Cast in Flight by Michelle Sagara
He then turned to face Kaylin, the undispelled image of Moran at his back.
“You will be having dinner guests this evening.”
Kaylin nodded.
“I would like to invite myself to dinner.”
And froze. When it became clear that the Hawklord was not going to add any more words until she answered him, she turned to Severn, who predictably shrugged.
What should I do?
It’s not my house, he replied. He wasn’t nearly as disturbed about this as Kaylin was—but she saw that he hadn’t really planned on attending dinner, either.
Coward.
You’d avoid it like the plague if Helen weren’t your home.
This was more or less true. It’s supposed to be an informal dinner. With mostly just the Emperor and Bellusdeo. If the Hawklord comes, that changes everything.
Oh?
It’ll be political.
It’s always political, Kaylin. When there are more than two people in any gathering, it eventually becomes political. Politics is just another way of saying, “I want something and I’m going to get it.” There’s more finesse. The rules of the game change, depending on the participants. But people are political.
I don’t want the Emperor to kill me.
Neither do I. But Bellusdeo, at least, will find the Hawklord’s presence amusing—and I think the Emperor has proven that he does care about her.
He’s got a really stupid way of showing it.
People, Severn said again, as if that explained everything. And maybe it did. Kaylin cleared her throat, thinking that Severn was right. If Bellusdeo was amused, if Bellusdeo was not uncomfortable, the Emperor would forgive much.
“The thing is,” she heard herself saying before she could close her mouth and choose words more carefully, “it’s supposed to be an informal dinner. He’s not there as—as...” The words trailed off, because speaking them out loud revealed the stupidity inherent in them. He wasn’t there with his guards. He wasn’t in his throne room. He wasn’t wearing a crown—if he even wore a crown in his audience chamber. Kaylin couldn’t remember.
But he was the Emperor. Nothing he did or said would change that.
“Is it about Moran?”
“Not directly,” was the pleasant reply. “I am, of course, being watched. I am being observed. Any petitions I make to the Caste Court will be summarily shelved—with much more politic wording, and no doubt a few veiled threats.”
“I don’t consider assassins to be much in the way of ‘veiled,’ sir.”
“They were not attempting to kill me. Any petition I make to the Imperial Courts on behalf of the Imperial Law will likewise be known to, and examined by, the Aerian Caste Court. They will have warning, if I choose to act against their interests. Remanding this to the Imperial Courts would be against their interests.
“Their use of a human, however, opens the door to that remand. I do not understand why they chose to do so. I have been considering how to best approach what is a delicate situation. And you have a dinner guest who might be able to help. I don’t believe in coincidence,” he added.
Kaylin, at this point, didn’t believe in luck. Or at least not good luck. “Yes,” she said. “If you want to come to dinner, please feel free. It’ll give us all something to talk about that isn’t mostly awkward.”
I’d hate, Severn said, to see your idea of awkward dinner conversation.
She snorted. Mostly it involves fire, or knives. Or spoken Dragon.
* * *
Work was not exactly comfortable for the rest of the day. Kaylin could focus and forget about the looming dinner while she was on her beat, Severn by her side, but every other thing was lost to the growing stress. She did manage to enter Margot’s without kicking her sign over, and she did thank Margot for sending the Records transmission that was about to spoil a lot of Aerians’ days.
But she wasn’t at her best, and by the time she returned to the Halls for the brief end-of-day report, she was so tense her shoulders were practically bunched up around her ears. The familiar registered his objection by curling up in a pile on top of her head.
“Are you going to come to dinner?” she asked Severn. She tried to sound casual, and managed extremely anxious instead.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“That means you’ve changed your mind?”
“Kaylin, he’s not going to eat you.”
“I know—Bellusdeo would hate him forever, so he won’t risk that.”
“I doubt anything you could do or say could materially alter his perception of you.”
“I don’t,” was the glum reply.
I can be there without being present, if that’s what you want.
She shook her head. What she wanted was her partner by her side when she went in to face danger. “It’s just—the Hawklord’s going to be there, as well. I’m due that promotion, and I don’t want to mess it up.”
“You can’t.”
“I can. I’ve done it before.”
Severn shook his head. “Yes, if you want. I’ll come to dinner. But I’m not coming dressed like this. I’ll meet you at home.”
“Do you have better clothing?”
“Yes. So do you.”
“Not better,” Kaylin said. “Just different.”
* * *
Moran and Bellusdeo were waiting just outside the infirmary doors.
“You’re late,” the Dragon pointed out.
“No, you’re early.”
Moran nodded. “We are. But you and Lord Bellusdeo have an important guest this evening. By all accounts, he’s visiting as a private citizen.”
“A private citizen who is probably punctual to within seconds.”
“And can destroy a city block just by breathing on it, yes.” Moran’s smile was slightly strained, but Kaylin thought it was genuine. The Aerian Hawk removed her tabard, folded it carefully, and set it on her desk. She removed the regulation belt that came with it, transforming herself into the bold, colorful woman who had walked with so much confidence and purpose toward the Halls of Law in the morning.
“How were things here?”
“They were very quiet,” Moran said, grinning. “Apparently the Aerian Hawks have been superbly careful in their drills—as have the applicants for the Sword division. You’d almost think they’re afraid to come to the infirmary. At all.”
“I doubt it’s fear,” Bellusdeo said, stepping into the hall.
“No?”
“Shame. Guilt. Self-loathing. But fear? No. And before you ask, I have no issues with that. I think they should be ashamed of themselves.”
Moran shook her head. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“No. But I know enough to know that their behavior is execrable. Don’t bother defending them. Don’t bother giving me reasons. They swore an oath to the Emperor’s Law—and their failure to uphold their oath is unacceptable.”
“Back in your day, they’d be dead?”
“If they broke their personal oaths to me? Yes. And ash, so Shadow couldn’t use their corpses against us.”
* * *
By the time Kaylin made it to her own front door, the familiar was chittering like an angry parrot. She couldn’t understand him, and would have just ignored him—but he didn’t like it when she ignored him because she was too absorbed in other thoughts. To be fair, he didn’t like it when she ignored him on purpose, either, but this was different.
Helen was waiting for her at the front door. She had, in fact, opened it. But Helen’s actual physical body started at the gatehouse, not the building; she was of course aware of everything Kaylin was thinking the minute she passed the fence line.
“You have two hours, dear.” To Moran, she said, “I think you look l
“No, if that’s acceptable to you.”
“Lord Grammayre will,” Helen pointed out.
“...Pardon?”
“Did Kaylin forget to tell you? I see that she did. The Hawklord will be joining us for dinner.”
Dragon eyes and Aerian eyes both drilled into the side of Kaylin’s averted face. Which was probably redder than it had to be. The big advantage to being Leontine, in Kaylin’s opinion, was that humiliation or embarrassment wasn’t instantly trumpeted to everyone with working eyes by the color of fur.
“When were you going to mention this?” Moran snapped, in her annoyed-sergeant voice.
“She wasn’t, if she could get away with it,” Bellusdeo replied. Kaylin still hadn’t groped her way toward a coherent reply she thought Moran could live with.
“Why did you invite the Hawklord?” Moran demanded. Demand was going to be her mode of conversation for at least the next few minutes.
“I didn’t. He invited himself.”
Moran’s eyes narrowed.
“She isn’t lying,” Helen told the Aerian in a very mild voice.
Moran accepted this. She probably wouldn’t have accepted it as easily coming from Kaylin, and Kaylin tried not to resent it. “How did he find out about your dinner?”
“I’ve been wondering that, as well. I certainly didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell anyone at the office.” But people at the office had also been guests in her home, inasmuch as she’d ever had guests. She considered Teela and Tain. “It’s political.”
Moran’s expression said no kidding, but more emphatically. “So you’re having dinner with the Emperor and the Hawklord.” She shook her head.
“You could join us.”
“Not a chance. If I could actually fly, I’d spend the evening in training exercises, just to make sure there was no possibility of overlap.” She exhaled, and some of the tension left her shoulders. It had lodged pretty deeply in her face, though.
“The Emperor would be coming to dinner regardless of where you were living,” Helen told the Aerian. Kaylin was perversely happy to see that she wasn’t the only person whose private thoughts were addressed out loud. “The Hawklord would therefore invite himself to dinner, again regardless of your residence. It is the Emperor he wishes to—informally, off-Records—engage. Your presence may indeed be causing difficulty for the Hawklord, but it is not causing difficulty for Kaylin. Or for me.
“Kaylin, however, now needs to take a bath. I will accompany her,” she added. “She will need to dress. I will remind her of the etiquette required when entertaining guests of note.”
“How do you know etiquette?”
“My last tenant was alive when the Dragon Emperor ruled,” Helen replied. “And in his fashion, he was impeccably polite and considerate.”
“Meaning I’m not.”
“You are very considerate,” Helen told her gently. “When you are aware of the need for consideration. And you have had several lessons with Lord Diarmat.”
This caused smoke to billow out of Bellusdeo’s nostrils, mostly because she was keeping her mouth shut. Mention of Diarmat did nothing helpful for the color of her eyes.
“Will Maggaron aid you in dressing, or may I?” Helen asked the Dragon.
“I don’t need help with my dress. I’m not going to wear court clothing to the dinner table. If I were in a slightly worse mood, I wouldn’t wear anything. At all.”
Moran’s eyes widened.
Kaylin’s closed. “I think the Arkon is also coming for dinner.”
“Lannagaros—”
“You told him, the last time we talked, that you wanted him to come. He hates leaving his library for anything less than an all-out battle, but I think he’ll be here, because you wanted him to be here.”
“You think I’m being unfair.”
“Not really. But the Arkon has never treated me the way he treats you.” The oldest of the Dragons was, and had always been, fond of Bellusdeo. What he found amusing behavior from her would have been cause to reduce Kaylin to ash.
* * *
Helen informed Kaylin the moment the Emperor reached the gatehouse. “You were correct,” she said. “The Arkon is with him.”
“Does he look happy?”
“Which one, dear?”
“Either of them.” Kaylin tried not to sound glum. She mostly failed. “But I was talking about the Arkon. I can’t imagine the Emperor ever looking happy. His face would break.”
“The Arkon looks irritated.”
Great.
“The Emperor does not.”
“He doesn’t?”
“His face is almost entirely without expression. Ah, I think the Hawklord has also arrived. Did you not tell him to use the tower entrance?”
“He’s used to doors,” Kaylin replied. “And no, I didn’t tell him to use the tower entrance. That’s fine for Dragons in flight form—they can’t get through our doors without destroying them. Aerians can land and walk in. It’s what they do everywhere else in the city.”
“I shall be sure to mention the aperture above. He flew, after all.” Helen cleared her throat, which was entirely an affectation, as she didn’t really have one.
Kaylin understood this to mean that she had to bust her butt to get to the front door before the guests did. The small dragon sat gracefully on the shoulder of the one good dress she owned that she hadn’t destroyed. It was a white dress; it covered a lot less than was ideal—which in this case meant her arms were exposed. She’d considered the other dress she owned, but Helen’s glacial frown made clear that she considered it unsuitable.
“I don’t have a lot of call to wear dresses,” Kaylin had said.
“No, dear. But this one is perfectly serviceable.” And she had lifted a dress that Kaylin had only worn once.
“I’m not sure—”
“I am. If you are to entertain the Emperor in future, you might consider speaking with Lord Grammayre about your rate of pay. The clothing you do possess is perfectly functional—but not for meeting royalty. And while I do not get out of the house much—” By which she meant at all. “—I understand that more appropriate clothing is a not-inconsiderable expense.”
“But he’s not here as royalty—that’s the whole point, Helen.”
“And if you honestly think that royalty is something that is donned and discarded, as if it were mere clothing, you are making a grave mistake. No matter what he calls himself, he is the Eternal Emperor. You are part of his collective hoard. Most people would consider it an honor—an undreamed-of honor—to entertain him.”
Kaylin considered it a nightmare, but she knew Helen was probably right. “You can’t make dresses? You can make everything else.”
“Yes—but any dress I made for you would vanish the moment you stepped off the property.”
“I’ll be here the entire time.”
“I’m sure you thought that the first night we met as well—and you ended up flying off to fight ancient sorcerers by the side of the Dragons. You would not have been happy to have spent any of your necessary time changing clothing.”
Kaylin surrendered. White dress it was. But she wasn’t particularly comfortable as she ran down the stairs, taking them three at a time. It wasn’t so much the skirt—it was the feeling of exposure. When she was in her normal clothing, even without her tabard, she still felt like a Hawk.
Right now, she mostly felt half-naked and uncertain. She preferred the Hawk. The familiar warbled in her left ear, as if trying to be encouraging. She appreciated it.
“You have very punctual guests,” Helen said, radiating approval. She was waiting beside the closed doors.
“Go figure,” Kaylin replied. Punctuality was an almost mortal enemy, although
She inhaled, held her breath, and nodded to Helen. Helen opened the doors, but she did it the normal way: with her hands. She stepped back after smiling at the first visitors at the door.
Kaylin’s smile was more stilted than Helen’s, but it was far better than the smiles on the faces of the two Dragons, since they didn’t even bother to make the attempt. They might have been coming to a funeral.
“Arkon, Darranatos.” She bowed. It was stiff and graceless, but the end posture would probably have garnered no more than perfunctory criticism from Diarmat. “Welcome.”
The Arkon offered her a shallow bow; the Emperor merely nodded. He did, however, bow to Helen.
* * *
It was customary, Helen had told Kaylin as she had dressed, to invite guests to take tea—or something stronger—when they first arrived.
“But they’re coming here for dinner,” Kaylin had pointed out while fussing with her hair, “not tea.”
“Dinner generally takes a while, and there’s usually some polite socializing before people are seated for the meal.”
Drug addicts, pushers, and frauds were a more welcome part of Kaylin’s day than polite socializing.
“You socialize all the time, dear.”
“We lounge around the dining room table because it’s the biggest, and we mostly trade insults and whining,” Kaylin had pointed out. “And offending anyone at my breakfast table isn’t career-limiting. I have to care what these guests think of me.”