Michelle Sagara - Cast In Flight

“If Nightshade had told you about Annarion, if he had told you that he suspected Annarion was still alive, if he had told you that so much of his adult life involved attempts to reach him.”

“I’m...not sure.”

“Ah. A pity. Your opinion is noted.”

“I mean it, Teela.”

“I’m certain you do. In this, however, I concur with Annarion. Tain?”

Tain shrugged. “Not that I care one way or the other, but Teela’s right.”

“You have to say that—you’re her partner.”

Moran, minding her own business until now, jumped in. “I’m not her partner, and I agree with Teela’s observations.”

“Helping orphans and mothers is not the same as helping a fieflord.”

Teela’s eyes were green. She was both amused and relaxed. “Kitling,” she said fondly, “there is a reason that people actually like you. To go back to my previous comments about daydreams and harsh reality, you want to be helpful. To be kind. You have learned from the things that have hurt you—but you haven’t learned the same lessons that either Nightshade or I learned.”

“When Nightshade was young, there was no Elantra.”

“No.”

“And mortals were pets. Or slaves.” Or worse.

Teela nodded.

“Mandoran still talks about us as if we’re trained rats.”

“Mandoran enjoys baiting Dragons,” Tain pointed out. “If you have to choose a Barrani example of wisdom, look anywhere else.”

Bellusdeo snickered.

“My point is, Nightshade didn’t make my choices. And Annarion wouldn’t have made them either. Whatever he’s done, it’s what the Barrani of that time would have done.”

“Yes. But Annarion doesn’t see you as mortal, not really. He sees you as Chosen, but more. You held what remained of his Name. Of all of their Names. Only mine was absent. And you returned that knowledge without ever absorbing it first. You did what only the Consort could have done. It is difficult for the rest of them. They’re not what they were, and they know it.

“But it’s that flexibility that allows the difference in the way Mandoran views you and the way Annarion does.”

“He’s expecting too much from his brother.”

“Of course. But, kitling, would you rather he expected too little?”

* * *

She had no answer to that. Breakfast finished; the Moran escort formed up: Bellusdeo, Teela, Tain, Kaylin. Severn didn’t show up at the front door. The familiar lounged, as he usually did, across Kaylin’s shoulders.

Only when they were at the halfway point between Helen and the Halls of Law did she answer Teela’s question. “...I think so.”

“You would rather he had lower expectations?”

She nodded, pensive. “It’s the expectations that are killing him. Helen says he’s very unhappy. I know Nightshade’s unhappy as well, but in some ways I kind of feel like he’s earned some of that. I like Annarion. I hate to see him so miserable.”

The usual rejoinder failed to emerge, and Kaylin remembered that Mandoran was stuck in a wall in the basement somewhere.

* * *

Four city blocks from the Halls of Law, the familiar suddenly stiffened. He sat bolt upright, and this time, he spread a transparent wing across Kaylin’s eyes.

“Moran!”

Moran moved instantly. She also tried to lift her wings, and failed with the injured one. It didn’t matter. Kaylin threw her arms around the Aerian’s waist.

Teela drew her sword, and Bellusdeo looked up. The Dragon said, “I’m running out of inexpensive clothing, and I don’t want to work at the Halls in full court regalia.”

“Can you see them?”

The Dragon shook her head. “How many?”

“Three, I think. They’re all Aerians, but...but they look funny.”

“Funny how?”

Kaylin cursed in Leontine. The three looked down on the city streets, and their formation—and they had been flying in formation—changed. “You know those nets you dropped?” she asked Moran.

“Yes. I need to breathe,” she added.

“They’re flying with something that looks like those nets. You can’t see them?”

Bellusdeo growled. In Leontine. She said something sharp, harsh and syllabic without speaking actual language. The hair on Kaylin’s arms and neck stood on end. Magic.

“They’re not those nets,” Bellusdeo said. “We’ve got to run.”

“What are they?”

“Shadow,” the Dragon said.

* * *

It was impossible to run while looking up. It was impossible to run while holding on to someone’s waist, if that someone wasn’t under the age of two. Kaylin shifted her grip on Moran, holding her hand rather than her torso. She made it a block before she realized that the net itself had elongated as the Aerians had moved. That kind of precision flight-in-place was difficult. Whoever the three were, they were damn good.

She could see that Clint was on the door with Tanner; she could see that the doors were open.

And she could see that the net itself was going to fall regardless. Bellusdeo had said it was Shadow, somehow. It didn’t seem to be sentient, or at least it didn’t seem to be the type of Shadow that would consume the Aerians holding it.

But those Aerians, she saw now, were wearing some of that Shadow across their arms and chests, as if it were armor.

“Bellusdeo, fly?” she asked of the golden Dragon.

“Run.”

The small dragon pushed off Kaylin’s shoulders; the minute he did so, she lost all visual impressions of the Aerians and their dark, dark net, as he hadn’t left his wing behind. She could, however, see him. He squawked.

Kaylin let go of Moran’s hand. Without the small dragon, she had no protection against magic to offer, and Moran, wingless, could still run.

“What is he going to do?” Moran shouted as she sprinted toward the doors of the Halls, and the theoretical safety they provided.

“Hells if I know!” Kaylin shouted back. Teela could outpace her, as could Tain. Bellusdeo deliberately pulled up the rear, and Kaylin let her. She was displaced, yes—but she was a Dragon. A single Dragon was more than a match for anything the Barrani could do; Kaylin suspected she was more than a match for anything Shadow-enhanced invisible Aerians could do, as well.

She hoped.

Clint and Tanner let them in; Tanner headed in after them. “What’s going on?” he demanded—of Kaylin, of course.

“We’ve got invisible assassins,” Kaylin replied. “Aerians. Three, in the air.” She started to add more, but was cut off by the very audible sound of screaming. This was fine, because the very audible screaming caught Tanner’s attention in a stranglehold, and he headed back out.

Clint was cursing in Aerian. “Sergeant!”

To Kaylin’s surprise, Moran turned immediately.

“We’ve got Aerians in trouble.” He pointed.

Two of the three Aerians were visible. And they appeared to be injured enough that flight was causing them difficulty. The third, however, was nowhere in sight.

Moran, tight-lipped and incredibly grim, watched them falter. “It’s Caste Court business,” she said, voice flat and hard.

Clint opened his mouth. Closed it.

“I mean it, Clint. You call out the Hawks to aid in any way, and you’re interfering in Caste Court politics—which is far, far above your pay grade.” She looked out the open doors, and added softly, “And if you bring them in here, you’ll probably be causing a breach of integrity in our security that will bust you down to an even lower pay grade.”

Tanner, however, had done whatever it was that the guards on door did when they needed backup right now. Aerians filled the sky directly in front of the Halls; they saw immediately what Clint had seen.

Moran bowed her head in resignation. “Private. Lord Bellusdeo.”