Читать книгу Cast In Flight - Michelle Sagara - Страница 10

Chapter 4

Part of Kaylin was wondering if she’d seen the woman’s eye color incorrectly the first time, because part of Kaylin wanted that to be the truth. But this blue was a color specific to Barrani and Aerians; she had never seen humans with eyes this particular shade.

And she had never seen Aerians without wings.

She wanted to ask the woman if her wings were somehow hidden, invisible, but she already knew the answer, and her mouth was suddenly too dry for questions. Every word Clint had said while he stood in Darrow Lane came back to bite her. She tried to keep the horror off her face, but had no idea whether or not she succeeded.

But she would not show pity to a stranger she knew almost nothing about, even if the thing she did know was larger than nightmare.

“Moran dar Carafel’s wings are unique in the flights of the Southern Reach. They are not unique in the history of the flights. They do not exist in every generation. But if one is born with those wings, they are the only ones who can or will bear the markings. No others will be born while the bearer lives.” She spoke slowly, as if weighing all of her words and picking out only the good ones.

“Are the marks determined by gender?”

“No.”

“Are they significant in any other way?”

Silence. When it was broken, it wasn’t broken with an answer. “Moran dar Carafel was injured in her duties here, duties which would be almost anathema to the leaders of the flights. She was not given permission to undertake them; she was not given permission to risk her life in combat. She could not, however, be made outcaste.” The last word was said bitterly. So bitterly. “And now, she is crippled.”

“The wings will heal,” Kaylin said, with more force than the statement merited.

“Will they?”

One way or another, they would. She nodded grimly. “Aerians are trying to assassinate Moran because they want someone else to be born with those wings.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

“Her birth was a grave disappointment,” Lillias agreed, staring into her tea as if she were reading leaves and not much enjoying what she found there. “She was not, originally, Carafel. Her mother, and her mother’s line, lived in the outer Aeries, beneath open sky. We have a saying in the Aerie—” She stopped. Shook her head. “Her mother was adopted into dar Carafel—and even that was bitterly divisive.”

“Her father?”

Lillias grimaced. “The child was not legitimate. Were it not for the wings, nothing would be known of the father.”

“And because of the wings?”

“It was proof that he was of the first families. No one came forward to claim either the mother or her daughter as their own, and the mother never revealed the father’s identity. There is prestige, of course, in bearing such a child, or there should have been. The mothers of such children are accorded respect in great measure; there is no equivalent in human society. But the child was illegitimate. Either the father perished, or the father was mated, bonded—or both.”

“Wouldn’t this also elevate the father?”

“Yes. But not if the father was bonded—married?—to another.”

Evanton nodded.

“If he was of the high clans, and he was married, it would be a disgrace. It is possible Moran’s father is alive and well. It is possible he is dead. It is also possible that he would have been free to marry her when evidence of the child’s importance was known.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No. Moran did not have a happy childhood. Her mother withered in the confines of the High Reach, treated with the contempt reserved for an unbonded mother in the upper reaches, and when she finally passed away, the child was returned—for a time—to her grandmother’s care. It is there that she was happiest.”

Kaylin nodded.

“She could fly,” the woman’s voice softened. “You have never seen her truly fly.”

Kaylin could remember seeing Moran fly only once—but even so, it was a blur; Kaylin had been on the back of a Dragon at the time, and she’d been watching large chunks of the High Streets turn into molten rock. She’d been watching Aerians falling from the sky. Some would never rise again.

She shook herself. “No,” she said. “I’ve never seen her fly.” It wasn’t even really a lie. She had never seen her happy, either—but she’d imagined that, as a sergeant, happiness had somehow magically been drained from her; Kaylin didn’t know any happy sergeants.

This was different. The silence that fell after her comment was heavy, weighted; it destroyed all movement at the table, and all sound. Kaylin dragged her head around to meet Evanton’s gaze, because it was Kaylin, not Lillias, that he was watching.

“Why did you want to see me?” she asked him.

“Because Lillias needed to speak with you.”

“You said she asked you to make something?”

“No, Kaylin, I did not.” His frown was pure Evanton—well, pure Evanton when he was displeased with poor Grethan. He exhaled. “Lillias?”

“She is not of the people,” Lillias mumbled.

“No, she is not. But technically, neither are you.”

Kaylin sucked in air. Sucked it in and had trouble expelling it again. Evanton’s voice had been, was, gentle. But the words...

“Can I ask why you were made outcaste?” She cringed even as the words left her mouth. “No, I’m sorry, let me take that back? Can I ask if it had something to do with Moran?” The woman was older than Moran, even given the age that despair and desolation added to her features.

“Yes.”

“Have you spoken to Moran since?”

Silence.

Mandoran had said that he had seen wings during the failed assassination. Lillias clearly didn’t have any. Whoever the assassin had been, it wasn’t her.

“How much danger is Moran in?”

Evanton clearly considered this a stupid question.

“More danger,” Lillias replied, “than you can imagine. The Keeper told me that you were responsible for her survival this morning.”

“Not me,” Kaylin said. “She survived because of my familiar and a Dragon.”

Lillias frowned and turned to Evanton. In Aerian, she asked, “Is this true? Is there a Dragon involved?”

Kaylin answered before Evanton could. In Aerian. “Yes. It’s true.”

The woman’s eyes were already as blue as they could get, so they didn’t darken. Her skin did; it flushed. It occurred to Kaylin that the elderly seldom blushed.

“I’m a Hawk,” Kaylin said gently, although she was wearing a tabard that clearly marked her as such. “We’ve got a lot of Aerians working in the Halls, and I joined the Halls when I was a child. My Aerian isn’t great, but I can speak it. I’m sorry.” Keeping her voice gentle, she asked, “What did you ask Evanton to make?”

The woman’s hesitation was sharp, filled with questions or doubts or both. But she eventually bowed her head and said a word, in Aerian, that Kaylin had never heard before. “Bletsian.”

“I’m sorry—I’m not familiar with that word.”

“No, you wouldn’t be,” Evanton said. “Neither would the majority of the Aerian Hawks. It is an old word. The Dragons would be familiar with it.” He frowned. “Or at least the Arkon would.”

“It’s magical?”

“Yes. Before you look askance, you have two enchanted daggers on your person. Not all magic is of the Arcanist variety, as you should well know.”

Kaylin, still frowning, turned to Lillias. “Why would you come to Evanton for magic?”

“Why did you?” Evanton countered.

“Teela made me. I would never have known otherwise, given the location of your shop.”

“Margot,” Evanton said, pinpointing the chief source of Kaylin’s dislike, “is not entirely a fraud.”

“We’re not talking about Margot.”

“No. I merely point out that your dislike of her—while possibly deserved—does her an injustice. It is possible to be both genuine and distasteful.”

“Most of what she does—”

“Is fraud, yes. But not all. And, Kaylin? Where else would she be safe to practice her gift? She is in the open here.”

“Look—”

“She is not confined to the Oracular Halls. Or worse.”

Kaylin closed her mouth. “We weren’t talking about Margot.”

“No. You were implying that nothing genuine is known to be found in Elani.”

“Baldness cures? Come on, Evanton.”

“Elani, very much like any other neighborhood, is not all one thing or the other. I, after all, am here. And it is to me Lillias came.”

Lillias was listening to this conversation with obvious confusion. “Where else would I go?”

“Private Neya feels you should have approached either the Imperial Order or the Arcanum.”

“Kaylin doesn’t feel anyone should approach the Arcanum,” Kaylin snapped.

“Ah.”

“Lillias,” Severn said, joining the conversation—as he so often did—late. “Forgive our ignorance. What is a bletsian?”

“It is a blessing,” the old woman replied. “A blessing of wind, of air.”

“It is a gift,” Evanton told Kaylin, “that she wishes delivered to Moran dar Carafel.”

“Moran’s not big on gifts.”

Evanton ignored this. “She cannot deliver it in person. You, however, can. If you are willing to do this, I will create what has been requested, and I will hand it directly to you. There will be no tampering and no interference.”

“Lillias, what does this blessing do, exactly?”

“It confers,” Evanton said, after it became clear that Lillias would not answer, “flight. Literal flight. It does not, and cannot, last, but some small part of the elemental air will carry the bearer as the bearer desires until the breath of wind is consumed.”

Kaylin looked at this wingless, outcaste woman. “You’re certain,” she said to Evanton, although she didn’t move her gaze, “whatever you give me will be safe for Moran?”

“Yes.”

“Because the assassin used magic. And not a small amount of it,” she almost growled. “And no, I don’t—and won’t—know who the assassin was, or what magic was used, or how powerful the spell was, because the entire thing is under exemption embargo.”

“Kaylin,” Evanton replied softly, “stay out of this.”

“You’re asking me to deliver a magical trinket to a sergeant in the Halls of Law, and I’m supposed to stay out of it? She’s living in my house, Evanton.”

“I am aware of that. I do not disapprove in any regard save one: you know too many Aerians, and you consider them family.”

“I consider them Hawks!”

“They are. My point, however, stands. This is not your fight, Kaylin. Do not make it your fight.” To Lillias, he said, “You see how she is?” As if Kaylin had been a topic of discussion.

Lillias turned to Kaylin then, as if making a decision. Her expression was more open, more generous with pain and loss, than it had been when Kaylin had first entered the kitchen.

“Moran’s mother did not immediately reveal the child. She was poor, even by the standards of the flights. She was considered fine-feathered, strong, healthy—but she was of no good flight. She bore a child, hidden, with only her own mother in attendance. But the child was Illumen praevolo.”

Kaylin opened her mouth to ask the obvious question, but before the words could fall out, Evanton reached out and placed a hand over hers. He shook his head, his expression implying that an interruption wouldn’t just break the flow of words—it would dam it entirely.

Lillias spoke the words as if they were almost a prayer. Given Lillias’s constant hesitance, Kaylin filed the words Illumen praevolo away for later use.

“Had she gone to the Upper Reach immediately, it is likely the child would have been removed from her and passed off as the legitimate issue of a more suitable man—and that is why she did not do so. She kept the child hidden until the child could no longer be hidden.

“And so, the flights came, at the whispered rumor that a praevolo had been born. Before you make that face, understand that humans are not the only sellers of dreams and fraud. The rumor was not given credence until it grew; such rumors are always with us in the absence of a praevolo.

“She was underfed, undereducated, undertrained. Were it not for her markings, her wings—so unlike her mother’s—she would have been considered mediocre at best. But she was, indeed, praevolo. They could not deny it and did not try. They offered the mother respect, praised her for keeping the child alive and hidden. They bade her to continue to do so, flew her to new quarters vastly larger and better appointed, and left to make their report.

“The castelord was enraged at what he considered the waste of it. A child who might have been a boon if born to the Upper Reaches was now a weakness. Had she been just another—what is your word? Bastard?”

At Kaylin’s stiff nod, she continued, “She would have been insignificant. But the castelord felt that she had illegitimately taken hold of the equivalent of an artifact, something to which she should not have been born, and of which she could never be worthy. The Caste Court decided, at that time, that her death was regrettable, but necessary. If she perished, the wings would return again, and this time, they would be watching, they would be alert. They would not make the same mistake.”

Kaylin hadn’t touched her tea; if she were drinking it, she’d’ve choked.

“It was the Caste Court’s decision to make.”

Kaylin hated the laws of exemption with a blinding passion at this moment, because Lillias was talking about the perfectly legal murder of a child. She managed to contain every visceral Leontine phrase that tried to tear itself out of her mouth. “Moran’s still alive,” she said. “Did they decide to wait and see?”

“No. An attempt was made. Three attempts were made, actually. Two involved poison. Neither poison was successful. It was assumed that the poisoner was incompetent, or deliberately treacherous. As it happened, they were neither. They poisoned the food. The child ate the food. The poison failed to take effect, and the child did not die. Her mother, however, did.

“History was then studied, but our historical records are not like your Records. The castelord could find histories of the deaths of the praevolo, but not one had fallen to disease or poison. Not one died in childhood of the things that might otherwise take the young.

“And so it was decided that she would have to die in a different fashion—history did record other deaths; the praevolo were not immortal or invulnerable. Moran’s grandmother died in the third attempt. Moran had servants, of course, but they did not serve her, and they were ordered to other duties that day. The child was alone with her grandmother.

“Not all of the servants who absented themselves intended to turn a blind eye. One traveled some distance up, to find someone who would listen—and care. The orders were quiet but absolute—they were not meant to leak down to the people beneath the Upper Reach, as there was some concern that the decision would not be popular.

“Someone intervened. Not in time to save the grandmother, but in time to save Moran.”

“But wouldn’t they just try again?”

“They would, yes. They would have. But Moran’s wings were then made public. She was flown—no, Kaylin, she flew—through the entirety of the Aeries; through every crag, every valley, to every peak of the Southern Reach. She wept and she raged and she soared until flight was the only thing she felt, the only thing that mattered. And we saw her. Upper Reaches to Outer, we saw her. We knew that she was Illumen praevolo. Every one of us.

“They could not kill her then.”

“But they’re trying to do it now?”

“She cannot fly,” Lillias said, as if that explained everything.

“She can’t fly yet.” And this was going to get them both nowhere. “What do the wings mean? What exactly is the Illumen praevolo?” Kaylin demanded.

“The wings mean nothing,” Lillias replied, ignoring the second question. “Because Moran dar Carafel will allow them to mean nothing. In the past, that was acceptable, but only barely. But now, it is much less so. As I said, she cannot be made outcaste. She can be summoned to the Aerie, but because she is an Imperial Hawk, she can disobey. The laws of exemption require her permission to be invoked if she is at the center of the controversy.”

For one moment, Kaylin saw the bright gleam of a way out. It guttered. If the laws had been invoked, if Clint believed they had been accepted, it meant Moran had accepted them, too.

Lillias shook her head. “She has not chosen to heed the summons.”

“She probably can’t, if she can’t fly. Yet.”

“She was capable of flight before. She has never heeded the summons. The castelord responsible for the death of her mother is dead. The Caste Court is comprised of different men, different women. Until she was injured, she lived in the Upper Reaches, but she spoke with no one. She has never forgiven the Aerie for her mother’s death.”

“Or her grandmother’s?”

Lillias said nothing.

“Why do you want to help her?”

“Is that what you think I am doing?” the old woman replied. Before Kaylin could answer, the woman closed blue eyes. “Do you believe in her?” she asked softly.

It wasn’t the question Kaylin had been expecting. Then again, she wasn’t certain that she’d expected any of the conversation Evanton had forced on both of them.

“How can I not believe in her?” Kaylin replied, although it took time. “I’m a Hawk. She’s a Hawk. She got her injury fighting something that was powerful enough to take down Dragons. Plural. She got that injury doing her duty—doing what the Aerians could do that the rest of us, wingless, couldn’t.”

“And her duty to her own people?”

Kaylin struggled with this for longer. The Aerians had murdered her mother and her grandmother. She owed them nothing. There were racial tensions among Hawks. But there were personal tensions, as well. They were all people. And they were all people who’d decided, despite race or even because of it, to serve the Imperial Law that protected those who didn’t have a lot of money or power. Were they perfect? Hells no. But they were trying. It was more than the fieflord of Nightshade had ever done. It was more than any fieflord, with the exception of Tiamaris, had ever been rumored to do.

Kaylin felt no particular attachment to her own race. She had daydreams of being born to a different one—Aerian, usually. She hadn’t ever considered what she owed the human race. Then again, she hadn’t really considered what she owed anyone who wasn’t a Hawk.

She was Chosen. That was special. But Chosen, or rather, being Chosen, didn’t depend on race. Kaylin wasn’t certain what it did depend on. She wasn’t even certain what it meant on most days.

Had it been dependent on being human, had humanity somehow required it, would she have changed her entire life to fulfill the debts and obligations she’d never asked for? Would she do it if that debt and obligation had indirectly killed her mother?

“I’m sorry, Lillias,” she finally said. “I don’t know. I admire her. She’s always been slightly terrifying—especially if you’re already injured and she decides you need to be strapped to a bed for a week—but she’s a Hawk. I don’t see her the way you see her.”

“Do you even know how I see her?”

“No. You haven’t said. I’m willing to listen, if you want to talk about it.”

Lillias nodded. She turned to Evanton instead of speaking.

Evanton turned to Kaylin. “I will do as Lillias has asked. But, Kaylin—stay out of this. Everything you can safely do, you’ve done. And I do not think you are ready to pay the cost for more.” He rose. “I will see you out.” To Lillias, he added, “I will be but a moment.”

* * *

Kaylin hit the street in an internal fog of confusion and anger. She had retrieved her familiar from Grethan’s shoulders, and he had immediately wrapped himself around hers, squawking in soft complaint as he did. She barely noticed, he was so much a part of her life. “Did he do that on purpose?” she asked her partner. Mandoran, retrieved from the bowels of the oldest shelves in the building, glanced at both of them.

It was Mandoran who answered. “Of course he did.”

“Do you even know what I’m talking about?”

“Introducing you to the Aerian woman. The wingless one.” Mandoran stared at Kaylin, his eyes an odd shade: not green, but not blue, and not the usual blend of both, which was almost the Barrani resting state. “You like Aerians. You like Hawks. You like Aerian Hawks better than you like most of the rest of the Hawks, with some obvious exceptions. She lost her wings. She’s outcaste.

“If you push this, some of your Hawks are likely to end up the way she did. He wants you to understand that as more than theory.” Mandoran stopped in front of Margot’s sandwich board. “Did you?”

“Did I what?” she asked, irritable and restless.

“Did you understand it? Could you imagine Clint without wings?” He froze for a moment, his eyes going flat. “Teela tells me I should apologize for that.”

“Don’t bother unless you mean it.”

“That’s what I told her.”

* * *

The rest of the day was uneventful. The Hawklord did not demand to see her again, and Marcus, while growly, was content to snarl at everyone and not Kaylin in particular. Teela and Tain had not returned from their own beat when Kaylin checked out; Severn remained with her instead of heading to his place.

She stopped at the infirmary to pick up Bellusdeo and Moran and discovered that there had been trouble on the banks of the Ablayne—no surprise there. If there was trouble anywhere in the city, odds were it had occurred on or near the Ablayne’s many bridges. The bridges that fed into the fiefs, with the growing exception of Tiamaris, were in low-rent areas.

But this trouble was only a mundane knife fight, and the Hawks had come out on top, although they’d pulled in a couple of Swords; it was the Swords who required medical attention, and they received it with their usual stiff upper lips. The Hawks, Kaylin reflected, cursed more. And in better languages.

They were late heading home, and by the time Moran was ready to leave, Teela and Tain had returned. They were waiting, lounging really, outside the infirmary doors. The infirmary was strictly for mortals, as far as the Barrani on the force were concerned. Moran contested this from time to time, but the Barrani, accustomed to kin who were just as likely to kill them as come to their aid, weren’t bothered by the sergeant’s demeanor.

Moran’s lips tightened as she caught sight of the Barrani, but she said nothing. She locked the office with the touch of a palm and a three-word command, and headed out of the building.

The guards had changed shifts, and happened to be human, not Aerian, which made passage between them less awkward. And it was going to be awkward, because Mandoran’s question still cut her when Kaylin returned to it.

She wanted to help Moran.

Was she willing to risk Clint losing his wings, if she made a mistake?

Was she willing to risk Lord Grammayre losing his?

* * *

Helen was waiting for them at the door, and as Kaylin stepped into the front foyer, she felt her jaw unclench. There had been no further problems on the way home. No invisible assassins, for one. Helen gently draped an arm around Kaylin’s shoulder, taking care not to crush the familiar, who lifted a lazy eyelid to look at her before he shut it again.

“Why is he so exhausted?” Helen asked.

“Who knows? All he’s done today is complain and sit on people’s shoulders.” Except for saving Moran’s life. Kaylin glanced apologetically at the familiar, who failed to notice.

The small dragon squawked without opening his eyes.

“You visited the Keeper?” Helen asked Kaylin.

Moran stiffened. “I’m going to take a bath,” she told Helen. “I’m not sure I’ll be down for dinner.”

“That’s fine, dear. I’ll have food sent up if you aren’t.” She watched Moran mount the large staircase, but waited until she had disappeared before speaking again. “She’s worried about you,” she told Kaylin.

“I’m beginning to understand why people hate worry so much,” Kaylin replied. “You guys eating here?”

Teela glanced at Tain, who shrugged. “Looks like a yes. We’re going out drinking after, if you want to come.”

“Maybe.”

The Barrani exchanged another glance.

“I’m going to get changed for dinner,” Bellusdeo told them all. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t leave without me.” Her eyes were close to gold as she met Teela’s. Teela’s were closer to blue.

Unable to ditch her Barrani guests, Kaylin looked to Severn, who raised a brow. But he did nod, and headed toward the dining room, which had become the equivalent of an informal parlor. There was a lot of room, it had chairs and it was always well lit. The Hawks used it the way they used the benches in the mess hall; the parlor was almost intimidating in its formality by comparison.

Kaylin hung back.

“She knows what you’re doing,” Mandoran said cheerfully.

“Great. Can you tell her that I enjoy being worried about as much as she does?”

“Yes,” Teela said, before Mandoran could reply, “and when you’ve got centuries of experience under your belt, I’ll stop.”

Which, of course, meant never, because Kaylin wasn’t immortal and was, in all likelihood, never going to see one century.

She kept seeing Clint without wings. It was his wings she had loved first. Everything else had followed, as wings—and what they meant to Kaylin—made way for the person to whom they were attached.

And yes, that probably meant Teela was right. The Aerians were people, just like any other people; the fact that they had one physical characteristic that was at the heart of Kaylin’s many, many daydreams and longings was Kaylin’s problem, not theirs. They didn’t owe her her dreams. They didn’t have to live up to them.

To Helen, she said, “Can I use the mirror?”

“Now, dear?”

Sarcasm came and went. Kaylin managed to keep it to herself, but Helen, who could read the thoughts of almost anyone who entered the house, heard it all. Helen, like Tara, didn’t mind hearing it all.

“Why is now bad?”

“Lord Nightshade is still speaking with his brother.”

“And?”

“I still don’t trust him. It requires a diversion of attention in order to properly contain the intrusion of the mirror network.”

“I honestly don’t think he’s going to do anything damaging or stupid—at least not to you.”

“No. But Annarion is at his least stable when his brother is visiting, and it takes some effort to contain the possible danger of his instability, as well.”

Kaylin exhaled, nodding glumly.

* * *

Moran did not come down to dinner. Bellusdeo and Maggaron did, the former dressed in something other than her armor. Kaylin was certain she’d be hearing about the armor sometime in the morning, and tried not to think about it too much.

The entire dining table fell silent when Annarion joined them, because Annarion brought his brother. Both he and Nightshade were blue-eyed, and it wasn’t the resting state of caution and natural superstition; it was dark.

Annarion bowed very formally and very correctly; Mandoran snorted. Loudly. While both Teela and Tain had stiffened into the type of formality that signaled the possibility of upcoming death, Mandoran lounged. He nodded at Nightshade as if the fieflord were mortal.

Helen set a place for the unexpected guest without being asked. But Helen, like Teela and Tain, had an air that was distinctly more martial. The dining room became, with the insertion of Nightshade, a small battlefield. On the other hand, the cutlery didn’t turn into daggers or swords.

Nightshade’s seat was not beside Annarion; nor was it beside Kaylin. It was between Bellusdeo and Teela. A dark, perfect brow rose as he glanced at Helen; his lips folded into something too sardonic to be a smile. An acknowledgment, perhaps. Her suspicion did not offend him.

No, Kaylin thought with some surprise. The only thing in the room that appeared to do that was the younger brother he had come to visit.