Cast In Fury

Praise for MICHELLE SAGARA and THE CHRONICLES OF ELANTRA series

Cast in Shadow “First-rate fantasy. Sagara’s complex characterizations and rich world-building lift her above the crowd.” —New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong

“Intense, fast-paced, intriguing, compelling

and hard to put down … unforgettable.”

—In the Library Reviews

Cast in Courtlight “Readers will embrace this compelling, strong-willed heroine with her often sarcastic voice.” —Publishers Weekly

“Packed with action and adventure … integrating the conventions

of police procedurals with more fantastic elements.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

Cast in Secret “The impressively detailed setting and the book’s spirited heroine are sure to charm romance readers as well as fantasy fans who like some mystery with their magic.” —Publishers Weekly

“Remarkable … Filled with time-release plot threads and intricate

details, these books are both mesmerizing and unforgettable.

If you’re a fan of rich fantasy, this is the series for you!”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews, Top Pick (4½ stars)

About the Author

MICHELLE SAGARA has written twelve novels since 1991, when her first book, Into the Dark Lands, was published. She’s written a quarterly book review column for the venerable Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for a number of years, as well as dozens of short stories (or novellas, to be more exact).

In 1986 she started working in an SF specialty bookstore, where she continues to work to this day. She loves reading, is allergic to cats (very, which means they crawl all over her), is happily married, has two lovely children, and has spent all of her life in her native Toronto—none of it on Bay Street.

She started reading fantasy almost as soon as she could read, and fell instantly in love with Narnia; her next fantasy discovery was Patricia McKillip’s Forgotten Beasts of Eld. She moved on to The Hobbit, which led to her discovery of the life-changing The Lord of the Rings.

Her greatest hope for her writing is that someone will read it and be moved by the same sense of magic and mystery that she finds in the books she loves.

She will talk about writing, bookselling and books forever if given a chance. You’ve been warned.

Cast in

Fury

Michelle Sagara

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Daniel, Ross, Jamie and Liam

CHAPTER 1

Private Kaylin Neya was on time for work and the world hadn’t ended.

A few people’s lives, on the other hand, were in question. The amount of sarcasm Clint could put into shocked silence wasn’t illegal. Yet. But Kaylin had to grudgingly admit, as she glared her way past his lowered halberd and into the Halls of Law, the wings he extended were a nice touch.

The Aerie was almost empty, but it usually was at this time of day; the halls themselves were suspiciously quiet. Then again, maybe the Swords were actually earning their pay instead of milling around the halls looking smug. Even on her bleariest mornings, Kaylin couldn’t have missed the tension and worry that seemed to permeate the city streets recently, and keeping the peace, such as it was in a crowded city, was their job. For a change. The day was already looking brighter. She glanced up as a shadow passed her, and saw a lone Aerian traversing the space high above; he wasn’t practicing maneuvers, and his wings were extended for a steady glide. She still envied the Aerians their wings, a little.

She felt a smidgen of sympathy for the Swords but didn’t let it show. Much. It wasn’t often that the entire city had almost created a new sea coast by the simple expedient of being under most of the surrounding water. She was certain that stories and rumors about the larger-than-Imperial-edict tidal wave that had almost destroyed the harbor—for a start—had already been making the rounds, and growing bigger, if that was even possible, with each telling.

She was waved through—without sarcasm—when she approached the guards that separated the Hawks’ quarters from those of the Wolves or the Swords. The halls were vacant, and even the duty roster seemed to have gathered no darts.

“Oh, come on, guys,” she said, when the entire office stopped as she entered and approached Marcus’s desk. “I’m not always late. Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Have you checked the duty roster, dear?” Caitlin asked, from the safety of her desk. Not that she was ever in any danger; if the office had a collective mother, it was Caitlin.

“Oh. No.” She turned and, at Marcus’s bark of a command, turned back. Marcus’s growl was low, and it was short. He must be tired. And a tired Leontine was generally best kept happy by little displays of obedience. Or big ones.

The paperwork on his desk hadn’t really diminished but also, to Kaylin’s admittedly inexpert eye, hadn’t grown; the emergency that had pulled a number of his Hawks out of their normal routine had been resolved; there was no Festival for almost another year. She couldn’t quite see what would put him in a mood, but the fact that he was in one was obvious—having facial fur that bristled when you were ticked off was a dead giveaway. Having fangs that were almost as long as her fingers—the exposed parts of the fangs, at any rate—was another.

She came to stand a safe distance from the side of his desk, and waited. She even waited quietly.

Her reward? He lifted a stack of paper off his desk and dumped it in her hands. “This,” he said curtly, “is your problem.”

She looked down at what she had assumed were reports—or worse. The paperwork required of the office was, by all accounts, more arcane than any of the magic it also required. To punctuate this, the window very sweetly told the entire office what the hour was.

Kaylin really hated the window. There was money riding on how long it would take someone to accidentally break it, and money riding on who would have the accident. There weren’t many rules that governed office bets, but one of them was that you couldn’t place money on yourself. Which was fair but, in Kaylin’s case, prevented her from winning much.

“Well? Are you going to stand there all day?”

Kaylin looked down at the first sheet in the stack—and it was a large stack. “No, sir.”

“Good. Take note of the roster—your rounds have been changed.”

“Since when? I checked it last night.”

“Since then, obviously.”

She caught Caitlin’s frantic gestures out of the corner of her eye, and nodded. She considered going to the roster by way of Caitlin’s desk, but since they were in opposite directions and Marcus could watch you while his back was turned, she decided to actually go to the roster instead.

Her shoulders did a severe downturn when she saw what had been written beside her name. Even Severn’s name, at the same location, didn’t bring much cheer. The Imperial Palace?

“Don’t make that face,” Teela said, in her left ear.

Barrani could walk in perfect silence, but it took work, and Teela was usually too damn lazy. Kaylin’s little start did not, however, cause her to drop the bundle of paper. Given Marcus’s mood, that was good.

“What’s eating Marcus?”

Teela shrugged, long black hair rising and falling like a perfect curtain. Kaylin tried not to resent the fact that the Barrani weren’t governed by any Hawk regulations when it came to anything they wore. Regulations were, after all, supposed to be practical and as far as Kaylin could tell, Barrani hair never tangled, never got caught in anything, and never got in the way.

And they were gorgeous and lived forever. If it weren’t for the fact that they adored politics—preferably with blood and death—they’d be insufferable.

“He’s Ironjaw,” Teela said. “But he’s been in that mood since late last night.” Her tone of voice made it clear that it was serious enough that Kaylin should change the subject now, and Kaylin had known Teela for so many years it wasn’t possible to misinterpret.

“Figures. Save a city, get sent to the Imperial Palace.”

“It’s more impressive than being sent to the docks or the Commons.”

“More people to offend.”

“True, and some of them are significant.” Teela smiled. In all, it wasn’t a happy expression. “Have you even taken a look at what you’re holding?”

“I just got it, Teela.”

“You might want to read it over,” the Hawk replied. “Severn’s waiting in the West room. And so is the Dragon.”

The Dragon was generally known by the rank and file as Lord Sanabalis. One of Four Dragon Lords that comprised the Dragon contingent of the Imperial Court, he was also a member of the Imperial Order of Mages. He had graciously come out of teaching retirement to take on one pupil, that pupil being Kaylin herself. She tried to remember to be grateful, and usually succeeded when she wasn’t actively staring at a candle wick in a vain attempt to get it to catch fire.

Which, come to think, was most of the time.

But she knew her lesson schedule more or less by heart now, and none of those lessons started at the beginning of her day. Given her nocturnal activities, and the desire of the Hawks not to annoy the mages, Marcus had forbidden any lesson that started before lunch. It gave her a decent chance of not missing any.

So Sanabalis wasn’t here to teach her anything new about candles. She pushed the door open—it was open, so she didn’t have to go through her daily ritual of teeth-grinding while waiting for the doorward to magically identify her—and saw that Severn and Sanabalis were seated across the room’s only table, talking quietly.

They stopped when they saw her, and she slid between the door and its frame, dropping the stack of paper on the tabletop.

“Marcus is in a mood,” she told Severn.

“It’s better than yours.”

“I’m not in a—” She stopped. “You mean better than mine will be?”

“Pretty much. Take a seat. Lord Sanabalis is here to inform us of our duties, and to escort us to the man we’ll be aiding.”

When Severn spoke Barrani, it was generally a bad sign. Lord Sanabalis, on the other hand, almost always spoke in Barrani.

“We don’t have to talk to the Emperor, do we?” she said, sinking into the chair slowly. It was rock hard and weighed more than she did.

“No,” Lord Sanabalis replied. “Unless something goes gravely, gravely wrong, the Emperor has more important duties to attend.”

“Does this mean there’s no lesson today?”

“There will be, as you say, no lesson for the course of your duties at the Palace.”

“Well, that’s something. Who are we investigating?”

Severn hesitated.

“Investigating?” Sanabalis replied, raising a brow. “I rather think, if you were sent to investigate someone, the last place the Hawks would agree to second you would be the Imperial Palace. As you should know, the Imperial Guards deal with any difficulties that arise in the Palace. And they do not arise.”

“Yes, Sanabalis.” She hesitated. “What are we doing there, then? We’re not exactly guard material—”

One of his silver brows rose into his thinning hairline.

Fair enough; if the Imperial Guard would be offended at outside investigators, they would probably completely lose it at outside guards. “So we’re not there as investigators, we’re not there as guards. Are we there as Hawks?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

She grimaced. “That usually means no.”

“You are Hawks or you could not be seconded in this fashion. You are not, however, there as representatives of the Law.”

The old bastard looked like he was enjoying himself. Exactly how he conveyed this, Kaylin wasn’t quite certain—his expression was neutral enough, and his voice was smooth as glass.

“So what are we there as?”

“As Cultural Resources,” he replied smoothly.

“As what?”

“Cultural Resources.”

“I heard you. What exactly does that mean?”

“Ah. Have you taken a moment to peruse the documents you placed upon the table?”

“No.”

“I’d advise you to do so. We are not expected at the Palace until after lunch. I felt, given the unpredictability of your schedule, that this was wisest.”

“But—”

“Many of the questions you are no doubt impatient to ask will be answered by even the briefest of perusals.”

She wondered if he were a betting man, or Dragon. But given Dragons in general, she doubted it.

“If it eases your mind, Private Neya, Sergeant Kassan is required to pay you for the time you spend seconded to the Palace. He also,” he continued, lifting a hand to stop her from speaking, “expects you to report in each morning.

“For some reason, he is concerned about the assignment. I can’t imagine why.”

“Act One, Scene One.” Kaylin looked at Severn. “Act One, Scene One?”

“It’s a play,” Severn said, shrugging slightly. The left corner of his mouth was turned up in something that hinted at amusement. “You’re familiar with plays?”

Kaylin snorted. She read the description of stage materials—mostly the painted facades of buildings and bushes, in different sizes. And, she thought, in odd colors. “Poynter’s road?”

Severn nodded. “It’s—”

“I know where it is—but the buildings don’t look anything like that on Poynter’s.”

“Kaylin—”

“No, Corporal Handred, allow her to speak freely. It will, in theory, get it out of her system.”

“You want me to read a play?”

“Not exactly. The play itself is not complete, or not complete to our satisfaction. The author’s name might be familiar to you.” He raised one brow.

“Richard Rennick.” She looked at Severn. “Should we know him?”

“He’s the Imperial Playwright,” Severn told her quietly. “The position is held by one Playwright every five years. There’s usually a competition of some sort—a series of different plays staged for the Emperor. He apparently won, three years ago.”

Lord Sanabalis said, “The Emperor feels that human arts should be encouraged. Don’t look at me like that, Kaylin. Dragons seldom have an interest in drama.”

“Who’s the judge of this contest?”

“The Emperor.”

“So the winner is the person who appeals most to someone who doesn’t even like plays?”

“Something very like that,” he replied.

“And you want us to … work with this Rennick?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps you should read more than three pages.”

She grimaced. “Sanabalis—”

“Lord Sanabalis,” Severn corrected her.

“Lord Sanabalis, then. What on earth do I know about plays?”

“Clearly nothing.” He frowned. “However it is not for your expertise in the dramatic arts that you have been seconded.”

“Go on.”

“It is for your expertise—such as it is—on the Tha’alani.”

It was Kaylin’s turn to frown, but some of the exasperation left her, then. “I’m not an expert,” she told him quietly.

“No. But the Tha’alani seconded to the Court would possibly be even less comfortable in an advisory role.”

“If they can’t—” She stopped. “Why has the Emperor commissioned a play about the Tha’alani?”

Lord Sanabalis didn’t answer. But she met his eyes; they were their usual placid gold. His lower membranes, however, were up.

“It’s because of—of the water, isn’t it?”

“The tidal wave.”

“That one.”

“Yes. I am not aware of how much you saw, or how much you read about after the fact—but the Tha’alani, led by their castelord, left their Quarter in larger numbers than the city has ever seen. They walked to the docks, and they spread out along the port and the seawall. When the waters began to shift—and it was dramatic, Kaylin, even to one who has seen as much as I have—”

“You weren’t there,” she told him, but the words were soft. “You were with us.”

“I accessed records when I returned to the Palace.” He was now using his teacher tone of voice.

And I didn’t, Kaylin supplied. She glanced at Severn, who nodded very slightly. She cleared her throat. It was still hard for her to think about the Tha’alaan, and the Tha’alani were the Tha’alaan in some ways. “They hoped to save the city, if the waters rose.”

“Yes. But I invite you to think about appearances, Kaylin.”

“The wave didn’t hit the city.”

“No. It did not. The Oracles, however, were not widely bandied about. For many people—for almost all of them— the first warning of danger was the sight of the water itself, rising. The storm before it signified nothing, to them—it was merely weather.”

She nodded slowly.

“From their point of view—from what they could see—the Tha’alani went to the waters, and the waters rose.”

She closed her eyes.

“You understand our difficulty.”

She did.

“You yourself feared the Tha’alani. You do not do so now,” he added. “But you must understand the fear that people have.”

She nodded quietly.

“The Emperor understands it as well. He cannot, of course, explain the whole of what happened—and given the sparsity of reports generated by your office in the wake of events, I am not entirely certain he could explain it even if that was his desire. I am not, however, here to lecture you on the quality of your paperwork. I believe it best that some things remain uncommitted to paper.

“I, however, was fully debriefed. What I know, he now knows. He will not expose The Keeper, and no mention of the young Tha’alani man will leave the Court for that reason. Nor will the young Tha’alani man face the Emperor’s Justice, for that reason.”

The fact that the Emperor couldn’t reach him probably had something to do with it, in Kaylin’s opinion. She managed to keep this to herself. Instead, she returned to the matter at hand. “So this Richard Rennick wrote a … play. About the Tha’alani.”

“He wrote a play about the Tha’alani’s attempt to save the city, yes.”

“But all of it’s garbage. Because we’re not allowed to tell the truth.”

“Garbage is an unfortunate choice of word. Lose it,” he added, condescending to speak Elantran. He must have been serious. There were whole days where he affected complete ignorance of the language which most of the city actually spoke.

She picked up the sheaf of dog-eared pages. “Have you even read this?”

“I have. It is not, I believe, the current version, if that’s of any consequence.”

“What do you mean?”

“Where we could prevail upon the Tha’alani at Court, we did. The effect that this had upon the playwright was … unfortunate.”

“What happened?”

“Ybelline and her companions were given a copy of the play. They read it with some concern.”

“I bet.”

“They returned the play to Mr. Rennick. Luckily Lord Tiamaris was at hand; he intercepted their corrections.”

“This would be lucky because?”

“They understand the Emperor’s concerns. Believe that they feel them even more strongly than the Emperor does. They are not … however …” His hesitation spoke volumes.

Kaylin almost winced. When the silence became awkward, she sighed and looked at Severn.

Severn nodded.

“They don’t know how to lie,” she said quietly. “And this … all of it … it must seem like one big lie to them.”

She’d managed to nudge Sanabalis’s brows toward his receding hairline, which had to count for something. On the other hand, the fact that his surprise was more due to her comprehension than their inability probably counted for something too.

“If the truth is supposed to ease people’s fear, Ybelline could learn to live with that. But in her world, lies don’t ease fear. So I imagine what she handed back to Rennick—or what she tried to hand him—was pretty much all of the truth she thought it safe to put out there.”

“Indeed.”

“And the Emperor’s version of safe to put out there isn’t the same.”

“Again, astute. We may yet make progress in your life as a student.”

“I think it would be easier than this. What did Rennick say?”

Sanabalis did wince, at that. “I think it best to ignore that. Suffice it to say that he did not feel his efforts to be adequately appreciated. Ybelline, however, did understand the difficulty, and if you must find a person to blame for your current assignment—”

“I won’t blame her.”

“—she suggested you. And Corporal Handred. She said she was confident that you would work in the interests of her people, but with a better understanding of the intended audience for the play itself.”

“Meaning my people.”

Sanabalis nodded. “Which reminds me of another matter Ybelline also mentioned. The Swords have stationed a small force adjacent to the Tha’alani Quarter,” he added, in a more subdued tone. “And before you ask, Kaylin, yes, it was entirely necessary.

“Ybelline has asked for your aid in the Quarter.”

“For my aid? What the hell happened?”

“However,” he added, lifting a hand in the universal I’m not finished, so shut up gesture, “you are to visit the Quarter after you report for duty.”

On the off chance that Kaylin decided to reverse the order, Sanabalis chose to accompany her to the Palace. This wasn’t the first time he’d done this, and to be fair, if he’d gone ahead, she would have gone to the Imperial Palace by whichever convoluted route took her to the Tha’alani Quarter first. But as she had to stop by the Quartermaster to get kitted out in appropriate dress uniform—and as the Quartermaster was still a touch angry, which wasn’t exactly the right word for his state (the right words couldn’t be used in polite company of any race, all of the Hawks being multilingual when it came to swearing)—she actually appreciated Sanabalis’s suspicion, because if the Quartermaster was willing to make her wait or suffer, he was not willing to piss off a Dragon Lord.

He was, however, unfailingly polite and friendly when talking to Severn. Severn did not lose expensive dresses.

She took the uniform from Severn’s hands and headed to the lockers, where she added a much cleaner—and longer—surcoat to the clothing she generally wore. If she were a Sword, she’d also get a thin chain hauberk that was shiny and clean, because those looked good; Hawks didn’t generally have them as part of their uniform, dress or no, although most of the human Hawks did own one.

She had managed to lose her daggers—where lose in this case meant that something magical had transformed them into part of a very elaborate yet somehow very skimpy dress—and had bought a single replacement. The other dagger was coming out of her pay.

But it wasn’t coming out of her hide, for which she should probably be grateful.

Severn straightened her surcoat. It had the usual embroidered Hawk, dead center, but the golden thread and the beading was so perfectly clean it almost hurt to look at the flight feathers. To this, Kaylin added a small, beadwork patch.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Severn told her. But he didn’t tell her to take it off, probably because he knew she wouldn’t. The beads survived anything. Which was more, she thought glumly, than could be said about the rest of the clothing she owned.

She took the time to clean her boots.

Severn caught her arm and said “There’s nothing to be nervous about.”