Michelle Sagara - Cast in Peril

“Kaylin!” Tara said, raising her voice. It wasn’t shouting, not in the strict sense of the word. Her voice sounded normal, if worried, but much, much louder.

She heard a curt, sharp curse—in a normal voice, if Dragon voices could be said to be normal. A shadow crossed the ground as Lord Tiamaris of the Dragon Court left his demesne. He landed to the left of where Severn now wielded his weapon, his wings folding as he lifted his neck toward the building that contained the unknown Barrani.

The ground didn’t shake at the force of his landing; it gave, as if it were soft sand and not cracked stone. Or as if it were flesh. It reminded Kaylin strongly of the gray stretch of nothingness that existed between worlds, although it in theory had shape, form, texture.

The unmistakable sound of a Dragon inhaling was surprisingly loud when it happened right beside your ear. Purple fire broke against Severn’s chain and sizzled where it touched Tiamaris; Kaylin could no longer be certain that the blasts were aimed at her, they were so broad. Tiamaris was angry enough that he didn’t appear to notice them.

The Dragon fieflord exhaled fire. Had the building been a regular fief hovel, it would have been glowing. This one, although it had the shape leeched of color, wavered in the wake of the flame, undulating as it slowly lost coherence. If the Barrani Lord was caught in the Dragon’s fire, he made no sign, but in the distance, Kaylin could hear weeping. It was soft, attenuated, and clear somehow over the roar of flame.

She reached out and rapped Tiamaris; he didn’t appear to notice.

The building continued to waver, melting at last into a gray smoke or fog. She would have panicked, but the crying didn’t get any louder; it was almost as if it were entirely unrelated to the demise of the building itself. Only when that building was gone did Tiamaris acknowledge Kaylin.

“You should not be here,” he told her in his deep, bass rumble.

“You’re here,” she pointed out, perhaps unwisely given the color of his eyes. “Severn, can you hear that?”

Tiamaris hadn’t looked away, but the question caught Severn’s attention. “Hear what?”

“I’ll take that as a no. I can hear someone…crying.”

“No.”

“Tiamaris?”

The Dragon snorted smoke. “No,” he said after a pause. “I hear nothing. I do not wish to remain here,” he added. “Which direction is the crying coming from?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “I think—I think it’s coming from Nightshade’s side of the border.”

“Then you may visit Nightshade,” he replied. “But do it the regular way.”

“Meaning?”

“Cross the bridge, Private. Both of them. Come. We will speak with Yvander now.”

* * *

Yvander was already speaking when they returned to the color and solidity of the fief of Tiamaris. He was gesturing, hands moving as if he thought they were wings; Tara’s head was tilted in a familiar way, and she was once again wearing her gardening clothes. Her wings, however, remained.

His hands froze as Tiamaris approached. It was almost impossible to maintain unreasoning fear when confronted with the Tower’s avatar; it was almost impossible not to be terrified when confronted with Tiamaris.

Tara, however, turned nonchalantly to the great Dragon who crowded the street simply by standing still. “Yvander thought he was with his friend Michael.”

Tiamaris nodded.

“The intruder?”

“Gone.”

Tara turned to Kaylin. “He was Barrani?”

“He looked Barrani to me—but if Yvander saw him as Michael, there’s no guarantee that he was.” She hesitated and then added, “He was using magical fire.”

“It was not fire,” Tiamaris said.

“It looked like fire. But purple.”

“Fire is not generally purple,” Tara told her. “Yvander, where did you meet Michael?”

“I met him on the way to the Town Hall. I’m due to start work in—” He glanced at the sky, and in particular at the sun’s position, and blanched.

Tara, however, touched his shoulder gently. “You will not be removed from your position. Please. Where did you meet Michael?”

“On the way to the site,” he replied, his panic receding in the face of her reassurance.

“Please, show us.”

* * *

An escort of the Lord and Lady of the fief was perhaps not what Yvander would have wished for at the start of the day, but by the time he stopped on a street whose name escaped Kaylin, he was relatively calm. “Here.”

Kaylin looked at the building to the left of the street. “He lives here?”

Yvander frowned. “No. He was visiting a friend, he said.”

“Good enough.” The building was, as far as the fiefs went, in poor repair; the door that in theory kept people out was listing on its hinges. Severn glanced at Tiamaris, who nodded in silence. Kaylin followed as Severn went to investigate. A fief building—especially in Tiamaris, given the damage done by the weakening of the borders—would have to be literally falling down before it remained empty, and this building was no exception; there were two families, at best guess, living on the first floor. The second floor, however, appeared to be empty.

They took the stairs cautiously; Severn gave Kaylin the lead because frankly, these stairs didn’t look as though they would support a lot of weight. When she reached the second story, she froze. “Severn? Come up the stairs slowly.”

The stairs creaked as he climbed them. The halls were narrow, the ceiling, which looked dangerously warped, low. Neither of these were remarkable, or at least they wouldn’t have been in Nightshade, the fief with which they were both most familiar.

“What is it? What did you see?” was the soft question asked when Severn joined her.

“A mage was here,” was her flat reply.

“Is he here now?”

“If he is, he’s not casting. My arms don’t ache. But—there was magic here. I guess whatever it took to disguise himself as Michael involved a decent amount of power.”

“Which would make some sense, but a spell of that nature would generally be cast on either Yvander or the impersonator, not a hall in the middle of a run-down building.”

“It’s not the hall,” she replied. She didn’t argue with anything else, because all of it was true. “It’s the door.” Lifting her arm, she pointed toward the room at the hall’s end. There, against its closed door, was a sigil, an echo of the identity of the mage who had cast the spell. She frowned as she drew closer. There was an obvious sigil, but around it, or beneath it, lay a far less distinct mark.

She recognized them both. She’d seen them before, in her apartment, just after her home had been destroyed by an Arcane bomb.

* * *

The door looked ordinary, for the fiefs; it was old and slightly warped. The hinges were, of course, on the other side, but Kaylin didn’t expect them to be in perfect repair, either. She approached the door with care, noting how utterly silent the rooms to either side were. It was possible they were entirely empty—it was the right time of the day for that—but she felt her heart sink a yard, regardless.

Severn nodded as if she’d spoken, and opened a door to their right. Kaylin paused and watched him enter. The door wasn’t locked, but frequently, doors in buildings of this nature weren’t. A lock guaranteed violence if someone actually wanted to enter; it didn’t keep them out. People in the fiefs understood squatters’ rights: the stronger person had them. Kaylin and Severn had moved several times, with very little warning, in their early years in Nightshade, but they’d moved unharmed. They’d put up no fight, because the result of a fight was a given; in return, the people who’d kicked them out simply waited for them to walk through the door.