Cast in Peril

“Bad news?” he asked as he moved to let her sit. He reached into the pack at his feet and pulled out the bracer that prevented her from using magic. She’d thrown it over her shoulder on the run, because she knew it would return to Severn. It always did. “Midwives?”

She took the bracer, slid it over her wrist, and closed it. “Two in the morning.”

“And I heard that I should offer congratulations on the candle.”

The triumph of a lit candle had evaporated. She sat and folded her arms across her desk in a type of lean that implied her spine was melting. “They took Nightshade up on his offer,” she said, speaking to the wood grain and the interior of her elbows.

“Did you expect them to do anything else?”

“…No.”

“Then?”

“…I’ll be absent for eight weeks. Teela thinks it’ll actually be longer.” She lifted her head and turned to look at Severn. “You’re not coming, either.”

He shrugged; it was a fief shrug, and it was a tense one.

“So you’ll be out patrolling with some other Hawk, not me, and gods know if they won’t decide that you’re more effective working with someone else. Marcus might give my beat away.”

“Marcus won’t—”

“And the midwives won’t be able to call me. They’ve had four emergencies in the last two weeks. If those had been part of the eight, at least four people would have died.”

“At least?”

“I think they could have saved two of the babies.”

“But Nightshade’s information may well crack the Exchequer case.”

“May well? It had better tie it up in expensive cloth with bows on top.” She lowered her chin to the desk again. “But putting the Exchequer in prison—or under the ground—wouldn’t save the lives of those mothers. I’m hard put to see which lives it would save. Besides the Hawks.”

Severn tactfully steered the topic away from her visions of mortality. “Teela’s going with you?”

“Yeah. She’s a Lord of the Barrani Court, and apparently whatever this jaunt to the West March is about, it’s ceremonial. She’s got an invitation to go.”

“Well, keep an eye on her.”

Kaylin almost laughed. “Me and what army? You know Teela.”

Severn didn’t have a chance to answer. Bellusdeo appeared at his elbow. “They’ve finally let me out,” she said in accented but reasonable Elantran. She frowned. “You don’t look very happy. The magic lesson didn’t go well?”

“No, the lesson went very well.”

“This is how you react to a good lesson?”

Kaylin snorted but pushed herself off her desk and out of the chair. “No. It’s how I react to bad news.”

When Bellusdeo’s brows rose, Kaylin could almost hear them snap. “What bad news?” she asked in almost entirely the wrong tone of voice.

“The Barrani have some sort of ceremony out in the West March, and I’m obliged to attend it.”

“Why? You’re not Barrani.”

Kaylin’s mouth stopped flapping as her brain caught up with it. She glanced at Severn for help, but he had nothing to offer. “I can’t really talk about it,” she finally said. “Not without having my throat ripped out.”

Bellusdeo, however, knew that this wasn’t literal. It had taken her a couple of days to figure that out, because Marcus was still his usual suspicious and unfriendly self when dealing with Dragons. “I almost think I will apply for a job in the Halls,” she said, her voice cool. “I’ve heard that the Hawks are very multiracial, and they’ve even had a Dragon as a member before.”

“Marcus would be your boss,” Kaylin replied quickly.

“Yes. I’ll admit that is a deterrent. Are you ready to go home?”

Kaylin had been ready to go home an hour ago, which would have been during the meeting with the Hawklord, Sanabalis, and Marcus. She nodded, looking out the window, which was silent for the moment. “We have time to grab something to eat—and get changed—before we head to the palace and the charming Lord Diarmat for tonight’s personal torture session.”

* * *

The streets wouldn’t be empty for hours yet, but they weren’t quite as crowded as they had been on the way in, and Kaylin couldn’t be late, in a career-detrimental way, to enter her own apartment. She could, however, miss the few remaining farmers in the market, so she hurried to that destination, Bellusdeo in tow. Bellusdeo had a few questions about food acquisition, but in the main, the worst of them had been answered on their first foray into the market, much to Kaylin’s frustration and the bemusement of the farmers.

It was helpful to have Bellusdeo here, on the other hand, because the baskets in which food was generally carried home were still in said home. They made their way back to the apartment; by this point, Bellusdeo had no difficulty finding it.

The Dragon practiced her Elantran in the market, and she practiced it in the street. Kaylin tried—very hard—to elide all swearing from her commentary and her answers to Bellusdeo’s questions, and only in part because it was slightly embarrassing to have to explain what the rude words meant.

But she was hungry and slightly discouraged as she made her way to the apartment, her thoughts mostly on the midwives, Tiamaris, and the total lack of privacy one room afforded.

She unlocked the door, entered her room, and made a beeline for the mirror; when it showed a total lack of calls, she relaxed. She let her hair down, literally, and tried to put the stick where she could easily find it in the morning. She then went to the kitchen for a couple of plates. There was still water that was potable, and the food she’d bought for the evening didn’t require anything as complicated as cooking.

Bellusdeo took a seat on the bed, which was fair; the chair was a clothing repository at the moment, and Kaylin wasn’t so exhausted that she needed to fall over and sleep. The bed, however, creaked ominously as it received Dragon weight, and while it hadn’t yet collapsed beneath Bellusdeo, the sound reminded Kaylin of the unhatched egg that now resided beneath her. She quickly shoved the remainder of a hard, smooth cheese into her mouth and tried not to look as if she was diving in a panic for the box that contained the egg.

Bellusdeo snorted. Kaylin had the grace to look a little embarrassed as she unwound the various bits and pieces of cloth that served as poor insulation for the egg during her absence.

The egg was a pale shade of purple in her hands.

“It wasn’t that color earlier,” Bellusdeo observed, leaning back on her hands and stretching.

“No, it wasn’t. Tomorrow, if it hasn’t hatched, I’m going to bring it with me to the office.”

“Oh, your Sergeant will love that, I’m certain.” She frowned and looked up at the shutters of the window as they popped open.

Kaylin, still holding the egg, winced and rose. “Sorry about that,” she said, because the shutter had narrowly avoided the back of Bellusdeo’s head. “They’re warped. I keep meaning to see about getting them replaced—”

“When you say ‘replaced,’ do you mean you intend to build new ones?”

“Hells, no. I couldn’t make new shutters that would be half as good as these, and these are no good. Let me tie them together.”

Bellusdeo, however, was looking at something in her lap. She rose, her expression freezing solid. It wasn’t her expression that was the problem: it was the color of her eyes. They’d shifted from lazy gold to a deep, deep red without stopping for anything else in between. “Kaylin,” she said, moving toward her and toward the door, as well. “The shutters—”

But Kaylin didn’t need to hear more, because something flew in through the open window.

Chapter 2

Kaylin’s first instinct was to ram the shutters shut, but she was carrying the egg, and she’d have to set it down—or drop it. “Get down, Bellusdeo.” Her voice was sharp, harsh.

Bellusdeo caught Kaylin by the shoulders and dragged her from the window as Kaylin ducked out of any line of sight that wasn’t at a severe angle and tried to see where the crossbow bolt had landed. She didn’t find it.

“Kaylin, we have to leave.”

“If there’s more than one assassin,” Kaylin countered, “running out the door in a panic is playing into their hands.” She grabbed for the egg’s carton as a second bolt flew through the open window.

Except it wasn’t a bolt. Kaylin felt the hair on her neck instantly stand at attention, which was bad; the marks on her body began to burn, which was worse. She couldn’t see what she’d clearly heard land on the floor of her apartment, but she didn’t need to see it to know—suddenly and completely—what it was. Her eyes widened.

“Gods—Bellusdeo—it’s an Arcane bomb—”

The room exploded.

* * *

Wood flew out in a wide circle: shutters, parts of the wall, wooden floor slats, and the soft wood that formed their base. Her mattress sent feathers into the air, and the feathers were caught in a blue, blue sizzle, becoming a miniature lightning storm. There was so damn much magic in the room, Kaylin’s entire body was screaming in pain on the way to total numbness.

Which was better than being dead.

Bellusdeo had her arms around Kaylin and her back toward the window; her body was pressed against the egg that Kaylin still held between almost nerveless palms. The world expanded around them; shards of mirror flew past Kaylin’s cheek and lodged in the Dragon’s hair. The floor beneath their feet cracked and gave; the joists above their heads did the same, bending up toward someone else’s floor. Wind whipped whatever wasn’t nailed down through the air—which would, in this apartment, be everything.

Everything except the two women who stood at what had once been its center. Kaylin could see a sphere surrounding them; it was a soft, pale gold, like the color of a living word—but there were no words to shed it.

“Are you all right?” she shouted.

Bellusdeo nodded. Her eyes were still bloodred, and her hands were like bruising pincers.

“I didn’t know you were so powerful—”

Bellusdeo’s brows rose into her very disheveled hair. “I’m not. This isn’t me.”

“It’s not me, either.” Kaylin looked at the bracer on her wrist; its gems’ lights were flashing so quickly they looked like chaos embedded in gold. Somewhere above, below, and to the right, people began to shout and scream as Kaylin looked at her hands.

For once, Kaylin was barely aware of the civilians.

The egg’s shell had cracked, and bits of it were flying in the unnatural wind the Arcane bomb had caused. It didn’t matter. What was in—what had been surrounded by—that shell stared up at her. It was small and pale; it was also, like slightly smoky glass, translucent. Everything except its eyes. Its eyes were disturbing; they had no irises, no pupils, no whites. They would have been gray or silver, except for the constant, moving flecks of color that seemed to all but swim across their surface. Like opals, she thought.

Or, remembering the effects of the Shadow that had destroyed the watchtowers in the fief formerly known as Barren, like malignant storms.

Bellusdeo looked down, as well. She tried to move out of the way, but since she didn’t actually let go of Kaylin’s shoulders, it was awkward. Dragons weren’t known for their flexibility. She hissed, a wordless sibilant. “Kaylin, your arm.”

“The bracer does that some of the time. Ignore it.”

“I wasn’t talking about your bracer. Your—your marks, Chosen.”

Kaylin frowned. She couldn’t take her eyes off the small creature—and only in part because she didn’t want to. It had the form and shape of something reptilian, but not the actual scales. A long neck, a long tail, and a delicate head with a tapered jaw, the beast now sat in her palms.

“Kaylin.”

It opened its mouth, revealing translucent teeth, translucent tongue, and some hint of translucent upper palate. “I think—I think it’s yawning.”

“I think you’re crazy,” Bellusdeo snapped in Elantran. In Barrani, she added, “Is that the right word? It means insane.”

“Yes.” But when it stretched its neck, its tongue flickering like a snake’s tongue might, she saw the last little bit of its body as it slowly unfurled wings. For something that fit more or less in the palm of her hand—well, a little less—it had long wings. Long wings; eyes like opals.

“Kaylin—”

Kaylin shook herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at the spot where the floor wasn’t anymore. It happened to be far beneath her feet, but she hadn’t yet fallen. Neither had the weightier Bellusdeo. “What about the marks?”

“If you can manage to divert your gaze by a few degrees, you’ll see for yourself.”

Kaylin looked slightly over the small creature’s head. “Oh.”

“Oh, you say.”

One of the marks from Kaylin’s arm was floating in the air above the small creature’s head, hovering, in miniature, the way the spoken True Words did. “Bellusdeo, can you read it? Can you tell me what it means?”

Bellusdeo shook her head. “I was taught very little of the ancient tongue.”

“But you’re as old as the Arkon—”

“Yes. I was not, however, considered adult in my Aerie, because I wasn’t. What I learned, I learned by subterfuge and charm. Mostly charm.”

“It wouldn’t kill you to try that on Diarmat. It might, at this point, kill him.”

The rune began to thin as Kaylin watched it. No, not thin—compress. Three horizontal strokes began to shift their position, making a jumble of a pattern that had, for a moment, looked tantalizingly familiar. There was a short, fat dot in the center of the pattern, and slender, vertical squiggles to the left; those were pulled in as well, until there was something the shape of a very odd funnel just above the hatchling’s delicate head.

It flicked its tongue and then roared. Which came out as a pretty pathetic squawk. As it inhaled to try again, the funnel above its head began to descend; the creature opened its mouth and…began to eat it. Or drink from it.

“Bellusdeo, pinch me. Oh, never mind—you already are.”

Bellusdeo, however, was staring at the creature. “Do you understand what you have in your hands?” she finally asked in a hushed voice.

“A baby Dragon?”

“Remind me to speak to the Emperor about the standards of your biological education,” was the scathing reply. “Anything that small and delicate that hatched in the Aerie would be crushed or suffocated before it got out of its shell.”

“Well, it looks like a Dragon, except for the color.”

“It looks nothing like a Dragon!”

Kaylin decided not to press the point.

“And if it were, we’d both be dead.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a familiar,” Bellusdeo replied. “They’re almost legendary creatures. No, let me rephrase that: they are legendary creatures. I’ve never seen one before.”

“Then how do you know what it is?”

“Familiars, according to legend, are born in magical conflagration.”

“From eggs?”

“Funnily enough, the legends didn’t specify. This one, though, was.”

“What can you tell me about familiars? From legend, I mean,” she added hastily.

“Very little. They were the creatures of sorcerers, and in one particular story, the sorcerer who sought to summon a familiar destroyed half a world in the attempt.”

“Half a world?” Kaylin looked around the wreckage. “This doesn’t even qualify, if that’s the level of magic you’re talking about.”

Bellusdeo shrugged. “Legends are neither scientific nor historical. Arcane bomb? Is that what you called it?”

“Yes.” She frowned. “I didn’t see it; I could feel it. But I can see the sphere that absorbed most of the impact. On us,” she hastily added, looking at the debris.

The Dragon looked around the ruins of what had once been Kaylin’s apartment. Or rather, her building, since the one above and the one below weren’t going to be suitable living quarters for anything but desperate mice.

“Is this,” Kaylin nodded at the small dragon, “the source of the sphere?”

“Pardon?”

“The sphere. The one surrounding us.”

Bellusdeo closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Kaylin was happy to see that they were orange. “You are correct,” she said softly in Barrani. “There is a sphere surrounding us. You can see that without casting?”

Kaylin nodded. “It doesn’t seem like a strong spell.”

Bellusdeo’s eyes rounded fully. Apparently this was idiocy beyond even her expectations of mortals. “In what way?”

Kaylin was now looking, eyes narrowed, at every standing surface in the surrounding apartment. “No signature,” she replied, still examining the walls.

The small dragon turned its head toward the large one; its tongue flicked air, and Kaylin saw that its tongue was now the same color as its eyes. The rune was gone.

* * *

Kaylin was almost afraid to move, but she did—slowly—the small dragon cupped in her hands, the large Dragon attached to her shoulders. She didn’t tell Bellusdeo to let go, because she had a hunch that the sphere was generated somehow by the creature Bellusdeo had called a familiar, and it was the sphere that seemed to be allowing her the slow, timid steps she was taking through what was essentially air with splinters thrown in. She didn’t want Bellusdeo to fall.

But she looked at what remained of the floor where the Arcane bomb had exploded, and she could see the harsh illumination of a sigil against the broken floorboards; it was huge and splashed up against what remained of the walls.

“What are you looking for? The device?”

“No, that’s gone. I’m looking for the signature of the mage who created it. Arcane bombs are usually designed to have up to three different magical signatures, and none of those signatures is guaranteed to correspond to an actual criminal.” She frowned.

Bellusdeo looked shocked. Outraged. It instantly made Kaylin feel better. “What do you mean, an actual criminal? Isn’t the creation of a magical item of that nature criminal enough?”

Since it was more or less an annual rant on Kaylin’s part—if she was being generous—Kaylin had no arguments to offer in response. “This one’s different.”

“How?”

“I can only see two, and frankly, they seem a bit on the small size.”

“Maybe it wasn’t what you thought it was?”

“Or maybe the whole egg-hatching-in-conflagration thing did something with most of the magic the item contained.” She glanced at the creature, who had curled up so that his head was practically under one of his wings. He appeared to be sleeping. “He’s really, really cute,” she whispered.

“Kaylin, please. Focus.”

“Yes, Bellusdeo,” she said in exactly the same meek tone she sometimes used to ward off Marcus-level irritation.

* * *

Kaylin was wondering how in the hells they were supposed to leave the apartment and make their way down to the presumed safety of the street below, because the floors between here and the door—which had incidentally been blown clear off its admittedly flimsy hinges and probably lay in pieces on the stairs below—were nonexistent.

Bellusdeo, however, didn’t appear concerned. Enough of the wall was missing that she could probably go Dragon for a few minutes and jump out; the fall wasn’t likely to harm her in her Dragon form. Going Dragon was technically illegal, and even if Kaylin was certain there would be dispensation granted for the act—and she was—Bellusdeo hesitated.

They were saved by the beat of frantic—and familiar—wings. “Kaylin!”

Clint had come. And if Clint was here, so were other Aerians. He shouted her name again, the tenor of the two syllables laced with fear so visceral it was painful. Kaylin shouted back, “We’re here, Clint. We’re alive. We’re all right. There’s no floor, though, so we’re not sure how to get out.”

“You’re alive?”

She rolled her eyes and lifted her voice again. “No, I was lying. I’m dead and I’m here to haunt you and pull at your flight feathers for the rest of your natural existence!”

There was a pause and then a harsh bark of laughter; not just Clint’s, either.

“Glad you think it’s funny, Clint. Now can you fly your butt in here and carry us out?”

* * *

Kaylin Neya, Private, and a Hawk of long standing even if she hadn’t technically been on the payroll as a Hawk for much of that tenure, loved her job. It was a defining responsibility, and it actually helped people. Or at least hindered frauds like the ones on Elani street. But at the end of a long day at work, what she usually wanted was to go home, eat—when there was food in the house—and curl up in bed.

The workday had ended, and she’d gone home for the last time. She just hadn’t realized it.

From the cobbled stones of the street, she looked up at the very impressive hole in the wall of the building that had previously contained that home. She also looked at the debris on the streets and at the radius of its scatter. Clint was breathing heavily by the time he’d landed with Kaylin, because she’d insisted he take Bellusdeo out first.

“Kaylin?”

She glanced up at Clint. His wings were high; they weren’t extended, but they made clear he was ready to fight if necessary. The skies were alive with Hawks. At this time of night, the Halls weren’t exactly fully staffed; someone had sent out almost everyone they could get their hands on with short notice. She’d always loved to watch Aerians fly.

“Kaylin.”

She looked at Clint again. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a little distracted.” She lifted the small creature cupped in her palms. He was warm, and he was the only thing, at the moment, that seemed to be providing any heat. Her clothing, or the clothing she’d been wearing—and at least she hadn’t stripped it off and settled into bed before the bomb had come sailing through the damn window—was covered in small shards of silvered glass and splinters. It was now the only clothing she had. That and whatever she’d shoved into the bottom of her locker in the Halls.

“Kaylin,” Clint said again. This time, he accompanied the words with action: he lifted her in his arms. She wanted to tell him she was fine, she really did—but she was cold, and she was trying very hard to think like a Hawk and not like an upset civilian. Clint turned to Bellusdeo. “There’s an escort just above your head. The two to your left and right in the sky will be flying at window height; the third will fly down to shield you if there’s any perceived danger. We’re under orders to get you both back to the Halls of Law immediately.”

“Whose orders?” Bellusdeo asked. If she was shaken at all by what had happened, it didn’t show; Kaylin envied her the composure. She also felt more ashamed of her own lack.

“The Lord of Hawks,” Clint replied. “But expect there to be an Imperial Dragon or two at the Halls by the time you get there.”

* * *

Clint had been slightly optimistic—or pessimistic, depending on your viewpoint; there were no Imperial Dragons waiting for them at the office. The office, however, was fully staffed, mostly by Barrani Hawks. Caitlin was still at her desk, because Caitlin had been working long hours for the past several weeks; the Exchequer investigation had caused a second shift replete with its attendant paperwork and bureaucracy.

Marcus, eyes pretty much red, fur standing up everywhere it was visible, and claws fully extended, was at his desk. His lips were drawn up over his teeth; all he needed was foam or spittle and he’d look entirely rabid. Teela and Tain intercepted Kaylin as she made her way to said desk, her hands still cupping the only thing, besides Bellusdeo and the clothing on their backs, that she’d managed to save.

Marcus, however, didn’t appear to notice what she held in her hands. Given his fury, she was hoping he’d at least recognize her. The good thing about the Barrani—and good was entirely subjective—was that when they were seething in fury, their eyes shifted color. To blue. To midnight-blue, which in this light looked suspiciously like black. She knew this because Teela’s and Tain’s eyes were that color. But they hadn’t suddenly sprouted claws and they weren’t bristling with weapons; they looked decidedly less friendly, that was all.