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Kaylin’s shoulders sagged. She walked past Caitlin and out of the room.
The Hawklord’s tower boasted a fine set of stairs, one that curved upward against the inner wall in a continuous stacked spiral. There was good stonework here, girded by brass rails, and the echoes went up forever, bouncing against the walls.
Or against the breastplates of the guards on the various landings Kaylin walked past.
She nodded at them; they nodded back. If they were inclined to smirk, they managed to hide it, which was just as well. A brawl on these steps could cause injury. And, following it, more injury of an entirely Leontine nature. Marcus didn’t approve of Hawks fighting each other in the Halls; he’d long since given up on Hawks squabbling after too many drinks in their private time.
The door to the Hawklord’s inner sanctum, with its much-hated magical ward, was as usual closed. Kaylin, grimacing, placed her palm squarely against that ward and waited while the familiar prickle of magic ran up her arm and caused her hair to almost stand on end. The first time she’d touched it, she’d sworn her head off. Unfortunately for Kaylin, the most severe of the words occurred as the doors were opening; the domed cavern that the Hawklord ruled had reminded her of the unpleasant existence of acoustics. The Hawklord himself reminded her about the correct use of language in his presence.
It mostly consisted of “don’t talk” in exactly the wrong tones. Kaylin wasn’t a firm believer in soft-spoken threats, but if anyone could make her one, it was Lord Grammayre, the Aerian who held the title of Lord of Hawks.
She walked across the threshold.
The Hawklord, pale white wings turned toward her, was waiting in the silence. When he turned, she could see a piece of paper in his hands. It seemed to command most of his attention.
And given what it probably said, that wouldn’t last long.
She paid him the obeisance the difference in their ranks demanded: She knelt. This was only partly because she was his junior in every possible way. The other part—the one that wanted to remain a member of his Hawks—was not above a little groveling, especially when there were no other witnesses. It wasn’t the worst thing she’d done in his presence by a long shot.
His eyes, narrow gray, traveled along the top of her head as if they could scalp her and keep the scalp as an object lesson for other Hawks. Marcus, all bristling fur and exposed fangs, was no match for the Hawklord when it came to intimidation. Kaylin had annoyed them both in her time, and had more than ample experience as proof.
He handed her the piece of paper. She had to rise to take it. “That,” he said, “was the third member of the Imperial Order of Mages you’ve managed to offend in less than ten days.”
She recognized Leontine scrawl; it was bold, dark, and put holes in the paper.
“He started it” was not an option, and she bit the words back, swallowing them. “I’ve never been a good classroom student,” she said at last.
“We’re well aware of that,” he replied, his words dry enough to catch fire. “We’ve attempted to keep your academic transcripts from the mages who have condescended to tutor you. Unfortunately, they seem to think it necessary to review them.”
She said nothing, as it seemed safest. It usually was, and she frequently failed to remember this until after her mouth had engaged. “I don’t understand why you even think it’s necessary,” she said at last, when his silence grew a little too weighty.
He raised a pale brow. His eyes, Aerian to the core, were shading to blue, which was never a good sign.
“The Hawks don’t employ mages,” she said woodenly. “You are not a mage.” “Then why—”
He lifted a hand. “I have always considered patience a virtue when dealing with the Hawks,” he told her, “but I find that, as usual, you tax precious resources.
“Therefore, I will be blunt. You are a Hawk, but you are also—as you well know—blessed or cursed with magical ability. You can’t control it well enough—you don’t understand what it is, or what it can do. It is the opinion of experts that the power itself can be wielded in a manner similar to the way that mages channel their power.”
Which experts?
“Do not even think of asking, Kaylin.” He knew her far too well.
“It’s Festival,” she snapped. “We’re up to our armpits in work—if we’re lucky. We’ve just gotten the tally of so-called diplomats and Important Visitors—” she managed to wedge a powerful sneer into each syllable of the last two words “—and we’re undermanned, as usual.
“I don’t have time for this right now.”
“I will agree that the timing is not the most opportune,” the Hawklord said in a tone that implied the exact opposite. “But as the timing is not of our choosing, we have little choice.
“I understand what you’re attempting to do, Kaylin,” he added, his voice smoothing to velvet. “And I will now insist that you cease this. It is unworthy of you. You can insult and infuriate every mage who crosses the threshold on my behalf, if it pleases you. But they will not stop coming. Do you understand?”
She didn’t.
He raised a hand to his brow. As gestures went, it was human, and even if it hadn’t been, it was transparent. “The Emperor himself has taken an interest in your education.”
They were not the words she expected to hear. They were also the last words she wanted to hear. Unfortunately, lifting her hands to stop her ears wasn’t an option.
“How much does he—”
“He is the Emperor. It is to the Emperor that the Lords of Law are beholden. How much do you think he knows?”
The words too damn much flitted about, but she tried to ignore them.
“You fought a Dragon,” he added quietly. “You fought the only Dragon who has ever survived being outcaste among his kin. The battle was felt all the way to the palace. Some diplomacy was necessary—you can thank Tiamaris for his intercession—and there was, perhaps, a surfeit of actual facts offered. But enough was said. The Emperor knows that you bear the marks.”
Her eyes fell to her sleeves automatically; they always did when anyone spoke of the strange writing that ran the length of her arms and her thighs. They had been symbols to be hidden when she had been a child on the edge of adulthood; she knew them now as words. Or names. But whose words and whose names were still mostly mystery—and in Kaylin’s universe, it was vital that they stay that way. She was used to them, in any case; the new ones bothered her more.
“He is,” the Hawklord continued, “also aware that you bear a Barrani mark.”
“Everyone is,” she said.
“Were it not for Tiamaris, he would not be inclined to … give you the benefit of the doubt. He has shown some forbearance in this. But he has made clear that you present a danger if you cannot be trained. And it seems that you intend to demonstrate your intractability in the worst possible way. For you,” he added, as if it were necessary. “I will send for another member of the Imperial Order of Mages.”
She was stony silence defined.
“If you happen to offend him before the week is out, you will be suspended from active duty. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
She was aware that he had just won someone the office betting pool, but could not for the life of her remember who. Just as well. She waited for a few minutes, but he had turned from her, and was now studying the opaque surface of the room’s long mirror. The fact that it was opaque made it clear that whatever he was looking at was keyed to his eyes alone.
She started toward the door.
“One other thing, Kaylin.”
“Sir?”
“If you are late for any more of these lessons, it will come out of your pay.” “Yes, sir.”
Kaylin and punctuality lived on separate continents. Another happy source of petty betting in the office. She looked at his profile; he hadn’t bothered to look in her direction.
But something about his expression was stiff and wrong. She watched the lines around his mouth deepen until his face looked like engraved stone, but less friendly. Whatever it was he was looking at was something he didn’t like—and at Festival time, Kaylin could honestly say she had no interest whatsoever in knowing what it was.
She chose the better part of valor and left. Quickly.
Tain, his black hair flowing in a healthy trail down his back, was at the center of the crowded office when Kaylin made it back down the stairs. As he was the only Barrani in attendance, it answered a question, albeit not a pressing one.
He smiled as she slid silently through the open arch and along the nearest wall. Even without breathing, it was impossible for her to sneak up on a Barrani Hawk; she knew. She’d been trying for seven years.
“Kaylin,” he said, looking up. His eyes were that shade of bottomless green that made jewelry superfluous. It meant, on the other hand, that he was happy. Or as happy as any Barrani ever got when they weren’t killing someone or winning some invisible-to-human-eyes political struggle.
If Leontines were incapable of acting, Barrani were their opposite; they were incapable of not acting. Immortal, stunningly beautiful, and ultimately cool, they had a quiet love of showmanship. It had taken her years to understand that, as well.
They were, however, plenty capable of being smug, which Tain was now demonstrating to the office staff; he had coins in his hand.
Had she won, she probably wouldn’t. But there was no such thing as a friendly bet among the Barrani, and no one—not even the men and women who were nominally his equals in rank—wanted to be in the wrong kind of debt to a Barrani.
Still, it didn’t stop them from betting. She prided herself on being the person who had introduced the office to this pastime; it was one of the few that she’d enjoyed in her childhood. Then again, anyone who grew up in the wrong part of town—the huge neighborhood known colloquially as the fiefs in the right parts of town—enjoyed gambling. There wasn’t much else about the life to enjoy.
Certainly not its brevity.
She shrugged and made her way to Tain. “You won?”
“It looks that way.” His teeth were chipped; they made his smile look almost natural. They also made him obvious to anyone who hadn’t known the Barrani for months. They looked so much alike, it was hard for humans—or mere humans, as the Barrani often called them—to tell them apart. Much malicious humor could be had in mistaken identity—all of it at a cost to the person making the mistake.
His smile cooled slightly as his gaze glanced off her cheek. There, in thin blue lines that could be called spidery, was the mark of Lord Nightshade—the Barrani outcaste Lord who ruled the fief that Kaylin had grown up in. The mark meant something to the Barrani, and none of it was good.
If she were honest, it meant something to her. But she couldn’t quite say what, and she was content to let the memory lie. Not that she had much choice; Lord Nightshade was not of a mind to remove the mark, and short of that, the only way to effect such a removal also involved the removal of her head. Which, according to Marcus, she’d barely miss anyway, given how much she used it.
In ones and twos the dozen or so Barrani—well, fourteen, if she were paying close attention—that were also privileged to call themselves Hawks had been brought by either Tain or Teela to look at the mark.
In one or two cases, it was a good damn thing Teela was there; they were almost unrestrained once the shock had worn off, and the restraint they did have was all external.
Kaylin had gotten used to this.
And the Barrani, in turn, had grown accustomed to the sight of the offending mark. But they didn’t like it. They didn’t like what it meant.
Kaylin understood that the word they muttered under their breaths was something that loosely translated into consort. Very loosely. And with a lot more vehemence.
Pointing out that marking a human in this fashion was against both Barrani caste law and Imperial Law had met with as much disdain as Kaylin ever showed the Barrani.
“Fieflord, remember? Nightshade? Not exactly the biggest upholder of Imperial law?”
But she didn’t take offense. It was hard to; they were Barrani. A Barrani who wasn’t arrogant was also not breathing. And in a strange way, it was a comfort; they were enraged for her.
Of course, there was a tad more possessiveness in that anger than she’d have ideally liked, but beggars couldn’t be choosy.
“Where’s Teela?” she asked Tain. The two were often inseparable.
Tain’s silence had a little of the Hawklord’s grimness. “Either you’re not going to answer,” she said carefully, “or you are, and I won’t like it.”
“Why would you be displeased?” he said. “You are.”
“It is a matter that concerns the Barrani.” Cold and imperious.
“This means you won’t answer.”
“No,” he said, the word measured and stretched thin, given it was only a meager syllable, and that, in Elantran. Elantran was the default language of the Hawks, because everyone spoke it. Unfortunately, the labyrinthine paper trail of the Law itself was written in Barrani. He could have spoken his mother tongue, and she’d have been able to follow it with the ease of long practice, Barrani being one of the few things she’d been able to learn while locked in a classroom and chained to a desk, metaphorically speaking.
“You’ve looked at the duty roster?” he added.
“Not recently. It’s not like it hasn’t been changed six times a day for the last week. Why?”
He gestured toward the board that had been nailed into the wall by an annoyed bureaucrat. There, also nailed into the wall, was a long piece of paper that bore several marks and a few gashes—that would be Marcus.
The only time the duty roster was this complicated was during the Festival. She approached the board and scanned it carefully.
“I’m not on it!”
“Lucky you. You want to talk to so-called merchants who can’t spell and can’t plot their way out of a wet bag?” “It’s better than the alternative.” “And that?”
“Talking to—or listening to—mages who couldn’t police their way out of a murder.” She frowned. “What’s this?” she asked him softly.
“Good girl.”
Anyone else, she would have hit. Barrani, on the other hand, required more cautious displays of annoyance.
“High Court duty?” She frowned. Looked at the names. There were Aerians among them, and Barrani; there were almost no humans.
Severn was one of them.
“What the hell is High Court duty?”
“Have you paid no attention to office gossip?”
“I’ve been busy being insulted by Imperial mages.”
“This Festival,” he said quietly, “the castelord has called his Court. It has been a number of years since he has chosen to do so. I don’t think you were even alive for the last one.”
She had never been good in the classroom. She had never been bad outside of it. “Teela’s gone to Court,” she said flatly.
“She was summoned, yes.”
“But she’s—”
“She has not been summoned as a Hawk,” he continued quietly. “She will take her place among her peers in the High Caste.”
Kaylin almost gaped at him. “Teela? In the High Caste Court?”
His expression made clear that there was nothing humorous about it, although Kaylin wasn’t laughing. He nodded. The nod was stiff for a Barrani nod; they kind of epitomized grace.
“Is she in trouble?”
“She may well be.”
“Why?”
