LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 7

      Kaylin blinked. This was not a subject that came up often, and never in full view of the rank and file, unless the only rank and file present was Kaylin herself. She swallowed. She looked at the terrified Aerians and had no desire at all to touch them.

      “Can you ascertain whether or not what you see is relevant to us?”

      She swallowed.

      “Private.”

      Rolling up her sleeve, she exposed the ancient bracer that had been a gift—a dire, mandatory gift—from the Imperial Court years ago. She wasn’t, in theory, allowed to take it off. In practice, it inhibited the use of the magic that had become hers when the marks that covered so much of her skin had first appeared.

      The Emperor who had issued the orders was in the Imperial Palace. The man who was responsible for her livelihood was standing a couple of feet away, wings spread and eyes a study in fury. She took the bracer off. Severn took it before she could toss it over her shoulder.

      The captive Aerians regarded her with both hostility and fear. At the moment, she deserved it. She wondered if this was how the Tha’alani felt. Healing was not supposed to be invasive or unwanted.

      Clint came with her, as did Severn; weapons were leveled at the Aerian prisoners, the warning in their presence clear, but unspoken.

      She reached out and very gently placed a hand on the forehead of the slightly older man. His wings were as they appeared through normal vision. They weren’t the result of an old injury. They were his body’s actual shape.

      Kaylin couldn’t give sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf, unless either condition was caused by an injury that had occurred fairly recently. She withdrew her hand and touched the second man, who was staring up at her in misery. Like the first man’s, his wings were complete in their damaged form.

      These two hadn’t flown in a long time, if ever. Until today.

      “They’re clean.” She turned to the Dragon. “Whatever you sense, I don’t. Shadow?”

      “Not now, no. But it was faintly tangible when they were invisible.” Her eyes were a very vivid orange; they hadn’t yet descended into red, but it was a close thing. Bellusdeo’s experience with Gilbert had softened some of the edge of her hatred of Shadow—but it was a pretty hard edge, and the blunting wasn’t terribly obvious at the moment.

      “Is it possible that the Shadow formed wings?”

      “Clearly. You think the wings are still present.”

      “Yes, but I don’t understand how. Maybe it’s an afterimage, an aftereffect.”

      “Lord Bellusdeo.” The Hawklord’s terse voice interrupted what might have become a rather long-winded theoretical magic discussion. “Do you feel that the threat of Shadow incursion is present? The Halls are very heavily protected against magic we understand, but they are not a Tower otherwise.”

      “I wouldn’t take the risk,” Bellusdeo replied in Elantran. “Would you have any objections if I roasted them for the sake of certainty?”

      “Yes. You consider it an actual risk?”

      “I consider it a theoretical risk. Shadow magic is chaotic and unpredictable; we could defend against much of it, but it’s always more inventive when it pairs itself with the living.” She looked vaguely disgusted. She didn’t, however, breathe fire.

      The Hawklord appeared to be considering a matrix of unpleasant possibilities. “Very well. Take them to the holding cells.”

      * * *

      “Weren’t you supposed to be in the infirmary?” Teela asked the gold Dragon once the Hawklord was safely out of hearing range.

      “I considered this to be the greater danger to Moran,” Bellusdeo replied. “Also, I’m not on the payroll.”

      “Fair enough.”

      Kaylin glanced at Clint. Some of the other Aerians’ eyes had shaded into a more natural gray. Not Clint. His eyes were still blue. He wasn’t as angry—or as combat-ready—as the Hawklord had been, but he was close. Kaylin wondered if anyone was going to use the front doors today if they had any other choice. She certainly wouldn’t.

      Kaylin, Bellusdeo and Severn made their way to the infirmary and found Moran behind a locked door. The door was unlocked after some muffled conversation, which, on Moran’s part, included a few choice Leontine phrases.

      Kaylin forgot what she’d been about to say when she saw Moran’s eyes. They were a pale shade of blue, too dark to be gray in any light. It was a color she hadn’t seen all that much of until after the attack on the High Halls; she knew it now as sorrow, the natural response when people you respected and fought beside had perished.

      Moran said quietly, “I’ve applied for a leave of absence.”

      It almost broke Kaylin’s heart. Her mind, however, was still intact. “Did you recognize them?” she asked.

      Moran said nothing.

      “Kaylin,” the Dragon said, putting an arm around the Hawk’s shoulder. “Perhaps now is not the time.”

      But the answer was clearly yes. “They’re in the holding cells,” she told Moran. “Unless the Caste Court demands their release, that’s where they’re probably going to be staying. Moran—who are they?”

      “I don’t know them personally,” she replied, ill at ease. “And it’s going to be complicated for the Caste Court now. If the existence of Shadow spell or augmentation is proven, the Emperor will...not be pleased.”

      “The Emperor.”

      “The Emperor who created the laws of exemption, yes. There are strict limits to those laws, and for reasons that are obvious, they don’t apply to the use of, or the contamination of, Shadow.”

      Bellusdeo said a single word—in native Dragon. It was only one, but Kaylin’s ears were ringing, and the rest of her body was shaking. Dragon was simply not useful for communicating with people who didn’t have ears of stone or steel.

      The familiar squawked at the Dragon in mild annoyance. Kaylin lifted a hand—quickly—to cover the familiar’s mouth. “No more native Dragon,” she told Bellusdeo. “I actually need my ears.” To Moran, she said, “The Emperor is coming to dinner tomorrow.”

      The blue of sorrow gave way to the purple of surprise, which then gave way to a bluish gray that was probably as calm as her eyes were going to get this morning.

      “If you take a leave of absence, will you stay with Helen?”

      Silence.

      “Because if you think you’re going back to the Southern Reach, you can forget it.”

      “Kaylin,” Bellusdeo said in warning.

      Kaylin folded her arms. “If there’s Shadow in the Aerie, and the people using it are trying to kill you, the Aerie isn’t safe for you. And that would be fine—it’s your life.”

      “Thank you,” was Moran’s somewhat sarcastic reply.

      “But Shadow doesn’t generally pick and choose. These Aerians—the ones in the holding cells—are

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