LITMIR.BIZ

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leave it now. I don’t notice it either way.”

      “Now, you’re not of Nightshade.” Teela glanced at Tain, who shrugged.

      “It was a straight run along the border nearest the river,” Kaylin told them both. “I wasn’t close to the—the other border.”

      “No. If you’d run in that direction, you’d never have met the Hawklord. And,” Teela added, “our lives would generally be less interesting for the lack.” She nodded to Severn. “Tain and I have a little drinking to do. See that she gets home.”

      He didn’t even bridle at the casual order.

      “I’m not angry anymore,” Kaylin told Severn as they walked along the river’s side. Her gaze traveled across its banks, and into the shallows of night. Night in the fiefs was death unless you were armed and trained. She could walk there now without much fear, and that was something she’d never even dreamed of as a child.

      Severn said nothing.

      “I know why you did—what you did.”

      He nodded. “But?”

      She frowned. “It’s Barren,” she said quietly.

      “The fief or the Lord?”

      “I’m not sure you can ever separate a fief from its fieflord. But…the fief. The first night. The first day. I don’t think about it much anymore.” She kicked a loose stone with her right foot, and found that it wasn’t as loose as it had looked. The pain was almost a relief, it was so mundane.

      “But then?”

      “I wanted to kill you.” She stopped walking and turned to face him. What he saw in her expression made him look away. “I wanted to be able to kill you. I thought, if I did, it would end the nightmares. It would somehow let Steffi and Jade rest in peace.”

      In the muted streetlights, she could see his face; it was shadowed, and it was stiff. She searched around for another stone to kick, because it was better than looking at what was—and wasn’t—there. “It was the only thing I could think about, when I could think at all.” She lifted her hands, found they were almost fists, and lowered them again.

      He watched her. He said nothing.

      But he didn’t turn, didn’t walk away. She would have. She knew she would have. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

      “Don’t,” he said, his first word. He lifted a hand, palm out. “Don’t apologize to me. What you did, what we did, is in the past. Leave it there, Kaylin.”

      “I did. I thought I did,” she added bitterly. She lifted Barren’s missive and waved it in the air. “But it’s here. Again.”

      “Ignore it. Walk away. Don’t walk back.”

      She knew, then, that’s what Severn would do.

      And what could she say that wasn’t pathetic? I don’t want Marcus to know.

      “Marcus will understand, Kaylin. Trust him to do that much. Given a choice, he would never, ever have you walk back into Barren.”

      “I do trust him,” she said quietly. “I want him to keep on trusting me.”

      He nodded, as if he’d never really expected her to say anything else. Maybe he hadn’t. “Take me with you.”

      “No.”

      “He didn’t tell you to go alone. Take me with you.”

      “No. Because—” she stopped. Looked at his face, at the lines that had hardened in his expression. Closed her own. “Severn—I don’t want you to know, either.”

      And then, before he could answer, she did what she had often done—she turned and she ran.

      There was no light in her apartment that wasn’t supplied by moon; it was cheap, and all she did here at night was sleep anyway. She checked the mirror, but it was dull and silent. No messages. No other emergencies. Tonight, for a change, one would almost have been welcome.

      Her hair fell as she pulled out the new stick that bound it; she struggled out of her tunic and dumped it on the chair that served as a closet. It’s not your fault, she told him in bitter silence, because he couldn’t hear her. I didn’t know why. I didn’t stay to find out. She believed it, now; those deaths weren’t his fault. But she had run to Barren, numb and terrified, and when the terror had finally lapsed, the guilt had almost destroyed her.

      It was a slow, slow destruction, and she ached from it, from the memories of it; they were almost physical. What she’d told him was true: she had only wanted one thing. To kill him. To be able to kill him. She’d been thirteen; it wasn’t hard to be focused, to let desire consume everything, overshadowing all but the need to eat, and the need to sleep.

      She grimaced. It wasn’t hard to be that focused now. But she no longer wanted to kill him. The years with the Hawks, with the foundling hall, and eventually, with the midwives, had given her other things to want, other things to live for. The first time she’d set eyes on Severn in the Hawklord’s tower had been the first time she’d thought about killing him in months. Maybe a year.

      And what had she done then?

      Cringing her way out of her leggings, and struggling with laces in the dark, she closed her eyes. She’d tried, of course. In front of the Hawklord, in his Tower, as if all the intervening years had never happened. She’d managed to pull back, but it wasn’t the last time she’d tried, and the last time?

      In front of the foundlings. In front of Marrin.

      Lying back in bed, she reached for her sheet and the blankets that were too hot for this time of year. She hated to leave any part of her body exposed when she slept, even though it made her sweat. It was stupid, but a small corner of her mind still believed that they would protect her from the shadowy, childhood monsters that lurked at the foot of the bed, waiting their opportunity.

      It was stupid.

      She could honestly say she loved Severn. She could say, as well, that she trusted him with her life. She could almost say that she would trust him—now—with the lives that meant at least as much to her, although that one was touch and go.

      But Jade and Steffi still haunted her. And waiting just behind them now, Barren. The one truth couldn’t obliterate the other, no matter how much she believed it already had.

      Lord Sanabalis of the Dragon Court was familiar enough with Private Neya—who might, one day, rise in the ranks if she could manage to be consistently on time—that he did not schedule his lessons at the beginning of a normal day. The beginning of Kaylin’s day was, to be polite, staggered.

      It was with some suspicion, then, that he noted the door to the West Room had been palm-keyed. Private Neya stood in the door’s frame as it opened, looking as if she had failed to sleep or eat. She was, however, on time.

      She walked to the large, conference table and took the seat closest to Lord Sanabalis; she didn’t even grimace at the candle that he had placed in its usual position, which in Kaylin’s case, would be just out of range of her fists.

      He waited for her to speak.

      Normally, speech was not an issue; getting her to stop, especially if she felt aggrieved by the exercises, was. She remained, however, silent; she did not appear to notice that the candle was awaiting her attention.

      He began the lesson by reminding her of the import of the candle flame. She was, of course, to light it, and that simple task had so far eluded her, although she had once managed to melt the entire thing.

      She offered none of the usual resistance; she even nodded in the right places. But he had some suspicion that this was rote, and when he inserted a word or two that was, strictly speaking, out of place, she failed to notice.

      She didn’t, however, fail to notice the fire that singed the stray strands of her hair,

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