Michelle Sagara - Cast in Silence

“The Keeper’s message was, in its entirety, yours. I am here,” he told her, “to act as your guard should the need arise. That is my only function at the present time. If you feel it is wise or germane, you will travel to Lord Nightshade’s castle, and you will speak with him; if you feel it is neither, you will not. I will go where you go.”

“Yes,” she told him, after a long pause. “Nightshade. If for no other reason than that we’ll be nosing around his fief on the edge of a border neither of us particularly wants to see again.” She glanced at him, and then headed down the slope of the bridge. “You know he’d send word if the Outcaste Dragon came anywhere near Nightshade.”

“He has not historically proven himself to be entirely aware of the Outcaste,” was the slightly cool reply.

“He doesn’t have to be. It’s in his interests to have the two of you fight; it saves him both time and the effort of finding new men.”

When he glanced at her pointedly, she shrugged. “Well,” she said, kicking a small stone, “it makes sense to me.”

Lord Nightshade was waiting for them.

This surprised neither Kaylin nor Tiamaris. The small mark on Kaylin’s cheek, which was regularly mistaken as a tattoo by anyone who wasn’t Barrani or hadn’t been racially warring with them for way too many years, was in fact his mark. Kaylin was still hazy on the details of what, exactly, it signified, but she understood two things about it: removing it would generally involve removing her head, and it acted as a conduit, in some ways, between Kaylin and the Lord of the fief of Nightshade.

She generally went out of her way not to think about the rest.

Lord Nightshade was not, of course, considerate enough to wait outside Castle Nightshade. This meant that both Kaylin and Tiamaris—the latter with somewhat chilly, if respectful, permission from the Barrani guards—were forced to enter the castle through its nefarious and much-cursed portal. The portal looked very much like a lowered portcullis. It wasn’t. It was a magical gate that led directly into the front foyer of the Castle, in which Nightshade greeted his guests.

Unfortunately for Kaylin, her sensitivity to magic made the passage extremely disorienting and difficult, and she usually ended up on the other side on her hands and knees, trying very hard not to throw up. Today was, sadly, no exception.

Tiamaris never seemed remotely fazed by the transition—but he was a Dragon; you could probably cut off one of his arms with a nail file and he wouldn’t do more than grimace. He was, however, accustomed to Kaylin’s vastly less-dignified entrance, and bent to offer her a hand when she at last lifted her head. She only did this when the room had stopped spinning.

Lord Nightshade was waiting at a polite distance. He nodded as she gained her feet. “Kaylin,” he said, inclining his head. “Lord Tiamaris.”

“Lord Nightshade.” The Dragon Lord extended the fieflord a precise bow. He didn’t hold it long, but it was in tone and texture a very correct one.

“I was expecting you,” Lord Nightshade told Kaylin softly, “a day ago.”

She grimaced. She certainly hadn’t expected to end up here, but her life was like that.

After a pause, Lord Nightshade turned and indicated, with the gesture of a hand, that they were to follow. Her knees still slightly wobbling, she did; it didn’t pay to lag behind Nightshade in this castle. The halls had a tendency to change direction—and orientation—for anyone who wasn’t their Lord. She glanced at Tiamaris. Their Lord, she added to herself, or a very stubborn Dragon.

It always surprised Kaylin that the Lord of Nightshade could value the quiet and graceful austerity of simple flowers, but they rested in tall, slender vases in small alcoves along the hall; light touched them, some of it glancing from windows recessed in the ceiling. While the outside of the Castle resembled some ancient keep, with arrow slits instead of windows, and manned walls instead of galleries, the inside was another story. A long, complicated one.

She expected Nightshade to lead them into one of the rooms in which he chose to entertain visitors; he often had food and wine waiting.

Today, however, he led them to a different room. She recognized it. She didn’t recognize the halls that led to it, but she’d long since given up expecting to be able to do so; this was Castle Nightshade, and all the observation in the world wouldn’t make it mundane enough to become familiar.

The room was adorned with mirrors.

Mirrors, in the Empire, were the heart of its communication system. Oh, they were also used for more mundane purposes of vanity, or at least personal grooming, but the lesser use was not significant here. Then again, it was probably never significant to the Barrani, who seemed to ooze grace and elegance no matter what they were wearing.

Teela had once tried on some of Kaylin’s clothing; it had been entirely disheartening. For one, it shouldn’t have fit. And it didn’t. But even shortened as it was by Teela’s much taller frame, it had looked instantly spectacular. Kaylin tried to imagine Nightshade standing in front of a mirror and straightening the fall of his robes, tunic or cloak. She gave up.

Tiamaris, however, used the reflective surfaces of the mirrors to raise a brow in Kaylin’s direction. She grimaced, and replied with a very slight shrug.

“You are aware that there is some difficulty in the fiefs,” Lord Nightshade said quietly.

They both looked at his reflection, meeting his gaze that way.

“We were aware,” Kaylin replied quietly, “that there was the possibility of difficulty.” When he raised a brow in her direction, she added, “We’re not living here. We don’t know.”

“But you are here,” he told her softly.

She nodded. “It was either come here or attempt to cross the borders into a different fief.” Drawing breath, she added, “Ravellon.”

His hand fell reflexively to the hilt of his sword and rested there. “Why do you speak that name?”

“It was spoken to me. Well, written.”

His expression didn’t change at all, but something about him stiffened; she felt something that was not exactly fear, but close. Seeing the lines of his face, she knew that Tiamaris wouldn’t notice it; it wasn’t obvious to anyone who did not, in the end, hold his name.

No, he told her softly. But from you, I can hide little if you choose to notice. You seldom so choose.

“Has there been trouble in Nightshade?” she asked, avoiding any answer to the hidden, the intimate, voice.

He hesitated. This hesitation, even Tiamaris could mark. “There have been no unusual occurrences in the fief,” he replied. “No increase in the number of ferals, and no…other…encroachments.”

Something about his answer was wrong.

“No deaths?”

“There have been,” he told her, with deliberate coolness, “the usual number of deaths. They are not zero, but they are not worthy of remark or note.”

For just a moment, her jaw clenched. So did her fists. On a day over seven years ago, two of those deaths had driven her from Nightshade. It was hard not to speak, but she swallowed the words, almost choking on them. Rage, when it blind-sided her, did that.

She almost missed the cold curve of his lips. He was smiling. It was a very Barrani smile. The rage drained from her, then. What was left was cold.

We are what we are, he told her.

It was true. She endeavored to be a professional. “What, exactly, have you noticed?”

“The difficulty is not within my fief,” he replied.

“You don’t exactly pay social calls to the other fiefs.” So much for professional.

He raised one brow. Tiamaris was silent, but it was the silence of sudden watchfulness. “Indeed,” Lord Night-shade finally said. The Dragon, on the other hand, didn’t relax much. “But Nightshade is bordered by three fiefs. Or perhaps more; we count the interior as one, and that may be erroneous.”