Cast In Shadow

“What?”

“When did you meet the fieflord?”

“Back when we were both in the fiefs,” he said. But he didn’t meet her eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to know.”

“All right, I guessed that. Why?”

He shook his head. “Don’t ask, Kaylin.”

She heard the change in his tone, and she suddenly didn’t want to know. “You know where we’re going?”

“No. When I spoke to him, he didn’t invite me into his Hall.”

“Should we be worried?”

The look he gave her almost made her laugh. It would have been a shaky laugh. She held it. “I mean, more worried?”

And he shook his head and cuffed hers gently. “You haven’t changed at all,” he said, with just a hint of bitterness.

The manor of the fieflord was not a manor. It was a small keep. Stone walls circled it, and beyond their height—and they were damn tall—the hint of a castle behind them could be seen, no more. The stone work of the walls was in perfect repair, and that made it suspect in the fiefs, where nothing was perfect.

The castle would have looked ridiculous had she not been in the presence of the man who ruled the fief from its heart. She’d lived most of her life in Nightshade, and she’d only once come near the keep. Rarely come down the streets that surrounded it. She’d spent a good deal of time honing her skills at theft, and no one survived stealing anything from the fieflord or his closest advisors. And in the end, they were happy enough not to survive; it was all the stuff in between that was terrifying.

She saw no one on the streets. It was not yet dark, but they were empty. She wondered if they’d been cleared by the Barrani guards, or if people were just unusually smart in this part of town. She didn’t ask.

The tall, stone buildings around the keep were better kept than those at the edges of the fief, but they were still packed tightly together, and they still felt old. As old as anything in the outer city. Shadows moved in the windows, or perhaps they were drapes closing; the movements were quick, furtive and caught by the corner of a wary eye.

Between some of those windows, gargoyles, carved in weathered stone, kept watch like sentinels on high, smooth wings folded, claws extended about the edge of their stone bases. She had often wondered if the gargoyles came to life when the last of day waned. She was careful not to wonder it now. Because in the shadow of the fieflord, it seemed too plausible.

The road to the keep was wide; a carriage could easily make its way to the gate, pulled by four—or even six—horses. But the gates themselves were behind a portcullis that discouraged visitors.

They certainly discouraged Kaylin.

She turned to Tiamaris, but Tiamaris didn’t blink. He nodded, however, to let her know that he was aware of her sudden movement.

“Welcome,” the fieflord said softly, “to Castle Nightshade.” He stepped forward as they approached the gates, and he placed a hand upon the portcullis.

It shivered in place, but it did not rise.

“Follow me,” he said. “Do not stop. Do not hesitate, and do not show fear. While you are with me, you are safe. Remember it.”

He spoke to Kaylin in his resonant Barrani, and although she’d spoken nothing but Elantran, she knew he knew that she understood him perfectly. Then again, she was a ground Hawk; all of the Hawks had to speak Barrani, or they weren’t allowed on the beat. She wondered, now, why she had thought it was such a good idea.

It seemed, to Kaylin, that he spoke only to her.

Dry-mouthed, she nodded.

He stepped forward through the portcullis. As if it were shadow, and only shadow. Drawing breath, Kaylin looked to either side for support, and then did as he had done: She stepped into the gate.

It enfolded her.

She screamed.

When she woke, her head ached, her mouth was dry and she would have bet she’d had a terrific evening with Teela and Tain in the bar down the street—if she could remember any of it. That lasted for as long as it took her to realize that her bed was way too soft, her room was way too big, her door lacked bolts and had gained height and her windows were nonexistent.

That, and she had a companion.

She reached for her daggers. They weren’t there. In fact neither were her leathers. Or her tunic, or the one pair of pants she had that hadn’t been cut to pieces.

Lord Nightshade stood in the center of the almost empty room. If there were no windows, light was abundant, and it was both soft enough to soothe the eye, and harsh enough to see clearly by. The floor beneath his feet was marble and gold, and he seemed to be standing in the center of a large circle.

“You will forgive me,” he said, making a command out of what would, from anyone else, have been an apology. “I did not expect your passage here to be so … costly. Your former clothing was inappropriate for my halls. It will be returned to you when you leave.”

The when sounded distinctly like an if.

She wasn’t naked. Exactly.

But her arms were bare to the shoulder, and she hated that. She never, ever wore anything that didn’t fall past her wrists, and for obvious reasons. The thick distinct lines of swirling black seemed to move up and down her forearms as she glanced at them. She didn’t look long.

Dizzy, she rose. Her dress—and it was a dress of midnight-blue, long, fine and elegantly simple—rose with her, clinging to the skin. It was a pleasant sensation. And it was not.

Teela and Tain were the Barrani she knew best, and they never came to work dressed like this. It made her wonder what they did in their off hours. Which made her redden. She wondered who had changed her, and that didn’t help.

But the fieflord simply waited, watching her as if uncertain what she would do. She lifted her right arm, and saw that the gold manacle still encased it, gems flashing in sequence. A warning.

“Yes,” he said softly. “That was … unexpected. I have not seen its like in many, many years—and I suspect not even then. Where did you get it?”

“It was a gift.”

“From the Lord Grammayre?”

She nodded.

“It did not come from him. Not directly.” He stepped outside of the golden circle inlayed upon the ground and approached her. But he approached her slowly, as if she were wild. “My apologies,” he said, less of a command in the words. “But I wished to see for myself if you bore the marks.”

“And now?” she asked bitterly.

“I know. If you are hungry, you may eat. Food will be brought. These rooms have been little used for many years. They are not fit for guests.”

“Where are my—where are Severn and Tiamaris?”

“I found it convenient to leave them behind,” he replied gravely. “But they are unharmed, and they know that you are likewise unharmed. If they are wise, they will wait.”

“And if they aren’t?”