Michelle Sagara - Cast in Silence

“They’re completely different.”

“No, they’re not.”

“You’ve never lived in the fiefs.”

“And you,” he said pointedly, “have never lived in the High Halls without the title Lord.”

She considered this quietly. Teela nudged her drink, and Kaylin said, “I’m not going to finish it, if you want it.” This earned her a brief grimace and a kick under the table.

“You’ve met my cousin,” Teela said, picking up the reins of the conversation again.

“As far as I can tell, half the High Court is related to you.”

“Not half.”

“Which cousin?” Kaylin asked. She wasn’t being disingenuous; she honestly had no idea.

“Evarrim.”

“Ugh.” Evarrim was an Arcanist. Arcanists, as far as Kaylin was concerned, were slightly lower on the decency scale than drug dealers. She didn’t understand why the Emperor tolerated them; he had his own mages, after all, and at least half of the Wolves’ hunts had been former Arcanists.

Tain waved the bartender over again.

“His mother was blessed with five children over the course of her marriage. Evarrim is the last one left standing. It was noted, of course.”

“What—he killed the others?” Kaylin grimaced. She’d meant it as a joke, but it had fallen flat even before Teela nodded.

“Teela—”

“If Evarrim hadn’t been the sole survivor, one of the others would have. He was canny enough, and powerful enough, to beat them at their own game. I played Court games,” she said quietly. “I also survived. Do you understand?”

After a moment of silence, Kaylin nodded.

“But even survival can become boring after a while.”

“You joined the Hawks because you were bored?”

Tain said, “No.”

“Then—then why?”

“Because she did not trust me,” he replied, “not to dare the Tower and take the test of Name.”

Kaylin stared at them both, and then turned to Severn. “If this is your idea of cheering me up, you need better ideas.”

He shrugged, but did grimace. “With the Barrani, you take whatever they offer.”

“No, with the Barrani, you don’t ask.” But she took a swig of the wine, and glanced at Tain.

“What she was trying to say,” he told Kaylin, “is that it doesn’t matter. What she did in pursuit of survival would probably give you ulcers, and she isn’t about to recount it all—it would take two months.”

“Three,” Teela drawled.

Tain rolled his very attractive eyes. Although he was serious—which seldom happened—those eyes were a shade of deep green; what he said was fact, not dirty secret. “What we did in the High Courts, we don’t do in the Imperial City. We uphold the Emperor’s law. We generally find it amusing,” he added, with a nod in Teela’s direction. “It’s certainly less formal; it’s usually less dangerous.” He said the last with a tinge of regret. “The laws that defined our lives there, and that define Teela’s life when she is called to Court, aren’t the same.

“Although we have better drink,” he added.

It was true. Kaylin looked up as food joined drink on the pocked table. It was some sort of cubed chicken with rice, potatoes and—ugh—little peas.

“I do not understand your people’s obsession with potatoes,” Teela said, her nose wrinkling in mild—for Teela—distaste. It wasn’t the first time she’d said it, and no doubt it wouldn’t be the last, but it was oddly comforting.

“The High Court is no longer my home. And the fiefs,” she added pointedly, “are no longer yours. Understood?”

“You think I’d go back there? Do I look stupid?”

“Generally,” Tain said helpfully. “Look, if they try to blackmail you, ignore it.” At Kaylin’s sudden tightening of expression, he rolled his eyes. “It’s completely obvious that’s what you’re afraid of. You can read it in your face a mile off. And you’re probably right,” he added with a shrug. “They’ll try, if they know where you are.”

They did, and that fact had bothered Kaylin almost as much as seeing Morse again. They had known where she would be, and with enough notice that they could find Billington, pay him to stir up a bit of trouble, break a window and time both things so that they’d catch her attention. If someone in the office was feeding information to the fieflord of Barren, it was more than simple trouble. If someone wasn’t feeding information to Barren, it was worse: it meant Barren had some way of looking into the Halls of Law that no one had yet noticed. Neither of these things were good.

But she hadn’t gone back to the office to talk with Marcus; she hadn’t even tried to point it out. It was what she damn well should have done. But had she, she’d have to answer questions. She wasn’t quite up to that, tonight.

“You can laugh in their face if it helps. I generally find breaking things attached to them more helpful, but you’ve been known to be squeamish, on occasion. On the other hand—”

“Shut up, Tain.”

“—you’ve also been known to—”

Teela elbowed him, hard. He did stop talking, but he turned a blue-eyed and murderous glare on his partner; her own eyes had shaded dark, but she was smiling.

“All right,” Severn whispered. “You win. This was ill-advised.”

And that did make Kaylin feel a bit better.

They did not, as it turned out, end up dead drunk. An attempt to insult the barkeeper fell so totally flat Kaylin wondered if he was deaf. On the other hand, neither Teela nor Tain had worked themselves into that dangerous state the Barrani called boredom. They were, Kaylin realized, genuinely worried about her.

And given that they were Barrani, they might continue to do so when they knew what she’d done. If they ever knew.

“I was in Barren for six months,” she told them. She hadn’t intended to say it; it had just fallen out of her mouth. She set her cup aside.

“You were in Nightshade,” Teela pointed out, “for thirteen years.”

“Barren was different,” she said quietly.

“Why?”

“It was—it was just different.”

“Find out what they want, Kaylin,” Tain told her quietly. “Or we will.” He nodded in Teela’s direction.

“You can’t just walk into Barren and demand answers.”

“We can try. I’ve never been into the fiefs,” he added, “but Teela used to head there when she was bored.”

“She went to Barren when she was bored?” Kaylin could have sounded more appalled if she’d really worked at it—but not by much.

“Not just Barren,” Teela added, grinning broadly. The grin faded. “But the fiefs aren’t what they were when I was young. Find out what they want. Do not do anything stupid.”

Kaylin hesitated, and then reached into the folds of her tunic. When she withdrew her hand, it held the letter that Morse had given her. Funny, how it didn’t burn; it should have. “I wanted to keep this to myself,” she told them all: Severn, who hadn’t spoken a word, Teela, Tain. She especially did not want to talk to Marcus or Caitlin. She didn’t want to hear a word that someone out of department, like, say, Mallory, had to say. She just didn’t want to see the looks on their faces.

Teela shrugged. “Yes, that was obvious. And clearly your Corporal is willing to let you do that—but we’re not.”

Kaylin set the letter on the table, and picked up her mug. “You didn’t leave Tain behind,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“You came to the Hawks—you brought him with you. You didn’t leave him behind in the High Courts.”

Teela was silent for a moment, and the silence wasn’t punctuated by her slow grin. It was almost human. “No,” Teela said at last, “I didn’t. This person you met in Elani was a friend?”