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She kept this to herself as she rose unsteadily to her feet, wondering, as she often did, if Nightshade deliberately made the portal passage as nauseating as possible to give himself the edge in any negotiations or conversations.
“I hardly think it required,” was his amused—but chilly—reply. He was, of course, standing beneath the chandeliers. But his eyes were a shade of blue at odds with the situation, and the color immediately put Kaylin on guard.
“You are cautious,” he replied, “as is your wont.” He offered her an arm. If she maintained physical contact with Nightshade, the Castle didn’t throw up new doors or halls and didn’t distort the ones she’d seen before. She reached for the bend of his elbow and stopped as the small dragon reared up on its unimpressive legs, extending his head, his small jaws snapping at air. It was, sadly, the air directly between Kaylin and the Lord of the Castle.
“What is this?” he asked softly, his brows folding in almost open surprise—for a Barrani.
“My newest roommate,” she replied tersely. She pulled her hand back, and the small dragon settled—slowly—around the back of her neck, looping his tail around the front.
“It lives with you?”
She had not come to the Castle to talk about the small dragon. “Yes.”
“I…see.” He withdrew the offered arm. “Are you aware of what it is?”
“A small, winged lizard,” she replied. The small dragon hissed, but did so very quietly. She knew Nightshade would have some interest in the small creature, and at the moment, she didn’t care. A cold certainty had settled into the center of her chest, constricting breath.
His expression chilled. “You are, in the parlance of mortal Elantra, in a mood.”
“I’m angry, yes.”
“Have I done something to merit your anger?” As he spoke, he walked; if she wished to continue the conversation, she had no choice but to follow. “Have you made preparations for our journey to the West March?”
It wasn’t the question she’d expected. “I’ve been given a leave of absence from the Halls of Law, yes. I will be traveling with Teela.” The halls of the Castle looked almost familiar, and they led to the room in which Nightshade habitually received guests. Or at least guests who wore the tabard of the Hawk on the other side of the bridge.
“That is not entirely what I meant.” He led her to the long couch in front of the flat, perfect table that graced the room’s center. There, silvered trays held very tastefully arranged bread, nuts, and flowers.
“You know that the High Court is traveling there.”
“Indeed.”
“How exactly are you going to survive?”
“Is my survival of concern to you?” He smiled.
She ignored the question and the smile; the latter was harder. “You’re Outcaste, and even if the Barrani don’t view Outcastes the way the Dragons do, they won’t be able to ignore your existence if you’re constantly in their presence.”
“No,” he agreed. “Be that as it may, I have reasons to believe in this case they will hold enmity and decree in abeyance.”
“Reasons you’d like to share?”
“At this point, Private Neya, you would not understand them; I believe they will become clear with time. My status, however, given the debt owed you by the High Lord, should not materially affect your own.”
She lifted a hand to her cheek, which deepened his smile and lightened the color of his eyes. “Yes.” The smile faded. “It is not, however, concern for my welfare that brought you to my Castle.”
“No. You already know what I want to ask.”
His eyes, when they met hers, were dark, his expression smooth and cool as winter stone. “Ask,” he said softly. When her silence extended for minutes beyond awkward, he smiled. It was thin. “I would not have all effort in this conversation be mine. You made a decision, Kaylin. You have come to my fief, my Castle, to ask a simple question. Ask. I will not lie.”
She exhaled. “There’s been a series of disappearances in Tiamaris.”
His expression didn’t shift. At all. “Continue.”
“One of the people who disappeared in the fief wasn’t a native. He crossed the bridge on a dare.”
At that, Nightshade frowned. “That is unfortunate.”
“Is it more unfortunate than the other disappearances?”
“Of course. That mortal was a citizen of the Empire over which a Dragon claims ownership.”
“And the others were citizens of a fief over which a different Dragon claims ownership.”
“A Dragon who is in the unheard-of position of also owing loyalty to the Eternal Emperor. I do not envy him the loss of an Imperial citizen within the boundaries of his fief; he will almost certainly be called upon to explain it.”
“An explanation has presented itself.”
She felt him stiffen, although nothing about his expression or posture changed at all.
“And that?”
“A Barrani Lord of some power appears to have been involved.”
“Ah. You call him a Lord?”
“The Barrani who have power aren’t generally content to let it remain unrecognized.”
His smile was slender, sharp, and laced with an odd approval. “True. Why do you believe a Barrani Lord to be involved?”
“Because you do,” she replied, the words as tight and sharp as his smile.
“Perhaps that is merely the arrogance of my kind.” He rose. “If events are of significance, of consequence, we assume our own to have a hand in them.”
“So do we. Your own.” She could find no warmth with which to smile. “I saw him.”
Once again he stilled. “You…saw him? The Barrani you accuse?”
“I saw him,” she repeated, “in the border zone.”
* * *
After a significant pause, Nightshade spoke. “You are so certain, Kaylin, that the individual you saw in the border zone was Barrani?”
In response, she folded her arms. “I am.”
“The border areas are often…amorphous. What is seen—”
“I don’t want to play this game.”
“Ah.” A brief smile. “Which game, then, would you indulge in, in its stead?”
“You’re aware that I’m currently resident in the Imperial Palace?”
The smile vanished. “I was not.”
“You are aware that the only home I’ve ever had I could truly call my own was destroyed yesterday?”
Silence. It was not an awkward silence—but it was. Nightshade resumed his seat, the table dividing them. “I was not.” He glanced at the small dragon. “How was it destroyed?”
“An Arcane bomb.” Her throat was inexplicably tight; it was hard to force words out. The small dragon rubbed the underside of her jaw with the top of his head.
He asked nothing, watching her.
“The magical signature left in the wake of the bomb is not currently in the records of the Imperial Order.”
He nodded, as if the information were irrelevant.
“But that same magical signature can be found in the fief of Tiamaris, near the border, where I saw the Barrani we believe to be involved in the disappearances.”
“And your question?”
“People have been disappearing from the fief of Tiamaris for the past week—that we’re aware of. How long have people gone missing from your streets?”
“If I say they have not?”
“I’ll redefine the word ‘missing.’” She pushed herself to her feet, feeling too confined by the stillness enforced by sitting. “Was the unnamed Barrani Lord buying people from your fief?”
“It is not, in the fief of Nightshade, an illegal activity. Imperial Laws have no jurisdiction here. Nor do they in any other fief; Lord Tiamaris may style himself after Imperial rule, but it is choice, not dictate.”
“Is Imperial gold currently in what passes for your coffers?”
“We use the resources we have, Kaylin, and we sacrifice the things of lesser import to us.”
She swallowed.
“You have done the same in your short past. Perhaps you comfort yourself by telling yourself you had no choice. If it will comfort you in a like fashion, pretend that I, likewise, felt I had no choice.”
“How?”
“Pardon?”
“How am I supposed to pretend that? You’re the fieflord here. If someone came to threaten you—in any way—the Castle would probably eat them. They wouldn’t make it out alive unless it also suited your purpose. You won’t—you probably can’t—starve. You won’t freeze. All-out magical assault probably couldn’t destroy these walls.
“Given all that, how am I supposed to pretend you had no choice?”
He raised a brow. “I am almost surprised that you’ve considered making that effort. Very well. Some two or three dozen of the people who live in the fief have been extracted from its streets, with my permission. I received compensation for their loss.”
“Where were they sent?”
“Why do you suppose they were sent anywhere?”
“Because there’s a door in Tiamaris that opens into the outlands.”
Nightshade’s eyes were indigo. “Do not go near that door,” he said, all pretense of civility lost. “Do not touch it.”
“It’s not in your fief, and yes, Tiamaris is well aware of its existence. He protects his citizens.”
“As the shepherd protects his sheep.”
Stung, she said, “No. As a decent ruler protects his people.”
“Is there no difficulty within this city that will not, eventually, entangle you? I ask it, Kaylin, if I cannot command it. You do not understand the danger.”
“I understand it better than any of the people who were lost to it!”
“Kaylin.” He rose, and the way he stood made her conscious of the difference in their height, their weight, and their reach. She stiffened, bending at the knees as if she would, at any minute, have to throw herself bodily out of harm’s reach. The small dragon reared once again, spreading his wings just behind her head, like a slender, glass fan.
Nightshade ignored him this time.
The small dragon had ways of making himself heard, at least when he wanted Kaylin’s attention; Nightshade, however, was not the kind of man one bit on the ear or chin. Instead of maintaining his rigid posture on her left shoulder, the familiar launched himself into the closing space between the fieflord and the Hawk, buoying himself up with the silent motion of delicate, translucent wings.
He looked, to Kaylin’s eye, tiny and fragile in his defiance, and she almost reached out to grab him and pull him back, but she didn’t want to injure those wings.
What Nightshade saw must have been different; he froze in place, lifting a hand as if to indicate harmlessness. Kaylin didn’t buy it. The small dragon wasn’t buying it, either. He lifted his neck and looked down at the fieflord before opening his jaws to exhale. The motion was that of a dragon in miniature, but what he exhaled, along with his high-pitched, barely audible roar, was not a gout of flame; it was smoke.
Opalescent, swirling gray spread like a dense cloud before Nightshade; it was amorphous enough—barely—that Kaylin could see the rise of the fieflord’s brows, the widening of his eyes. He moved—he leapt—to the left, rolling across the floor and coming to his feet as if he were an acrobat.
The dense smoke didn’t follow him, but it didn’t really dissipate, either; it hung in the air like a small cloud. A small, glittering cloud. They both stared at the small dragon, who pirouetted in the air, which was the only time he took his eyes off the fieflord.
Nightshade spoke three sharp words; the hair on the back of Kaylin’s neck instantly stood on end, and the skin across her forearms and legs went numb. The small dragon yawned and returned to his customary perch, which would be her rigid shoulders. He rubbed her cheek with the side of his face.
Three lines appeared beneath the cloud, pulsing as if they were exposed golden veins. Nightshade spread his hands; his fingers were taut but steady. His eyes were a blue that was so close to black Kaylin couldn’t tell the difference. All her anger—her visceral, instinctive rage—guttered. The whole of his attention was focused on the cloud, and as he moved his hands, the lines that enclosed it shifted in place, until they touched its outer edge. When they did, their color began to change. It was a slow shift from gold to something that resembled the heart of a hearth fire.
Nightshade spoke softly in Barrani; the words were so low Kaylin couldn’t catch them. The magical lines engraved in air brightened, losing their red-orange tint.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice almost as low as his. Barrani had better hearing.
“Step away from the containment,” he told her. “If you do not know what it is, I have some suspicion. It is not safe, not even in the Castle.” Although he spoke to her, he didn’t take his eyes off the cloud. Not even when the small dragon squawked. “You are mortal,” he continued. “Mortals walk the edge of hope; it is a sharp edge.
“The question you came to ask has only one answer—an answer you knew before you arrived. Would it truly have offered any comfort were I to lie? Or would your hope blind you so badly you might choose to believe?”
She was silent.
As if he were Sanabalis, he said, “What purpose would such a lie serve?”
“I don’t know. Reputation. Community standing. Tact—the desire not to hurt someone else’s feelings.”
He frowned.
