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“Bastard,” she whispered, but with no heat.
His hand ran over her rounded back. As if she were his, part of his pride. “I brought you this,” he said, when she at last straightened, her stomach still unsettled.
She knew what he held.
It looked like a bracer, but shorter, and it was golden in sheen. Three gems adorned it, and to the untrained eye, they were valuable: ruby, sapphire and diamond.
But Kaylin knew they were more than that. “I won’t lose control,” she started.
His eyes were as narrow as they ever got. “It wasn’t a request, Kaylin. I know where you’re going.”
“He told you?”
His nose wrinkled as he looked at the mess around her feet. And on it.
“Oh.”
“Put it on,” he told her, in a voice that brooked no refusal. A sergeant’s voice.
“Marcus—”
“Put it on, Kaylin. And if I were you, I wouldn’t remove it for a while.”
She took the bracer from his hands and stared at it. It had no apparent hinge, but that, too, was illusion. She touched the gems in a sequence that her fingers had never forgotten: blue, blue, red, blue, white, white. She felt magic’s familiar and painful prickle at the same time as she heard the unmistakable click of a cage door being opened.
“Did he tell you to make me do this?” she asked bitterly.
“No, Kaylin. I think he trusts you to know your own limits.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” he said softly. But he waited while she slid the manacle over her left arm. “In as much as you can know them, I do.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know what it means.”
And she did. “I—I haven’t lost control since—”
“You weren’t in the fiefs, then.” He paused for just a moment, and then added, “Kaylin, your power—no one understands it. Not even the Hawklord. He’s kept it hidden. I’ve kept it hidden. He is the only one of the Lords of Law who knows what can happen when you lose it. And he’s the only one who should.”
She closed her eyes. “The Hawklord—”
“Trusts you. More than that, he shows some affection for you. I have come to understand his wisdom. Even if you can’t be on time to save your life or my reputation.” He turned away, then. “Leave the mess. I’ll have someone else clean it up.”
She still didn’t move.
And heard his growling sigh. He turned back. “What you did with Sesti, what you did with one of my own pride-wives, is not something that either the Hawklord or I could have predicted could be done.”
“Sesti was—”
“Kaylin. You wouldn’t have gone to Sesti if you thought she’d survive the birthing on her own. You would never have risked the exposure. You’ve been damn careful. You’ve had to be. But you saved her, you saved her son. You saved mine. I wouldn’t make you wear this if you were going someplace where I thought you’d have to—”
She lifted her hand. “It’s on, Marcus,” she said, weary now.
The last thing she wanted to think about was power.
Because she’d discovered over the years that it always, always had a price, and someone had to pay it.
CHAPTER
3
You’re an hour late,” Severn snapped.
“You had something better to do?” She ran a hand across her eyes and winced; it was her blistered hand.
“Than being stared at by a bunch of paper-pushing Hawks?” He spit to the side.
“We didn’t ask you to transfer,” she snapped back. Not that she was fond of being stared at, either—but she was used to it, by now. Besides, it meant that Marcus’s fur had settled enough that the rest of the office had decided it was safe to come back to work.
“In the event that it comes as a surprise,” Tiamaris said, in his deep, neutral tone, “Kaylin is not known for her punctuality. She is known, in fact, for her lack—even by those outside of the Hawklord’s command.”
Used to it or not, no one liked to be reminded that they were a public embarrassment. Kaylin flushed.
“Here,” Severn said, and tossed her a vest. It was made of heavy, molded leather, and it was—surprise, surprise—her size. It was the only armor she wore. “Your quartermaster moves. You’re sure you’re just a Hawk?”
“What else would I be?”
His expression shifted into an unpleasantly serious one. “A Shadow Hawk,” he said quietly.
“I don’t live in the shadows,” she murmured uneasily.
“Since when?”
When she offered no answer at all, he added, “Put the armor on, Kaylin.”
She grimaced.
Another habit that had come from the fiefs; you didn’t want anything weighing you down, because if you had to bolt, you were doing it at top speed, and usually with a bunch of armed thugs giving chase. Severn had changed; he wore leathers without comment. They suited him.
He also wore a long, glittering chain, thin links looped several times around his waist like a fashion statement. She doubted it was decorative.
But she had her own decorations.
Neither of them wore the surcoats that clearly marked the Hawks—or any of the city guards. No point, in the fiefs, unless you wanted to be target practice.
“You’ve got expensive taste,” he said, staring at the edge of the manacle that peered out from beneath her tunic. The gold was unmistakable. “I guess you get better pay than the Wolves do. We don’t even get a chance to loot the fallen.”
Tiamaris eyed them both with disdain.
“Where’s your armor?” she asked the Dragon. Anything to change the subject.
“I don’t require any.”
She raised a brow. She’d heard that a dozen times, usually from young would-be recruits. But then again, none of them had ever been a Dragon.
“We’re not covert,” she snapped.
“No one is, in the fiefs.” His shrug was elegant. It made boredom look powerful.
Severn had a long knife, a couple of obvious daggers.
She had the rest of her kit, her throwing knives, the ring that all Hawks wore. She twisted the last almost unconsciously.
“Why were you late this time?” Severn asked quietly.
She started to tell him to mind his own business, and managed to stop herself. She was about to go into the fief of Nightshade with him. She wanted to kill him. And she knew what the Hawks demanded. Balancing these, she said, “I went back for the rest of the information in the damn crystal.”
“Without us?”
She nodded grimly.
“How bad?”
“It’s bad,” she said quietly. Really, really bad. But she didn’t share easily. “There were two deaths. Two boys.”
His expression didn’t change. He’d schooled it about as well as she now schooled hers. “When?”
“Three days apart.”
Tiamaris’s brows rose. “Three days?”
She nodded quietly.
“Kaylin—I’m not sure how aware you were of what happened the last time … you were a child.”
“I was aware of it,” she whispered. “Because I was a child in the fiefs.”
“There were exactly thirteen deaths a year for almost three years. We could time them by moon phase,” Tiamaris added. “The Dark moon. At no time in the previous incident did the deaths occur at such short intervals.”
She nodded almost blankly.
“Where did the new deaths take place?” Severn’s voice was harsh.
“Nightshade,” she said bitterly, shaking herself. “The fieflord must have been in a good mood. We didn’t lose anyone while we were investigating the deaths.”
Severn whistled.
“Timing or no, it was the same,” she added hollowly. “As last time. The examiner’s reports were also in crystal.”
“And the Hawks’ mages?”
She nodded. “Their reports are there as well. Or rather, their précis on the findings. It’s all bullshit.”
“What kind of bullshit?”
“The unintelligible kind. You take magic exams in the Wolves?”
He shrugged. “Take them, or pass them?”
In spite of herself, she laughed. “Me, too.” And then she forced her lips down, thinning them. Remembering Severn’s last act.
He knew, too. He looked at her, his gaze steady. “Elia—Kaylin,” he corrected himself, “it wasn’t—”
But she lifted a hand. She didn’t want to hear it.
Severn took a step closer, and her hand fell to a dagger. He ignored it. Her hand tightened.
Rescue came from an unexpected quarter.
“If you’re both ready,” Tiamaris said, glancing at the very high windows in the change rooms, “we’re late.”
“For what?”
“There are only so many hours of daylight, and not even I want to be in the fiefs at night.”
The Halls of Law receded slowly.
Tiamaris was tall; his stride, long. Kaylin had to scamper to keep up, and she hated that.
She might have been taller had she not hit her meager growth spurts in the winters. That had been in the fiefs, and food had been scarce. Now that food wasn’t? She hadn’t gained an inch. She was never going to be tall. And Tiamaris? He’d probably never gone hungry in his life.
No, be fair. She had no idea what a Dragon’s life was like. She only knew her own. And she knew that Severn, damn him, had no problem matching the dragon step for step. Severn? He’d gone hungry as well. Bone hungry, thin, gaunt with it. They’d weathered those seasons together.
She was veering dangerously close to the land of what-if, and she gave herself a harsh, mental slap. She’d bandaged her hand, but she clenched it nervously, looking at Severn’s back. He’d grabbed the crystal. He’d tried to save her the pain. Why?
She could almost imagine that he’d really changed. Had emerged from the fiefs, become something different. She hated the thought. And why? Hadn’t she? Wasn’t that exactly what she’d done?
Glancing up, she saw the flag of the Hawks on its tower height, and she stopped a moment, hoping to hear its heavy canvas flap in the wind. But she was earthbound. Funny, how it was the unreachable things that had always provided her anchor.
No, she thought, almost free of the shadows cast by the Towers. She hadn’t changed anything but her name. And now she was going back home.
Because she served the Hawklord, and the Hawklord commanded it.
The richest of the merchants liked to nest in the shadows of the Halls; they lined the streets, their expensive windows adorned by equally expensive dress guards and clientele. There were jewelers here—and what good, she thought bitterly, did they do? You couldn’t eat the damn things they produced, and they didn’t stop you from freezing to death in the winter—and clothiers, a fancy word for tailor. There were swordsmiths, fletchers, herbalists and the occasional maker of books. When she’d first heard of those, she’d snuck in with a pocketful of change to see what betting odds were being offered, and on who. Oh, that had kept the company in laughs for a week.
What was absent were brothels, which lined the richer parts of the fiefs. Here, in the lee of the Halls, there were no girls on window duty, beckoning the drunk and the young, idle rich; she’d found the lack hard to get used to.
