Michelle Sagara - Cast in Silence

“Yes, Arkon.”

“I—I don’t know. He was the fieflord. I didn’t exactly ask.”

The Arkon frowned. “And he did not choose to enlighten you?” Even the Arkon could read the silence that followed his question. “Very well. The fief of Barren—as do all fiefs—border the heart of the fiefs themselves. We cannot pierce the shadows there,” he added. “By any means save entering them. The Aerians can fly over the edges, but in the center, flight falters.”

“How do you know?”

“How do you think we know?”

She swallowed and thought of Clint. But she didn’t ask more, mostly because she was afraid the answer would enrage her; she’d always loved the Aerian Hawks. “Why do you think they can’t fly over the heart of the fiefs?” It was a safer question, as comment seemed expected.

His brows rippled slightly, but he didn’t seem annoyed. “One of two possibilities exist. The first: that the heart is magically protected in some fashion, and in a way that defies the expedience of simple geography. It is not the explanation I favor,” he added. “The second is slightly more complex. How far did you proceed in your studies on magical theory?”

When she failed to produce an answer, the brows rose again, but this time, the expression he offered was less benign. “You have studied magical theory? Sanabalis?” Clearly, the shock of her second nonanswer caused him to forget the nicety of something as simple as a title.

“Her studies in magical theory were not considered mandatory for a member of the groundhawks.”

“It is hardly possible to have a conversation with someone who has no grounding in the basics. I might as well speak in my native tongue for all the good it will do.”

“Indeed,” Sanabalis replied.

“Alleviate the difficulty. You are teaching her, are you not?”

“Yes, Arkon.”

Kaylin wilted visibly. She’d long since realized that there were whole days that did not reward getting out of bed; she thought it a bit unfair that whole weeks could also be like that. “Pretend I’m ignorant,” she began.

“It hardly requires pretense,” the Arkon replied stiffly.

Reminding herself that she liked her limbs attached, she swallowed. “Explain it anyway?”

He was very slow to relent, but did. “I am not responsible for your inability to understand,” he told her. “And I therefore am not responsible for any questions that arise from your incomplete comprehension. Tiamaris may answer them in my absence.”

“Arkon,” Tiamaris replied.

“Very well. You have heard the world theory, yes?”

Sanabalis raised a brow. “I think it completely irrelevant to the Hawks and the Imperial Law. It is unlikely that she has been forced to study something considered that esoteric.”

“Very well. There is, in theory, more than one world.”

“More than one?”

The Arkon nodded.

“How many?”

Sanabalis winced. Clearly, this was not the right question.

“More than one. Right.”

“Each world has a magical potential.” She nodded.

“And each world has a magical field, if you will, a level of power that permeates the whole. If our own studies are anything to go by, that level of power can fluctuate from place to place. Do you understand the concept of power lines or power grids?”

She wanted to nod, but she didn’t. She could guess how amused the Arkon would be by a simple fib. She could also see that her silence had caused his eyes to shade into a dark bronze. Sometimes ignorance had its appeal.

“Sanabalis, I am entirely unamused.”

“Arkon.”

“Very well, Private Neya. Magical potential seems to form along lines; we are not certain why. Those lines can cross, and in some areas, they will form a grid, in some a knot. Those knots are areas in which magic, when it can be used at all, will be at its most potent. It will often also be at its most wild.”

“Wild?”

“Sanabalis can explain that later. My time is valuable.”

Hers, on the other hand, wasn’t, at least if you went by pay scale. But she absorbed the words, made as much sense as she could of them, and then braved a question. “The buildings in the fiefs—like the Castle—are they on those knots?”

He raised a brow. “Very good. This may be less painful than I anticipated. Yes. They are, as you put it, on potential knots. The magic that defines the boundaries of a fief seem to follow lines that extend from the central knot, and out. But there is some blurring of boundary, as has been discussed elsewhere.

“In the heart of the fiefs, in what was once called Ravellon by the Barrani, we believe potential exists such as exists nowhere else in our world.”

“What does this have to do with other worlds?”

Clearly, this was a bad question. “Nothing. But you bring me to my previous point. Our world has a very high magical potential. It is why we believe the Aerians are capable of flight. It is why they exist at all.”

“But—”

He raised a brow. She closed her mouth.

“In a different magical environment, the Aerians would, in theory, be incapable of sustaining their own weight in flight. They might have wings, but the wings would serve no function, except perhaps in a cultural way. There are sages who have made this study their life’s work. Perhaps you can find one of them to question.”

Kaylin bit her lip. She did not dislike the Arkon in the way she disliked the pretentious and snobby nobles who occasionally crossed her path—but even so, she didn’t like being all but called a moron. Instead of concentrating on her injured dignity, she concentrated on his words. Her eyes widened.

“You think that Ravellon is—”

He raised a brow.

“You think it exists in more than one world.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You didn’t think the first explanation was true, although it would make sense, you believe the second explanation. And the theoretical existence of other worlds ties into that explanation. You think that, near the heart of the fiefs, there is some other world that’s touching ours that wouldn’t support Aerian life.”

He raised both brows. “Sanabalis,” he told her tutor, “she shows serious potential as a student. Why has this not been explored?”

“For a human, she is much like Lord Tiamaris was in his youth.”

This clearly meant more to the Arkon than it did to Kaylin; the Arkon actually grimaced. “Very well. They are both rather young.” He spoke as if youth was a failing. “Yes, Private Neya. That is what I believe.”

“It is also,” Sanabalis finally said, “not relevant at the moment.”

“Do you think the shadows come from somewhere else? I mean, some world that isn’t ours?”

“No. The shadows, as you call them, are at the heart of our world. They are the scions of the Old Ones.”

“But the Old Ones are gone—” She stopped. Glanced at her arms, the marks covered as they always were by layers of cloth.

“It is possible that the magic that once sustained the Old Ones exists only in a very few places now. We do not understand what happened to them, and why they retreated—but no life as we know it would exist had they not.”

“But they created—”

“Yes?”

“The Barrani. The Dragons. Even the Leontines.” Although admittedly that was less widely known. “They created everything.”

“Not everything. But even if they did, it does not refute my argument. What the world is now, and what it would have been, is not the same. Do not look for a return of the Old Ones, for if they returned, it would not only be the forefathers of our races, but also the forefathers of the ferals, and the darker creatures which have no name.”

She was silent for a full minute before she trusted herself to speak again. “Ravellon,” she began.