Cast in Sorrow (Luna Books)(78)

"He didn't need to say it," she replied, gentling her voice. "I've worked with Barrani for almost half my life. I understand most of their attitudes."

"Marking someone was considered barbaric, even in our youth. Did you agree to this?"

"Why are you even asking the question when you already know the answer?"

His brows rose; his lips twitched. He looked very much like his brother then. "I wish to hear my brother's defense."

"He doesn't have one."

"No. But even that admission would tell me something; it is why he refuses to speak. Can you bear that mark and not understand even this about him?" He looked at Nightshade. "Brother, what have you become in my absence?" His voice broke.

Kaylin felt it like a blow, and couldn't say why. She lifted a hand almost involuntarily. "He gave me his name. Annarion-he gave me his name."

Nightshade's eyes darkened. He said, and did, nothing. Not even in a way that Annarion couldn't hear.

Annarion stared at his brother's graven face. "Teela asks me to tell you, Private Neya," he said, "that two wrongs don't make a right. She expects this to mean something to you."

Kaylin winced. Teela would be listening. Of course she would. And she'd probably have about a hundred things to say about it in the morning. She considered taking the portal paths and hoping that she landed someplace close to Elantra just to avoid them.

"But, Lord Kaylin, understand the difference: his name was his to offer, just as mine was mine to offer. What you did not offer, he should never have taken. And he would not have, when I knew him. He would not have." He turned to Nightshade then. "How can time change a man so?"

"I owe you no explanation," Nightshade said softly. "Nor do I owe the High Court one; I am Outcaste. The matters of the Court are not-"

"You can say that, even now, when you came as Teller?" Annarion demanded, his voice rising.

"The crown came to me."

"Will you play these games with me?"

Nightshade smiled. "All of the best games are for the highest stakes."

Kaylin thought Annarion would hit him. She stepped between them, facing the younger man and seeing, beneath his fury, his bewildered pain. "You were gone," she said. "You were lost. Do you think it meant nothing? Do you think it caused no pain?" She hesitated; he marked it.

"Teela's not happy."

"Teela is never happy. You'll have a few centuries to get acquainted with this fact." She caught his arm. "Come back to your room."

"Do you think to protect him?" Annarion demanded.

Kaylin shook her head.

"Do you think, then, to protect me?" He laughed. He laughed out loud; it was a bitter, but genuinely amused sound.

Kaylin tightened her grip on his arm; the small dragon hissed.

Annarion's brows rose. "I beg your pardon?"

The dragon squawked.

"If you do not watch your tongue-"

"Wait, wait-you can understand him?"

Annarion looked confused. "Yes."

She turned narrowed eyes on the dragon, who shrugged his wings and refused to meet her gaze.

"Lord Kaylin-he is yours and you can't understand him?"

She exhaled. She turned to Nightshade, whose eyes had lightened slightly. "Can you understand a word he's squawking?"

"No, Lord Kaylin." He met-and held-his brother's gaze. "I have given you what advice I can. If you will not consider it, if you will not accept its hard-won wisdom, I will leave you."

"I will return home."

"There is no home, Annarion."

"There must-"

"I am Outcaste. If you wish to earn the scorn of the Court, you may come to visit the fiefs-but you will find no home to your liking there."

"Our line-"

"You will recall our cousins? Their children hold the line."

Annarion's eyes darkened. "And you dare to tell me that I am not to take the test of name? You can stand there and talk to me of unnecessary risk? I am severely disappointed in you, Calarnenne. You have abandoned the responsibility of our family and our line; do not even dream of demanding that I do the same." He turned, Kaylin still attached to his arm, and walked away.

Go with him. If I am not to strangle him with my own hands, I would not have him perish. I am, however, seriously tempted; I have not been this angry since...

Since you last saw him?

Or perhaps just after. You will find him a staunch ally in future-if he survives. He is young. He will not become someone you would approve of when he is reckoned adult by our people, but while your lives overlap, he will be someone that you can understand. And perhaps you will understand him better than I.

Teela is almost as old as you are, and I approve of her.

You do not know all of her history; no more do you know mine. Annarion's, however, is within the grasp of your brief life to date. Mortals have a saying: Be careful what you wish for. It is...vexing. I will not see you in the West March again.

Kaylin was halfway down the hall when Nightshade added, I am in your debt, Chosen.

* * *

When Kaylin returned to her room, Teela was in it.

"I assume Alsanis okayed this?"

Teela shrugged. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she stood-instead of lounging across a convenient flat surface. "I want to warn you not to interfere," she said. "But I hate to waste my breath. What are you going to do with him?"

"Annarion?"

"Of course."

"I'm not sure I'm going to tell you," Kaylin replied, removing clothing as she made ready for sleep, attempt two. "Especially if I don't want him to know."

"She has you there," another voice said. Mandoran appeared in the doorway, balancing a tray that had ten people's worth of food on it.

Kaylin's jaw dropped.

"What?" Teela said, slowly relaxing her arms. She glanced around the room and eventually ended up on the bed. Sideways.

"Nothing." Kaylin stopped undressing and felt, for a moment, at home. Mandoran wasn't Tain, but Teela was absolutely Teela. "Did you come to say goodbye?"

Mandoran laughed. Kaylin fell almost instantly in love with that laughter. It held affection, knowledge, and sheer delight.

Teela glared at him, which made him laugh louder.

"She's not staying," Mandoran said.

"If I weren't feeling lazy," Teela told him, "I'd leave. You could have my conversation for me and I'd be spared the effort."

"You're-you're not staying?"

"Don't make that face."

"Your eyes are closed, Teela. You can't see my face."

"I have the expression etched in memory. And I can see what Mandoran can see when he's not laughing so hard he's crying."

Which, of course, made him laugh more.

"I was going to stay. Not for long. But...I can hear them now. They can hear me. They can truly speak to each other. They don't need me here. Whereas you?"

"I'm not a child."

"No, of course not. If you were a mortal child you'd be under Marrin's wing, in the foundling hall; I actually pity the people who are stupid enough to try to hurt any of her orphans. But you're going to be living with a dragon. You have the Halls of Law. You're no doubt going to have an ambitious and disenfranchised Barrani Lord, and you have the world's most annoying pet."

The small dragon squawked.

Mandoran's eyes rounded just before he fell over laughing. "Don't ask," he said, holding up a hand. "I'm not going to tell you what he said; Teela would only kill him. Or try. Don't worry about Teela," he added. "She's not like Annarion; she's tough."

"Annarion-"

"He believes in people. Even when Teela was one of us, she believed in no one but us, and it took her some time to come around. Annarion's more optimistic." His smile faded. "He's very upset about his brother. We're worried that he'll do something stupid. So, Teela's going back to Elantra with you."

Kaylin was so grateful and so relieved she had no words. Which is why she didn't miss the next thing Mandoran said.

"And I'm coming with her, too."

"What?"

"Well, I thought I'd take a look at the High Halls, visit what's left of my family, and maybe join the Hawks."

"Do not make that face, kitling," said the Barrani Hawk whose eyes were still closed. She was massaging her forehead. "He can't possibly get into more hair-raising trouble than you did."

"But he's-"

"You were thirteen when you started tagging along with us. If you're telling me Mandoran can get into more trouble than a cocky thirteen-year-old mortal..."

"Yes?"

"You're wrong." She opened her eyes. "Mandoran is leaving now."

"Am I?"

"Yes. You can leave the easy way or the hard way."

He laughed. "If it makes you feel better, Lord Kaylin, she's not going back strictly because she's terrified of the new ways you'll attempt suicide."

"I have never attempted-"

"It's because of Eddorian. Iberrienne has not been declared Outcaste, yet. The Emperor-a Dragon," he added, with genuine disgust, "has ordered his death. But the Barrani might be able to contest this; the execution is not a public matter. At least, if Teela's right. She's going to talk to the High Lord, the Hawklord, and possibly the Emperor. I think she thinks it would help you, as well, although we're not quite clear how."

Because Severn wouldn't be sent out again. Severn wouldn't have to kill Iberrienne.