The Chronicles of Elantra 5 - Cast in Silence (28 page)

“You understand,” he said softly, “why the Outcaste Dragon is a threat, to us.”

She did, now. “He can create the undying.”

“Yes.”

“And he has.”

“Demonstrably.”

She shook herself. “But this isn’t what you tried, in the end.”

He laughed. It was a low, resonant sound, and as it filled the rough contours of this dark, strange room, the color of his eyes deepened until it was almost a green she could recognize as Barrani. “You are like a bulldog, Kaylin.”

“I’m a Hawk,” she replied, with a shrug. “It may not be what Illien tried to do. It may be what he achieved. I don’t know what will be useful in the investigation.”

“I tried to shed my name. I had nothing to replace it with. I would have made myself an empty vessel, and in the High Halls,
that
would have been a threat. I do not know who—or what—might attempt to retrieve what I sundered from myself; it was not, at that time, of concern. If the name was no longer part of
me,
whatever might somehow grasp it could not use it in a way that affected me.”

“But you failed.”

“My brother and Lord Evarrim interfered. It was not pleasant and I will not go into the details. They are not—I hope—relevant. Even if they are, they are not mine to share.”

It wasn’t the answer she wanted, but had she been allowed to do something as trivial as bet, it was the one she would have placed money on.

“Illien tried to rewrite his name, didn’t he?”

“Again, I now offer speculation. But, yes, I believe that is what he did. Although you put it crudely, it is what our ancient ancestors achieved.”

“But…”

“Yes?”

“It would still
be
a name.”

“Would it?”

“Yes.” There was no doubt at all in her answer. None.

“You are certain.”

She nodded, frowning.

“Why?”

Sometimes the short questions were the biggest pain. She began to pace across the floor, avoiding the runes engraved in the rocks beneath her feet; it made her stagger like a drunk. “It’s what the Outcaste did. The Dragon,” she added. Her feet continued to find unengraved spaces. “And he has a name.”

The silence that followed the statement was not the silence of hesitation. It lasted as long as it took Kaylin to reach a wall, pivot and pick her way back toward the circle. “How do you know this?”

“I saw it,” she replied, hating the answer even as it left her mouth.

“You—you
know
his name?” At any other time, she would have taken some small and private joy in being able to actually
shock
a Barrani High Lord. Now? She wasn’t even tempted, although a tiny part of her mind saw it as a lost opportunity.

“No.” She grimaced. “Maybe. I
saw
it. If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can see it now. But I can’t say it. I can’t even begin to say it. And, no,” she added, before he could speak again, “I can’t talk about the Outcaste. Anything I now know is mixed up with everything I’ve learned from the Lords of the Dragon Court—and if they knew I was talking about it, nothing that could happen to me in Barren could be less pleasant than what they’d do. Trust me.”

“I have some experience with the ferocity of Dragons who guard their hoard,” he replied, with a dry chuckle. “Trust, in this case, is entirely unnecessary.” But his smile ebbed from his face as he watched her. “You are a threat,” he finally said. “Lord Evarrim saw truly.

“But anyone who wields power is a threat. It is the nature of power.”

“Intent has something to do with it,” Kaylin pointed out.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I will not debate the point with you.” He glanced at his consort, and then, at last, took the hand she had never lowered. Their fingers, where they touched, glowed faintly in the darkness. “Illien must have attempted what our ancestors attempted. I cannot say whether he failed or succeeded. In the end, I fear you will know far better than I, or any of his kin.

“But if he exists in the Tower, now, he is not what he was when he first claimed it.” He met her gaze and held it as the floor itself began to coalesce beneath his feet. “We do not fully understand the nature of the Towers—nor can we claim a full understanding of the nature of the fiefs or what lies at their heart. But Elantra exists, in some small measure, because the fiefs exist. That much, we know and accept.

“Perhaps the Towers were meant, in their entirety, for the living. Perhaps they were built with the living in mind. That must be our hope.

“You will go to the Tower of Illien, Lord Kaylin. You will find what remains. If the Tower no longer has the power that sustained the fief, you will discover that, as well. It is possible that Illien’s act of transformation drained whatever magic lay resident there. If that is the case, we must prepare,” he added softly. “There is power in the High Halls to withstand the dangers that come from the fiefs, if they breach the river.”

“You can’t put the entire damn City into the High Halls, and I’m not certain that the same can be said of any
other
building.”

“There are others who also have the power to withstand the most ancient of forces. If I am not mistaken, you have met at least one, and consider him a friend.”

She started to ask who he meant, and realized, before she’d opened her mouth, that he spoke of Evanton. “I’ll do what I can,” she told him. “But I’m already under orders to—”

“It was not a request. You are a Lord of the High Court.”

And he was the High Lord. She swallowed, and then executed a bow.

But she hadn’t quite finished. “One more question?”

“Ask,” he said, as his feet drifted toward the floor.

“What do you know of shadowstorms?”

He stopped moving for just a few seconds. But his expression, as he watched her, was grave. “Why do you ask?” Raising a hand, he added, “I would be greatly obliged if you would tell me the question was entirely theoretical.”

“I was never a great student of theory.”

“If rumor is to be believed, you were never a great student of anything.”

She shrugged. “I’m learning to be a better one,” she said with a grimace. And then, as if she needed to justify her record, added, “I always paid attention to anything that seemed practical and important. I didn’t realize just how practical some of the theoretical classes would end up becoming.”

“A flaw that is common in the young.”

She didn’t consider herself that young, but compared to the Barrani, she knew she was almost a babe in arms. She forced herself to nod.

“There have been storms in Barren,” the High Lord said quietly. It was almost a question.

“I think so.”

“You are certain.”

“No. I’ve never seen a storm. But…the Dragons were certain.”

“Storm,” he said softly, to his consort. “It is time.”

She nodded.

“Time for what?” Kaylin asked, as he stepped, slowly, out of the circle’s confines.

“For the High Court of the Barrani to convene,” he replied. “You will, of course, be excused if you do not answer the summons. You have a personal duty to which you must attend on behalf of the Court. Lord Severn is likewise excused. You may tell Lord Andellen, however, that his presence will be expected.”

“I’m not even sure I’ll see Andellen—” She stopped, and then offered him a bow. “I’ll make certain he knows.”

CHAPTER 15

Tiamaris was waiting for them on the bridge that crossed the Ablayne. It was still the wrong bridge, and Kaylin hoped that it would always feel like the wrong one. The bridge to Nightshade had been, in its way, a symbol of hope when she had been growing up in the fiefs.

The bridge to Barren meant, in the end, death.

“Corporal Handred,” the Dragon Hawk said, nodding as if he had expected Severn to accompany Kaylin.

“Lord Tiamaris.”

No one was sporting the Hawk, today; the clothing was all practical. Even Tiamaris was wearing what was, for Dragons, almost obscenely casual: a tunic, rather than his more stately robes; flat, thick boots that looked vaguely obsidian in what was left of the morning light; an undyed shirt beneath which the thick links of golden chain could barely be seen. Obvious daggers were notably absent. Then again, until yesterday, she would have bet money he didn’t bother with them; Dragons didn’t generally bristle with arms that weren’t attached to their bodies.

“Private Neya. Your friend was here. I believe she became impatient after the first hour had passed.”

“You could have gone with her. We’d’ve followed.”

“I do not believe she trusts me,” was his reply.

Kaylin shrugged. “It’s Morse. If she’d learned to trust many people in her line of work, she’d be feeding worms under some patch of weeds in Barren, if they bothered burying her at all. Was she pissed off?”

“If, by that, you mean ‘angry,’ I would say she wasn’t pleased.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“No.”

Kaylin swore. “The meeting with the High Lord took a little longer than I expected, and I dropped into the office to pick up a couple of things—including lunch.”

“Was the meeting useful?”

“Hard to say.” She grimaced. “Actually, what I want to say is no. But I’m not sure. I’ve been ordered to investigate Illien’s Tower.” She adjusted the fall of a belt that was, unlike Tiamaris’s, snug and practical. Waterskin, knife, knife. She had also shrugged herself into a backpack into which she had dropped one round cheese, two candles—neither of which resembled the candles that she had come to think of as torture during her lessons with Sanabalis—and a large coil of heavy rope. It was the rope that provided most of the bulk.

Tiamaris raised a brow.

“Rope,” she told him, as she readjusted the buckles now that the pack had settled some.

“Ah. Why?”

“Just a hunch. If we’re anywhere near fighting, I’ll drop it.”

“If you have time.”

Fair enough. It’s not as if she usually carried what was admittedly an awkward pack on her shoulders during her regular duties. “I know the Tower’s important,” she told him. “I know we have to go there.”

“It is not, however, the first place you want to visit.”

“Not really.”

“You want to go back to the White Towers.”

“I can’t figure out,” Kaylin replied, as she started across the bridge, leaving Tiamaris and Severn to follow, “why Sanabalis thought you weren’t a good student. You’re damn perceptive.”

“I can’t figure out,” he replied, mimicking her Elantran, “why almost all of your teachers thought that you weren’t, and for the same reason.”

Dragons.

“Private Neya?”

“What?”

“How well do you know Barren?”

She stopped walking. Glanced over her shoulder. Shrugged. “I can get to the White Towers from almost anywhere in the fief. Good enough for you?”

Walking through the streets of Barren without Morse as a native guide should have been easy. In some sense, it was. Severn and Tiamaris flanked her on either side, and given her own gear, and the expression she was probably wearing, they kept people at bay. The only people likely to be stupid—or cocky—enough to try to stop them were all employed by Barren. But he employed a lot of stupid people; Kaylin thought, given a sample size of two, most fief lords did.

She had thought—and most of her teachers had agreed, usually when they were pissed off—that nothing would take the fiefs out of her; they were her first home. They were where she’d learned to speak, learned to walk, learned to eat, steal, and dream.

But the truth was different. She wondered if the truth, when she arrived at it, would always be different from what she’d been certain it would be.

She saw the cautious and nervous people who didn’t manage to wander off the streets in time, and she wondered what would happen to them. What might have
already
happened to them. She couldn’t ask, of course. That would take time, and the familiarity of presence. The Hawks had that, and by extension, when she wore her uniform, she had it, as well.

Here, all she had were obvious weapons, and equally obviously armed companions; no one would come near her, unless she flagged them down or approached them first. If she did? She wouldn’t be able to trust anything they said. Fear made poor discussions.

And she’d fed on that, in Barren.

It made her cringe, when she thought about it. She’d tried hard
not
to think about it for almost seven years. She’d been Morse’s shadow. She’d been Morse’s apprentice. What she’d left the people of Barren, in the end, was more death, more fear. Morse had been proud of her, then.

And—this was worse—she’d been proud of
herself.

Severn touched her shoulder and she started. He didn’t speak. She wanted to, but the words wouldn’t come. She had never, ever imagined that she would walk through Barren with Severn by her side. Then again, she’d never imagined that she would see Severn again and survive it.

So many mistakes. So many stupidities. So many deaths. All of them led here.
How did you survive?
she thought, glancing at his profile.
How did you learn to live with what you did to Steffi and Jade?

She glanced at her hands. Severn had killed them to save
her
. She had killed, as well. And why? To save herself. To be able to look at herself in a mirror again without loathing. She hadn’t killed anyone who trusted her. She told herself that.

But in the end? The dead probably had families or friends to whom they’d never return. She hadn’t cared, then. And now that she did, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

Why was she a Hawk, anyway? To put a stop to people who were exactly like she’d been herself?

“Kaylin.” Severn’s voice. He still wasn’t looking at her.

“What?”

“I think we have a problem.”

“No kidding.” She knew he could sense what she felt; knew that if he
wanted,
he could probably hear what she was thinking. At this particular moment in time, she didn’t even care. It would—it might—be a relief.

But Severn shook his head. He lifted a hand and pointed. She followed the line of his arm, her eyes widening slightly in confusion.