Michelle Sagara - Cast In Flight

Mandoran looked to Kaylin, who nodded with some envy.

Kaylin tried to gauge the importance of this visitor. Evanton didn’t let just anyone into his kitchen—probably some mix of pride and self-preservation—but guests of import or power were usually led through the rickety hall in the back to the Keeper’s Garden.

Tea was poured, and Evanton had a cup situated somewhere in front of him, although he didn’t generally like to drink it. He watched Kaylin for a long, silent breath.

“What did I do wrong this time?” It was a surrender on her part. Someone had to speak first, or they’d be here all afternoon.

“That really is the question, isn’t it?” Evanton exhaled. He turned to his guest. “This is Private Kaylin Neya, and Corporal Severn Handred. They are, as you can see, Imperial Hawks, ground division.”

“I’m not sure we call it a division,” Kaylin said. “The rest is accurate.”

She was an older woman. Not as old as Evanton, of course, but her hair was silver with shots of rooted black, and her square face was lined. Her eyes were a pale gray. She was what Kaylin thought of as handsome: there was nothing frail about her, but she had a compelling face. At one point in her life, she might have been considered beautiful. She apparently had no name she was willing to have divulged, because Kaylin and Severn were the only ones who were introduced.

Kaylin didn’t much care about manners for their own sake, but she was as curious as the next person, and the lack of an introduction made her wonder who the woman was, what she was hiding and what laws she’d broken. Then again, Kaylin was a Hawk, and her mind often ran in that direction, full tilt.

“Grethan said you wanted to see us.”

“Yes. I wish to ask your opinion.”

Evanton’s guest clearly didn’t want him to do so. She drank her tea looking stiff and increasingly uncomfortable in every possible way.

“Ask, then—we’re on the clock, and the sergeant is in a foul mood.”

“I would imagine he is, given the assassination attempt.”

Kaylin stiffened. Severn appeared to relax. Only one of these things was accurate. “You’re not just bringing that up to make conversation.”

“No. I try very hard not to waste my own time, given the number of people who seem willing to waste it for me.”

“What do you know about it, and how much do you want me to pass on?”

“I know that the would-be assassin was an Aerian.”

“How do you know that?” Severn asked, in the conversational tones people used to talk about either sports or weather.

Evanton ignored the question. “This is not a matter for the Hawks,” he said. “I believe it will be classified under exemption status. The target was Aerian, the assassin was Aerian. And I do not believe the target will seek to have justice done in the Imperial Courts. I would even be willing to wager on it.” Evanton was aware of the Hawks’ propensity for betting, and he knew whom most of that habit had come from.

“With your own money?”

“Not with money.”

“Odds?”

“Any odds.”

“Fine.” Kaylin folded. “What do you know about the attempt?”

“Very little. It was carried out by magic. The mage responsible will not be catalogued in the Imperial investigative archives, so there is no point at all in bringing in Imperial mages, even if the case were remanded to the regular system.”

“Do you know why?”

Evanton looked to his guest, who stiffened, her hands tightening around the bowl of the teacup as if to draw strength from it. She looked across the table at Kaylin. “If Moran dar Carafel is dead, the wings will pass on.”

“The wings?”

The woman’s lips tightened; this was followed by a downward shift of shoulders as she bowed her head. She was silent for long enough that Kaylin thought she wasn’t going to answer.

Evanton said nothing; he waited, as if he were patience personified. Given the way he generally treated both Grethan and Kaylin, this was unusual. “I was reluctant to involve you,” he said—to Kaylin. “I am still reluctant. You have a way of causing snarls and snags in the cleanest and simplest of tasks—most of which are not predictable and therefore not controllable. But in this case, there is no other option. Lillias, if you will not speak, I must allow the Hawks to go back to their duties.”

Lillias. It was not a familiar name. Kaylin waited while the woman struggled in the silence left by Evanton.

When she finally lifted her head, her eyes were a deep blue.

Chapter 4

Part of Kaylin was wondering if she’d seen the woman’s eye color incorrectly the first time, because part of Kaylin wanted that to be the truth. But this blue was a color specific to Barrani and Aerians; she had never seen humans with eyes this particular shade.

And she had never seen Aerians without wings.

She wanted to ask the woman if her wings were somehow hidden, invisible, but she already knew the answer, and her mouth was suddenly too dry for questions. Every word Clint had said while he stood in Darrow Lane came back to bite her. She tried to keep the horror off her face, but had no idea whether or not she succeeded.

But she would not show pity to a stranger she knew almost nothing about, even if the thing she did know was larger than nightmare.

“Moran dar Carafel’s wings are unique in the flights of the Southern Reach. They are not unique in the history of the flights. They do not exist in every generation. But if one is born with those wings, they are the only ones who can or will bear the markings. No others will be born while the bearer lives.” She spoke slowly, as if weighing all of her words and picking out only the good ones.

“Are the marks determined by gender?”

“No.”

“Are they significant in any other way?”

Silence. When it was broken, it wasn’t broken with an answer. “Moran dar Carafel was injured in her duties here, duties which would be almost anathema to the leaders of the flights. She was not given permission to undertake them; she was not given permission to risk her life in combat. She could not, however, be made outcaste.” The last word was said bitterly. So bitterly. “And now, she is crippled.”

“The wings will heal,” Kaylin said, with more force than the statement merited.

“Will they?”

One way or another, they would. She nodded grimly. “Aerians are trying to assassinate Moran because they want someone else to be born with those wings.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

“Her birth was a grave disappointment,” Lillias agreed, staring into her tea as if she were reading leaves and not much enjoying what she found there. “She was not, originally, Carafel. Her mother, and her mother’s line, lived in the outer Aeries, beneath open sky. We have a saying in the Aerie—” She stopped. Shook her head. “Her mother was adopted into dar Carafel—and even that was bitterly divisive.”

“Her father?”

Lillias grimaced. “The child was not legitimate. Were it not for the wings, nothing would be known of the father.”

“And because of the wings?”

“It was proof that he was of the first families. No one came forward to claim either the mother or her daughter as their own, and the mother never revealed the father’s identity. There is prestige, of course, in bearing such a child, or there should have been. The mothers of such children are accorded respect in great measure; there is no equivalent in human society. But the child was illegitimate. Either the father perished, or the father was mated, bonded—or both.”

“Wouldn’t this also elevate the father?”

“Yes. But not if the father was bonded—married?—to another.”