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“I’m trying.” And so much for the effort. “When I went to the High Court, I saw—I learned—how Barrani are named.”
“Yes.”
She glanced at him. Rock was more expressive.
“Look, Sanabalis—I was born mortal. I was born the usual way. We don’t have true names. We don’t even understand them.”
“No. You are not bound by them, either.”
“But—the Barrani don’t wake until they’re named.”
“No.”
“Do the Dragons?”
He failed, deliberately, to answer.
“From what I understand, the name is what they are, somehow. What you are.”
“That is also our understanding.”
“If his name changed, would he be—”
“He is not what he was, Kaylin.”
“Yes—but he remembered everything. He lied, based on that knowledge. He tried—”
“Yes.” Sanabalis lifted a hand. “He did those things.”
“So you can lose your name and still remember your whole life?”
Tiamaris cleared his throat. “Had you a true name,” he told her quietly, “the Arkon would not have been swayed.”
But she did. She had a name. She had no idea what it meant to have one, but she had taken one burning, glowing rune for herself from the waters of Life beneath the Barrani High Halls, and she still bore it. Severn knew it. Severn could call her.
But…he had never tried to use the name against her. She wondered if he even could.
“Wait.”
“Yes?”
“You have a name.” She spoke to Tiamaris.
“Indeed, Kaylin.”
“But—”
“If I am not accompanied by you, I am not to enter Barren,” he replied.
Her eyes narrowed. “You know something you’re not telling me.”
“It does not affect our mission.”
“And your mission,” Sanabalis said quietly, “starts now. Private,” he added, rising, “understand that you are now seconded—as a Hawk—to the Imperial Court. What we have discussed in these rooms is not to be discussed with anyone save a member of that Court. If your Sergeant chooses to demand a report, the report you file must first go through the Court. Lord Grammayre may ask about your progress. You will take Lord Tiamaris to these meetings, and you will let him do the talking. Is that clear?”
“As glass.”
“Good.” He didn’t smile. “Your life depends on it. You have not yet met the Emperor, but that will not save you if you cross the lines he has drawn. Understand this,” he told her quietly. “Because if you do, nothing I can do or say will affect his decision.
“You may, however, question Tiamaris at your leisure, as he is part of the Court and privy to Court matters. If you have any leisure time.” He gestured and the door opened. So much for economical use of power. “You have been given permission to remove your bracer. I suggest you wait until you’ve crossed the Ablayne.”
“Oh, I will,” she told him. Because that was where she usually threw the damn thing.
Tiamaris escorted her out of the Imperial Palace. They’d spent most of the day there, one way or the other, and Kaylin, glancing at the Halls of Law in the distance, grimaced. “Barren.”
“You don’t want to return.”
“No. Never.” She could afford to be that honest with Tiamaris.
“Kaylin—”
“But it just so happens we’re in luck.” She used irony here as if it were a blunt weapon. Against the force of Dragon humor, it pretty much had to be. “I met an old friend of mine on the way from Evanton’s shop.”
He raised a dark brow. “An old friend?”
She nodded. “She expected to see me. I sure as hells didn’t expect to see her. But she had a message for me. How much can we stall?”
“Stall?”
“How long can we hold off our investigation? A day? Two?”
“If there’s reason for it, but—”
“It had better be a damn good reason?” Tiamaris nodded.
“We can probably go there now,” she told him quietly. “It depends on how desperate we want Barren to think I am.”
“Desperate?”
“He’s sending a messenger with a letter for the Hawklord,” she told him, voice flat. “I can either fail to show or intercept the message before it crosses the bridge. If we go now, I have no doubt at all that we’ll be taken to Barren—but if I go now, he’ll know he has the upper hand.
“If I wait, he’ll be pretty damn certain he has it anyway—that’s Barren all over.”
“Does he?”
She swallowed. Glanced at the river that had been the dividing line of her life. “I don’t know,” she finally said.
“Then decide, Kaylin. You have the advantage of personal experience. I don’t.”
She nodded, grateful to him for at least that. If Barren thought he had the upper hand, he wasn’t likely to be careless; that level of laziness would never have kept the fiefs in his hands.
Finally, she exhaled. “We’ll take the risk. I’m not sure how I’m going to explain you, though. I don’t suppose you’d care to wait?”
“I would be delighted to wait,” he replied, in a tone of voice that was clearly the effect of serving, however briefly, with the Hawks. “I would not, however, survive it should it come to light.”
“Figures.” She shrugged and began to walk. “Let’s see what we’re up against.”
A Dragon brow rose over bronze eyes. “Please tell me,” he said, as he fell in step beside her, shortening his stride so he didn’t leave her behind, “that that is not the extent of your ability to plan.”
“I don’t generally make plans when I have no information.”
“Or at all?”
She shrugged. “I don’t see the point of planning everything when things could change in an eye blink. Let’s see what Barren’s got. We can plan then.”
“It is a small wonder to me,” Tiamaris replied, although he didn’t stop moving, “that you’ve survived to be the insignificant age you currently are.”
“Stand in line.”
CHAPTER 8
The Ablayne moved through the city in what was almost a circle. Kaylin, who had never been outside of the city, thought nothing of it; Tiamaris, who had, explained why. She tried to listen. But as she passed the bridge that connected her to Nightshade, and the part of her past that she wasn’t ashamed of, his words joined the buzz of the street’s crowds.
Although the merchant market was not located on the banks of the Ablayne, enterprising independents—who were often forced to move damn quickly, by tolls, Swords, and legitimate merchants—often set up small stalls near the river. Why, she never quite understood, but there was traffic.
She didn’t walk quickly and Tiamaris, while a Dragon Lord, wasn’t stupid. He stopped at the midpoint between the two bridges.
“Kaylin.”
She glanced at him.
“The Imperial Court knows what the Emperor knows,” he told her quietly. She nodded.
“There is nothing to hide, not from me.”
“It’s not about hiding,” she told him, although she wasn’t certain she wasn’t lying. “Barren,” she said, swallowing, “is different. Look, it doesn’t matter. We’re going.” She started to walk, and she walked quickly. This wasn’t her beat; she didn’t have to fall into the steady, quiet walk that could take hours.
“What concerns you, now?”
She almost said nothing. But he was going where she was going; he had some right to know. “I don’t know what he wants from me. I don’t know what he knows about me. He implied he knows a lot, but that was always what he did. Imply knowledge, let people assume you know everything, and then pick up what you didn’t know from what they let slip.” She paused and then added, “He knows why I went to the Hawklord’s tower. He knows I’m not dead. He doesn’t know what happened.
“But there are only two conclusions he can draw. The first, that I tried to carry out his orders. The second, that I turned on him immediately.”
“The latter is the concern.”
“Let’s just say he’s a fieflord. You don’t get to keep your title—if it’s even that—if people can turn on you without consequences.”
“And you’re afraid of him?” Tiamaris’s brows rose. Both of them. He placed one hand on her shoulder. “You were thirteen years old when you left Barren. By the reckoning of your kind, you were barely out of childhood. You are not that child, now.” He glanced at her wrist, and she grimaced.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I almost forgot.” Opening the bracer and tossing it into the nearest trash heap or stretch of moving water was one of life’s little luxuries; today, it just didn’t seem to matter. She pressed the gems along the inside of the wrist in sequence, and waited for the familiar click of freedom. When it came, she pulled the bracer free, exposing, for just a moment, the blue-black lines, swirls, and dots of the marks that encompassed over half her body.
“I had these marks, then,” she told him softly, pulling her arm back and tossing the bracer in a wide, glinting arc that ended with an audible splash. “I thought they would kill me.”
“They may, yet,” was his reply. From his expression, she thought it was meant to be comforting. Dragons had pretty damn strange ideas of what passed for comfort. He began to walk; it was clear he knew the way to Barren.
“How many other fiefs did you visit?” Kaylin asked him.
“Pardon?”
“You entered Castle Nightshade, before you met me.”
“Ah.”
“Did you go to Barren?”
“No. I went, however, to Illien in its time. The borders are largely the same. Or,” he added, “they were.”
“And the others?”
“Some of the others.”
“Why?”
This particular nothing stretched out for a while. Which meant he wasn’t going to answer. She obligingly changed topics as the bridge across the Ablayne came into view. It was a narrower bridge than the one that crossed from Nightshade.
Standing on the other side of the narrow bridge, lounging against the rails, was a figure she recognized.
Morse.
Morse smiled. The scar that marred the line of her upper lip stretched as she did, whitening. Morse’s smile could scare a much larger man into silence. Kaylin had seen it happen. “You’re tricked out,” she said, nodding at the surcoat.
“You’re not.”
“Not more than usual.” Morse ran her fingers through the short brush of her dark hair. The ring that pierced her left eyebrow glinted in the sun, which was near its height. “Had some word that you might be by,” she added, still lounging.
Kaylin shrugged. “I bet. I’m here.”
“And not that happy about it?” Morse rose, then. “Happens. Who’s your friend?”
“A Hawk,” Kaylin replied. It was always touch and go, with Morse, unless the seven years had changed her a lot.
“No kidding.” The smile deserted her face. “We don’t need groundhawks on this side of the border, if you take my meaning.”
“Fine. Tell Barren that.” Kaylin folded her arms across her chest.
Morse was silent for a long moment, and Kaylin watched the ring that pierced her brow. It was—it had been—a decent indicator of Morse’s moods, which could turn on a half-copper without warning. If it dipped or it rose too rapidly, you were on shaky ground. If it stayed steady, regardless of the words or the threat, you probably had a few more guaranteed minutes of life.
It was steady, now.
