Michelle Sagara - Cast in Flame

Teela came to a full stop as the color of the Leontine’s eyes became clear. Kaylin continued to walk, Severn attached by a slender chain at her waist. She held out both of her hands, palms up, fingers toward the ceiling to indicate sheathed claws. Not that she had claws.

He stared at her, his dull gray eyes at odds with the rich color of fur and the gleam of perfect, ivory fangs.

“I am Kaylin ni Kayala.”

He blinked; his eyes narrowed. Kaylin noted that small and squawky still held the word in his jaws; he hadn’t dropped it on the Leontine’s forehead, and it hadn’t disappeared. If he was using it just for the light it shed, she’d have words with him later.

“You cannot be kin,” he finally said. “You are human.”

Since human more or less meant hairless, mewling kitten, Kaylin nodded. “Kayala is our myrryn. Marcus is our leader. I have shared meat at their hearth-fire; I have protected the kittens. I have fought for my leader’s survival. I wasn’t born to the pridlea, but I am of it.” She inserted all the appropriate sounds.

“Why are you here?” he asked. As he looked around the dimly lit room, his eyes turned down at the corners. “Where is Calarnenne?”

“He is at the heart of his castle,” Kaylin replied, taking the same care to add all appropriate r’s and sibilants. “His pride-kin has returned after a long absence.”

The Leontine’s eyes widened, which Kaylin had not expected. “His brother?” he said, using the Barrani word.

She nodded, and added, “Annarion. He has not eaten at his pride-kin’s hearth for hundreds of years. He finds the hearth fires hot.”

“He is home,” the Leontine replied. He closed his eyes. Opened them. They were now a shade of gold. “Calarnenne does not sing to his brother.”

Kaylin blinked. “Does he sing to you?” Leontines were not notable for the quality of their lullabies.

“Yes, when he is restless. Have you heard him sing?”

“Once or twice. Mostly in the middle of battle.”

“You have seen him fight? You have stood by his side?” The way the last question was asked implied that it was an undreamed of privilege. Kaylin revised her estimate of his age down. He looked, in stature, to be fully adult.

“Yes,” she replied, because technically it was true.

“Do you travel to his side, now?”

“Yes.” The fact that arriving there wasn’t a certainty was unnecessary information.

“Will you take me with you?”

Kaylin faltered at the desperate hope in his eyes. And the fear, which was an edge of orange. When she failed to answer, he reached for her, grabbing both of her hands with greater than usual Leontine force.

“He woke me,” the Leontine continued. “He must have intended to be with me.” As if he were a child.

“Does he wake you often?” Kaylin asked, stalling. She could no more drag this Leontine into the wilds of Castle Nightshade than one of Marcus’s own children.

“He wakes me when he can spend time with me,” was the unadorned reply. “But he is not with me now. You are mortal.”

She nodded.

“As am I. I will wither and die if I am left to live on my own. This,” he continued, releasing her hands to trace an arc in the air that took in the whole of the chamber, “is my eternity, as promised.”

“You spend most of it as a statue,” she replied, before she could bite back the words.

He nodded, as if she’d just said water was wet. “How else can we live forever? We cannot live without aging. Age leads to death. If we wake only when he is with us, we are his forever.”

This was so not one of Kaylin’s life goals.

“He is busy. He is forever. If we live and breathe and walk as you do, we might never see him again. Do you understand? His life will lead him away from you. When he has time to return, you might be dead.”

If only, Kaylin thought.

“This way, all our lives are spent in his company.”

“And in no one else’s,” Kaylin pointed out. “Your family. Your pridlea. Your pack. They are gone.”

“They were gone when he first came to me,” was the quiet reply. “They were dead. I was carrion fodder. I remember.”

“As if it were yesterday.” Because, she thought, it might have been.

“I remember the vultures. I remember the war cries of the victors. I remember the color of blood on grass, and the wails of the survivors who would add to it. I remember my mother. My pack leader. I remember.” He smiled at her, then. It was a smile tinged, of all things, with pity. “I remember Calarnenne. I remember his song. It stopped us all—enemy and family, both. I could not understand the words, but I heard them as if he was remaking language.”

“Did you know he was Barrani?”

“I knew he was not kin,” was the quiet reply. “I had never seen beauty in other races. Not until him. But he is not here.”

Kaylin shook her head. “I don’t think he wants you to leave this room, unless you want to. Stay here. I’m not—I’m not like you. I wasn’t chosen for his—his eternity. Let me find him. Talk to your companions,” she suggested.

“They are not my companions; they are his. We are his.”

Kaylin nodded, mouth dry. “Keep them here. This hall is safe. Outside...there are predators.”

* * *

“I think Annarion is both unhappy with this outcome, and simultaneously less angry. You, on the other hand, look green,” Teela said, as she walked away from the Leontine.

Kaylin felt it, too. She was big on personal choices, and clearly, the Leontine had made his—but it left her feeling uncomfortable. “Have you found Annarion?”

“Have you found Nightshade?”

“No.”

“Is half of what Nightshade says to you unintelligible babble?”

“No.”

“Then don’t ask.”

* * *

Kaylin. Throughout the conversation with the Leontine, the fieflord had been silent. An’Teela is correct. There is a danger here.

For me, or for all us?

For all of you, he replied, with just the faintest hint of irritation. Teela is not young for one of my kind, but she is not ancient. You have seen two of the ancestors; they are bound to the Castle and its service. The binding is older than either myself or Teela. I do not know its strength. It is my belief they were made outcaste for reasons far less political than mine. They would have been hunted, Kaylin. Had they been found, they would—with grave difficulty—have been destroyed. Ask her.

Teela, understanding that the possible danger had passed, waited until the small dragon was once again anchored to Kaylin’s shoulder, still carrying the rune. When he was she turned toward the most obvious set of doors available.

She allowed Severn to loop his chain around her before she opened the doors; they weren’t warded, but she didn’t bother to touch them. Kaylin was often surprised when Teela used magic as a tool. Hawks weren’t supposed to be mages. They definitely weren’t supposed to be Arcanists or former Arcanists. She didn’t really care for this reminder of Teela’s life before she’d been part of it, which wasn’t reasonable or mature.

Some days, Kaylin fervently wished that she had already passed Adult 101 and could get on with being the person she wanted to be.

On the other hand, she had to survive if she was ever going to reach that near unattainable goal. She glanced at squawky. His eyes were wide, black opals; they reflected nothing. As he wasn’t doing the small dragon equivalent of shouting in her ear, she assumed he didn’t consider the door a danger.

“One day,” she told him, “you’re going to talk to me, and I’m going to understand you.”

“And until then,” Teela added, “she’s going to talk to herself. A lot. Luckily the rest of us are used to this.”