Michelle Sagara - Cast In Secret

Funny man. She thought about hitting him. Briefly.

Ybelline’s stalks rose and fell, as if thought itself were too heavy. She was silent for a long while, staring at Kaylin, and at Severn. Then she rose, leaving the table behind, and turned her back on them. Even among humans, this would not have been considered a good sign.

“You are very guarded,” Ybelline said to Severn. “And I choose to trust you without touching your inner thoughts.”

“And Kaylin isn’t.”

“No,” Ybelline said softly. “And I think she may have more that she feels needs to be hidden.”

Severn said nothing.

Kaylin froze for just a second. But Ybelline’s voice was so gentle, so free from censure, that the moment passed, and Kaylin let it go. She wanted to trust this woman. She had wanted to trust her the first time she’d laid eyes on her. Kaylin didn’t remember her mother very well—but something about Ybelline reminded her of that past. Never mind that the past was in the poverty of the fief of Nightshade.

Ybelline lifted her arms, wrapped them around herself. Kaylin could see her fingers trembling in the still air, the warm sun. “We need you to help us,” she said quietly.

With anything came to mind, but didn’t leave Kaylin’s lips. Of course, the fact that this didn’t matter occurred to her only after she’d successfully bit back the words; they were so loud.

“One of our children is missing.”

Missing.

The word was heavy. It opened between them like a chasm created by the breaking of earth in the aftermath of magic. Kaylin did not look at Severn, but she was aware that he was watching her. Not staring, not exactly, but aware of her reaction. She schooled her expression—a phrase she hated—with care, entirely for his benefit.

“You haven’t reported her as missing.” Not a question.

“No,” Ybelline said, and she almost shuddered. Did, although it was subtle, a ripple that passed through her and left her changed.

“You don’t believe that she just wandered out of the quarter on her own.” Flat words.

“No,” Ybelline replied.

Which made sense. The young child Kaylin had so unselfconsciously lifted had had the attention of everyone in the street simply because he wanted it, and the adults were happy to indulge the simple desire of someone who was certain he was loved. Any child, Kaylin thought, would have that certainty, among the Tha’alani. She felt a pang as she thought of the orphans in the Foundling Halls, Marrin’s kits. They had never been certain of that.

Kaylin stepped back, but not physically. She was a Hawk, and reminded herself that that was what she had chosen to be. And a Hawk asked questions, sought answers, sifted through facts. No matter how much they dreaded them.

“What happened?” she asked, not bothering to hide that dread.

Ybelline did not close her eyes as she turned back to them, and her eyes were dark. The color, Kaylin thought, of either sorrow or horror. She still wasn’t sure.

“She was not at her home,” Ybelline began. “Understand that we have a … looser sense of home … than your kin. We are aware of where our children are, and we watch them, as a community. We listen for them. We hear their pain or their fear, and any one of us —any —will come to their rescue if rescue is required.

“Mayalee is a wanderer,” she added. “A young explorer. And she is fond of night, and stars, and navigation. She is bold—” The words stopped for a moment. “She is afraid of very little. Not even heights or falling.

“And none of our children—in the Tha’alaan—are afraid of strangers. We have no word for it,” she added, “that does not mean outsider. And no outsiders come here.”

“You think one did.”

“One must have,” Ybelline said bitterly. But something was not right, something about the words hinted at evasion. Kaylin looked at Severn to see if he had noticed, but she read nothing on his face, nothing in his expression. He was, as Ybelline had said, careful.

Kaylin was not. “You’re not certain it was an outsider,” she said at last.

Ybelline raised a golden brow.

“Epharim said—he mentioned—that we define insane, for your kin. My kin,” she added, “and I won’t argue the definition. He might be right. I’ve often thought—”

“Kaylin, topic,” Severn said curtly.

“Right. If insanity can be defined, it means there are, among your kin, those who are insane.”

“The deaf,” Ybelline said, and there was pity in her voice. “Those that are born deaf. Those that become deaf through injury.”

Kaylin nodded.

“It is like losing the ability to speak,” Ybelline added, “and to hear. And to touch. And to walk. It is all of those things, at once. It is the loss of kin. Many do not survive it.”

“And those that do?”

“They are our kin,” she replied, “and we care for them as we can. They have no place in your world. They are of the Tha’alaan even if they can no longer perceive it.”

Kaylin nodded. “What happened?” she asked again, but this time her voice was gentle.

“Mayalee is five years old, by your reckoning. She is still in all ways a child, by ours. She is aware of the Tha’alaan, and the Tha’alaan is aware of her.

“She was out, near the roof gardens of the center. It was late, and the moons were full—it was just after your Festival. She likes the Festival,” she added softly, “and although we forbid it to our kin, some of the magefire that lights the sky can be seen clearly from the terrace.

“So she went there, to watch.

“After a time, she climbed down, and she headed toward the guardhouse wards. She is such a clever child,” Ybelline added, and the affection was swamped with regret and fear—and a certain sense of failure.

Profound failure.

“She was not afraid, simply determined. Her aunt—I think you would use that word—headed out to find her. But before they reached her she met someone.

“A man,” she added. “He was not in the Tha’alaan, but Mayalee was not afraid of him. Not immediately.”

“And she went with him?”

“She went with him. Her uncles came, then, and her mother,” Ybelline added. “I was on call to the Emperor at the time, or I would have heard her.”

“How far away can you hear your kin?”

“I? A great distance. But it depends entirely upon the individual. Some of us can reach far, and some can touch only the heart of the Tha’alaan.

“She was afraid, when she left our quarter. She did not want to leave. She told us this much—but not more. We could not clearly see the man she saw,” she added. “And this—”

“Magic?”

“We fear magic,” Ybelline replied. “But it is worse—she began to tell us something and then—she screamed.” Ybelline closed her eyes. “She screamed. It was the last thing we heard of her—that scream. She is no longer in reach of the Tha’alaan.”

“She was taken that quickly?”

“That is our hope,” Ybelline said, but there was little hope in the words.

Kaylin was confused. Severn rose. “You think she was crippled,” he said quietly.

“We fear it,” Ybelline replied. “We fear that they damaged her somehow, to break the contact. Those who are powerful can sense each other—but even the weak can touch the Tha’alaan at all times.”

“But they could have just knocked her out, couldn’t they?”

“No. Not conventionally.” It was Severn who replied. “The Tha’alani would be aware of her, even were she sleeping.”

“But how—” Kaylin bit back the question. “Her stalks. Her antennae.”

Ybelline nodded, and this time, her face showed open fear.