Cast in Flight by Michelle Sagara
“Fail to mention this to the Emperor,” the Dragon said. She wobbled.
“I can’t.”
“You can fail to volunteer the information. I’ve seen you do that a hundred times.”
“I write it all up in the reports.”
“The ones that Marcus shreds rather than reading?”
“Yeah. Those ones.”
“Fine. Write it up in a report.”
“Marcus’ll read this one.”
Bellusdeo impressed Kaylin with her command of the Leontine language—or at least the important bits. Also? Dragons could growl. Human throats didn’t do justice to Leontine, but Dragon throats clearly did.
“Are you all right?”
“Nothing is broken.” Bellusdeo winced.
“Ribs?” Moran asked.
“Possibly cracked. I’ve certainly suffered worse in my time.” She righted herself, stepping back from Kaylin and the familiar. Teela had already made it to what remained of the infirmary’s door—about a third of the door frame, at knee height or below. “I think it’s safe,” she told Moran. “There’s no longer obvious, active magic.” She was frowning.
So was Kaylin. “I didn’t sense anything.”
“No. It’s not as impressive as the Arcane bomb that destroyed your home,” Teela observed, “but it wouldn’t have to be. It wasn’t meant to kill a Dragon. It was, as far as I can tell, a very traditional explosion. You felt nothing at all?”
“Not until the explosion was already happening, no.”
Teela shook her head. “Corporal,” she said to Severn, “can you keep an eye on Kaylin while the rest of us stand in front of an outraged, angry Leontine for a few minutes?”
Severn nodded.
So did Kaylin. Teela meant for her to examine the room for magical sigils and signatures. The Imperial mages would no doubt be called in as the experts, but Marcus would want as much information as he could get his claws on, as quickly as possible. And Imperial mages were not terrified privates under his command.
* * *
“I don’t understand how I missed this,” Kaylin told her partner, as she picked her way through what remained of the room’s bedding. “I think it must have been hidden in the cupboard to the left.”
Severn nodded. The cupboard in question had ceased to exist. There was a large indent in the wall where the cupboard had once been affixed. There were a lot of splinters, and some impressive charring around the hanging bits of wood and glass that had been farther away.
The mirror—the large mirror—was shards.
Moran wasn’t going to be able to reclaim anything that had been in the infirmary at the time. Luckily, there had been no patients strapped to beds, because they wouldn’t have survived it, either.
“Anything?”
Kaylin nodded, frowning. “It’s a single sigil, a modest one—I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
The familiar squawked loudly.
“It’s surprisingly small, is the thing. An explosion of this nature should have splashed magical signatures across most of the walls, or anything left standing.” Which was probably why Teela had left them behind. “This one didn’t.” She froze.
The familiar sighed loudly and lifted his left wing—he was perched on her right shoulder—to cover her eyes.
Kaylin’s Leontine was not as impressive as Bellusdeo’s, but she was certain she meant it more. “You know that don’t touch anything at a crime scene rule?”
“I haven’t touched anything at all.”
“I don’t think it’s necessarily completely safe for anyone to be in this room.”
Severn was unwinding his weapon chain.
“It’s not—it’s not quite like that. I think—” She shook her head. “There’s Shadow here, or the corpse of Shadow; it’s spread across everything like it’s blood.”
* * *
Sergeant Kassan was not happy. Given the color of his eyes, there was barely room for more anger, but he managed it. He didn’t blame Kaylin, because it wasn’t her fault—but when he was in a mood, fault didn’t matter. Convenient targets did.
“I want the Dragon sent home,” Marcus said, dispensing with all pretense at formality.
“I’m not in command of the Dragon; technically, the Hawklord could ask to have her removed. But the Hawklord has been told that Lord Bellusdeo has Imperial permission to be here. By the Emperor.”
“That’s why I’m telling you to do it. I want the Dragon sent home. We’re going to be ash and body parts if she’s injured.”
“The Hawklord—”
“The Hawklord is in conference with the Wolflord and the Swordlord. And the Emperor. Security in the Halls should have prevented something like this from happening here. Clearly the breach was deliberate.”
That was what was upsetting him. Stupidity could—and sometimes did—enrage him, but he didn’t consider stupidity malice. He figured he could scream it out of the new recruits—and in general, he could. This wasn’t a problem caused by new recruits who needed to learn the rules.
This was done by someone who already knew what the rules were, and had circumvented them. It implied actual knowledge. Maybe.
“You’re thinking,” Marcus growled.
“I couldn’t feel the magic. At all. It’s possible that someone—anyone—carried it in; it would be unremarkable. It was in the supplies cabinet. Moran might know which supplies it was hidden in. There wasn’t enough left over for me to take an educated guess.
“But...the Shadow is disturbing. It’s the second time we’ve seen it. The man in the holding cells wasn’t aware of it—it seems inert, somehow, and about as sentient as—” She bit back the comment. “It didn’t seem to have a will of its own, and that’s a lot more common with Shadow.”
“I think,” Marcus said, rising as something over Kaylin’s shoulder caught his attention, “it’s time to speak with our prisoner.”
Kaylin turned in the direction of Marcus’s glare; he was incapable, at this point, of anything else. And she recognized the man who stood on the office side of the doors, waiting, his expression dour but otherwise inscrutable.
It was Nevoran, a young member of the Tha’alanari, the small branch of the race of telepaths that was judged strong enough to experience the insanity of outsiders without flooding the group racial memory with it. He was bronze, blond, and his eyes were very, very green, which in the Tha’alani was the equivalent of Barrani blue.
They lightened slightly, gaining some gold, as he saw Kaylin. He bowed to her, not to Marcus, and she saw that beneath the tan, his color was bad. And it would be. Of course it would be. The Emperor demanded—and she remembered, once again, that she hated him for it—that the Tha’alani surrender members for the use of the Halls of Law and the Imperial interrogators. Nevoran was one.
She wished it had been Scoros instead. Or even Ybelline. But that’s not who they’d sent, and perhaps the older two were unavailable.
She crossed the room before Marcus could, reached Nevoran and lifted her face, her forehead. He hesitated only briefly; the flexible stalks that graced the foreheads of every member of his race then danced a moment in the air as he bent toward her. He touched her forehead with those stalks—as he would have to do with the criminal—and she heard his voice. He heard hers. No words were necessary.
She heard more than that, though. She heard Ybelline, the castelord of the Tha’alani—the only castelord Kaylin trusted. The only one she was certain she could.
Kaylin.
Ybelline.
You have not visited us in a while.
Things have been a little hectic here.
Yes. I see.
Kaylin heard an immediate plethora of voices, most of them young. She made field trips to the Tha’alani quarter with the
Kaylin, Nevoran said, a hint of amusement in his tone, I believe your sergeant is about to rip out your throat. There was no fear in the words. Is there anything I should know? This was a very polite way of asking permission to sort through Kaylin’s understanding of events, and she gave it instantly. It was much easier than trying to come up with the right words, and it allowed for very, very little misunderstanding.
Kaylin blinked and opened her eyes as Nevoran withdrew his stalks.
Marcus was growly. “When you’re finished?” he said. There were other words he wanted to add, but Nevoran wasn’t a Hawk, and in general he tried not to humiliate his subordinates in front of outsiders. On the other hand, he’d had a very bad morning, and the day wasn’t looking up.
Caitlin waved to Nevoran and asked how his mother was. Kaylin knew he had a mother—obviously, everyone did—but it had never occurred to her to ask. Nor had it occurred to her to ask about Nevoran’s new, and first, child.
Nevoran’s eyes were almost gold by the end of Caitlin’s barrage of friendly questions; Marcus’s eyes were distinctly orange. But he tolerated it with only a background growl of general irritation.
Nevoran had been well trained. He knew what Leontines were likely to do or be. But he also clearly understood Caitlin’s role in the office; he knew that answering her questions would not be considered insubordination of any kind, because it was Caitlin who asked. It made him comfortable—or as comfortable as he could be, given his job here. Kaylin was grateful for the office den mother as Marcus impatiently took the lead.
Chapter 17
The Barrani guarding the prisoner were playing dice. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a cultural pastime of the Barrani, but they’d adapted well to it. Humans didn’t play with them, though, as the Barrani had a fairly rarified concept of cheating: It didn’t count if you won. Since the Barrani had an aptitude for magic, and the type of magic that helped dice stop on certain faces was so trivial it wouldn’t be worthy of note among their own kin, it was a great way to throw money away. No Hawk, no matter how green, was willing to lose their temper and start a brawl when the opponent was Barrani.
Well, unless they were drunk. Or young. Kaylin winced, thinking about being young and drunk, and decided to think about the prisoner instead.
He was skittish. Of course he was. Nevoran was here.
“I’ve cooperated! I’ve answered all your questions!”
Fear, Kaylin thought, was the contagion that the Tha’alanari were trained to keep away from the racial mind. Fear was, to the Tha’alani, a particular type of insanity; if left untended, unquieted, it spread like fire through dry grass, with about the same results.
She had hated the Tha’alani when she had first come to the Halls of Law. She didn’t hate them now. But she understood the man’s fear and tried—very hard—not to judge him. Her natural protective instincts made this harder than it should have been. He’d come to threaten and control Margot. But...Kaylin had done worse, in her time.
“Yes. You have. But there are elements of your story that require further investigation. Before you start whining,” the Leontine growled, “I don’t believe you’ve lied. But an Arcane bomb destroyed an important room or two in the Halls and everyone is on edge.
“You were carrying Shadow.”
The man blanched. He had seen it with his own eyes; he couldn’t deny it. It was, Kaylin thought, the heart of his fear. He didn’t feel different. But what if he was? What if the Shadow had transformed him, somehow?
“Well, so was the bomb. Private Neya has experience with Shadow. None of that prior experience is useful. We don’t know how you were infested with Shadow; we know that you were, and that it was purged. By the private. What we need to know, now, is who hired you—”
“I told you that!”
“And what they gave or exchanged with you that might have been a way to convey that Shadow. It’s obviously not something you noticed.”
The man’s eyes were wide; he was almost green and sweating. Kaylin understood this, as well. She turned to Nevoran, lifting her face. Nevoran’s eyes rounded, and then his lips quirked in an almost bitter smile. But he dropped his stalks to Kaylin’s forehead.
I’m really, really sorry.
I am not aware that you have anything to be sorry about. The decision was the Emperor’s, or the Hawklord’s. It was not, and is not, yours. You wish him to witness this contact, yes?
Yes. I can’t tell him that you’re not going to read his mind—of course you are. He’d have to be dead not to notice. This is all I’ve got. I can let him see that you touch me, and that I’m not noticeably insane—stop laughing.
Sorry.
I don’t think that word means what you think it means. And you know what? He doesn’t deserve the consideration. I don’t care if he’s terrified—he should damn well be terrified. He should never have agreed to work for Aerian assassins, and maybe—if he survives this, and you’ll note the Barrani guards—he’ll remember never to do it again. I’m not doing this for his sake.
No. You are attempting to lessen his fear for our sake.
Yes. And I resent it.
She heard Ybelline’s laughter. It was bright and full and it permeated the entire mental space with a kind of wry, affectionate approval.
Nevoran withdrew his stalks; Kaylin was smiling with an echo of Ybelline’s amusement. There was no edge in it. There was never an edge in the Tha’alani castelord’s laughter.
The man had watched, openmouthed, as Nevoran had touched Kaylin’s forehead. Kaylin, who resented him, nonetheless said, “Don’t fight it. The only thing the Emperor wants is information about what was done to you—and how it might have been done. If you let him see that without struggling to hide it, there won’t be any pain, and it’ll be over before you know it.
“He’s not going to look for all the other crimes you were involved in. He’s not going to look for anything about your past that isn’t directly related to the Shadow incident. Got it?”
“What did he want from you?” The man’s voice was shaky, and his color was still terrible—but it wasn’t as bad, which was probably as much as anyone could hope for.
“To say hello, more or less.”
* * *
Nevoran had not been fitted with a memory crystal; they were very, very rare, and very, very expensive, and the Imperial coffers did not extend to their common use. He therefore touched the prisoner’s forehead—and the prisoner did have to be restrained—and extracted information. Whether or not it would be useful would be determined later. Kaylin watched Nevoran brace himself against the contact, and she looked away.
The Tha’alani didn’t want this any more than the human man did. Standing over them both was the Emperor—or the shadow he cast.
The man, however, stopped struggling. He had not passed out. He spoke to Nevoran; Kaylin couldn’t hear the Tha’alani’s reply. But she saw the prisoner relax, marginally; she was very, very surprised when he started to cry.
They were not tears of terror.
He spoke again. He told Nevoran what to look for. He volunteered the information—and although it was unnecessary, as Nevoran was trained well, Kaylin was almost impressed. The only time she’d been given to a Tha’alani interrogator, she had fought every step of the way.
In the end, he dropped, slowly, to his knees—forcing Nevoran to follow to maintain physical contact. When Nevoran stepped back, the man lifted his face to stare at the Tha’alani, whose eyes were not
* * *
“What did you do to him?” Kaylin asked, when they left the cell.
“I found the information the Emperor requires.” The answer was smooth and uninflected—it was almost human. He hesitated, and then said, “Ybelline feels that some—not all—of your criminals are insane. I feel that all of them are insane; there is some argument about this in the Tha’alanari. But our own, when isolated because of injuries or birth defects, become as insane as every other race. It is the isolation.
“And the fear. I attempted to find and comfort that fear. I am not certain that I did what was necessary—but it seems to have had a positive effect.” He hesitated. “I remember Grethan.”
Kaylin was silent for a long moment. “He’s happy, I think.”
“He is as happy as he could be, yes. He talks to the Tha’alaan now, with the help of the water. We hear his voice. It is not our voice; it is not influenced greatly by our voice—but there is no rage and fear in it. Well, perhaps not no fear; his master seems temperamental. I must speak with your Hawklord and the Imperial mages now.”
* * *
The second surprise of the day was presented to Kaylin when she returned to the office and took a stroll past the duty roster. She was on the Elani beat, which wasn’t unusual, given it was her beat. She was not, however, partnered with Severn. Teela had been penciled in.
Tain was put out, and Kaylin didn’t blame him. Apparently sidelined in order to write the reports that Marcus habitually ignored, he was about as friendly as a sick, wet cat. “Where’s Severn?”
“I’m not sure.”
Marcus, a Leontine, could hear the entire conversation, such as it was. “Corporal Handred has been seconded to the Wolves.”
Kaylin froze. “Why?”
“Ask the Hawklord. He wants to see you in the Tower,” Marcus growled. “Let me rescind that. Don’t ask the Hawklord. His day is going to be end-to-end stupid questions, or worse, political ones. And don’t bother the corporal, either.”