“You were in Nightshade,” Teela pointed out, “for thirteen years.”
“Barren was different,” she said quietly.
“Why?”
“It was—it was just different.”
“Find out what they want, Kaylin,” Tain told her quietly. “Or we will.” He nodded in Teela’s direction.
“You can’t just walk into Barren and demand answers.”
“We can try. I’ve never been into the fiefs,” he added, “but Teela used to head there when she was bored.”
“She went to Barren when she was bored?” Kaylin could have sounded more appalled if she’d really worked at it—but not by much.
“Not just Barren,” Teela added, grinning broadly. The grin faded. “But the fiefs aren’t what they were when I was young. Find out what they want. Do not do anything stupid.”
Kaylin hesitated, and then reached into the folds of her tunic. When she withdrew her hand, it held the letter that Morse had given her. Funny, how it didn’t burn; it should have. “I wanted to keep this to myself,” she told them all: Severn, who hadn’t spoken a word, Teela, Tain. She especially did not want to talk to Marcus or Caitlin. She didn’t want to hear a word that someone out of department, like, say, Mallory, had to say. She just didn’t want to see the looks on their faces.
Teela shrugged. “Yes, that was obvious. And clearly your Corporal is willing to let you do that—but we’re not.”
Kaylin set the letter on the table, and picked up her mug. “You didn’t leave Tain behind,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“You came to the Hawks—you brought him with you. You didn’t leave him behind in the High Courts.”
Teela was silent for a moment, and the silence wasn’t punctuated by her slow grin. It was almost human. “No,” Teela said at last, “I didn’t. This person you met in Elani was a friend?”
“Maybe. A lot can change in seven years.”
“Remember that.”
Kaylin nodded, swallowing wine and something more bitter as she did. She picked up the letter, unfolded the paper and cringed before she’d read the first word. It was Barren’s handwriting. Maybe some things never changed.
Elianne,
I’ve been following your progress as I can—I admit it’s surprised me. You didn’t fall from the Tower, although the Hawklord’s still in it. You landed on your feet; he probably has no idea why you made your way out of the fiefs in the first place.
I know you didn’t like working for me; no one does. Doesn’t matter. You like working for the Hawklord, and I’m fine with that—everyone has to eat. But you probably want to keep on working across the river.
Working for the Law has its drawbacks. I don’t care what you are or what you’ve done—but the Law does. You know that.
The way I look at it, girl, you owe your life to me. You wouldn’t be where you are if I hadn’t sent you. And you probably can’t stay where you are, if they know why. I’ve got the information, and I can make your life very, very difficult without ever crossing a bridge.
But I’m not a malicious man. I’m a fieflord, and I aim to stay that way.
You’re going to help me, if the rumors are true. I’ll be generous. You’ve got three days before a small packet crosses the bridge in the hands of one of your old friends. In three days time, you can head it off at the bridge; if she sees you, she’ll bring you home, and the package will travel with you.
—Barren
She lifted the mug, drained it, choked enough to bring tears to her eyes. Then she handed the letter to Severn, in silence. Her hands were shaking.
He took it and set it down without reading it. “Kaylin—”
She picked it up again, and shoved it into his hands. This time, she met and held his gaze. “I tried to tell you,” she whispered.
“Yes. And I told you I didn’t care.”
“Care now. Just read the gods-cursed thing.”
A brief pause. Severn’s brief pause, in which she could imagine almost any thought, any concern and any anger. He ended it with a nod, and he turned his attention to the letter—but she felt it anyway. It didn’t take him long to read it, and when he’d finished, he set it down in the exact same place on the table.
“He was clever enough not to say anything at all.”
“Three days,” she replied.
“Are you two going to share that?” Teela asked, holding a hand out across the table.
“No.” Kaylin picked up the letter and folded it. “Teela, Tain—I’m almost grateful for tonight. But I don’t want you involved with Barren.”
The silence that followed this statement was exactly the wrong type of silence, coming as it did from Teela. When she broke it, her tone could have frozen water. Or blood. “And we’re somehow at more risk than a human Corporal?”
Severn’s brow rose, but he was smart enough not to answer.
“Severn trusts me enough that he’ll let me do what I feel I have to do,” was Kaylin’s very—very—careful reply. “You both think of me as if I’m still a thirteen-year-old mascot, trailing around under Marcus’s claws.”
“And that’s inaccurate how?”
“My point. You don’t trust me.”
“I trusted you,” Teela pointed out, each word sharp and staccato, “with the life of the Lord of the West March.”
“Yes—but he was as good as dead. You had nothing to lose.”
Severn caught Kaylin’s wrist. She met his stare dead-on, and after a moment, she grimaced. Without another word, she handed the letter to Teela, whose hand had conveniently not moved an inch.
“Honestly, Kaylin,” Teela said, taking it, “you make the biggest fuss about the littlest things. It’s such a human trait.”
“We don’t consider them little.”
“Because you’ve only got a handful of years in which to attempt to truly screw things up. Try living a millennia or more. It’ll give you perspective.”
“I bet when you were young, you had to personally dig your own wells just to get water, too,” Kaylin said, under her breath.
Teela, who appeared to be reading the letter, said, “I heard that.” She looked up, handed the letter to Tain, and said, “So, why exactly did Barren send you out of his fief?”
She looked across the table; she could not look at Severn. But even not looking at him, she felt his presence as strongly as she had ever felt his absence. “He sent me,” she said quietly, “to kill the Hawklord.”
CHAPTER 4
Teela’s brows rose; the rest of her face seemed frozen. “He sent a thirteen-year-old human child to assassinate the Hawklord?”
Kaylin nodded. She felt curiously numb, now that the words had left her mouth. She didn’t even feel the panicky need to claw them back, to make a joke of them. What did it matter, in the end? She could do whatever Barren wanted her to do, but if she did, she’d lose the Hawk anyway. If she didn’t?
She’d lose it, as well.
“Why?”
“Why?”
Teela frowned. “Pay attention, kitling. Why did he send a child to kill the Hawklord?”