Michelle Sagara - Cast In Shadow

By writ of the Emperor of Karaazon, the Halls of Law were the only standing structures allowed to approach the height of the Imperial palace, and the three towers, set against a wide stretch of expensive ground in the shape of a triangle, flew the flags of the Lords of Law: the Hawk, the Wolf and the Sword. From her vantage, they could hardly be seen; she was too close. But from the rest of the city? They never rested.

Neither, she thought, did the people who served them. She was damn tired.

The front doors were always manned, and she recognized Tanner and Clint as they lowered their pole-arms, barring her way. It was the Hawk’s month for guard duty; they shared rotation of that honor with the Swords. The Wolves, lazy bastards, weren’t considered fit for dress duty. Or ritual entries.

She hated ritual.

Clint and Tanner didn’t love it much better than she did.

“Kaylin, where the hell have you been?” Tanner asked. It was the refrain that punctuated too much of her daily existence.

“Getting cleaned up, if you must know.”

Tanner was, at six and a half feet, tall even for a human. His helm was strictly a dress helm, and it gleamed bronze in the afternoon sunlight, running from the capped height of his head down the line of his nose, as if it were a bird’s mask. To either side of the metal, his eyes were a dark, deep brown.

Clint shook his head, and the glinting helm’s light left an after-image in her vision. But he smiled. He was about two inches shorter than Tanner, and his skin was the dark ebony of the Southern stretch. She loved the sound of his voice, and he knew it.

It wasn’t the only thing she loved about him.

“You’ve got to give up the moonlighting,” he told her.

“When the pay here doesn’t suck.”

He laughed out loud, his halberd shaking as he began to lift it. “You really didn’t get much sleep, did you? Iron Jaw has ears like a Barrani—he’ll have your hide on his wall as a dartboard.”

She rolled her eyes. “Can I go now?”

“Your doom,” he said, his voice still sweet with the sound of amused laughter. But his expression gained a moment’s gravity as he leaned forward and lowered that voice into a fold of deep velvet. “Sesti told me.”

“Sesti told you what?”

“What you were doing the past two days.”

“Tell her to piss off next time you see her.”

He laughed again. She could spend all day making him laugh, just for the thrill of the deep rich tones of that voice. But if she did it today? It would be her last day. She smiled. “That won’t be until his naming day.” Aerian men were forbidden the birthing caves—unless those caves held the dead or the dying. Even then, they could come to claim their wives, no more. Kaylin had never understood this.

“When are you off duty?” she asked him.

“About two hours.”

“You haven’t been home yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Sesti had a boy. Healthy, but his feathers were a mess. Took us three hours to clean ‘em down.”

“Always does,” he said with an affectionate shrug. “Go on. Iron Jaw’s been biting anyone who gets in reach.”

She nodded, walked past and then turning, reached out to touch the soft, ash gray of Clint’s wings. They snapped up and out beneath her fingers.

“You haven’t changed in seven years,” he told her, turning. “Don’t touch the flight feathers.”

If the exterior of the Halls of Law was forbidding, the interior was hardly less so. The front doors opened into a hall that not even cathedrals could boast. It rose three storeys, and across its vaulted ceilings, frescoes had been painted—Hawk, Wolf and Sword, trailing light and shadow in a grim depiction of various hunts. Sunlight streamed in from a window that was at least as tall, and certainly more impressive; the colors of the paint were protected from sunlight, and always on display, a reminder to newcomers of what the Halls meant to those who displeased their rulers.

But this hall was not meant to intimidate; it was built with a practical purpose in mind—which wasn’t true of many of the Imperial buildings. The Aerians that served the Lords of Law did not walk easily in the confined, cramped space of regular human halls. Clint, armed and armored, could easily take to the air in the confines of the rising stone walls, and high, high above her, the perch of the Aerie loomed; she had seen him reach it many, many times. Aerians circled above her, against the backdrop of colored fresco, and as always, she envied them their ability to truly fly.

The closest she’d ever gotten involved a long drop that had almost ended her life. She wasn’t eager to repeat it.

And if the Hawklord had really been waiting for three—close to four—hours now, she didn’t give much for her chances. She began to run.

To the east of the Aerian hall, as it was colloquially called—and never in the hearing of one of the three Lords—stood another tall set of doors, adorned by another set of guards.

She recognized them both: Teela and Tain. They were sometimes called the twins by anyone who had no experience with the subtle temper and cruelty of the Barrani; they were seldom called that twice by the same person. Delicately built, they stood slightly taller than Clint, slightly shorter than Tanner.

Some people found the Barrani beautiful; Kaylin wasn’t so certain, herself. They looked ethereal, delicate and just ever-so-slightly too perfect. Which made her feel solid, plain and grubby. Not exactly a way to win friends and influence people.

They wore the gray and gold of the Hawks in a band across their foreheads; their hair—gorgeous, long, black as the proverbial raven’s wing—had been pulled back and shoved neatly beneath it. Human hair—at least in the ranks of the Hawks—was not allowed that length; it got in the way of pretty much anything. But the Barrani? No such restrictions were placed on them.

Of course, having seen them in a fight, Kaylin was painfully aware that those restrictions would have been pointless.

Teela whistled. At six foot nothing, she wore armor that suited her fighting style—which is to say, none at all. But she carried a large stick. “You’re late,” she said.

Kaylin had to look up to meet her emerald eyes. And emerald? They really were. Hard, sharp and a little brittle around the too perfect edges. That and a stunning, endless shade of deep, blue green. “That’s news?”

“No. That’s the sound of me winning the betting pool.”

“Good. I was rooting for you—and now I want my cut.”

“You’ll get it,” she said with a grin, “if you survive old Iron Jaw.”

“I’m not worried about Iron Jaw. Tain, tell Teela to shut up and get the hell out of the way.”

“What, do I look stupid?”

“Usually.”

“Not that stupid.” He grinned; the row of his perfect teeth had been chipped in one fight or another. When Kaylin had first been inducted into the Hawks, Tain was the only Barrani she could always recognize when he stood among a group of his own people because he had a visible flaw. His only flaw. “Oh, I should warn you—”

“Save it for later.”

He shrugged, lazy and slow. “Remember, Kaylin, I did try.”

She was already past them, and she spent what little breath she had left cursing the fact that the damn halls were so long.

Old Iron Jaw’s desk was huddled in the center of about a dozen similar desks, and distinguishable only by the presence of the Leontine who occupied it. Well, by that and the long furrows he’d dug there over the years when his claws did their automatic extension and raked through the surface of dense, heavy wood. This happened when he was annoyed, and the person who had annoyed him had the good fortune not to be close enough to bear the brunt of those claws instead.