Cast in Flight by Michelle Sagara
“Helen’s understating things.”
“You can hear them.” Of course he could.
“Yes. Helen can’t provide privacy for those who are Namebound.” Mandoran’s face was tight with pain. “Annarion is reminding his brother that duty—his duty—should never have been forsaken for something as trivial as brotherly affection.”
Even Kaylin winced. She’d never had brothers or sisters. Her mother had died. She’d never had a father. But she’d yearned for family. She still did. Severn had once said that she built family wherever she went—and maybe that was even true. But she wouldn’t want any of her made family to suffer for her sake. That wasn’t supposed to be the point of family.
“Isn’t it?” Helen asked softly.
“No!”
Mandoran snorted, some of his normal color returning to his face. “You walked into the heart of the green to try to help Teela. Yes, she was pissed off about it. She still is. You often do exactly what Nightshade did.” He shook his head. “It’s never wise to love Barrani, if you are one. For mortals—for you—you only have to maintain it for a couple of decades, after which you’re too old.”
“Too old to love?”
“Too old to shoulder the burden of it. Barrani are never too old. It’s why we avoid the hells out of each other when we’re older and smarter.” He grimaced. “I won’t repeat what Annarion just told me to do.”
“Thank you,” Helen said before Kaylin could ask.
“On the other hand,” Mandoran added, “I think this makes me grateful that my own family line is ash and dust at this point.”
Helen raised a brow.
“There’s no pressure.”
“I believe you could petition the High Court to have your line reinstated—you are, after all, alive, and you are demonstrably of your line.”
“I was a useless youngest son,” Mandoran replied, grinning. Kaylin was almost certain he was lying. “But I think I’m going to accompany Kaylin to the Halls today.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. Do you have any idea what my day is going to be like as is?”
“None at all. But I do know what my day is going to be like if I stay here.”
“It’s not like he’s going to hurt you.”
Mandoran laughed. “If you think this doesn’t cause pain, you’re not as smart as you look.”
“You think I look like a mortal idiot.”
“And your point is?”
“No one likes to watch their friends in pain when there’s nothing they can do to help them,” Moran said. Kaylin hadn’t even heard her enter the dining room.
She turned, and then stopped short as she saw the Aerian sergeant.
Moran was wearing something Kaylin had never seen her in before. It was—or appeared to be, at first glance—a dress, but as she watched Moran walk, she adjusted that assumption. What had appeared to be skirts were separate but flowing legs; they moved as if they had a will of their own—or at least a breeze of their own. They were white and powder blue and azure and gold, colors that hinted at sky, at day, at light. The sleeves, however, were indigo, full draping cloth flecked with silver and gold and pale, transparent gauze. And the chest was the color of sunset—or sunrise. The bracelet was the only thing on her bare right arm.
“You can’t go to work dressed like that.”
“I can,” Moran replied. “The tabard will cover it.”
“That’s not—”
“There are no rules to the contrary. You wear black because dirt and blood show less—but it’s not necessary, either. You could wear any functional clothing as long as you wore the tabard.”
“I couldn’t wear that—I’d trip over the hem.”
“No, Kaylin, you wouldn’t. This is a dress designed for flight, and possible fight. It will not trip me, it will not get caught in anything, it will not tear.”
“But—but—” She exhaled. Met Moran’s military blue gaze.
“This is the ceremonial dress of the Illumen praevolo. And that,” she added, taking a stool and pulling it up to the table, “is what I am.”
* * *
“I like the dress,” Teela said. Both she and her partner were lounging in the foyer, having chosen to miss breakfast.
“Thank you,” Moran replied. “I was concerned that it would be a little too much for the office.”
“Not a little,” Kaylin countered. Last night, Moran had planned to take a leave of absence, as requested. By the Hawklord. One conversation later—if Annarion and his brother didn’t count—she was not only going into the office, but she was going in dressed as the Illumen praevolo. It should have been hard to look martial in that dress. It wasn’t. Moran looked very much like she was prepared for the battlefield.
“You’re going to cause a bit of a stir,” Tain added, looking appreciative. “But it suits you.”
“The stir or the dress?” Moran asked, the corners of her lips rising.
“Both, I think.”
“I’m almost sorry we missed breakfast. But Annarion wasn’t in the best of moods,” Teela said. Tain’s addition was lost, for a moment, to shouting. “They almost sound like Dragons.”
“You think?”
“They really don’t,” Bellusdeo said, “but if you want a Dragon to compare it to, I’m happy to oblige.”
“I bet you are,” Mandoran said. “And I’d just as soon take your word for it.”
“You’re willing to take my word for something?”
“Given the alternative, yes. Don’t get used to it.”
Bellusdeo snorted smoke, but her eyes were close to golden. They left the house in a huddle the minute Severn showed up at the door.
* * *
“They sound like Dragons,” Severn said as he reversed course and headed back down the walk.
“Don’t you start, too,” Bellusdeo told him. “They sound nothing like Dragons—they just happen to be loud.”
It was Kaylin’s turn to snort. “Having listened to your indecipherable discussions with the Emperor half a palace away, I’m going to say that loud isn’t the only thing they have in common.”
Bellusdeo looked down her nose at Kaylin, lifting a brow as she did.
The familiar was sitting on Kaylin’s shoulder, his wings folded. He looked alert, but not alarmed. The Barrani were blue-eyed, which was pretty much normal. It was amazing to Kaylin how similar their eyes were to Moran’s at the moment. Bellusdeo’s eyes had settled into an alert orange, but it was a pale color.
Moran attracted attention. She hadn’t chosen to don the tabard for the walk to the Halls, and people in the streets stopped to look—or, in one or two cases, stare—as they walked past. In part, it might be the bracelet and bandaged wing—Moran hadn’t elected to remove the dressing that kept the damaged wing in place. Kaylin doubted it, though. Moran walked with a kind of bold confidence she’d never seen.
Not that Moran lacked confidence, of course; in the infirmary, she had more pull than the Hawklord. She certainly had more pull than any of her patients, and had even threatened to strap an angry, hurt Leontine to a bed on at least one occasion. But that was a function of knowing her job, and knowing it well. This was different. It was almost as if she’d spent the whole of her life flying under cloud cover, and had finally flown free of it. She looked younger.
No, not younger, Kaylin thought. But...brighter, somehow. As if the trappings of the praevolo that she’d disdained for all of her life had been a missing, and essential, part of her nature.
“I’d like to see her fly,” Mandoran said—very quietly. Aerian ears weren’t Leontine or Barrani; in that, they were much closer to human, so whispering was safe.
“So would I,” Kaylin replied, just as quietly. And it was true. She wanted Moran to let her heal her wing. She wanted Moran to
Instead, as if she were human, Moran owned the streets. Maybe it was the dress. Maybe it was the brilliance of the colors. Usually, Moran—like any sergeant—seemed both definitive and gray, as if it was necessary to let the office determine her shape. Or rather, she had. Today was a revelation. The Aerian didn’t look happy, exactly. From everything she’d said, being praevolo had not been pleasant for her. It had cost her her mother, her grandmother—the only family she had.
Kaylin hated winter and fiefs and disease, because those three things had killed her mother. But it was like hating rain. Railing against weather didn’t change the weather, because the weather didn’t care. It had no essential malice. It was something to be endured.
Moran had lost kin because of people. It was different. It was profoundly different. And she’d denied the wings that had been her unwanted birthright. She’d ignored them. She’d proved that she didn’t need them to make a place for herself. She’d made one.
But it was a conflicted space—Kaylin saw that now, if only in comparison. She had been saying, in every possible way, Ignore me, ignore my differences. She’d forced herself to fit in. By denying what she was, she’d created a life in which everyone else did, or could, deny it, as well. And that would have been fine, if not for the Caste Court. Or so Kaylin would have said. Now, she wasn’t certain. Moran had lived behind walls. Kaylin wasn’t certain if she’d knocked the walls down or opened a door, and it didn’t matter.
No one attacked her on the way to work. The familiar was alert. Everyone was alert, even Mandoran. But there were no more invisible attackers, no more magical assassins. There was just open, clear sky. There were normal Aerian patrols.
There was, when they reached the doors, Clint and Tanner.
Tanner blinked but otherwise held his post. It was Clint who froze in place.
“If you don’t close your mouth,” Kaylin told him cheerfully, “you’re going to end up swallowing flies or other large insects.”
His hands had locked around the halberd’s pole; his eyes were purple. Fair enough. Purple was Aerian surprise, and Kaylin expected to see a lot of it today. Tanner’s eyes remained their normal color. He didn’t whistle—it wasn’t worth his job.
Kaylin expected Clint to say something to her; he’d gone out of his way to warn her to stay out of things. Or maybe she expected him to be cold, once the shock had worn off. Or—hells, she had no idea what she expected. She only knew that she hadn’t expected him to fold at the knee, to spread his wings—into Tanner, since the Aerian wingspan was actually far greater than the span of the door frame.
And Moran accepted what was an obeisance. She let him hold it for what felt like minutes—and Kaylin’s eyes would have been purple had she been Aerian, because she realized that Clint had no intention of rising until given permission. Which Moran finally did.
“If you do that once I’ve entered the Halls,” Moran said pleasantly, “I’ll see you busted back to private.”
He rose, and reality reasserted itself. His eyes shaded from purple to a different Aerian color. Kaylin had expected that color to be blue, because she expected that this act of defiance on Moran’s part would be considered trouble. But they went to gray instead. Honestly, racial interactions always contained hidden complications that made Kaylin feel stupid.
They entered the Halls.
* * *
Moran went to the infirmary—it was hers, after all—where she donned the version of tabard designed to accommodate Aerian wings. She allowed Bellusdeo to help her, glaring Kaylin out of the room before she could offer.
“I’m not the sergeant you have to worry about while you’re here. And I can practically hear the other one growling.”
There was a division in office space between the Aerians and the rest of the groundbound Hawks, because Aerians and the run-of-the-mill chairs and desks didn’t combine well. They required more space, different chairs and less-confining desks; they worked at tables, without the drawer real estate, and they generally preferred to stand, although they’d take the sturdy stools created for their use.
Comfortable or not, they were required to turn in the same paperwork anyone else was; in that, Marcus was an equal-opportunity sergeant. If he had to suffer through paperwork, he made sure the suffering was shared.
Kaylin therefore missed some of the early Aerian reactions.
Marcus, however, with Leontine hearing and general paranoia, didn’t. The growl was so loud, Kaylin missed the fact that her name was wedged somewhere in its depths. His eyes, of course, were a bright orange, which appeared to be darkening into the bad color for Leontines. She made her way to the front of his desk. Hardwood was definitely better when it came to Leontine claws; given his mood, there should have been runnels in the wood. Fortunately, there were only visible scratches so far.
“What,” he demanded without preamble, “did you do?”
Kaylin considered the truth, which was bad. She considered the Leontine bristling in front of her: also bad. And she considered being caught in a lie while the Leontine was in this mood. She settled for less bad; there was no good here.
“I returned an item to Moran. It belonged to her,” she added, keeping her voice as flat as possible.
“And this item wouldn’t happen to be the bracelet she’s wearing, would it?”
“Sir.”
“It looks a lot like the bracelet in the Records transmission.”
“Sir.”
“Which would generally be considered evidence.”
“Sir.” She stopped herself from wilting, because it never actually helped.
“And the sergeant’s dress?” He spoke the last word with clear distaste.
“Is hers. It’s not against regulations. She has full freedom of motion in it, and she’s wearing her identifying colors. Sir.” Shut up, Kaylin. Just shut up.
Marcus said, “The Hawklord wants to speak to you. Now.” His mirror was flat and reflective. Seeing her glance move—it was the only thing about Kaylin that did—he said, “Over your left shoulder.”
Hanson stood in the arch that led to the Tower stairs, arms folded.
Chapter 12
“No,” Hanson said, as he led the way back up the stairs—where his office, among other things, was located. “My mirror is not broken. Nor is the Hawklord’s.” He was grim, but Kaylin expected that. He was worried, which she hadn’t. “No, don’t speak to me.” When she raised both brows, he said, “Plausible deniability. My desk is the ugliest it’s been in years and I do not want any more involvement than I already have. I don’t care what you did. I don’t care what you do—don’t repeat that where anyone can hear you. I have more than enough emergencies on my plate without you adding to them.”
“Is the Hawklord angry?”
“Which part of ‘don’t speak to me’ wasn’t clear?”
Which was, Kaylin assumed, an answer. It was the wrong answer, as it turned out.
When Kaylin hit the Tower’s top floor, the doors were open. She hesitated at the top of the stairs. In general, when the Hawklord was angry, they were shut; he made her open them the normal way, which always caused some pain.
Severn said a single word under his breath. It wasn’t particularly polite.
“Private. Corporal. Please come in.” The Hawklord’s wings were high, which was all she could see of him, his eyes and their color facing away from them. He stood in front of his mirror, which was not reflective. Although he spoke softly, he enunciated just a little bit too well.
He was staring at a Records capture of Moran at the front doors. In her dress. With her bracelet. And her expression as she looked down on Clint’s bowed, lowered head.
“Do you recognize Clint’s posture?” he asked without turning, his voice soft, the s
“No, sir.”
“Be more expansive. What do you think he is doing?”
“Kneeling.”
“And his wings?”
She’d wondered about that. They were wide and high in a way that would have suggested aggression—if he’d been standing. “I’m sorry, sir. This was definitely not taught in racial integration classes, and I paid attention to everything I was taught about Aerians.”
“The qualifier is—and was—noted.”
Kaylin waited for the question Marcus had asked. Significantly, the Hawklord failed to ask it.
“You will not recognize the dress,” he continued. “You will not recognize the significance of the bracelet.”
“Sir.” She chose the safest syllable.
He chose to let her. “There was no trouble on the way to the office this morning.”
“No, sir.”
“Did that surprise you?”
Had it? Yes. If she thought about it, it did. “Because of the dress?”
“Yes, Private. Because of the dress.” His eyes were a shade of gray that was tinged with blue. “I saw her fly once. When I was younger. I am not dar Carafel. I could never presume to rise so high.” The words were said with only the faintest tinge of bitterness—and Kaylin recognized, in them, some part of her own envy and frustration at the unfairness of the universe. It was unsettling; she’d never heard it in the Hawklord’s voice before.
“Flight,” he continued, “has a meaning for you that it does not generally have for those who can fly. Valuing it, idolizing it as you do would be like idolizing breathing, for humans. Or walking. It is something we take for granted—until it is lost, and we are groundbound. Humans who lose the ability to walk have similar difficulties.
“But, Kaylin—when the praevolo flies, we feel it. All of us.”
“She can’t fly, though.”
“No, not yet. But seeing her today, I cannot believe that she will never fly again.” And he smiled. “Things are about to become interesting. The human in the holding cell is not dead. There has been only one attempt to poison him since yesterday—but the Aerians are not fools. Those who are complicit in the previous difficulties became so because they were afraid. Their families, where family exists, are in the Southern Reach, and dar Carafel rules the Reach.” He shook his head, lifted his hand toward the mirror’s surface and stopped, motionless and silent as he looked at Moran’s image.