Cast in Flame

CHAPTER SIX

“Nightshade took the Castle,” Teela said, her knuckles white as she gripped the hilt of the sheathed sword, “and he left them here?”

“I don’t think he considered them dangerous.” Kaylin hesitated, and then added, “They guard the Long Hall’s doors. I’m not sure the doors open without their permission for anyone but Nightshade.”

“Prior to this, I could say many things of Calarnenne—but one of them was not that he was a fool.”

“They’ve never hurt him,” Kaylin pointed out.

“And how, exactly, do you know about them?”

Kaylin swallowed. This was not the direction she wanted the conversation to take. “I met them.”

“And he told you they were...vampires?”

“Not exactly.”

“I fear that exactly will have to wait. Although it occurs to me that any attempts to kill him have their best chance of success now.”

She had her best chance of success in the West March, after the ceremony.

“They were sleeping,” Kaylin said. “I mean, Barrani sleep. They weren’t moving, and they appeared to notice nothing.”

“Except you.”

Kaylin failed to answer the question.

“And you were bleeding.”

“Look—are they dangerous now?”

“I don’t know. Do you think they can sleep through the changes that are now occurring in the Castle?”

“I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”

Teela muttered something about mortals under her breath. “Annarion has not—yet—encountered the ancestors. He is now aware that they are present. And Kaylin, they were a danger, even in our time.”

“By ours you mean yours and theirs.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to have engendered a higher degree of caution in Annarion. It has, on the other hand, increased his disgust.”

“What are the others doing?”

“They are speaking with Annarion. They are more effective, at the moment, than I can be.”

“That’s good.” Kaylin was looking at her arms. Without another word, she rolled up her sleeve and pressed the gems on her bracer; the gems were already flashing.

“You wore the bracer when you knew we were coming to the Castle?” Teela asked, the words imbued with disbelief verging on outrage.

“I’m living in the Palace. You were the one who told me to observe correct form while there—and by Imperial dictate, I wear the bracer. Diarmat would probably reduce me to ash if he noticed it was missing; he’d be grateful for the excuse.”

“Less talk about the Dragon Court while we’re here,” Teela replied, in a quieter voice. “Your arms are glowing.”

“I’d noticed.”

“Do they hurt?”

“No. Not yet. You know I was looking forward to a few weeks of boring report writing and whining about Margot, right? And finding a quiet place of my own again?”

“And that’s working out well for you?”

“Very funny. On the bright side, it’s not my fault this time.”

“If you even suggest that this is my fault....”

“Yes?”

“You’ll have a chance to personally compare my temper to Annarion’s.”

“I’ll pass, if it’s all the same to you.”

“I thought you might. Roll up your sleeves,” she added. As Kaylin was more or less already doing that, she considered this unnecessary nagging. She tossed the bracer over her shoulder, but Severn bent to pick it up. She didn’t know why he bothered. The bracer was magical; no matter where she dropped it, it made its way back to Severn.

“You don’t need to cart it around. It’ll show up on your table, regardless,” she reminded him.

“While you’re living in the Palace, a certain amount of caution is probably wise. I’d be willing to bet a large sum of my personal money that it’ll return. I’m not willing to bet your life.”

The marks on her skin were a luminescent gold. They were warm, but not uncomfortably so. She wasn’t terribly surprised when they started to swim in her vision. This didn’t, on the other hand, mean there was anything wrong with her eyes.

The small dragon warbled and glanced at the marks. He flapped a bit, but not in an angry way. He was possibly the only non-mortal who wasn’t nursing anger this evening.

“Don’t eat them,” Kaylin told him.

He snorted. She was surprised when he snapped at her arm and came away with a single word between his translucent jaws.

“Hey! I mean it!”

The small dragon flew to the Leontine who seemed to be standing in a quiet daze. Kaylin sucked in air and ran after him. A docile Leontine, while a bit surprising, wasn’t going to be a difficulty. An awake, aware, and possibly angry Leontine was more than she could handle.

Teela joined Kaylin. Kaylin wanted free of Severn’s chain, because it was bloody awkward to move at any speed while it was attached to his weapons.

“Do you have any idea what your small creature is doing?”

“About as much as I ever have. At least this time he’s not insulting a water Dragon.” Kaylin had never seen the small creature take an injury. She didn’t want to start now, but he was well ahead of Teela, and as Teela approached the Leontine, she slowed. Barrani against Leontine wasn’t a sure thing.

Without a lot of preparation, human against Leontine was, and not in the favor of the human.

“Can you stop him?” Teela asked.

“Probably not. Why?”

“I’m uncertain that this is likely to have a calming effect on Annarion.”

“What would?”

“At this point? Very little. If Calarnenne was a more accomplished liar, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Liar?”

“Annarion is disappointed in his brother. Disappointment—even betrayal—is something we all encounter as we gain experience; we learn that our hopes and our beliefs are not always based in fact. Usually, we’re changing at the same time; we encounter ways in which our beliefs in ourselves are tested and found wanting. Annarion’s and Mandoran’s weren’t tested, in their youth.” She frowned. “Mandoran doesn’t approve of his place in this discussion.”

“Why?”

“He considers Annarion fecklessly idealistic; he feels a set down has been a long time coming, and is well deserved.”

“Could he keep that to himself until we’ve worked out where Annarion—or his brother for that matter—is?”

“You’ve met Mandoran. What do you think?”

Kaylin’s jaw ached, she was grinding her teeth so hard. “Why exactly did you miss these people?”

Teela laughed. “Probably because they’re like this,” she said, her eyes losing some of the saturation of blue. “I’m not ready to lose any of them again. Not yet.”

* * *

The small dragon reached the Leontine, and alighted on his left shoulder. He’d never done that to Marcus, and Kaylin was pretty certain he wouldn’t; Marcus had trigger reflexes, and things flying at his face—or his neck—were likely to set them off. Kaylin wasn’t certain if the glow that illuminated the Leontine’s face was the dragon’s or the rune’s, but his perfect fur reflected it; he was much richer in color than Marcus, and his ears didn’t have the small scars that Marcus’s did. The brunt of his entirely exposed fur was gold, but the light from the mark-lamp implied red highlights, like sunset or sunrise across a field of wheat.

His face was longer, his cheekbones more prominent; he apparently didn’t have the bulk that caused Marcus to tower over his subordinates, even when he was seated. His eyes were Leontine eyes; at the moment, they were a peculiar shade of gray. Kaylin rifled through her very inadequate memory; she’d seen gray only a handful of times in her life, and never when things were going well.

She thought gray meant sorrow.

Speaking Leontine wasn’t easy; if she had to do it for any length of time, it wrecked her voice. Only in Marcus’s pridlea did she give up on rolling r’s and the growling tone that was half the conversation; she didn’t care if his children thought she was a pathetic, mewling kitten.

Teela came to a full stop as the color of the Leontine’s eyes became clear. Kaylin continued to walk, Severn attached by a slender chain at her waist. She held out both of her hands, palms up, fingers toward the ceiling to indicate sheathed claws. Not that she had claws.

He stared at her, his dull gray eyes at odds with the rich color of fur and the gleam of perfect, ivory fangs.

“I am Kaylin ni Kayala.”

He blinked; his eyes narrowed. Kaylin noted that small and squawky still held the word in his jaws; he hadn’t dropped it on the Leontine’s forehead, and it hadn’t disappeared. If he was using it just for the light it shed, she’d have words with him later.

“You cannot be kin,” he finally said. “You are human.”

Since human more or less meant hairless, mewling kitten, Kaylin nodded. “Kayala is our myrryn. Marcus is our leader. I have shared meat at their hearth-fire; I have protected the kittens. I have fought for my leader’s survival. I wasn’t born to the pridlea, but I am of it.” She inserted all the appropriate sounds.

“Why are you here?” he asked. As he looked around the dimly lit room, his eyes turned down at the corners. “Where is Calarnenne?”

“He is at the heart of his castle,” Kaylin replied, taking the same care to add all appropriate r’s and sibilants. “His pride-kin has returned after a long absence.”

The Leontine’s eyes widened, which Kaylin had not expected. “His brother?” he said, using the Barrani word.

She nodded, and added, “Annarion. He has not eaten at his pride-kin’s hearth for hundreds of years. He finds the hearth fires hot.”

“He is home,” the Leontine replied. He closed his eyes. Opened them. They were now a shade of gold. “Calarnenne does not sing to his brother.”

Kaylin blinked. “Does he sing to you?” Leontines were not notable for the quality of their lullabies.

“Yes, when he is restless. Have you heard him sing?”

“Once or twice. Mostly in the middle of battle.”

“You have seen him fight? You have stood by his side?” The way the last question was asked implied that it was an undreamed of privilege. Kaylin revised her estimate of his age down. He looked, in stature, to be fully adult.

“Yes,” she replied, because technically it was true.

“Do you travel to his side, now?”

“Yes.” The fact that arriving there wasn’t a certainty was unnecessary information.

“Will you take me with you?”

Kaylin faltered at the desperate hope in his eyes. And the fear, which was an edge of orange. When she failed to answer, he reached for her, grabbing both of her hands with greater than usual Leontine force.

“He woke me,” the Leontine continued. “He must have intended to be with me.” As if he were a child.

“Does he wake you often?” Kaylin asked, stalling. She could no more drag this Leontine into the wilds of Castle Nightshade than one of Marcus’s own children.

“He wakes me when he can spend time with me,” was the unadorned reply. “But he is not with me now. You are mortal.”

She nodded.

“As am I. I will wither and die if I am left to live on my own. This,” he continued, releasing her hands to trace an arc in the air that took in the whole of the chamber, “is my eternity, as promised.”

“You spend most of it as a statue,” she replied, before she could bite back the words.

He nodded, as if she’d just said water was wet. “How else can we live forever? We cannot live without aging. Age leads to death. If we wake only when he is with us, we are his forever.”

This was so not one of Kaylin’s life goals.

“He is busy. He is forever. If we live and breathe and walk as you do, we might never see him again. Do you understand? His life will lead him away from you. When he has time to return, you might be dead.”

If only, Kaylin thought.

“This way, all our lives are spent in his company.”

“And in no one else’s,” Kaylin pointed out. “Your family. Your pridlea. Your pack. They are gone.”

“They were gone when he first came to me,” was the quiet reply. “They were dead. I was carrion fodder. I remember.”

“As if it were yesterday.” Because, she thought, it might have been.

“I remember the vultures. I remember the war cries of the victors. I remember the color of blood on grass, and the wails of the survivors who would add to it. I remember my mother. My pack leader. I remember.” He smiled at her, then. It was a smile tinged, of all things, with pity. “I remember Calarnenne. I remember his song. It stopped us all—enemy and family, both. I could not understand the words, but I heard them as if he was remaking language.”

“Did you know he was Barrani?”

“I knew he was not kin,” was the quiet reply. “I had never seen beauty in other races. Not until him. But he is not here.”

Kaylin shook her head. “I don’t think he wants you to leave this room, unless you want to. Stay here. I’m not—I’m not like you. I wasn’t chosen for his—his eternity. Let me find him. Talk to your companions,” she suggested.

“They are not my companions; they are his. We are his.”

Kaylin nodded, mouth dry. “Keep them here. This hall is safe. Outside...there are predators.”

* * *

“I think Annarion is both unhappy with this outcome, and simultaneously less angry. You, on the other hand, look green,” Teela said, as she walked away from the Leontine.

Kaylin felt it, too. She was big on personal choices, and clearly, the Leontine had made his—but it left her feeling uncomfortable. “Have you found Annarion?”

“Have you found Nightshade?”

“No.”

“Is half of what Nightshade says to you unintelligible babble?”

“No.”

“Then don’t ask.”

* * *

Kaylin. Throughout the conversation with the Leontine, the fieflord had been silent. An’Teela is correct. There is a danger here.

For me, or for all us?

For all of you, he replied, with just the faintest hint of irritation. Teela is not young for one of my kind, but she is not ancient. You have seen two of the ancestors; they are bound to the Castle and its service. The binding is older than either myself or Teela. I do not know its strength. It is my belief they were made outcaste for reasons far less political than mine. They would have been hunted, Kaylin. Had they been found, they would—with grave difficulty—have been destroyed. Ask her.

Teela, understanding that the possible danger had passed, waited until the small dragon was once again anchored to Kaylin’s shoulder, still carrying the rune. When he was she turned toward the most obvious set of doors available.

She allowed Severn to loop his chain around her before she opened the doors; they weren’t warded, but she didn’t bother to touch them. Kaylin was often surprised when Teela used magic as a tool. Hawks weren’t supposed to be mages. They definitely weren’t supposed to be Arcanists or former Arcanists. She didn’t really care for this reminder of Teela’s life before she’d been part of it, which wasn’t reasonable or mature.

Some days, Kaylin fervently wished that she had already passed Adult 101 and could get on with being the person she wanted to be.

On the other hand, she had to survive if she was ever going to reach that near unattainable goal. She glanced at squawky. His eyes were wide, black opals; they reflected nothing. As he wasn’t doing the small dragon equivalent of shouting in her ear, she assumed he didn’t consider the door a danger.

“One day,” she told him, “you’re going to talk to me, and I’m going to understand you.”

“And until then,” Teela added, “she’s going to talk to herself. A lot. Luckily the rest of us are used to this.”

The doors swung fully open; nothing leaped through them to attack. Kaylin saw a lot of hall beyond the room itself; it wasn’t brightly lit, but at least there was light. “Teela, tell me about these Barrani ancestors.”

“Tell me,” the Barrani Hawk countered, “why you call them vampires.”

Kaylin shrugged. “They said something about my blood.”

Teela closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, the Barrani equivalent of counting to ten. “They spoke to you.” The words were so flat, they were hardly a question, so Kaylin didn’t answer it. “What color were their eyes?”

“Teela, it was a long time ago.”

“It was months ago. Not even mortal memory is that bad. Please do not tell me you don’t remember.”

But she didn’t. “They were pale, even for Barrani. But perfect the way Barrani are. When we approached the door they guarded, Nightshade told them it had to be opened. Their eyes were closed until he spoke; they opened. But nothing else about them moved—not at first.” She tried to remember her first—and only—walk through the Long Halls, as Nightshade called them. She could clearly see the Barrani standing to either side of the door like perfect statues. She couldn’t, however, see the color of their open eyes. “They must have been blue,” she finally said. “I’m sure I would have noticed if they were a different color. Green would have made them harmless. Relatively,” she added.

“Were you bleeding at the time?”

“Maybe. I wasn’t bleeding enough that it was significant.” Kaylin hesitated. Severn held his weapons; she kept her hands on her daggers, but didn’t draw them. “They asked Nightshade to give me to them as price for passage.”

Teela’s eyes were, of course, midnight blue, so it couldn’t get any worse. “Passage through what?”

“Doors. They were door guards.”

“They were not simple door guards. Do you know where these doors were?”

“Yes.”

“Could you lead us there?”

“...”

“Could you make certain that you don’t lead us there without some warning?”

“It’s a Tower, Teela, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Teela began to walk, and Kaylin fell in beside her. At Teela’s frown, she fell back a bit; Teela didn’t want Kaylin playing point. Kaylin didn’t exactly want that position, either.

“I didn’t notice the color of their eyes,” she said, “because of their voices.”

Teela stopped walking. “Their voices were different?”

“Not when they spoke to me or to Nightshade. But—I could hear them talking when we approached. Without, you know, seeing their lips move.”

“I am beginning to understand why you feel boredom is not a fate worse than death,” Teela replied, with a brief pause for a healthy, Leontine curse. “Did Nightshade hear their voices—their non-speaking voices?”

“I didn’t ask him. It was the first time I’d been on the inside of the Castle, and it didn’t seem safe or smart to ask questions. If I heard it, I assume he did.”

That would be an unwise assumption. Amusement had been stripped from his voice; had he been standing beside them, his eyes would have been the same color as Teela’s.

“Kitling, this is very important, and I will strangle you if you cannot answer me clearly. What were they saying?”

Kaylin was an old hand at exposing her throat, although she usually only did it when confronted with a raging Leontine Sergeant. Teela literally growled. “I couldn’t understand them.” Kaylin spoke quietly. “I could hear them, but they sounded entirely unlike any voices I’d heard before. I could identify it as speech—but I couldn’t understand what was being said.

“I’d just come from an underground forest. I’d just touched the leftover echoes of a message from the Ancients—or even an Avatar. I was very disoriented.”

“Fine. Is there anything else you’d like me to know?”

“I’d like you to answer my question, now.”

“It wasn’t a question, that I recall.” Teela exhaled. “The Barrani, like the Dragons, are ancient races. Mortals are relative newcomers. You’ve seen the Lake of Life. I don’t know if you’ve seen the draconic birthing pits—I’m going to assume that you haven’t.”

“I haven’t.”

“I’d suggest you avoid it, although given it’s you I shouldn’t bother—you tend to do the opposite of anything resembling smart.” She murmured something about having three wings, which was an Aerian expression that wasn’t always used to imply innate stupidity. “You’ve probably heard the Barrani Hawks complain about boredom.”

Anyone with functional ears had heard the Barrani Hawks make that complaint. Kaylin nodded.

“The Ancients liked to create. Much of what they created would make no sense to you—it barely makes sense to us. We were not—Barrani and Dragon—the first attempt at creating a self-replicating species.”

“The Shadows—”

“We don’t believe the Shadows were meant to be a distinct species. The Ancients’ sense of either distinct or species, however, is poorly understood. You know that we require words to fully come to life.”

“Names. True names.”