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And she wasn’t Doing Something Useful, as Garrity would put it. The Festival season had been expressly forbidden her; she was surprised that they hadn’t sent her out of town on the first coach.
Her cheek was actively painful, now. She touched it, wondering if it was swollen; if the lines engraved there were like the lines of a burn, and had taken some sort of stupid infection. Her skin was cool to the touch, her palm a little too dry.
She let her hand fall, casually, to her side. It was the side at which her daggers were neatly arranged.
Straightening slightly, she turned.
A man was standing at the foot of the far end of the bridge, except that he wasn’t. A man, that is.
Surprise robbed her of words for a moment, but it added the hilt of a dagger, and the rest of the blade followed as she drew it. A warning, really. Or perhaps a gesture of greeting; it certainly wouldn’t do her much good in a fight.
He was Barrani.
She wasn’t. The odds favored him.
Even had she been Barrani, the odds would still favor him. He was, after all, Lord Nightshade, the crime lord under whose sway the fief of Nightshade prospered.
“It is sunset,” Lord Nightshade said as he stepped onto the bridge. The wooden planks didn’t even register his weight. Which, given the age of the bridge, said more about his movement than it did about the planks.
“Almost.” She managed to shrug.
“You shouldn’t be out in the streets, Kaylin. I was, I believe, most explicit about that.”
She shrugged again before his words really registered. Sometimes nerves made her quick; sometimes they slowed her down. Quick was preferable. “Explicit to who?”
He raised a perfect, dark brow. It was perfect because he was Barrani. In fact, his eyes, which were a deep, startling green, were also perfect, and framed by—yes—perfect lashes. His face was the long, fine face of Barrani everywhere, his hair, the long perfect raven-wing black. He moved like a dancer. Or a hunting feral.
But he wore clothing—a long, dark cape over a robe that was both fine and edged with gold. Nothing about Barrani dress was ever less than ostentatious, even when it happened to be the same uniform—sized up—that she herself was now wearing.
She hated that. Anyone sane did.
Well, all right, anyone sane who wasn’t also immortal and perfect and didn’t take unearthly beauty for granted. “Why are you here?”
“Because you are,” he replied. “You’ve been calling me for the last week.”
She frowned. “I haven’t.”
His shrug was elegant; it made hers look grubby. And unlike Teela or Tain, he didn’t even make an effort; he spoke Barrani, and at that, the High Caste Barrani she most despised. Teela spoke Elantran when she was with the Hawks. Even when they were Barrani. When Teela broke into Barrani of any flavor, it meant trouble. “As you like,” he said quietly.
He drew closer, but stopped about two feet away. He did not, however, lean against the railing.
“You’re almost on my turf,” she said quietly.
“Almost is a mortal word.” He gazed at the river, and gestured; it seemed to freeze in its bed, like sleek glass. She could see herself clearly in the momentary reflection; she could see him more clearly, and in the end, it was the fieflord she looked at. Who wouldn’t?
“You have not come to visit,” he said quietly.
She started to reply, and caught the words before they left her mouth, for perhaps the first time today. The fieflord was not known for his sense of humor. Or perhaps he was: He regularly killed people who offended by implying it existed at all.
Bravery was costly in the fiefs. Defiance was more painful, but not ultimately more costly.
“No,” she said when she could talk. “I haven’t.”
Before she could move, he reached out to touch her cheek, his fingers caressing the skin that bore his mark. He did not touch any other part of her face, but he didn’t have to—his meaning, in the gesture, was plain.
“You could remove it,” she told him softly.
“Yes, I could. But not without cost.” His smile was unsettling. “You speak my name when you sleep,” he said softly. “My true name. And there is no way to avoid hearing it—not for me.”
“I can’t speak it,” she said, something like fear informing the words.
“I know. I believe you did try when Tiamaris asked.” “I tried. Once.” “What did he hear?” “Nothing.”
“But I heard it,” he said softly. “You were in Castle Nightshade.”
His brow rose. “Yes,” he said, and it seemed there was caution in the affirmation. “I was.”
“Why did you—why are you here?”
His eyes shifted in color. It was sudden, but it was entirely unexpected; nothing Barrani did could be expected, almost by definition. You just couldn’t trust them, and predictability implied a certain belief in routine. “The castelord has called the High Court,” he said quietly. The wrong type of quiet.
“I … know.”
“Anteela will be there.”
“An—oh. Teela.” She remembered that Lord Evarrim had called Teela that, what seemed like another lifetime ago. “She’s gone. But none of the other Barrani are.”
“They wouldn’t be. None of the other Barrani, as you so casually put it, withdrew from the Lord’s Court to pursue the idle life of a … Hawk.”
“She’s a—”
“In Elantran, you would call her Lady Anteela,” he said, using the word Lady with some distaste. “If she desired it. She does not.”
“So she left.”
His smile was cold. “The Hawks are trained to observe, are they not?” “They are.”
“Then the training given is poor indeed.” “We like to observe fact.”
“Fact, as you so quaintly put it, is something that is rarely understood if it is observed with no understanding of context. She withdrew from Court. Her absence was noted. It was not, however, appreciated.”
She didn’t ask him how he knew.
“Wise,” he told her. “Understand, Kaylin Neya, that you will be at the heart of many discussions when the Court convenes.”
“And that will be?”
“When the moon is full,” he replied. “And silver.”
“Which moon?”
“There is only one that counts.”
She didn’t ask. As far as she was concerned, there were two. “Why are you here?” she said again.
“I am unwilling to risk you in the games that will no doubt unfold. You are too ignorant of our customs.”
“You’re outcaste,” she said without thinking. “They’re not your customs anymore.” She caught up with her flapping mouth and shut it hard enough to hear—and feel—her teeth snap.
His eyes were now a blue that was sapphire. Midnight sapphire. “Come,” he said, and he began to walk away, down the gentle slope of the bridge.
On the wrong side.
“You can’t—you can’t go there!”
“While it is true that I seldom venture outside of my domain, I am seldom