Cast In Shadow

His frown was momentary, but sharp. But he surprised her. “Once,” he said softly, “you might have considered them gods.”

“But the gods—”

The derision was there in the cold expression the word evoked. “Mortal gods?” He shrugged. “Mortal gods are mortal. They exist at the whim of your attention, and your attention passes quickly.”

She didn’t like the room. He continued to walk; she stopped. But although he was slender, he pulled her along, her feet scudding stone. Dignity forced her to follow, given how little of it she had.

She forgot the ceiling, then.

The floor itself was alive. Where she stepped, light seemed to squelch like soft mud, and it flared in lines, in swirling circles, in patterns.

“Here,” he said softly, and stopped. “Go no farther, Kaylin. And touch nothing if you value your life.”

If she’d valued her life, she’d have stayed out of the fiefs. She nodded.

In the center of the room, laid against the floor in sapphire light, was a large circle. It didn’t surprise her much to see writing across it. She couldn’t read it, of course; it was almost the same as the writing that was carved high above her head. But it was different. It seemed to move.

“This is the seal of the Old Ones,” he said quietly, “and from it emanates the power that defended the castle against intruders.” Against, she thought, the fieflord.

She stared at the seal. The writing seemed to sharpen, somehow. Light flared, like blue fire, and it grew in height along the patterns that had birthed it. She watched as it reached for the ceiling. Watched, forgetting to breathe, as the light from the ceiling dripped down.

When they touched, she cried out in shock, and then in pain; her arms were on fire.

“Stay your ground,” the fieflord said, but his voice seemed to come from a distance—a growing distance. She reached out almost in panic, and was instantly ashamed of her reaction.

She would have reached out for Severn that way, once. And she’d already paid for that. She made fists of her fingers.

“Kaylin, stay your ground.”

Her tongue was heavy; too heavy for speech. She wanted to tell him that she was staying her damned ground, but she couldn’t, and probably just as well.

The light was a column now.

She felt it, an inch from her face, from her hand. Her hand was moving toward it, fingers twitching, as if pulled by gravity. She’d fallen once, from a great enough height that she’d had time to think about just how much of a pain gravity was.

She’d choose falling any time.

She heard the fieflord. She felt his presence. But her hand moved, continued to move. Her skin touched blue fire. Blue fire touched her.

For just a moment, she could see, in the pillar of light, something that looked like a … man. The way that the Barrani fieflord did. But worse. She could not make out his features, and she knew that she really, really didn’t want to.

Her hand sank through the light.

She heard a single word.

Chosen.

And then a different light flared; the golden manacle slammed into the pillar and it refused to move farther. She pushed against it with half of her weight and none of her will. She was losing ground.

She cried out; she couldn’t help it. Years of training fled in the panic that followed. She could see only light, could hear only the indistinct murmur of a stranger’s voice, could feel nothing at all beneath her feet. She had feared the night all her life; this was worse. Her feet were moving. Toward the light, toward the pillar, toward what it contained. She bit her lip, and she tasted blood.

And then, just before she entered the column, before she lost herself entirely, the shadows came, and they came in the shape of a dark, precise crest.

She didn’t recognize it. It didn’t matter.

She hit it and froze.

The light scraped against its edges, seeking passage the way sun does through stained glass. But this lattice offered nothing; it wasn’t, as it had first appeared, a window. It was a wall.

It was a wall with something written across it. She stared at it as the light flared, brighter now, and she understood the word in the same way she understood hunger, pain or fear: instinctively.

She could still taste blood. She could not feel her lips. But they moved anyway. Barrani was one of the languages that the Hawklord had insisted she study, and if she hadn’t been his most apt pupil, she’d learned. She’d always learned any real lesson he’d decided to teach her, even the ones that scarred.

Her lips moved over the syllables; she had to force them. She couldn’t make a sound, but it didn’t matter.

Calarnenne.

The light went out.

“My apologies,” the fieflord said softly. His arms were around her waist, his face against her neck. Black hair trailed down her shoulder in loose, wild strands. Pretty hair.

She tried to speak.

He lifted a hand and pressed his fingers gently against her lips. “No more,” he said softly. “You have done enough. I have done enough. Come. We must leave this place.”

Her knees collapsed.

Teela would have laughed at her. Tain would have shaken his head. But the fieflord did neither; he caught her before she hit ground, lifting her as if her weight were insignificant. He cradled her against his chest, and because he did, she saw blood well against the soft fabric of his odd tunic.

It was hers. Her cheek was bleeding.

“I … can walk.”

He smiled grimly. “You can barely speak,” he said, “and if you touch the ground again, I am not certain that I will be able to stop you from touching the seal.”

There were so many questions she wanted to ask him.

Only one surfaced, fighting its way to the top. “Calarnenne?”

“Yes,” he replied grimly. “My name. Do not speak it, Kaylin.” His eyes were as blue as the light had been, and just as cold.

“Your name.”

“I should kill you,” he replied.

“Why?”

“Because you are now a bigger threat than even the Dragon.”

She shook her head. She knew that. “Why did you—why your name?”

He stopped walking, but he did not set her down. The trees were above them now, and she found their dark presence almost comforting. “The mark,” he said, touching her wounded cheek, “was not enough. You know the Barrani,” he added, his fingers brushing blood away gently. “How many of them have given you their names?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

The frustration on his face was the most familiar expression she had yet seen. It reminded her of the Hawklord. “None,” he said curtly. “Because if they had, you would know.”

When this didn’t seem to garner the right response, he shook her. But even this was gentle.

“If you called their names, they would hear you. They would know where you were. And if they were not strong, they would be drawn to you. Names have power, Kaylin.” He paused. Frowned. “They have power, if you have the power to say them.”

And then he spoke the whole of her given name, her new name. “Kaylin Neya.”

She felt it reverberate through her body as if it were a caress.

He laughed, then.

CHAPTER

5

He took her back to the rooms she had woken in, and there, she found her daggers. Her clothing, however, was nowhere in sight. When her brows rose, he smiled. His smile was so close to her face it was almost blurred; she could pretend it was something else.

Her arms ached. Her head hurt. And her cheek? It continued to bleed.

The fieflord set her down upon the bed. He reached out to touch her cheek and she shied away—which overbalanced her. She really was pathetic. “Don’t.”

The word displeased him; his face fell into its more familiar, cold mask. “I have no intention of harming you,” he replied. “And I seek to take no screaming mortal children to my bed. Those who are fortunate enough to come to the Long Halls come willingly.”

“Willingly.” She snorted.

“Kaylin, I have perhaps made an error in judgment, and you have paid for it. Do not presume overmuch.”

Another warning. Too many warnings. She fell silent. But she did not let him touch her again, and he didn’t try. They were quiet for some time.

“My clothing?” she asked at last.

“It will return to you when you leave the Long Halls. It is, as I said, unsuitable.” He rose. “We will return you to your Hawks for the moment.”

She waited until he had reached the door; when he did, she rose. “I want to cover my arms,” she said.

He said nothing; he simply waited.

Her legs were wobbly, and she made her way, clumsy and entirely graceless, toward him. When he offered her an arm, she bit back all pride and took it; it was either that or fall flat on her face.

Teela had taken her drinking when she had been a year with the Hawks. It had been something like this, but with more nausea. Not a lot more, though.

When he opened the door, the forest was gone.

In its place? A long hall. Funny, that. She felt magic as she walked through the door, and she swore under her breath. It was a Leontine curse. It would have shocked Marcus, if anything could.

“You will be weak for two days,” he told her quietly, “if only that. Eat what you can eat. Drink what you can drink. Do not,” he added softly, “be alone.”

“Why?”

“I do not understand all of what happened, Kaylin. But I understand this much … by presence alone, you activated the seal. In my life, I have never seen it burn. And believe that I, and the mages at my disposal, have tried.

“It is not, however, of the seal that I speak.”

“Your name,” she whispered.

“Indeed. The giving of a name is never an easy thing. It is, in essence, the most ancient and most dangerous of our rituals. It is a binding, a subtle chain. In some people, it destroys will and presence of mind.”

“You mean—”

“I did not think it would have that effect upon you, but it was a risk.”

Her brows rose. He smiled, but it was a sharp smile. “Barrani gifts,” he said softly, “have thorns or edges. Remember that.”

Like she could forget.

“I would take the name from you,” he added softly, “but I think I would find it difficult. And if the taking of the name was costly to you, the giving was costly to me.” Clear, from the tone of his voice, which one of the two mattered more.

“Do not let go of my arm,” he told her quietly. “We will meet some of my kin before you are free of the Hall, and two who have not seen the outer world for much, much longer than you have been alive. They will be drawn to you.” His lips lost the edge that was his smile. “They will not touch you, if they see the mark—but it bleeds, Kaylin, and you will not let me tend it.”

“I couldn’t stop you,” she said quietly.

“No. But in this, I have chosen to grant you volition. It is another lesson.”

The Hall was, as the name suggested, long. It was tall as well, but not so tall as the great hall that opened into the Halls of Law. No Aerian wings graced the heights; they were cold, serene and perfect. Funny, how lack of living things could make something seem so perfect.

They walked for minutes, for a quarter of an hour, passing closed doors and alcoves in which fountains trickled clear water into ancient stone. She didn’t ask where the water came from. She didn’t really want to know.

But when they came at last to the Hall’s end, there were tall doors, and the doors were closed. An alcove sat to the left and right of either door, and in each, like living statues, stood a Barrani lord.

She could not tell, at first glance, if they were male or female. They were adorned by the same dark hair that marked all of their kind, and it, like their still faces, was perfect. Their skin was white, like alabaster, and their lids were closed in a sweep of lashes against that perfect skin.

She heeded the warning of the fieflord; she held his arm. He walked beside her until the Barrani flanked him, and then he said, softly, “The doors must be opened.”

Eyelids rolled up. Nothing else about the Barrani moved. Kaylin found it disturbing.

The doors began to swing outward in a slow, slow arc. She stepped toward them, eager to be gone; the fieflord, however, did not move. She turned to look at him, and her glance strayed to the two Barrani on either side of her.

They were speaking. Their voices were unlike any Barrani voice she had ever heard, even the fieflord’s: they were almost sibilant. They reminded her of ghosts. Death that whispered the name of Nightshade.

But when they reached out to touch her, she froze; the dead didn’t move like this. Fluid, graceful, silent, they eyed her as if she were … food.

“Peace,” the fieflord said coldly.

They didn’t seem to hear him. Icy fingers touched her arms. Icy fingers burned. Unfortunately, so did Kaylin.

The hand drew back.

“She is yours?” one of the two said. His voice was stronger now, as if he were remembering how to use it. The words held more expression than any Barrani voice she had heard, which was strange, given that his face held less.

“She is mine,” Nightshade said quietly.

“Give her to us. Give her to us as the price of passage.”

“You forget yourselves,” he replied. He lifted a hand, and thin shadows streamed from his fingers. They passed over her shoulder, around the curve of her arm, without touching her. She froze in place, because she was suddenly very certain that she didn’t want them to touch her.

“They smell blood,” he said quietly.

It made no sense.

“They are old,” he added softly, “and they have chosen to reside here in Barrani sleep. They are also powerful. Do not wake them, Kaylin.”

“You rule here.”

“I rule,” he said softly, “because I have not chosen to join them. They are outcaste, and they have been long from the world.” He paused, and then added quietly, “They were within the castle grounds, even as you see them, when I at last took possession. They fought me. They are powerful, but they seldom speak.”

“They’re speaking now.”

“Yes. I thought they might. You have touched the seal,” he added.

“Will they leave?”

“No. They are bound here, but the binding is old and poorly understood. Blood wakes them. It is a call to life.”

The lesson, then. She raised a hand to cover her cheek.

“She bears the mark,” one of the two said. It confused Kaylin until she realized they weren’t talking about the fieflord’s strange flower; they were talking about the ones on her arms. “Leave her here. Do not meddle in the affairs of the ancients.”

“She is mortal,” the fieflord replied. “And not bound by the laws of the Old Ones.”

“She bears the marks,” the Barrani said again. “She contains the words.”

“She cannot.”

Silence then. Shadows.

“She is almost bound,” a flat, cold voice at last replied. “As we are bound. We grant you passage, Lord of the Long Halls.”

Kaylin passed between them in the shadow of the fieflord, but she felt their eyes burning a hole between her shoulder blades, and she swore that she would never again walk through a shadow gate, not even if her life depended on it. She’d been hungry before, but never like they were, and she didn’t want to be whatever it was that satisfied that hunger.

“You will not speak of them here,” he told her.

“I—”

“I understand that you will speak with Lord Grammayre. I understand that, if you do not speak well, he will summon the Tha’alani.”

She shuddered. “He won’t,” she snapped.

“You already bear the scent of their touch. It is … unpleasant.”

“Only once,” she whispered, but she paled.

“Do not trust Lord Grammayre overmuch,” he said softly.

“Your name—”

And smiled. “Not even the Tha’alani can touch it. No mortal can, if it has not been gifted to them, and if they have not paid the price. The name, Kaylin Neya, is for you. If he questions you, answer him. I give you leave to do so.”

“Why?”

“Because the Lord of Hawks and the Lord of Nightshade are bound by different laws. We have different information, and I am curious to see what he makes of you, now.”

He stepped through the doors, and they began to close slowly behind them. When Kaylin turned back to look, she saw only blank, smooth walls. But at their edges, top and bottom, she saw the swirled runic writing with which she was becoming familiar.

“Not even I can free them,” he said quietly. “I tried only once.”

She started to say something, and to her great embarrassment, her stomach got there before she did; it growled.

His beautiful black brows rose in surprise, and then he laughed. She wanted to hate the sound. “You are very human,” he said softly. “And I see so few.”

Which reminded her of something. “Severn,” she said.

“Yes. Perhaps the last of your kind that I have spoken to at length.”

“Why?”

The laughter was gone, and the smile it left in its place was like ebony, hard and smooth. “Ask him.”

“He won’t answer.”

“No. But ask him. It will amuse me.”

When they left the next hall, she heard voices.

One was particularly loud. It was certainly familiar. She closed her eyes, released the fieflord’s arm, and stumbled as she grabbed folds of shimmering silk, bunching them in her fists. She lifted the skirt of her fine dress, freeing her feet, and after a moment’s hesitation, she kicked off the stupid shoes, the snap of her legs sending them flying in different directions. The floor was cold against her soles. Cold and hard.

Didn’t matter.

She recognized both the voice and its tenor, and she began to run. The lurching movement reminded her of how weak her legs were. But they were strong enough. She made it to the end of the hall, and turned a sharp corner.

There, in a room that was both gaudy and bright—as unlike the rest of the Halls as any room she had yet seen—were Severn, Tiamaris and the two Barrani guards that had accompanied the Lord of Nightshade.

The guards held drawn weapons.

Severn held links of thin chain. At the end of that chain was a flat blade. She had never seen him use a weapon of this kind before, and knew it for a gift of the Wolves.

And she didn’t want to see him use it here.

“Severn!” she shouted.

His angry demand was broken in the middle by the sound of her voice. It should have stopped him.

But he stared at her, at the dress she was wearing, at the bare display of shoulders and arms, her bare feet, at the blood—curse the fieflord, curse him to whichever hell the Barrani occupied—on her cheek, before he changed direction, started the chain spinning.

And she knew the expression on his face. Had seen it before a handful of times in the fiefs. It had always ended in death.

This time, though, she thought it would be the wrong death. She moved before she could think—thought took too much damn time, and she came to stand before him—before him, and between Severn and the fieflord, who had silently come into the room as if he owned it.

Which, in fact, he did.

“Severn!” She shouted, raising her hands, both empty, one brown with the traces of her blood. “Severn, he didn’t touch me!”

Severn met her eyes; the chain was now moving so fast it was a wall, a metal wall. He shortened his grip on it, but he did not let it rest.

“Severn, put it down.”

“If he didn’t touch you, why are you dressed like that?”

“Put it down, Severn. Put it away. You’re here as a Hawk. And the Hawklord wants no fight with the fieflord. You don’t have the luxury of dying. Not here.”

If he did, she wasn’t so sure that his would be the only death. “Don’t start a fief war,” she shouted. Had to shout. “He didn’t touch me. I’m not hurt.”

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

“The mark is bleeding,” she snapped back. “And I don’t need you to protect me, damn it—I’m a Hawk. I can protect myself!”

He slowed, then. She had him. “I don’t need protection,” she said again, and this time the words had multiple meanings to the two of them, and only the two of them.

His face showed the first emotion that wasn’t anger. And she wasn’t certain, after she’d seen it, that she didn’t like the anger better.

“No,” he said at last, heavily. The chain stopped. “It’s been a long time since I could. Protect you.”

Tiamaris, Dragon caste, said in a voice that would have carried the length of the Long Halls, “Well done, Kaylin. Severn. I believe it is time to retreat.” And she saw that his eyes were burning, red; that he, too, had been prepared to fight.

“Your companions lack a certain wisdom,” the fieflord said, voice close to her ear.

“What did you do here, fieflord?” Tiamaris’s voice was low. Dangerous.

“What you suspect, Tiamaris.”

“That was … foolish.”

“Indeed.” He made the admission casually. “And I am not the only one who will pay the price for it. Take her home. She will need some time to recover.”

Severn slowly wrapped the chain round his waist again. He stepped forward and caught Kaylin as her knees buckled. His grip, one hand on either of her upper arms, was not gentle. Kaylin did not resist him.

“The deaths, fieflord?” Tiamaris said quietly. Or as quietly as his voice would let him.

“Three days,” the fieflord said, “between the first and second.”

“And it has been?”

“One day since the last death. If there is a pattern, it will emerge when we find the next sacrifice.”

“Why do you call them that?” Kaylin looked up, looked back at him.

“Because, Kaylin, it is what we believe they are. Sacrifices. Did the Hawklord not tell you that?”

No, of course not, she thought, bitter now. Bitter and bone-weary.

“You will return to the fiefs,” he added softly. “And to the Long Halls.”

“The hell she will,” Severn said.

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then the fieflord turned and walked away.

It was, of course, night in the fiefs.

And they were walking in it. Or rather, Severn and Tiamaris were walking; Kaylin was stumbling. Severn held her up for as long as he could, but in the end, Tiamaris rumbled, and he lifted her. He was not as gentle as the fieflord, because he was not as dangerously personal.

She preferred it.

“Kaylin,” Tiamaris said quietly. “Do you understand why the fiefs exist?”

She shrugged. Or tried. It was hard, while nesting in the arms of a Dragon.

“Have you never wondered?”

“A hundred times,” she said bitterly. “A thousand. Sometimes in one day.”

Tiamaris frowned stiffly. “I can see that Lord Grammayre had his hands full, if he chose to attempt to teach you.”

“I don’t need history lessons. They won’t keep me alive.” The words were a familiar refrain in her life; they certainly weren’t original.

“Spoken like a ground Hawk,” Tiamaris replied.

She shrugged again. Although he wore no armor, his chest was hard. “I believe,” he said quietly, “that I will let Lord Grammayre deal with this.”

“No,” she said, tired now. “I think I know what you’re asking.”

“Oh?”

“You’re asking me if I’ve ever wondered why the Lords of Law don’t just close the fieflords down permanently.”

“Indeed.”

“Hell, we’ve all wondered that.”

“There is a reason. I think you begin to see some of it. The fiefs are the oldest part of the city. They are, with the exception of ruins to the West and East of Elantra, the oldest part of the Empire; they have stood since the coming of the castes.

“I … spent time in the fiefs, studying the old writings, the old magics. I was not alone, but over half of the mages sent with me did not survive. The old magics are alive, if their architects are not. There are some places in the fiefs that could not easily be conquered without destroying half of the city, if they could be conquered at all. They almost all bear certain … markings.”