Cast In Fury (34 page)

“Lord Nightshade,” she replied, striving for the same formality.

“Lord Tiamaris,” the fieflord continued. “I did not expect you, but you are welcome in my home.” There was a slight emphasis on
my,
but it didn’t seem to faze Tiamaris. Then again, a rock slide probably wouldn’t.

“I have taken the liberty of arranging refreshments,” he told them both. “Let us repair to a more suitable set of rooms, where we may converse more freely.”

The room was a familiar room. It was, as all rooms in the Castle, sparsely furnished. Or rather, it had a lot of furniture, but given its size, the furniture didn’t make all that much of an impact. There were carpets, and Kaylin almost winced as she walked across them in her regulation boots.

She sat opposite Nightshade on a low couch. Lord Tiamaris took one of the heavier chairs. The Hawk on his chest caught the light like a reminder. They sat in silence while Nightshade poured wine into thin, clear glasses. He gestured at the bread, cheese, and fruit that were arranged on the table in front of them.

Kaylin’s stomach made an unfortunate comment. She was hungry, but she wasn’t certain she wanted to eat, because she had to leave the same way she arrived.

“Why have you come?” he asked them. He did drink the wine.

Kaylin didn’t want to do the same on an empty stomach.

“We are currently investigating a minor difficulty,” Tiamaris replied.

“Ah.”

Kaylin bit back the urge to ask Tiamaris what he considered
major.
Dragons tended toward understatement.

“To be honest,” the Dragon Lord added, “I am not entirely certain what brought Private Neya to Nightshade.”

“Its Lord,” Nightshade replied smoothly. “She has been absent for too long.” His eyes were a shade of emerald that had blue cores. A warning, there, if you knew the Barrani. Then again, breathing could be considered a warning if you knew the Barrani.

Tiamaris didn’t reply. Instead, he turned his gaze—his eyes a shade of amber that were the Dragon equivalent of Nightshade’s—to Kaylin. He left it there a little too long.

Great.

She felt Nightshade’s chuckle; it didn’t leave his mouth.

You are seldom prepared, Kaylin. For anything.
His voice—if you could call something that bypassed ears a voice at all—was softer than she remembered; the amusement was genuine.

“I came to ask for your help,” she said quietly. She had meant to preface the words with some sort of casual preamble, but she knew that he knew she wasn’t bargaining with a good hand. Or any hand at all, really.

“That is hardly the Barrani way,” he replied.

She waited for the rest, but there wasn’t any. Studying his face, the odd shade of his eyes, the careful neutrality of his expression, she thought he knew
exactly
why she was here. But he would, wouldn’t he? She reached up, touched the mark on her cheek with the tips of her fingers. Felt them tingle a moment at the contact. Most days now, she forgot it was even there.

What did he want?

“What do you want?”

She grimaced. “You already know,” she whispered.

He said nothing.

Lord Tiamaris stirred in his chair but did not speak; she felt the weight of his gaze. So, apparently, did Nightshade, who shifted his glance toward the Dragon Lord. “She does not understand, Lord Tiamarais.”

“I am afraid, Lord Nightshade, that I am in her company.”

“She is the
Erenne,
” Nightshade replied.

Tiamaris said nothing for a moment. Then he laid his arms against the chair rests, bent his elbows, and steepled wide hands beneath his chin. “Perhaps you will allow me,” he said.

“Very well, Lord Tiamaris.”

“We seek the Dragon Outcaste,” Tiamaris said evenly.

Kaylin could feel Nightshade’s surprise though she couldn’t actually see it.

“That is not, in the end, what Kaylin Neya seeks.”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps she is not aware of it. Kaylin’s interest in the city has always been personal, and even when the city as she knows it is threatened, it will always
be
personal.”

He glanced at Kaylin; she wondered how much he knew.

“They are connected, your request and her desire.”

“They are indeed connected. Although I believe I was asked to accompany Kaylin as a precaution.”

“Ah. The Dragon Emperor is concerned with her safety?”

“She is one of his citizens,” Tiamaris replied. “And given the nature of her as yet unexplored abilities, she is valuable.”

“I see.”

“His interest in her, and your interest, Lord Nightshade, are perhaps not so different. But the fiefs are not part of his city.”

“Continue.”

“We believe the Outcaste has made another move, or several, outside of the confines of the city proper. What he did is now coming to fruition.”

“And he will gain power from this?”

“He will gain power,” Tiamaris replied quietly. “And in the process, we will lose a great deal. The effects of that loss will be felt first in the fiefs,” he added. “It is in the fiefs that the ancient shades are strongest.”

“And in the fiefs,” Nightshade replied, with the hint of a wry smile, “that my power exists at all.”

“That, I cannot say,” Tiamaris replied smoothly. “But we feel it is in your interest, or we would not have come to you. Where is the Outcaste, Lord Nightshade?”

“It is not of me that you must ask that question,” Nightshade replied.

“Then which of the fieflords—” He stopped.

“You begin to see,” the fieflord replied. He turned to Kaylin. “You have seen the Outcaste,” he said. “And more.”

She stared at them both as if they were out of their minds, because she wasn’t stupid. Of course she’d seen him. She’d seen him in the fief of Nightshade, surrounded by the undying Barrani and the children they had meant to sacrifice. Surrounded, as well, by dark flames, and bright, by the glowing remnants of old courtyard stone. By shadows and power.

His power. And hers. She had faced him, free of the confines of the ancient bracer that served to contain her power. She had fought, she had won; he had retreated. Had he been mortal, the retreat would have simply been called death. “You think
I
can answer that question?”

Lord Nightshade’s expression did not change, but he raised a hand to his brow and massaged it a moment. “I begin to feel a certain sympathy for Lord Sanabalis,” he told them both. He let his hand fall. “Kaylin,” he said. “Look at me.”

She did.

“What is the Outcaste’s name?”

She started to say
how the hell should I know?
But her lips began to move, to stutter over something that felt as if it
should
be a word. Should be, but it was too vast, and too complicated for speech, for simple saying.

And she remembered. A word. So unlike the word that Nightshade had given her that she hadn’t really recognized it. She stared at him. Then she turned to look at Tiamaris.

Tiamaris said. “It is as we suspected.”

“You
suspected
that I knew his
true name
and you didn’t
tell
me?”

“You cannot even say it,” he replied. “We considered it safe.”

“And if it hadn’t been safe?”

“You are, thank your gods, Sanabalis’s problem, not mine.” He paused. “If you speak his name he will know. No matter where he is, Kaylin, he will know.

“If you try to speak it, he may not. We are not certain that he is aware. We were not certain that you were.” He paused, and then added, “If it is helpful, I remain unconvinced. To see a name is not to know it.”

She hesitated. She had seen the names of the Barrani, un-encased by bodies, and she had no idea what they were and what they meant.

But Nightshade said, “You have not observed her for long enough, Lord Tiamaris. I mean no criticism. But I believe that Kaylin can find him, if she uses what she knows. He will, however, certainly be able to find
her
if she tries.”

“Will he dare the Castle?”

“Who can say for certain what an Outcaste Dragon Lord will dare? Were he Barrani, and Lord, he would storm it with hundreds, and he would not cease until she either took the reins of power, used his true name and ordered him to it, or she was dead.

“The name was not a gift. Not from the Outcaste. But I believe that, with the training and the knowledge, Kaylin Neya could see many things, if she made the attempt.”

“Words,” she said softly.

He raised a brow.

“When Sanabalis spoke I
saw
the words.”

The brow rippled. “When Lord Sanabalis spoke?”

She nodded. “He spoke, and I could…see…what he was saying. I could see it as if it were light. No—that’s the wrong word. All of the words I have are the wrong damn words.

“I could see them and feel them, as if they were more than simple speech. I mean, more than Elantran. More than Barrani, High or Low. Why is there a Low Barrani, anyway?”

“A great deal of sympathy for Lord Sanabalis,” Lord Nightshade said. “If this is what he contends with. Kaylin, please, focus.”

“I just wondered, that’s all.”

“Wonder another time. Tell me of this language.”

She looked at Tiamaris. His shrug was slight but clear; whatever it was she knew, he had no objections to Nightshade also knowing. Or, since he was a Dragon and Dragons were the epitome of practical in most things, he thought it unlikely that Nightshade wouldn’t find out.

“He told a story,” she said slowly. “But when he started to speak—I…I had to be there.”

“A story.”

She nodded.

“And the language?”

“I didn’t know it. I didn’t recognize it, but I felt that I should. That it was almost familiar.”

“He told a story in this language. To the Leontines?”

“Good guess.”

Nightshade ignored the sarcasm. He turned to Tiamaris. “The significance of this?”

“Uncertain. It is, however, certain that her companion did not see what she saw. We suspect that no one who cannot shape the tongue itself experiences it the way Kaylin did.”

“Which implies that in time, she will be able to speak it.”

There was a tense silence.

“Does it matter?” Kaylin asked.

“To the Dragon Emperor, almost certainly,” Lord Nightshade replied. “And to the High Lord of the Barrani as well. It is, if I am not mistaken, the tongue of the Old Ones and it is not spoken. Until recently, I would not have said for certain that any of the Dragon Court could although, if I had to guess, I would have said the Arkon could. The great Dragon whose hoard is the Imperial Library and all it contains is ancient. And Sanabalis is old.

“Kaylin, the tongue can shape a race. When it is spoken with power and intent, it can change the very nature of its audience.”

“I can’t speak it,” she said flatly.

“No. I didn’t say that you could. I said merely that you have an affinity for it that only those who
can
speak it possess.”

“The Outcaste can.”

“No,” Nightshade replied softly. “You are making assumptions.”

“Sanabalis thinks he can.”

“Sanabalis sees his hand in this, and that conjecture is more informed. But there are things that lie trapped in the fiefs that undoubtedly
can
speak the Old Tongue.”

“If they’re trapped here, they can’t reach him.”

“No?” Lord Nightshade rose slowly, abandoning his chair. “I will aid you, Lord Tiamaris. Follow.”

Lord Tiamaris inclined his head and rose.

Kaylin stood last and trailed after them. The halls were both familiar and unfamiliar; the halls in the Castle had an unfortunate habit of shifting in place. But where Nightshade walked, she could also walk. He passed several closed doors, during which time Kaylin prayed fervently to nameless gods. There were some passages in this damn Castle that she’d walked before, and she had no desire to walk them again for any reason.

Nightshade did not approach the Long Hall, guarded by the sleepers. For that, if nothing else, she thought she should be grateful. But when he led them at last to their destination, she recognized the room: Mirrors adorned its walls. Only mirrors.

Nightshade glanced at Kaylin, and she remembered that she had seen him walk
through
one of these shiny, spotless surfaces and vanish. She hadn’t tried to follow.

“I would not,” he warned, hearing the thoughts that she could never quite dampen. “Were I you, especially. Force of will is required to navigate these mirrors. They are part of the Castle, and they bend to the will of the Castle’s Lord.

“You have had very little experience bending the will of others to your own purposes. You are afraid to force your will upon strangers. Such fear would be seen as weakness. And where these mirrors would take you then, even I cannot say.

“Come,” he added. He gestured in front of the center mirror in the large room. It was rectangular, and if it had a frame, Kaylin couldn’t see it. But she could see what shuddered into sight as the mirror accepted Lord Nightshade’s silent command—as if it were Records. All of the fief of Nightshade, the streets so meticulously detailed she could see old wells, old horse paths, old carriage tracks. She could see the Four Corners and, with care, could make out the run-down building in which she’d spent so many years of her life.

But…it wasn’t just Records. Because she could also see the people who traversed the morning streets. They stopped to talk to one another, or hurried out of sight, their furtive attempt at hiding made ridiculous by the merciless gaze of a mirror that seemed to watch them from above.

“If you desired it,” Nightshade said, standing at her back as she stared, “you could master these mirrors.”

“What would it cost?”

She felt his smile, even though she couldn’t see it as the mirror’s surface was no longer reflective. “If you can ask that question, you are not yet ready.”

“You can see the whole fief.”

“Yes.”

“At any time.”

“Yes. It is perhaps not as interesting a pastime as you assume. But I watch these.” He gestured and the image rippled, as if it were liquid. When the colors, muted and gray, reformed, she was looking at a different set of streets. Streets that were farther from the Ablayne than she had ever wanted to live. “These,” he told her softly, “are the boundaries of my fief. You are familiar with the boundary marked by the Ablayne, but I believe you are less familiar with the others.”