She expected Nightshade to lead them into one of the rooms in which he chose to entertain visitors; he often had food and wine waiting.
Today, however, he led them to a different room. She recognized it. She didn’t recognize the halls that led to it, but she’d long since given up expecting to be able to do so; this was Castle Nightshade, and all the observation in the world wouldn’t make it mundane enough to become familiar.
The room was adorned with mirrors.
Mirrors, in the Empire, were the heart of its communication system. Oh, they were also used for more mundane purposes of vanity, or at least personal grooming, but the lesser use was not significant here. Then again, it was probably never significant to the Barrani, who seemed to ooze grace and elegance no matter what they were wearing.
Teela had once tried on some of Kaylin’s clothing; it had been entirely disheartening. For one, it shouldn’t have fit. And it didn’t. But even shortened as it was by Teela’s much taller frame, it had looked instantly spectacular. Kaylin tried to imagine Nightshade standing in front of a mirror and straightening the fall of his robes, tunic or cloak. She gave up.
Tiamaris, however, used the reflective surfaces of the mirrors to raise a brow in Kaylin’s direction. She grimaced, and replied with a very slight shrug.
“You are aware that there is some difficulty in the fiefs,” Lord Nightshade said quietly.
They both looked at his reflection, meeting his gaze that way.
“We were aware,” Kaylin replied quietly, “that there was the possibility of difficulty.” When he raised a brow in her direction, she added, “We’re not living here. We don’t know.”
“But you are here,” he told her softly.
She nodded. “It was either come here or attempt to cross the borders into a different fief.” Drawing breath, she added, “Ravellon.”
His hand fell reflexively to the hilt of his sword and rested there. “Why do you speak that name?”
“It was spoken to me. Well, written.”
His expression didn’t change at all, but something about him stiffened; she felt something that was not exactly fear, but close. Seeing the lines of his face, she knew that Tiamaris wouldn’t notice it; it wasn’t obvious to anyone who did not, in the end, hold his name.
No, he told her softly. But from you, I can hide little if you choose to notice. You seldom so choose.
“Has there been trouble in Nightshade?” she asked, avoiding any answer to the hidden, the intimate, voice.
He hesitated. This hesitation, even Tiamaris could mark. “There have been no unusual occurrences in the fief,” he replied. “No increase in the number of ferals, and no…other…encroachments.”
Something about his answer was wrong.
“No deaths?”
“There have been,” he told her, with deliberate coolness, “the usual number of deaths. They are not zero, but they are not worthy of remark or note.”
For just a moment, her jaw clenched. So did her fists. On a day over seven years ago, two of those deaths had driven her from Nightshade. It was hard not to speak, but she swallowed the words, almost choking on them. Rage, when it blind-sided her, did that.
She almost missed the cold curve of his lips. He was smiling. It was a very Barrani smile. The rage drained from her, then. What was left was cold.
We are what we are, he told her.
It was true. She endeavored to be a professional. “What, exactly, have you noticed?”
“The difficulty is not within my fief,” he replied.
“You don’t exactly pay social calls to the other fiefs.” So much for professional.
He raised one brow. Tiamaris was silent, but it was the silence of sudden watchfulness. “Indeed,” Lord Night-shade finally said. The Dragon, on the other hand, didn’t relax much. “But Nightshade is bordered by three fiefs. Or perhaps more; we count the interior as one, and that may be erroneous.”
He lifted one hand and the images in the mirror—admittedly somewhat mundane for the Castle, given that two of them were Hawks—rippled and vanished in a moving silver swirl. When that swirl stilled, the surface of the mirrors no longer offered reflections. Instead, laid out like a very intricate map, she saw the boundaries of the fief of Nightshade.
It didn’t even feel like home.
To the south, the city in which Kaylin served the Dragon Emperor lay across the narrow bridge; the Ablayne ran along the whole of that boundary, and beyond. That much, she recognized. She waited for him to speak.
“To the east,” he said quietly, “Liatt.” He hesitated, and glanced at Tiamaris. She felt the way Nightshade considered hoarding words, hoarding information, but in the end, he chose to speak. He always chose his words with care; the decision was merely between those words and silence. “Liatt is ruled by a woman; in seeming she is as human as…Corporal Handred. She holds the Tower of Liatt, and it is from that Tower that she rules. To the west—”
“Wait.” Kaylin lifted a hand. “You’ve met her?”
“Oh, yes,” he said softly. “But as you say, the fieflords do not pay social visits.”
“When you say human in seeming—”
“She is mortal.”
Kaylin nodded, and apologized for the interruption, which caused Nightshade to raise a brow. This time, the smile that turned the corners of his lips up was not so cold, and not so cutting; it held no satisfaction. It did not, however, appreciably change the lines of his face.
“To the west,” he said softly, watching her face, “is Barren.”
She was silent for a full beat. “And Barren is ruled by?” she asked.
“Barren is purported to be ruled by a human male.”
“Purported? You’ve never met him?”
“I may, indeed, have had that privilege.”
“But you’re not certain?”
“No.”
“How can you be certain that you’ve met Liatt?”
“Liatt is Liatt,” he replied softly. “Just as I am Night-shade.”
Tiamaris cleared his throat. Dragons had a way of clearing the throat that made earthquakes seem mild; it wasn’t a roar, but it implied that a roar might follow severe inattentiveness. What followed a roar was generally considered death, even by the optimistic.
On the other hand, the Barrani and the Dragons had had centuries—at the very least—in which to thumb their figurative noses at each other’s subtle threats. Nightshade turned.
“Are you implying that the fieflord of Barren does not hold the fief?” the Dragon asked.
“He rules it,” was the quiet reply. “But it has long been my suspicion that he is merely clever, canny, and adept.”
“Merely?”
“He understands how to hold the territory he has claimed as his own. But it is a claim with no substance.” He turned to Kaylin, lifted a hand, and trailed the tips of his fingers down her cheek. The mark glowed faintly as he touched it. “I knew Liatt,” he told her softly, “because the fief knew Liatt. Barren’s name had no such resonance.” He let his hand fall away. “But my experience