“I wasn’t allowed to leave until I’d promised to wear it.” But Sanabalis was also hundreds of miles away.
“It is never wise to break an oath given to dragons,” the Lord of the West March told her.
“It’s probably stupid to give them the oath in the first place,” she conceded, falling into her mother tongue. “But we weren’t going to get the information we needed unless I promised to make the pilgrimage to the West March. And I couldn’t make that promise without also taking the amulet.”
“Lord Sanabalis did not feel that my ring would guarantee your safety?”
“It’s probably stupid,” she said, after a long pause, “for me to open my mouth at all.”
He laughed. “It is not in our nature to trust others to protect what is valuable to us. Even were it, that trust would not cross this particular racial divide. I had heard rumor that some Imperial overtures had been made.”
“Yes. But I don’t think that’s going to happen again in this generation.”
“No. The High Court was unamused by the presence of the Emperor upon their land.”
“He was a little angry.”
“Dragons do not generally breathe fire in the middle of the city when they are merely annoyed.”
“I didn’t say he was annoyed—I said he was angry. You can’t blame him. One of the High Lords had just attempted to assassinate the only known female dragon.”
“As a Lord of the High Court, Lord Kaylin, it is best not to spread that sentiment.”
Kaylin, tired and unexpectedly angry herself, said, “She was living with me at the time. Every item of value I owned was destroyed during that attempt.”
The small dragon squawked.
“Almost every item. I understand why Iberrienne tried to kill her. But I’m not willing to pretend that was a good thing. Even if my home hadn’t been ripped to pieces by an Arcane bomb, I still wouldn’t. I’m an Imperial Hawk.”
“Yes, Lord Kaylin, you are. What I now wonder is what else you might be.” He glanced at the Warden of the West March; Lord Barian was no longer walking. He, and the men who had arrived by his side, had spread out in a line ten yards from Teela, the Lord of the West March, and Kaylin. “Ah. We’ve arrived.”
They had; there was a small stream, too slender to be called a river—and far too shallow—and the Barrani began to line up at its far edge as the Warden of the West March signaled a halt. “A word of advice, Lord Kaylin. The would-be assassin is Outcaste. Do not use his name in polite company.”
And what am I supposed to call him?
Outcaste, Nightshade replied, amused.
Outcaste what? Outcaste number twelve or ninety?
The context will make it clear. The Lord of the West March has claimed you as kin. He will guide you, as you allow. He is not his father; he is not his brother. He is like—very like—his sister. He will indulge you where it is safe to do so. Do not make the mistake of believing his indulgence to be a social norm. It is not.
She wanted, very badly, to fall over and sleep. Had she been at home, she probably wouldn’t have made it out of her clothing first. Severn joined her and slid an arm around her shoulder. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to speak. She accepted what he offered, leaning against his shoulder; letting him carry some part of her weight.
From there, she could watch.
She could watch as the bed of this modest stream began to widen, to stretch away from the Barrani on all sides. The stream itself could be crossed with a simple leap—or a running leap, in Kaylin’s case; the river it had become was far too wide.
While thinking that, she saw the Lord of the West March take a step forward, into the moving current.
His foot never hit water. It hit air instead, and that air obligingly became a bridge. It didn’t rise out of the water. That would have been too simple. No, it appeared in broad strokes, as if painted in place by an insanely fast, insanely good artist. It was brighter than the rest of the landscape; brighter than the moonlight should have made it, and it appeared, to her eye, to be made of glass.
Given that most of the Barrani were wearing armor, this was not comforting.
The Lord of the West March then turned to Teela. “An’Teela.” He did not offer her an arm; she couldn’t take it and continue to bear her burden. But she inclined her chin and preceded him. If material composition of the bridge concerned her, it didn’t show. She climbed what appeared to be slope without stairs until she stood at the midpoint of the bridge; there she paused to look out at the currents of the river.
Kaylin, following, stopped beside her. “Teela?”
The Barrani Hawk looked down her perfect nose. “Home,” she said, wearily. She turned then, and walked down the incline that led, at last, to the city at the heart of the West March.
* * *
The Barrani did not appear to favor stone—at least not underfoot. Elantra had roads. Even in the fiefs, where the roads were broken and undermined by weeds and water runoff.
But the Barrani of the West March had lawns instead of roads. Grass gave way to stairs, many of which went down, rather than up; it gave way to doors and to trees. There were flowers, as well, but the flowers didn’t seem to grow in specific, boxed beds; they seemed artless and wild—but for all that, they didn’t get in the way of the High Court, or anyone else who walked the green.
The trees that had been the only constant during the overland trek were everywhere, but they grew in more ordered rows; they were at least as tall as the trees on the other side of the bridge. But there were no fallen branches, no hollow, standing trunks; here, the trees were like lampposts, without the lights.
In fact, the trees seemed to mark what passed for road here; they formed explicit boundaries in rows, opening up or ending, as if they were the walls of a maze. Mazes were the province of the monied. Warrens—like mazes made of buildings—were the province of the wretched, but Kaylin had no sense that she’d find slums in the West March.
The Lord of the West March glanced at her, the corners of his eyes and lips crinkling. She’d amused him again.
“It is seldom indeed that I see my own home from the vantage of a visitor entirely new to it. It is...engaging. We will follow this road, as you call it, and turn to the right; the trees—the type of trees—are indicators.”
“Of what?”
“Ah, forgive me. They would, in your parlance, be street names, I believe.”
It wasn’t a short walk. Kaylin, who had always known that Teela was physically strong, was more than impressed when they at last reached the home of the Lord of the West March. If stone wasn’t favored as a general building material, it wasn’t absent here. The building reminded Kaylin very much of the High Halls in Elantra—at least from the outside. The stairs that fronted it were flat and wide, the columns that held the roof almost the height of the trees that stood to the right and left of the building.
They were carved in the likeness of warriors, and words were engraved across the rounded base of each; Kaylin couldn’t read most of them, although she was certain they must be High Barrani. Then again, she couldn’t read most examples of High Barrani carved or written centuries ago; she was assured that the language was the same—but the style of the writing made the entire thing look like a mess of loops and crosses. It was aesthetic, but not practical.
She could make out individual letters at the beginnings of words.
“Can you read these?” she asked