LITMIR.BIZ

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actually speaking Barrani. It was the formal language of the Lords of Law, and as he was allergic to most forms of formal, he seldom used it.

      Tiamaris raised a dark brow. They were almost of a height. Marcus continued to close; Tiamaris continued to mime a statue. Inches fell away.

      Men. “Actually, Marcus, I said it,” Kaylin lifted the crystal as if it were an Imperial writ.

      To her surprise, Marcus actually turned to look at her. But if his gaze was fastened on the crystal she held, his words were for Tiamaris. “This is my office,” he said quietly, each word textured by the full growl of a Leontine in his prime. “These are my Hawks. If you … choose to work here, you accept that.”

      “I choose to serve at the pleasure of the Lord of Hawks,” was the neutral reply. It, too, was in Barrani. Kaylin realized that she had not heard Tiamaris speak in any other language since he’d entered the tower.

      Kaylin tried again. “We’re to be kitted out,” she began. “And the Hawklord—”

      “He told me.” He turned his gaze back to Tiamaris. “This isn’t finished,” he said quietly.

      “No,” Tiamaris concurred, in an agreeable tone of voice that implied anything but. “It’s barely begun. Sergeant?”

      “Take the West room,” he replied, eyes lidding slowly. Kaylin knew, then, that Tiamaris was close to death. Would have been, had he not been a Dragon. “Kaylin, show them.”

      She took a deep breath. Thought about telling them all that she wasn’t their babysitter. Thought better of it a full second before her mouth opened on the words. “Right.” She offered a very sloppy salute, palm out but not exactly flat. It was also, she realized, as Iron Jaw stared at it, the wrong hand.

      “You two, follow.”

      “Whatever you say,” Severn told her, sliding off the desk. “Lead on, Kaylin.”

      The West room was one of four such rooms, and they were all just as poetically named. The Leontines didn’t really go in for fancy names. Near as Kaylin could tell, the Leontine word for food translated roughly as “corpse.” Some accommodations had to be made in culinary discussions.

      When Marcus had first taken the job, the safe rooms—like all of the rest of the rooms in the labyrinthine Halls of Law ruled by the Hawklord—had been named after upstanding citizens, people with a lot of money or distant relatives of the living Emperor. Marcus had pretty much pissed in every possible corner in the Hawks’ domain, and after he’d finished doing that, he’d fixed a few more things. Starting with the names.

      Still, in all, West was better than some seven syllable name that she wouldn’t be able to pronounce without a dictionary. Now if he’d only do something about the damn wards on the doors….

      Before she touched the door, she turned to Tiamaris. “Don’t antagonize him,” she said quietly.

      “Was I?”

      She didn’t know enough about Dragons to be certain he had done so on purpose. But she knew enough about men. “Marcus crawled his way up the ladder over a pile of corpses,” she replied. “And we need him where he is. Don’t push him.”

      For the first time that day, Tiamaris smiled.

      Kaylin decided that she preferred it when he didn’t. His teeth weren’t exactly like normal teeth; they didn’t have the pronounced canines of the Leontine, but they seemed to glitter. His eyes certainly did.

      She pushed the door open and walked into the room.

      “Severn,” she said, the name sliding off her tongue before she could halt it, “sit down. Tiamaris?”

      “Kaylin?”

      “We can’t proceed until the door is closed—the gem is keyed.”

      “Ah.” He crossed the threshold into the small, windowless room. It looked like a prison cell. On the wrong days, it was. And the prisoners it contained? She shuddered.

      The door slid shut behind him. Severn sat, lounging across a chair as if he were in his personal rooms. Tiamaris sat stiffly, as if he weren’t used to bending in the middle.

      And Kaylin stood between them, between the proverbial rock and a hard place. She looked at Severn. Looked at the familiar scars that she’d never forgotten, and looked at the newer ones.

      She wanted to kill him.

      And he knew it. His smile stilled, until it was a mask, a presentation. Behind it, his blue eyes were hooded, watchful. His hands had fallen beneath the level of the plain, wooden table that was the only flat surface that wasn’t the floor.

      “Are you really a Hawk?” He asked casually.

      “Are you really a Wolf?”

      They stared at each other for a beat too long.

      “Kaylin,” Tiamaris said quietly. “I believe you have business to attend to.”

      “I’m a Hawk,” she replied.

      “Why?”

      “Why?” Her hand closed around the crystal. “Yeah,” she said to Tiamaris. “Business. As usual.”

      There had been a time when she would have answered any question Severn had asked. Any question. But she wasn’t that girl, now. She had no desire to share any of her life with him. Instead, she looked at the crystal. Some hesitance must have showed, because Tiamaris raised a brow.

      “You are familiar with these, yes?”

      “I’ve seen them,” she said coldly.

      “But you’ve never used one.”

      She shoved nonexistent hair out of her eyes, as if she were stalling. Her earlier years in the streets of the fiefs had proved that lies were valuable. Her formative years with the Hawks had shown her that they were also usually transparent, if they were hers. At last, she said, “No. Never.”

      “If you would allow me—”

      “No.”

      Another brow rose. “No?”

      The word sounded like a threat.

      “No,” she said, finding her feet. “The Hawklord gave it to me. You try to use it, and if it’s keyed, we’ll be picking you out of our hair for weeks.”

      His smile was not a comfort. He held out his hand. “I have the advantage,” he told her softly, “of knowing how to unlock a crystal.”

      After a pause, in which she acknowledged privately that she was stalling, she said, “Why is he sending a Dragon into the fiefs?”

      Tiamaris shrugged. “You must ask him. I fear he will not answer, however.” His eyes narrowed, gold giving way to the fire of red. “I confess I am equally curious. Why has he chosen to send an untried girl there?”

      “I’m not untried,” she snapped. “I’ve been with the Hawks for seven years.”

      “You’ve been with the Hawks,” he replied, “since you were thirteen. By caste reckoning, you were a child, then. You reached your age of majority two years ago. In accordance with the rules of Law, you have been a Hawk for two years.”

      “Caste reckoning,” she snapped, “is for the castes. I grew up in the fiefs. Age means something else, there.”

      “So,” Tiamaris said, splaying a hand across the table’s surface. “That was true.”

      She looked at him again. How much do you know about me? Which wasn’t really the important question. And why?

      Which was. “You’ve been a Hawk for a day, if I’m any judge.”

      “Two,” he replied.

      “It

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