Cast in Flight by Michelle Sagara
“They failed.”
Kaylin nodded.
“You entered the building through the stable yards.”
Kaylin nodded again. When Marcus glared at her, she confessed that Bellusdeo had flown Moran to the Halls.
“Marcus, what’s going on? Why is someone trying to kill Moran?”
“Did you see the assassin?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you see anything?”
“No. I felt it before it hit. I would have stayed to investigate, but Teela wasn’t certain they’d finished yet, and we wanted to get Moran to safety. If the assassin was actually an Aerian, we had Bellusdeo. In aerial combat against Dragons, the Aerians are kind of mortal.”
“You are going to make me lose most of my fur,” he growled. His eyes were probably as gold as they were going to get for the rest of the day. “Corporal Handred is waiting for you. Get to work.” The mirror at his desk demanded attention. Loudly.
Kaylin almost escaped it, heading for Severn, who was leaning against the wall beside the duty roster’s board. If she’d run, she might have.
“Private!”
Severn met her gaze, raising one brow in question.
She mouthed the Hawklord, her back turned to Marcus. There was no point in whispering; Leontine hearing would pick it all up anyway. She turned back to the sergeant.
“The Hawklord would like to see you. Now.”
* * *
Severn accompanied Kaylin up the Tower stairs. While they walked, she told him about her morning. Unlike Marcus, he seemed to take the information in stride. No one had been injured, except for the would-be assassin. Teela and Tain hadn’t arrived at the Halls yet, so it was possible they were still in pursuit.
“I asked Clint what was going on with the Aerians,” Kaylin added. “He won’t say a damn thing. But he definitely didn’t want Moran to be living with me.”
“Probably for your sake,” Severn pointed out. “And given the start of your morning, he’s not wrong to worry.”
“I’m going to have to invite him for dinner one day. He’ll change his mind.”
Severn glanced at her and shrugged, which was his polite way of disagreeing.
“No assassin is going to get anywhere near her while she’s with me.”
“She doesn’t spend every hour of her waking day in your house. She spends some on the way to the Halls, in the Halls, and on the way to your home.”
Kaylin glared at him.
“I’m not disagreeing with your decision. I think Helen is the safest for Moran—and given the sergeant’s general expression these days, Helen might be offering more than just safety. But Clint’s right. You’re in danger while you’re with her. You accept that danger. Don’t look at me like that—I accept it. I also acknowledge it.”
“What do you think the Hawklord’s going to say?”
“I don’t know. Even odds he’s going to tell you to ask Moran to move out.”
“He can get stuffed.”
“I didn’t say he’d expect you to agree.”
* * *
Kaylin hated politics. Hated them. She hated the stupid decisions, the game playing, the grandstanding. She hated political decisions made by people who never had to do any of the law’s actual work. She hated the pervasive sense of superiority and smugness that underlay all of the rules.
She was going to try very, very hard not to hate the Hawklord. He wasn’t the source of the bureaucratic rules that were often handed down; he was simply the mediator, and their only shield against the worst of them. She told herself that grimly as she faced his closed doors—and the door ward that girded them.
“Let me,” Severn said quietly.
She shook her head. “I don’t know if he knows you’re here.”
“He knows.”
“Fine. I don’t think he summoned you. He’ll probably tolerate your presence. You are my partner, after all.” Gritting her teeth, she lifted her left hand and placed it against the ward. As usual, the magic required to open the door shot through her palm, numbing it instantly; all of her skin screeched in protest. The small dragon squawked.
She was tempted to let her familiar melt the damn door ward. She just didn’t trust him to melt only that. And her meager pay wouldn’t stretch to cover the cost of doors specifically prepared to carry magical wards.
The doors rolled open. The Hawklord was standing in the circle at the center of the Tower, his eyes a dismal shade of blue. Kaylin was heartily sick of blue eyes, and the working day had barely started. Unfortunately, she didn’t expect to see many colors that weren’t blue or orange today. Severn, being human, had eyes that didn’t change, for which she was grateful.
“Private,” the Hawklord said.
She executed a very precise salute. Severn, by her side, did the same, and did it better.
“Corporal.” There was a question in the word; it bounced off Severn’s completely shuttered expression. “Very well.” The Hawklord gestured; the doors closed. Only when they were completely shut did he speak again. “Private, you’ve had a very eventful morning.”
“Sir.”
His brows rose very slightly. “Is that a ‘yes, sir,’ or a ‘no, sir’?”
“It’s a sir.”
“I see. You are no doubt aware,” he continued, turning away from Kaylin and toward the Tower’s central mirror, “that my morning has become vastly more eventful as a result of yours?” He gestured the mirror to life, and its silver, reflective surface absorbed his reflection, scattering it to the edges of the frame. What remained was a kind of pale, ash-gray sheen. Or at least that’s what Kaylin could see.
“How is Moran adjusting to life with you?”
It wasn’t the question she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t promising.
“Shouldn’t you be asking Moran that?”
“She is not currently present. You are.” His tone made clear that his tolerance for insubordination was quickly reaching an all-time low.
“She’s doing well. She likes Helen.”
“The...Avatar of your home?”
“Yes. Helen likes her. She has her own rooms in the house—everyone does.” She hesitated; the Hawklord was expressionless. “Helen makes rooms for people who are going to be permanent guests. She made rooms suitable for an Aerian. She’s got furniture suitable for an Aerian, and the ceilings are tall.”
“Moran is not flying.”
“No. She won’t let me heal her.”
“Yes. I forbade it.”
Kaylin stared at him in outrage. She managed to shut her mouth before words fell out.
“I did not expect you would become involved with the sergeant. She is in the infirmary; you are a street Hawk. You have a sergeant, and if he growls incessantly about the difficulty of having you in his ranks, he is capable of containing any damage you cause.” The Hawklord exhaled. “I did not expect that you would come to work with a Dragon in tow. I have been told very, very quietly that the Dragon is worth more to the Emperor than the rest of the Hawks combined—including myself.”
“...By the Emperor?”
“Yes. Lord Bellusdeo has occupied much of my time. I would ask you to leave her at home, but it has also been made clear that the choice is to be Lord Bellusdeo’s. I did not expect to add Moran dar Carafel to the list of things with which I must deal. What are you trying not to say?”
“...The Emperor is fine with Moran living with me.”
The Hawklord closed his eyes briefly. “Is it too much to hope that you did not hear this directly from the Emperor himself?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The Emperor may change his opinion soon. It is his prerogative.”
Kaylin said a lot of nothing for a long time.
“I wish
“Here.” Kaylin then recounted the events of the morning, leaving out the general snark that passed for conversation between Bellusdeo and Mandoran. In fact, she tried to leave Mandoran out of the discussion altogether. The Hawklord wasn’t buying it, and she surrendered and answered his pointed questions.
“Have you examined the site?”
“No—we came straight to the Halls. Moran was the target, and we couldn’t see the assassins; we wanted to get her to safety. The Halls have some of the most impressive protections against illegal magic in the city. Only the palace has better. Are the Imperial mages at the site?”
“That would be one of the many, many difficulties this morning has caused.”
“What difficulty?”
“The nature of the assassin is unknown, yes?”
Kaylin had just finished saying as much, and chose to wait.
“The Aerian Caste Court is, however, attempting to invoke the laws of exemption. They do not wish the incident to be investigated at all.”
As a Hawk, Kaylin despised the laws of exemption. The laws were the laws. Crimes were crimes. But exemptions could legally be granted to the racial Caste Courts if both the criminals and the victims were all part of one happy race. She understood, as only someone born in the fiefs could, that money and power created their own special laws of exemption on either side of the Ablayne River—but damn it, she hated official sanction.
“On what grounds?” she demanded.
He was silent.
“First,” she said, raising a finger, “the attack took place on Darrow Lane. It’s one of the busier stretches of Elantran streetfront, and it is definitively not in the Southern Reach or the Aeries.” The Hawklord nodded. “Second, we couldn’t see the would-be assassin. We have no idea who, or what, he or she was. They could have been Barrani. They could have been mortal. In order for the laws of exemption to be invoked, the assassin would have to be an Aerian.” She slowed down then.
“Is there a third point?”
“Third: there was visible property damage. The street was shattered. No argument can be made that the magic used didn’t affect the rest of the non-Aerian population. People were probably injured by bits of flying debris. Um, can I go back to the second point now?”
“Yes.”
“If the Caste Court is attempting to invoke exemption, they’re pretty much declaring the assassin was Aerian. Which strongly implies that they know who the assassin is. Or was.”
“Yes.”
Kaylin swore. A lot. The Hawklord didn’t even grimace.
“Lord Grammayre, who exactly is Moran?”
He exhaled and turned back to the mirror. “You said that Teela, Tain and Mandoran were in pursuit of the assassin.”
Kaylin nodded. “Teela must have expected serious trouble. She brought her runed sword. If they catch the assassin, and the assassin isn’t Aerian, the Caste Court can go—”
“Yes. The second matter I wished to discuss with you is Moran’s rooms.”
“Her rooms have nothing to do with the Halls,” Kaylin replied.
The Hawklord waited.
“She’s a guest. She’s under Helen’s protection. If Moran won’t discuss the rooms with you, it’s not right that I do.”
“I have spoken, briefly, with Moran about her current living situation.” He waved a hand across the mirror. “Records, personal.”
Kaylin dared a glance at Severn; Severn was frowning. It was his concentration frown; he wasn’t expecting danger. He watched the mirror’s rippling surface while it stilled.
The Hawkord did the same.
* * *
The image that came into view made Kaylin wonder if the Hawklord had somehow already seen the inside of Moran’s rooms. She understood that asking questions to which one already knew the answer was an interrogation technique—a way of gauging how much someone else knew, or how much they were willing to admit to knowing. It was also a way of determining how much truth you were likely to get.
“Do you recognize this?” the Hawklord asked.
The Records capture looked like Moran’s rooms. The ones he’d asked about. But as the mirror’s view pulled back, she realized that these weren’t Moran’s rooms. There was too much sky and too much rock in the distance. Mostly rock. She could see Aerians flying precise, tight circles to the right and above. She thought she recognized the formation, but it broke and regrouped.
“No,” she said, to the Hawklord’s question. “I don’t. This is in the Southern Reach?”
“In one of its outer recesses, yes. It is considered a primitive—a very primitive—residence. They are not much used in modern times.”
This primitive residence, however, wasn’t uninhabited.
All of Kaylin’s experience of Aerians was in the Halls of Law, or rather, with Hawks. There were no old Aerians in service to the Imperial Law. This was Kaylin’s first glimpse of an elderly Aerian. Her hair was silver with age; hints of iron added color to what otherwise would have been a uniform white. Her wings were frosted in the same way, but they showed no other sign of age to Kaylin’s admittedly unfamiliar eye. But they were rigid, held high.
“Who is she?” she heard herself ask the Hawklord.
“She was Gennet.”
“Her flight?” No one used flight names in the office; the Hawklord had gently forbidden it. But Kaylin knew—from racial integration classes—that the Aerians were not distinguished by family name so much as flight name. She’d badgered Clint for his, but he pointed out that he was working on roster time, which meant he wasn’t obliged to answer. Was, in fact, obligated to do the opposite.
The Hawklord was silent for so long, Kaylin was certain he didn’t intend to answer. “She had no flight,” he finally said.
“How could she have no flight?”
“You think of flights as family,” he replied. “They serve that function; they are almost analogous. But they are more—and less—than that. Gennet, at the time of this Records capture, had kin, but she had no flight.”
“Did they kick her out?”
“No, Kaylin.”
“Did she leave?”
“No. And it is not of the flights that I meant to speak.” But he watched, and so did Kaylin, as a child came running out of what looked like the mouth of a cave. An Aerian child. She was young, perhaps six or seven, maybe older. Her hair was dark, long; it fell about her shoulders and down her back, swishing as she moved. She was looking up, and up again. Kaylin could see the shadows cross her upturned face.
“That girl,” Kaylin began.
The Hawklord lifted his left wing in a snap of motion, as if he were shaking off liquid. The image shattered, scattering across a surface that quickly became simple and reflective. Kaylin faced herself and the Hawklord in the oval frame.
“That child was all that remained of Gennet’s family.”
“Gennet’s dead,” Kaylin said flatly, although she meant to ask instead of state.
“Yes.”
“How do you have this in Records?”
“It is personal.”
“These are official Records!”
“Yes. Yes, they are.” He turned to study her. “Have you seen Moran’s quarters?”
Kaylin nodded. When he failed to look away or respond, she said, “Yes.” And then, taking a deeper breath, and remembering everything she owed this Aerian, she continued. “Yes. Her rooms look very, very much like this impoverished residence. I think—I think she was happy there. That was Moran,
The Hawklord didn’t answer.
Chapter 3
Teela and Tain had arrived at the office by the time Kaylin had finished her meeting with the Hawklord—or until the Hawklord had dismissed her, which was more accurate. She had gotten no further information from him, and she wasn’t certain what to do with the information she had gotten. She couldn’t figure out what the Hawklord wanted her to do.
But she was angry—and disturbed—by the Aerian application for exemption status. She wasn’t certain what she hoped Teela and Tain had found. No, actually, that wasn’t true. She wanted the assassin to be a Barrani Arcanist, because everyone with any capacity for thought considered them to be raging social evils.
She didn’t want them to catch an Aerian.
She accepted, as she glumly made her way down the stairs, that she was being unfair. The only Aerians she’d met were all Hawks, and she desperately wanted the Aerians to be above something as grim and illegal as assassination. But of course Aerians were people. If the Hawks managed to be Hawks first, it didn’t mean there was nothing left over.
Kaylin had always wanted family, ever since her mother died and maybe even before that. But she wondered if the lack of family was a possible advantage to her working life. She didn’t have family responsibilities that tied or bound her; she didn’t have to choose, consciously and continuously, between being a Hawk and being a human.
She hadn’t expected Clint’s reaction to Moran’s injury. She hadn’t expected to be told to butt out, to not care, to offer no help—except by Moran. She wanted to storm to the front doors and shout at Clint the way she’d been smart enough—barely—not to shout at the Hawklord.
She’s a Hawk, damn it.
“I think everyone knows that, kitling,” a familiar voice said. “Everyone knows you think that’s the only thing that matters, as well.” When Teela came into view at the arch that separated the Tower stairs from the office, she looked up. “I assume you didn’t mean to say that out loud?”
“Does it matter?” Kaylin replied, flushing. “It’s not like it’s going to change anyone’s attitude anyway.”