging assent. After all, what he offered was in spirit what Kayala had offered when Roshan had been given over to her keeping. In either case, it was a courtesy; she couldn’t stop Sanabalis from going to the Pridlea if she tried—although she was pretty certain she would at least live to regret the attempt.

They had walked at least another two blocks when Sanabalis stopped. He stopped so suddenly she ran into his back and bounced off it—it was like walking into a wall.

“Sanabalis?”

“I fear,” he said, in a completely expressionless voice, “that we are late.”

“What?”

He didn’t answer; instead he began to move. Something that could be so inert shouldn’t be able to move that quickly, but Kaylin had long since given up trying to make sense of Dragons. They were, in the end, magical creatures.

She ran after Sanabalis. Severn kept pace with her, although his stride was longer. Two more blocks, covered in seconds, and she could see what Sanabalis, with his strange Dragon sight, had seen: black smoke, rising into the midnight-blue of sky. Hazy, hot, very much like the air itself.

And she
knew
where the fire was coming from.

A block away from the Pridlea, the orange lap of flame could be seen; the flames were small compared to the shadow of smoke they cast into the windless sky. But the streets weren’t empty, and for that, she was profoundly grateful, for in the light of the orange glow, she could see Kayala.

Kayala had her arms full, but she turned as they approached, her lips drawn over her fangs in a warning growl. It was the first time that Kaylin had ever seen naked aggression on the face of Marcus’s oldest wife, and she missed a beat, stumbling in the darkness.

“Kayala, it’s me!”

The growl ceased, but the ferocity of expression did not.

“What happened?”

“We had a visitor,” she snarled. “And not a welcome one.” She turned and barked a command, and the other wives revealed themselves, coming from the sides of the buildings that faced other homes: Reesa, golden fur standing on end, Graylin, pale silvery hue darkened with soot, Tessa, black-furred, and very like the shadows.

“Where is Sarabe?” Kaylin said, a little too quickly.

“She’s safe,” Kayala replied in a more normal tone of voice. “She went to her children—they went out the back way.”

“And Marai?”

Silence.

“Kayala—”

Sanabalis, so silent and still that he could, like Severn, be forgotten, stepped forward.

Kaylin waited for the Dragon effect to take hold. But if Dragons usually entranced the Leontines, the effect of Sanabalis’s presence at this time was clearly not as primal as the defense of one’s home and family; Kayala growled a warning note. Sanabalis actually took a step back.

“What did I tell you about bringing males here?”

“He’s not in your home,” Kaylin said, raising her empty hands so they could be clearly seen. “I wouldn’t have brought him in without your permission.”

“I see your Severn is wise enough to keep his distance.”

“Severn’s not a Dragon,” she replied.

Kayala’s brows rose at the same time. She actually looked at Sanabalis. Then she handed Kaylin the bundle in her arms without taking her eyes off the Dragon Lord. Kaylin knew what she carried, and she took the baby with the ease of long practice. But she didn’t look at him, not carefully. If Sanabalis hadn’t yet noticed, she didn’t want to draw his attention.

“Eldest,” Kayala said, in a growl. “Forgive the lack of hospitality. My Pridlea is not, at the moment, fit for visitors.”

“No, it is not. But perhaps I can be of aid, if you permit it.”

The fire had not gutted the building.

“We have attempted to put the fire out,” Kayala replied, “but it burns as you see it.”

Sanabalis frowned a moment, and then spoke—in Leontine. “You carry your home in your heart, and your heart is fierce.” He cleared his throat. “Forgive my pronunciation. It is seldom I have reason to speak your tongue.”

She nodded slowly. “Why have you come, Eldest?”

“You can ask me that while your home burns?”

She shrugged instead and turned to Kaylin. “Kitling,” she said, and the weariness in her voice overwhelmed, for a moment, the threat. “We will not be able to stay here this eve, I think. Why is the Eldest here?”

Kaylin cringed and straightened her shoulders. “It’s the—the Outcaste.”

Kayala closed her eyes.

“If you will permit it,” Sanabalis said quietly, “I will find other quarters for your family while we investigate the fire.”

Kayala’s hesitance was marked and it was cold. “
All
of my family?” she asked sharply.

“All,” Sanabalis said.

She didn’t trust him. That much was clear. But she also needed a place to stay in safety. “Where?”

“It would, alas, be outside of the Quarter. On short notice, I cannot navigate the complicated—”

Kayala raised a hand; it was almost as good as a “shut up.” She raised her voice, spoke a few harsh words in Leontine.

From the alley came three Leontines. Two were golden, and one was gray-furred, although the gray was smeared; their eyes were wide and round as they approached Sanabalis; they were ten years old, shared a birthday and several mothers. Kaylin saw them, saw that they were both frightened and whole, and looked beyond them to the alley’s mouth. There, standing with her arms tightly folded across her chest, stood their birth mother, bristling.

In the night sky, it was hard to tell that her fur was red. It was hard to tell anything much beyond the “approach with caution” that was Leontine panic.

“This,” Kayala said, although Sarabe advanced no further, “is my youngest wife. It is my duty and my privilege to protect her with
my
life, Eldest.”

“Her fate,” Sanabalis replied, “is not in my hands. I am not Leontine, but I understand enough of the Pridlea to know that any offer I make will of course include all of your wives, and all of the children living with you.”

Kayala tilted her head to one side for a moment, studying the Dragon Lord. Her breath came out in a hiss, but she hooded her fangs. “He is your friend, kitling?”

“He’s my teacher,” Kaylin replied. And then, after a moment, she continued, “But inasmuch as Dragons and humans
can
be friends, I consider him a friend.”

“Then I will, on behalf of the Pridlea, gratefully accept your offer, Eldest.”

Sanabalis nodded. Kaylin thought there would be questions, but he merely said, “Is this all of your Pridlea?”

Kayala nodded.

“Then follow. You will not all fit in the carriage, and at this time of night, it is safe to walk the city streets.”

On this side of the Ablayne,
Kaylin thought. She didn’t say it. “I will of course have questions,” he added, “but they can wait the night.” He bowed to her.

Kaylin kept her questions to herself, but it was hard. It would have been even more difficult if Severn weren’t there, reminding her, with a silent glance, of the cost of words.