LITMIR.BIZ

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seem so perfect.

      They walked for minutes, for a quarter of an hour, passing closed doors and alcoves in which fountains trickled clear water into ancient stone. She didn’t ask where the water came from. She didn’t really want to know.

      But when they came at last to the Hall’s end, there were tall doors, and the doors were closed. An alcove sat to the left and right of either door, and in each, like living statues, stood a Barrani lord.

      She could not tell, at first glance, if they were male or female. They were adorned by the same dark hair that marked all of their kind, and it, like their still faces, was perfect. Their skin was white, like alabaster, and their lids were closed in a sweep of lashes against that perfect skin.

      She heeded the warning of the fieflord; she held his arm. He walked beside her until the Barrani flanked him, and then he said, softly, “The doors must be opened.”

      Eyelids rolled up. Nothing else about the Barrani moved. Kaylin found it disturbing.

      The doors began to swing outward in a slow, slow arc. She stepped toward them, eager to be gone; the fieflord, however, did not move. She turned to look at him, and her glance strayed to the two Barrani on either side of her.

      They were speaking. Their voices were unlike any Barrani voice she had ever heard, even the fieflord’s: they were almost sibilant. They reminded her of ghosts. Death that whispered the name of Nightshade.

      But when they reached out to touch her, she froze; the dead didn’t move like this. Fluid, graceful, silent, they eyed her as if she were … food.

      “Peace,” the fieflord said coldly.

      They didn’t seem to hear him. Icy fingers touched her arms. Icy fingers burned. Unfortunately, so did Kaylin.

      The hand drew back.

      “She is yours?” one of the two said. His voice was stronger now, as if he were remembering how to use it. The words held more expression than any Barrani voice she had heard, which was strange, given that his face held less.

      “She is mine,” Nightshade said quietly.

      “Give her to us. Give her to us as the price of passage.”

      “You forget yourselves,” he replied. He lifted a hand, and thin shadows streamed from his fingers. They passed over her shoulder, around the curve of her arm, without touching her. She froze in place, because she was suddenly very certain that she didn’t want them to touch her.

      “They smell blood,” he said quietly.

      It made no sense.

      “They are old,” he added softly, “and they have chosen to reside here in Barrani sleep. They are also powerful. Do not wake them, Kaylin.”

      “You rule here.”

      “I rule,” he said softly, “because I have not chosen to join them. They are outcaste, and they have been long from the world.” He paused, and then added quietly, “They were within the castle grounds, even as you see them, when I at last took possession. They fought me. They are powerful, but they seldom speak.”

      “They’re speaking now.”

      “Yes. I thought they might. You have touched the seal,” he added.

      “Will they leave?”

      “No. They are bound here, but the binding is old and poorly understood. Blood wakes them. It is a call to life.”

      The lesson, then. She raised a hand to cover her cheek.

      “She bears the mark,” one of the two said. It confused Kaylin until she realized they weren’t talking about the fieflord’s strange flower; they were talking about the ones on her arms. “Leave her here. Do not meddle in the affairs of the ancients.”

      “She is mortal,” the fieflord replied. “And not bound by the laws of the Old Ones.”

      “She bears the marks,” the Barrani said again. “She contains the words.”

      “She cannot.”

      Silence then. Shadows.

      “She is almost bound,” a flat, cold voice at last replied. “As we are bound. We grant you passage, Lord of the Long Halls.”

      Kaylin passed between them in the shadow of the fieflord, but she felt their eyes burning a hole between her shoulder blades, and she swore that she would never again walk through a shadow gate, not even if her life depended on it. She’d been hungry before, but never like they were, and she didn’t want to be whatever it was that satisfied that hunger.

      “You will not speak of them here,” he told her.

      “I—”

      “I understand that you will speak with Lord Grammayre. I understand that, if you do not speak well, he will summon the Tha’alani.”

      She shuddered. “He won’t,” she snapped.

      “You already bear the scent of their touch. It is … unpleasant.”

      “Only once,” she whispered, but she paled.

      “Do not trust Lord Grammayre overmuch,” he said softly.

      “Your name—”

      And smiled. “Not even the Tha’alani can touch it. No mortal can, if it has not been gifted to them, and if they have not paid the price. The name, Kaylin Neya, is for you. If he questions you, answer him. I give you leave to do so.”

      “Why?”

      “Because the Lord of Hawks and the Lord of Nightshade are bound by different laws. We have different information, and I am curious to see what he makes of you, now.”

      He stepped through the doors, and they began to close slowly behind them. When Kaylin turned back to look, she saw only blank, smooth walls. But at their edges, top and bottom, she saw the swirled runic writing with which she was becoming familiar.

      “Not even I can free them,” he said quietly. “I tried only once.”

      She started to say something, and to her great embarrassment, her stomach got there before she did; it growled.

      His beautiful black brows rose in surprise, and then he laughed. She wanted to hate the sound. “You are very human,” he said softly. “And I see so few.”

      Which reminded her of something. “Severn,” she said.

      “Yes. Perhaps the last of your kind that I have spoken to at length.”

      “Why?”

      The laughter was gone, and the smile it left in its place was like ebony, hard and smooth. “Ask him.”

      “He won’t answer.”

      “No. But ask him. It will amuse me.”

      When they left the next hall, she heard voices.

      One was particularly loud. It was certainly familiar. She closed her eyes, released the fieflord’s arm, and stumbled as she grabbed folds of shimmering silk, bunching them in her fists. She lifted the skirt of her fine dress, freeing her feet, and after a moment’s hesitation, she kicked off the stupid shoes, the snap of her legs sending them flying in different directions. The floor was cold against her soles. Cold and hard.

      Didn’t matter.

      She recognized both the voice and its tenor, and she began to run. The lurching movement reminded her of how weak her legs were. But they were strong enough. She made it to the end of the hall, and turned a sharp corner.

      There, in a room that was both gaudy and bright—as unlike the rest of the Halls as any room she had yet seen—were Severn, Tiamaris and the two Barrani guards that had accompanied the Lord of Nightshade.

      The guards held drawn weapons.

      Severn held links of

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