Cast In Shadow

The open streets of the fiefs, almost a decade past.

His smile exposed teeth, the narrowing of eyes, the sudden tensing of shoulder and chest as he gathered motion, hoarding it.

Left hand out, she loosed a second dagger, and he parried it, but only barely. The third, she had at his chest before he could bring his knife down.

Too easy, she thought desperately. Too damn easy.

She looked up at his lazy smile and brought her dagger in.

Light blinded her. Light, it seemed, from the sound of his sudden curse, blinded him; they were driven apart by the invisible hands of the Hawklord’s power, and they were held fast, their feet inches above the ground.

Her eyes grew accustomed, by slow degree, to the darkness of the domed room.

“I see,” the Hawklord said quietly, “that you know Severn. Severn, you failed to mention this in your interview.”

Severn had always recovered quickly. “I didn’t recognize the name,” he said, voice even, smile still draped across his face. He moved slowly, very slowly, and sheathed his long knife, waiting.

And she looked up at his face. He wasn’t as tall as Tanner, and he wasn’t as broad; he had the catlike grace of a young Leontine, and his hair was a burnished copper, something that reddened in caught light. But his eyes were the blue she remembered, cold blue, and if he had new scars—and he did—they hadn’t changed his face enough to remove it from her memory.

“Kaylin?”

She said nothing for a long, long time. And given the tone of the Hawklord’s voice, it wasn’t a wise expenditure of that time.

“I know him,” she said at last.

“That has already been established.” The Hawk’s lips turned up in a cold smile. “You seldom attempt to kill a man for no reason in this tower. But not,” he added, “never.”

She ignored the comment. “He’s no Wolf,” she told the man who ruled the Hawks in all their guises. “I don’t care what he told you—he doesn’t serve the Wolflord.”

He chose to ignore her use of the Lord of Wolves, her more colloquial title. “Ah. And who does he serve, Kaylin?”

“One of the seven,” she said, spitting to the side.

“The seven?”

She was dead tired of his word games. “The fieflords,” she said.

“Ah. Severn?”

“I was a Wolf,” he replied, as if this bored him. As if everything did. He ran a hand through his hair; it was just shy of regulation length. “I served the Lord of Wolves.” Each word emphasized and correct.

“You’re lying.”

“Ask the Lord of Hawks,” he told her, with a shrug. “He’s got the paperwork.”

“No,” the Hawklord replied quietly, “I don’t.”

Severn was silent, assessing the tone of the Hawklord’s words. After a moment, he shrugged again; the folds of his robes shifted, and Kaylin heard the distinct sound of cloth rubbing against leather. He was not entirely unarmored here.

Too bad.

“I was a Shadow Wolf,” he said at last.

“For how long?” She refused to be shocked. Refused to let his admission slow her down.

“Years,” he replied. Just that.

She didn’t believe him. “He’s lying.”

“I didn’t say how many,” he added softly. As if it were a game.

“He is not lying,” the Hawklord told her. “Believe that when the unusual request for transfer between the Towers arrives, we check very carefully. When the man who requests the transfer is of the Shadows, our investigations are more thorough.”

“Thorough how?”

“We called in the Tha’alani.”

She froze. She had faced Tha’alani before, but only once, and she had been thirteen years old at the time. She had sworn, then, that she would die before she let one touch her again. The Tha’alani were an obscenity; they touched not flesh—although that in and of itself caused her problems—but thought, mind, heart, all the hidden things.

All the things that had to stay hidden if they were to be protected.

They were sometimes called Truthseekers. But it was a pal try word. Kaylin privately preferred rapist as the more accurate term.

“He subjected himself to the Tha’alani willingly,” the Hawklord added.

“And the Tha’alani said he was telling the truth.”

“Indeed.”

“And what truth? What could he say that would make him worthy of the Hawks?”

But the Hawklord’s patience had ebbed. “Enough to satisfy the Lord of Hawks,” he told her. “Will you question me?”

No. Not if she wanted to be a Hawk. “Why? Why him?”

“Because, Kaylin, he is one of two men who understand the fiefs as well as you do.”

She froze.

“The other will be with us shortly.”

After about ten minutes, the Hawklord let them go. Mostly. The barrier that held Kaylin’s arms to her side slowly thinned; she could move as if she were under water. Given that she was likely to try to kill Severn again the minute she got the chance, she tried hard not to resent the Hawklord’s caution.

“Feel all better now that that’s out of your system?” Severn asked quietly.

She wanted to cut the lips off his face; it would ruin his smirk. “No.”

“No?”

“You’re not dead.”

He laughed and shook his head. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you Elianne?”

“Tell him to let us go and you can find that out for yourself.”

“I doubt the Lord of Hawks would take the orders of a former Shadow Wolf. Although given your tardiness and his apparent acceptance of it, he’s a damn site more tolerant than the Lord of Wolves was.”

“Try.”

He laughed again. “Not yet, little—what did he call you? Kaylin? Not yet.”

The Lord of Hawks watched them with the keen sight of their namesake.

“You want to send us into the fiefs,” she said at last, trying to keep the accusation out of her voice.

“Yes. It’s been seven years, Kaylin. Long enough.”

“Long enough for what? Three of the fieflords are outcaste Barrani—I could live and die in the time it took them to blink!”

The Hawklord turned his full attention upon her. “I think I have been overly tolerant,” he said at last, and in a tone of voice she hadn’t heard since she’d first arrived in this tower. “You are either Hawk or you are not. Decide.”

Her silence was enough of an answer, but only barely. “The third is coming now.”

The door, which had probably closed the moment Kaylin had fully stepped across its threshold, swung open again.

A man walked into the room. He wore no armor that she could hear beneath the full flow of his perfect robes. Her hearing had always been good. “Lord Grammayre,” he said, bowing low.

“Tiamaris,” the Hawklord replied. “I would like to introduce you to Kaylin and Severn. You will work with them.”

The man rose. His hair was a dark, dark black—Barrani black—but his build was all wrong for Barrani. He was a shade taller than Teela, and about twice her width. Three times, maybe. His hands were empty; he carried no obvious weapon. Wore no open medallion. The hand that he lifted in ritual greeting, palm out, was smooth and unadorned.

Kaylin and Severn could not likewise lift hand—but their background in the fiefs hadn’t made the gesture automatic. Lord Grammayre was under no such disadvantage; he lifted his ringed hand in greeting, and lowered his chin slightly.

“Tiamaris has some knowledge of the fiefs,” he told them both. Tiamaris lowered his perfectly raised hand, and turned to face them.

Something about the man’s eyes were all wrong; it took Kaylin a moment to realize what it was. They were orange. A deep, bright orange that hinted at red and gold. Her own eyes almost fell out of their sockets.

“You have the privilege,” Lord Grammayre told her quietly, “of meeting the only member of the Dragon caste to ever apply to serve in the Halls of Law.”

Severn recovered first. He laughed. “It’s true, then,” he said, to no one in particular.

That rankled. “Like you’d know true if it bit you on the ass.”

“You really are a mongrel unit.”

“No, Severn,” the Hawklord replied softly. Too softly. Had it been anyone else speaking, Kaylin might have dared a warning kick.

She hoped Severn hung himself instead.

Severn fell silent.

“The Hawks have always been open to those who seek service under the banner of the Emperor’s Law. Where service is offered it is accepted, by whoever offers it. Tiamaris has chosen to make that offer, and it has been accepted, by the Three Towers. And the Emperor. If the Wolves choose different criteria upon which to accept applicants, that is the business of the Lord of Wolves; if the Swords choose to retain only the mortal races, that is likewise the concern of their lord.

“I would, of course, be pleased to explain your mission. But I have spent precious hours in this tower, and I have other duties to which I must attend. The Lords of Law meet within the half hour.” He reached into the folds of his robes and pulled out a large gem.

Even Kaylin could see it glow.

He held it a moment in his open palm. “This contains all of the information the Hawks have been able to gather about your mission. Some of it was placed within the gem by the Tha’alani, some was placed there by Wolves and Swords. You will study it,” he added quietly, “and it will tell you all you require.

“If you have questions, contain them. You will have to find answers on your own. You will speak to no one of what you see within the gem. It is spellbound, and it will enforce that command.”

He hesitated a moment, and then, lifting his hand, he gestured. Kaylin fell an inch to the ground and stumbled, righting herself.

“Kaylin.”

She turned. Saw that he held out both his open hand and the large gem it contained—to her. For just a minute she considered the wisdom of a different occupation.

But her past would follow her out the doors; here it was hidden. Without a word, she held out a hand, and he dropped the crystal into the shaking curve of her palm. Blue light seared her vision; her fingers closed instinctively.

She was surprised when she didn’t throw it away.

“Interesting,” the Hawklord said softly. She thought he might say more, but the meeting with the Lords of Law clearly demanded his full attention. “You are dismissed,” he said quietly. “You may speak with Marcus. Tell him that you are to be equipped in any reasonable manner. Remind him that the equipment is not to be logged.

“That is all.”

CHAPTER

2

Judging by the quality of the silence, which had gone from absolute to cryptlike, Iron Jaw still hadn’t recovered his good humor, such as it was. The people who usually occupied the desks in line of sight seemed to have developed an extended case of lunch. Kaylin’s stomach really wanted to join them. Either that, or to lose the breakfast she hadn’t had. She couldn’t quite decide which.

Severn. Here. Her hands were fists, which, given that one of them was clutching something with sharp edges, was unfortunate. If it hadn’t been years since she’d badly wanted to kill someone—and face it, she wasn’t angelae—it had been years since she’d tried. Her timing, as always, was impeccable.

Marcus looked up from his paperwork. She wondered which poor sacrificial soul had delivered it. She didn’t envy them.

“Well?” He growled.

She shrugged. Not really safe, given his mood—but she was in a mood of her own. “We need a safe room,” she told him, waving the crystal she still clutched.

His brows rose, or rather, the fur above his eyes did. When it settled, he looked annoyed. Nothing new, there. “West room,” he said, curtly. “And those two?”

“Ask the Hawklord.”

His lip curled back over his teeth, and she decided that his mood trumped hers. “Severn,” she said curtly. “Formerly of the Wolves.”

“Here?”

“I said formerly.”

“And the other?”

“Tiamaris. He’s a …”

The low growl deepened. The Leontine slid around the desk, paperwork forgotten.

Tiamaris stood his ground. Stood it with such complete confidence, Kaylin wondered if anything ever shook him.

“That’s a caste name, isn’t it?” the Leontine asked.

“That is none of your concern, Sergeant Kassan,” Tiamaris replied. His voice gave nothing away. Kaylin was impressed. Not that he knew Marcus’s rank—anyone who knew the uniform could see that—but that he knew his pride name.

Marcus drew closer, and as he did, he gained height—or at least his fur did. It was a Leontine trait, when the Leontine felt threatened. That usually only happened in the presence of his wives or his kits.

Severn sat on an empty desk and folded arms across his chest, smirking. Kaylin almost joined him. Almost.

But she didn’t want to be where he was; she had decided that a long time ago. Wouldn’t think about it here, because if by some miracle Marcus didn’t go feral, she might, and she didn’t want to be the cause of an office death. Not when the Hawklord had made clear what the price of that death would be.

“Tiamaris, you said?” Marcus’s growl could sometimes be mistaken for a purr. Kaylin kept a flinch in check as she realized Iron Jaw was actually speaking Barrani. It was the formal language of the Lords of Law, and as he was allergic to most forms of formal, he seldom used it.

Tiamaris raised a dark brow. They were almost of a height. Marcus continued to close; Tiamaris continued to mime a statue. Inches fell away.

Men. “Actually, Marcus, I said it,” Kaylin lifted the crystal as if it were an Imperial writ.

To her surprise, Marcus actually turned to look at her. But if his gaze was fastened on the crystal she held, his words were for Tiamaris. “This is my office,” he said quietly, each word textured by the full growl of a Leontine in his prime. “These are my Hawks. If you … choose to work here, you accept that.”

“I choose to serve at the pleasure of the Lord of Hawks,” was the neutral reply. It, too, was in Barrani. Kaylin realized that she had not heard Tiamaris speak in any other language since he’d entered the tower.

Kaylin tried again. “We’re to be kitted out,” she began. “And the Hawklord—”

“He told me.” He turned his gaze back to Tiamaris. “This isn’t finished,” he said quietly.

“No,” Tiamaris concurred, in an agreeable tone of voice that implied anything but. “It’s barely begun. Sergeant?”

“Take the West room,” he replied, eyes lidding slowly. Kaylin knew, then, that Tiamaris was close to death. Would have been, had he not been a Dragon. “Kaylin, show them.”

She took a deep breath. Thought about telling them all that she wasn’t their babysitter. Thought better of it a full second before her mouth opened on the words. “Right.” She offered a very sloppy salute, palm out but not exactly flat. It was also, she realized, as Iron Jaw stared at it, the wrong hand.

“You two, follow.”

“Whatever you say,” Severn told her, sliding off the desk. “Lead on, Kaylin.”

The West room was one of four such rooms, and they were all just as poetically named. The Leontines didn’t really go in for fancy names. Near as Kaylin could tell, the Leontine word for food translated roughly as “corpse.” Some accommodations had to be made in culinary discussions.

When Marcus had first taken the job, the safe rooms—like all of the rest of the rooms in the labyrinthine Halls of Law ruled by the Hawklord—had been named after upstanding citizens, people with a lot of money or distant relatives of the living Emperor. Marcus had pretty much pissed in every possible corner in the Hawks’ domain, and after he’d finished doing that, he’d fixed a few more things. Starting with the names.

Still, in all, West was better than some seven syllable name that she wouldn’t be able to pronounce without a dictionary. Now if he’d only do something about the damn wards on the doors….

Before she touched the door, she turned to Tiamaris. “Don’t antagonize him,” she said quietly.

“Was I?”

She didn’t know enough about Dragons to be certain he had done so on purpose. But she knew enough about men. “Marcus crawled his way up the ladder over a pile of corpses,” she replied. “And we need him where he is. Don’t push him.”

For the first time that day, Tiamaris smiled.

Kaylin decided that she preferred it when he didn’t. His teeth weren’t exactly like normal teeth; they didn’t have the pronounced canines of the Leontine, but they seemed to glitter. His eyes certainly did.

She pushed the door open and walked into the room.

“Severn,” she said, the name sliding off her tongue before she could halt it, “sit down. Tiamaris?”

“Kaylin?”

“We can’t proceed until the door is closed—the gem is keyed.”

“Ah.” He crossed the threshold into the small, windowless room. It looked like a prison cell. On the wrong days, it was. And the prisoners it contained? She shuddered.

The door slid shut behind him. Severn sat, lounging across a chair as if he were in his personal rooms. Tiamaris sat stiffly, as if he weren’t used to bending in the middle.

And Kaylin stood between them, between the proverbial rock and a hard place. She looked at Severn. Looked at the familiar scars that she’d never forgotten, and looked at the newer ones.

She wanted to kill him.

And he knew it. His smile stilled, until it was a mask, a presentation. Behind it, his blue eyes were hooded, watchful. His hands had fallen beneath the level of the plain, wooden table that was the only flat surface that wasn’t the floor.

“Are you really a Hawk?” He asked casually.

“Are you really a Wolf?”

They stared at each other for a beat too long.

“Kaylin,” Tiamaris said quietly. “I believe you have business to attend to.”

“I’m a Hawk,” she replied.

“Why?”

“Why?” Her hand closed around the crystal. “Yeah,” she said to Tiamaris. “Business. As usual.”

There had been a time when she would have answered any question Severn had asked. Any question. But she wasn’t that girl, now. She had no desire to share any of her life with him. Instead, she looked at the crystal. Some hesitance must have showed, because Tiamaris raised a brow.

“You are familiar with these, yes?”

“I’ve seen them,” she said coldly.

“But you’ve never used one.”

She shoved nonexistent hair out of her eyes, as if she were stalling. Her earlier years in the streets of the fiefs had proved that lies were valuable. Her formative years with the Hawks had shown her that they were also usually transparent, if they were hers. At last, she said, “No. Never.”

“If you would allow me—”

“No.”

Another brow rose. “No?”

The word sounded like a threat.

“No,” she said, finding her feet. “The Hawklord gave it to me. You try to use it, and if it’s keyed, we’ll be picking you out of our hair for weeks.”

His smile was not a comfort. He held out his hand. “I have the advantage,” he told her softly, “of knowing how to unlock a crystal.”

After a pause, in which she acknowledged privately that she was stalling, she said, “Why is he sending a Dragon into the fiefs?”

Tiamaris shrugged. “You must ask him. I fear he will not answer, however.” His eyes narrowed, gold giving way to the fire of red. “I confess I am equally curious. Why has he chosen to send an untried girl there?”

“I’m not untried,” she snapped. “I’ve been with the Hawks for seven years.”

“You’ve been with the Hawks,” he replied, “since you were thirteen. By caste reckoning, you were a child, then. You reached your age of majority two years ago. In accordance with the rules of Law, you have been a Hawk for two years.”

“Caste reckoning,” she snapped, “is for the castes. I grew up in the fiefs. Age means something else, there.”

“So,” Tiamaris said, splaying a hand across the table’s surface. “That was true.”

She looked at him again. How much do you know about me? Which wasn’t really the important question. And why?

Which was. “You’ve been a Hawk for a day, if I’m any judge.”

“Two,” he replied.

“It takes longer than two days to make a Hawk.”

He shrugged. “It takes only the word of the Hawklord.”

He was, of course, right. She cursed the Lord of the Hawks in the seven languages she knew. Which wasn’t saying much; she could only speak four passably, but she was enough of a Hawk that she’d picked up the important words in the other three, and none of them were suitable for children or politics.

Languages were her only academic gift. She’d failed almost every other class she’d been forced to take. Lord Grammayre had been about as tolerant as a disappointed parent could be, and she’d endured more lectures about applying herself than she cared to remember. At least a third of them had been delivered in Aerian, he’d been that annoyed; it was his habit to speak formal Barrani when addressing the Hawks, although when frustrated he could descend into Elantran, the human tongue.

“The crystal,” Tiamaris said.

She’d bought about all the time she could afford. Grinding her teeth—which caused Severn to laugh—she put her left palm over it; caught between her palms, the crystal began to pulse. She felt its beat and almost dropped it as it began to warm; warmth gave way to heat, and heat to something that was just shy of fire.

She’d touched fire before; been touched by it. Someplace, she still bore the scars. But she’d be damned if she let a little pain get in her way. Not in front of these two.

The crystal was beating. She felt it, and almost recognized the cadence of its insistent drumming. After a moment, she realized why; it had slowed, timing itself to the rhythm of her heart.

Which was too damn loud anyway.

“Here we go,” she said softly.

Kaylin.

The Hawklord’s voice was unmistakable. She relaxed, hearing it; it was calm and almost pleasant. An Aerian voice.

Kaylin, witness.

The fiefs opened up in her line of sight; she lost track of the room. She could see the boundaries that marked the criminal territories colloquially called the fiefs; they occupied the western half of the riverside, swallowing all but the Port Authority by the old docks. The view was top side, high; someone had flown this stretch. Someone had carried the unlocked crystal, linked to it, feeding it images, vision, the certainty of knowledge.

Grammayre? She couldn’t be certain.

The Lords of Law were the fist of the Emperor; they owed their allegiance and existence to his whim. This was a truth that she had faced almost daily for seven years. The Hawks, the Wolves and the Swords were not soldiers; they were no part of the Imperial army.

But they were allowed arms and armor, by law; in their individual ways, they kept the laws of the city of Elantra. And if that wasn’t a war, she didn’t want to see one. No one loved the guards who served the Lords of Law, but almost no one crossed them. Not outside of the fiefs.

Within the fiefs?

Old pain crossed her features, distorting them. She closed her eyes. Her vision however, was caught in crystal; she watched as the fiefs drew closer, undeniable now. Saw the boundaries beyond which the Lords of Law had little sway, held little power, and all of that power theoretical.

The armies would have more, but the Emperor seldom allowed the armies to crusade within his city.

And so the fiefs continued to exist.

In the fiefs, the slavery that had been abolished for a generation and a half still existed in all but name. Whole grand houses, opulent, golden manses, opened their doors to visitors, and within those doors, the rich could purchase anything. A moment’s illegal escape, in the smoke-wreathed rooms of the opiates. A moment’s pleasure, in the private parlors of the prostitutes. And a death, here or there, if one’s tastes shaded to the sadistic.

Sordid, storybook, the fiefs made their money off those who would never dream of living within their borders.