LITMIR.BIZ

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in Hanson’s voice should have been lethal; it was embarrassing instead.

      “The Emperor’s going to reduce me to ash if anything happens in the warrens.”

      “Figure out a way to survive a lot of fire then,” Hanson replied. It was the warrens; if was not precisely the right word. It was simply the hopeful one.

      * * *

      “The warrens are okay,” Kaylin told Bellusdeo on the way to said warrens. Severn said nothing. “They’re nowhere near as bad as the fiefs. They’re more crowded than the rest of the city, and more run-down. But: no Ferals.”

      “I have no fear of Ferals,” Bellusdeo replied. “And before you warn me of all the other dangers, please remember I’m a Dragon. A prickly Dragon.”

      “If it helps, this is considered a Barrani beat.”

      “Because no one is stupid enough to think a few underfed thugs present a danger to the Barrani, of course.” Her chilly tone was a warning. She considered Dragons to be stronger than Barrani, and any implication to the contrary was not going to be well received. “Do yourself a rather large favor and worry about your own survival.”

      She wasn’t worried about Bellusdeo; she was worried about the Emperor. She couldn’t point this out if she didn’t want to add to the hostility between the two Dragons. Since the Emperor had come to dinner at Kaylin’s house, there’d been something close to peace between them—but it was a peace between previously warring nations. It was fragile.

      “Besides, I think your assignment in the warrens was a deliberate choice.”

      “Oh?”

      “I go where you go, with Imperial permission.”

      “You think they’re expecting real trouble? No wonder Marcus was in a mood.”

      “Oh, I think your sergeant’s mood had a lot to do with the Barrani unrest. He’s a sergeant. He expects everyone under him to operate under the same rules.” Bellusdeo smiled fondly. “It’s almost nostalgic.”

      “You had to deal with sergeants?”

      “Or their equivalents, yes. But never from beneath them.” She shook herself. “He is fond of you, of course, which is why you come in for more of his public displeasure than the average new recruit. He can’t afford to show favoritism. It bleeds solidarity from the ranks. If he’s fond of you—and he is, no one could miss that—and he treats you the way he does, it means no one is safe.” She wrinkled her nose. “I take it this is also where the tanneries are.”

      * * *

      Kaylin did not detest the warren. She didn’t feel the need to make excuses for the people who lived here; life had already done that. But she knew theft from the inside out. Knew that she’d been good enough not to get caught often. She needed to eat, same as anyone, and if there was no way to do that legitimately, she’d made other choices. She wasn’t proud of them, but she wasn’t humiliated by them, either.

      She understood that once you started, crime became another tool, another way to survive. That you could want a better life, dream of it, of being a better person, and it didn’t matter. Dreams didn’t fill a stomach. But the warrens were on this side of the Ablayne. They were subject to the Emperor’s Law. The worst excess of human behaviors was curbed here. It wasn’t like the fiefs.

      She knew that the tabard she wore put a wall between her and the warren’s residents. But at least it was the East Warrens, not the south.

      “Power,” Bellusdeo said, “is always interesting. It is not an absolute, with few exceptions.”

      “Exceptions?”

      “The Eternal Emperor would be one of them. But he is considered out of reach. His position is not visibly contested in any way. People gather. It’s what people do.”

      “Dragons don’t.”

      “No. But Dragons have hoards, and hoards can make a Dragon dangerously unstable if they are not prepared for it. We do not make friends the way mortals do.”

      “Or the way Barrani do?”

      “Or the way Barrani do, no. We have not found there is strength in numbers, except perhaps in the case of war. And even then, it is questionable. I ruled. In any gathering of mortals, at any station of life, there is always a question of power. Or perhaps hierarchy. Even in the fiefs, where one could arguably say there is little true power, people struggle for position. People kill for it, one way or the other.”

      “That doesn’t make humanity sound all that appealing.”

      The Dragon smiled. “If that was all that humanity contained, perhaps it would be unappealing. The power games of most mortals makes no material difference to my life. But no, power itself is inert. People want it for different reasons. In the warrens—as in your fiefs—they want power because it is tied to survival. But so, too, family, kin, clan. To belong to a group is to gain a negotiable safety from it. It is why gangs clash. It is why reprisals exist.

      “I would imagine the warrens are no different from the fiefs. Tell me, have you lost many Hawks to the warrens?”

      Kaylin glanced at Severn. It was Severn who answered. “Yes. Not, however, since Barrani joined the force. Aerian patrols were also successful in preserving lives, but they were not considered as effective at deterring crime.”

      “And the Barrani themselves are trusted not to add to the crime?”

      “They have been,” Severn replied. “Teela, however, has been crucial to their performance.”

      “And someone tried to kill her this morning.”

       3

      Each beat had its own route. Even Elani. Those routes, however, were considered by most beat Hawks to be general guidelines, and deviation from the suggested norm was not career-threatening. Flexibility was a necessity in the life of a beat Hawk, something that the higher-ups did understand, except when it came to quartermasters and uniforms.

      Kaylin knew the warrens because she had come here with Teela and Tain before she had been given a rank and a uniform of her own.

      Being with Barrani, and not hiding from them, had been a novel experience. She understood why people in the warrens vanished from visible windows or door frames as the two Hawks walked by. She also understood that the very young, very stupid, or very ambitious could—and occasionally did—attempt to take Hawks down.

      It was the reason this was considered a Barrani beat. If the gangs felt they were equal to two officers with tabards, the equation changed markedly when the people who were wearing the tabards were Immortal. The gangs here had lived their lives in the maze of buildings and compromises that were the warrens. They could be forgiven for assuming the law was irrelevant, because in most obvious ways in their limited experience, it was.

      It had been both irrelevant and a daydream in the fiefs of Kaylin’s youth, and at least these streets didn’t have Ferals literally devouring the unwary.

      But...was that really any better? She wanted to slap herself for even thinking it. Clearly she’d been too comfortable, too safe, for too long. The Ferals were death. You had a hope of negotiating with anything else.

      “You’re thinking, again.”

      “Ferals,” Kaylin told the Dragon. “We were more terrified of Ferals than almost anything else.” Small and squawky snorted dismissively. Bellusdeo didn’t bother, but it was clear she felt the same.

      “That wasn’t a terrified face.”

      “It’s just...they weren’t personal. They weren’t plotting against us. They wanted one thing: to eat us. We wanted one thing: to avoid them. The cost for failure was high, but...it wasn’t personal. Does that make sense?”

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