Michelle Sagara - Cast In Deception

* * *

“Don’t give me that look,” Tain said, before Kaylin could open her mouth.

“Why are you here?”

“Ask Mandoran.” Tain looked about as happy as Kaylin felt, which was unreasonable given that Barrani didn’t need sleep unless they were badly injured.

Kaylin, however, swiveled in Mandoran’s direction.

“Teela’s coming over,” he said.

“What happened?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Why is she coming over?”

The two younger Barrani exchanged a glance. To Kaylin’s surprise, it was Annarion who answered. “She’s coming to ask Helen if she can move in for a while.”

Kaylin turned to Tain.

“I haven’t spoken to her yet,” Teela’s partner replied. His eyes were blue.

“I believe,” Helen said, interrupting them before Kaylin could speak, “you can ask her yourself. She’s almost at the front door.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Mandoran told Kaylin. “This has nothing to do with me. I voted against it.”

“Against what?”

When Mandoran failed to answer, she passed the frown on to Annarion, who looked both defiant and uncomfortable. “I’m taking the Test of Name.”

Tain’s eyes darkened to a midnight blue, and if Kaylin hadn’t been human, hers would have joined them. “You’re what?”

“I’m going to the High Halls to take the Test of Name.”

* * *

Kaylin was not stupid, in spite of what many of her early teachers had believed. She could put two plus two together and end up with four. “If Teela is coming over to ask if she can stay for a while,” Kaylin said out loud, “does that mean the rest of the cohort are coming to visit as well?”

“Not without your permission,” Annarion replied, guilt shifting the corners of his eyes and mouth.

“Look, some of us think it’s an incredibly stupid decision. But we know it’s dangerous, and none of the rest of us have taken the Test, either. If he goes, we’re not going to let him go on his own.”

“Teela’s taken the Test.”

Mandoran exhaled. “Yes. We know. That’s part of the problem. She can’t come with us.” He stared, quite deliberately, at his feet. Since this meant—to Kaylin—that he was trying not to look at anyone else, she frowned.

“She can’t go with you.”

“No. Not if she follows the customs and laws of the High Halls.”

Kaylin did look up then. “But Tain hasn’t taken the Test of Name.”

Silence.

Kaylin said, “Oh, no. No. I am not getting between the two of you while you’re arguing. You won’t kill each other, but the collateral damage will probably kill anyone who isn’t Barrani!”

“We are not arguing,” Tain replied. His voice was chilly, his eyes the same dark blue.

Annarion apparently also found his feet interesting.

Tain was not a Lord of the High Court. He was Teela’s partner, and Teela was. But the other Barrani Hawks were like Tain. A second class of citizen, a lesser class, in the eyes of most Barrani Lords. He’d never seemed to give a damn. But clearly, he did now.

She wondered who, among the cohort, had voted against Annarion taking the Test. Mandoran and Teela, certainly. But had any of the others?

“Yes,” she said, out loud. “The cohort can stay here as our guests. Given what happened with the two of you,” she added, looking at the Barrani who were still staring at their feet, “I want some of the city to remain standing.”

“They’ve been taking the same lessons we have,” Mandoran offered. “They learn what we learn.”

“Are they like you or like Annarion?”

“...We’re not sure yet.”

“Then they are definitely staying where Helen can keep an eye on them.”

* * *

By the time Teela arrived at the front door, Tain, Annarion and Kaylin were standing in front of it. Mandoran hung back, but not with any real hope of avoiding a face full of blue-eyed, angry Teela, which is what greeted them when Helen opened the front door.

Her eyes shifted into indigo when she saw Tain. Tain didn’t appear to notice, but he wasn’t one of the cohort, and he’d lived in the real world—near Teela—for much longer than anyone else had.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, with no grace whatsoever.

Tain didn’t throw Mandoran to the wolves, which is clearly what Mandoran had been dreading. “I’ve heard that the cohort, as Kaylin calls them, is coming to stay.”

That wouldn’t have been Kaylin’s choice of opening words, but Kaylin was not Teela’s partner.

“Please come in,” Helen said, before Teela could respond. “Kaylin hasn’t eaten yet.”

No one had eaten yet. No one really felt like eating, either, as far as Kaylin could tell.

Teela and Tain quit what might have devolved into a staring contest as Helen ushered everyone into the dining room. They took their chairs as if chairs were weapons or armor. Teela even turned hers around so the back faced the table and she could fold her arms over it.

“Why,” she said again, “are you here?”

“I told you.”

“My friends are not your problem.”

“No.”

Teela’s eyes narrowed; she turned to glare at Mandoran, who shrugged. Her words, however, continued to be aimed at Tain. “I don’t want you to endanger yourself needlessly.”

“I’m not. I’ve always been far more cautious than you are.”

This was arguably true, but Kaylin was not nearly suicidal enough to make the argument. She looked at breakfast as it appeared on her plate, and wondered if it would be safer if breakfast for everyone else—or at least the Barrani—could be finger foods for just one day. Teela was giving the cutlery a side-eye that suggested she might use it for something other than food.

“You are not taking the Test with them.”

“I haven’t taken the Test. I can.”

“You’ve never wanted to be a Lord of the High Court. And babysitting—”

“Hey!”

“—is not nearly a good enough reason to change your mind.”

“No. It’s not.”

“Tain—”

“The cohort are coming to Elantra. Sedarias is coming to Elantra. The High Court has maintained the polite fiction of joy at the rescue of the cohort.”

Teela said nothing.

“How long do you think that joy is going to last? Annarion is the bloodline heir. Karian is the bloodline heir. Mandoran is—god help his family—the bloodline heir. And Sedarias is the bloodline heir.”

Kaylin turned to Tain. “Wait, what do you mean?”

“Annarion is not the only person present who intends to take back what Nightshade lost. Sedarias, however, would have been the Lord of her line had she not been sent to the green. The others are technically heirs because of politics or deaths due to the wars.” He exhaled and turned to her.

“Is this really the time for a teachable moment?” Kaylin demanded. Tain continued to stare at her, which was his answer. “Fine. Their family lines—what are they, anyway?—have been ruled just fine since they were sent to the green. The Lords of those lines probably have no interest at all in being displaced.”

“I have no interest in reclaiming my family holdings,” Mandoran said.

“You said your family was gone!”

Mandoran shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, they are.”

“The High Court would not agree,” Teela said, her voice dry as tinder.

Mandoran made clear what he thought the High Court could do with its disagreement.

“You are correct,” Tain continued, speaking to Kaylin as if there had been no interruption. “Those families have held power for centuries. The children of the green were a myth—a sorrowful myth, perhaps—one that could be safely used. Now they are a very real fact.

“Teela is Lord of her line. She has had centuries to establish her rule. She is secure enough in that rule to be a Hawk—an Imperial Hawk. But the alliances she’s built to maintain that power are going to shift.”