Michelle Sagara - Cast In Courtlight

And night was coming.

She followed Nightshade, her cheek tingling. She wanted to brush it clear of the odd sensation, but she’d tried that many times, and all it did was make her hand numb. But she hesitated as the Castle came into view.

“There are no bodies in the cages,” he said quietly.

She looked up to examine his profile; he hadn’t turned to speak. “I guess people are busy preparing for the Festival.” It sounded lame, even to her.

“Too busy to offer offense?” His smile was sharp, but again, she saw it in perfect profile. “No, Kaylin Neya, it is a gift. For you.”

“You knew I would be coming here.”

“Yes. And I do not intend—at this time—to make your stay more difficult than it must be.”

There were two guards at the black facade of the gate. They offered Nightshade a deep obeisance, a formal and graceful bend that did not deprive them of weapons or footing. He did not appear to notice.

But they offered no less respect to Kaylin. It made her uncomfortable; it put her off her stride.

“They are here for protection,” he told her as he made his way to the portcullis. “And I am seldom in need of protection here.”

She hesitated, hating the portcullis. It never actually rose; it was a decorative set of heavy, black iron bars that should have been functional. She’d seen them before a dozen times in other buildings, and had learned to listen to the grinding of the gears that raised them.

But these? They weren’t. Raised.

You didn’t enter Castle Nightshade without an invitation, and when you did—you walked through the lowered portcullis; it was a very mundane depiction of a magic portal. And it took you somewhere else. She wondered if the courtyard that could easily be seen through the spaces in the bars was real, or if it was a backdrop, some sort of tiresome illusion.

She really, really hated magic.

“Kaylin?” Lord Nightshade said. It sounded like a question. It was, of course, a command. He held out a hand to punctuate the fact, and she forced herself to move slowly enough that it didn’t seem like an obvious hesitation. Given that she wasn’t her audience, she couldn’t tell whether or not the watching Barrani guards could tell the difference. She doubted they cared.

But they were … different.

“Of course,” Lord Nightshade said in a voice that barely traveled to her ears. “They know what you fought, Kaylin. They know you survived. They could not, with certainty, say the same of themselves in a like situation.”

And the Barrani respected power.

She took a deep breath and followed Lord Nightshade into the castle.

Her stomach almost lost lunch. She hadn’t had time for dinner, which was good; dinner wouldn’t have been an almost.

But she wasn’t in the vestibule, which had the advantage of looking like the very rich and opulent end of “normal,” she was in a room. A room that had no windows but shed an enormous amount of light anyway.

The floor was cold and hard, but it was beautiful; a smoky marble shot through with veins of blue and green, and the hint of something gold. It was laid out in tiles that suggested the pattern of concentric circles, and at the center of those, she stood, her bag on her shoulders, her uniform hanging unevenly at the hem. In other words, out of place in every possible way.

Not so, Lord Nightshade.

He gestured; she looked up as he did, because his hand started at waist level and stopped just above his head, drawing the eye. She couldn’t help it. Years of working the beat at the side of Teela and Tain hadn’t in any way made her ready for Lord Nightshade; he was Barrani in the almost mythic sense, and they—they were real.

He was beautiful, in the cold way the floors were.

The ceiling above her head was rounded, like a gentle dome; it was rimmed by something that looked like marble, and its surface was engraved with runes. She didn’t recognize them.

She didn’t want to.

“The words—those runes—were … already here … when you took possession of the castle?”

“They were,” he said, sparing her a brief glance. His eyes traced the runes, and the light that rippled across them, as if it were reflected by the surface of a small pond in sunlight. “But they are not, I think, a danger to you. Can you read them?”

This was polite, as it was often polite to ask questions for which you technically weren’t supposed to have the answers. She distrusted polite in men of power. “No.”

“Ah. A pity. I believe that among the runes above us there are words you can invoke, should it come to that. They will afford you some protection.”

She said nothing.

“I have taken the liberty of giving you one of the outer rooms,” he continued. “You will not be required to enter the Long Hall. If I remember correctly, it causes you some discomfort.”

“It’s not the hall,” she said, before she could stop herself. “It’s the Barrani. The ones that don’t move and seem to be interested in blood.”

“Even so.” He pointed. Against the far curve—there was no direction in this room, given lack of anything that offered a directional anchor—was a large, round bed. With pillows, even. It was pristine, and covered in silks she thought were worth more than two years of her pay. It was annoying. On the other hand, it lacked a canopy, which seemed to be the thing to attach to the beds of people with too much money.

“I don’t suppose you have a map of the Castle?”

“One that wouldn’t change?”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

He smiled. “There is a wardrobe for your … belongings. You will also find—”

“I don’t need anything else.” She remembered, clearly, her first visit; she’d lost her uniform and had woken up in a really impractical dress. A really beautiful, attractive, impractical dress.

“If you dine with me—as I hope you will—you will need less … political garb. I have seen to that,” he added, his voice cooling by several degrees.

She remembered that annoying him was not a good idea. Not that she wasn’t willing, but she wanted to choose the fights.

He walked over to the wall and gestured. Stone separated, and a section of the wall reflected light evenly. Perfectly. “This,” he told her quietly, “is the mirror. You may use it, if you wish.”

“But you’ll hear everything.”

“Indeed.”

“And anyone who wants to reach me?” “They’ll be … directed … to this one. You are free to explore the Castle. I suggest, if you do, that you take a guard with you.” “Which one?”

“One of the two,” he replied, “who stand outside this door.” And he walked toward it. “I have much to attend to this eve. We will talk on the morrow.”

“I have to work—”

“You are not a prisoner here, Kaylin. You are no longer a child. You know the way to the upper city.”

The mirror didn’t wait.

She was almost asleep—she had trouble sleeping in strange, obscenely comfortable beds—when it went off. For a moment, she was disoriented; she was already out of the bed, and padding on cold stone toward the wrong wall when she remembered that she wasn’t home; she corrected herself as wakefulness caught up with her instincts.

She touched the mirror, keying it; an image began to form in its depths. Familiar face, and a dreadful, familiar expression.

“Marya?”

“Kaylin, thank the gods!”

Marya was a midwife. Which pretty much said it all. Kaylin reached for her pack. “Where?” she said. “Stevenson Street. It’s Worley’s old house.” “How long do I have?”

There was a small, stressful silence. Silent answers were always the worst. Had she been home, it would be a five-minute sprint, a fifteen-minute jog. She wasn’t anywhere that close.