Cast In Courtlight

She didn’t even see the doors swing shut. She saw Severn skirt them as they moved, that was all. She had scant time to notice the room they’d entered.

It was an antechamber of some sort. There were chairs in it, if that was even the right word. They seemed more like trees, to Kaylin’s untutored eyes, and branches rose up from their base, twisting and bearing bright fruit.

These, Teela passed.

They had walked a city block, or two, in Kaylin’s estimation; everything was sparse and empty.

The chamber passed by, and they entered one long hall. This was older stone, and harsher. It was rough. There were no plants here, and no flowers, no gilded mirrors and no pools. Weapons adorned the walls instead; weapons and torch sconces of gleaming brass.

But the weapons were fine, and their hilts were jeweled. If the gems were cold, they added the fire of color to the hall itself. “Don’t touch anything,” Teela said in curt Elantran.

At the end of this hall was a single door. Kaylin stopped walking then. Teela didn’t.

“Kaylin?” Severn asked. It was hard for him not to notice that her feet were now firmly planted to the floor.

“The door—” She looked up at him, trying not to struggle against Teela’s grip. She hated to lose, even now. Animal instinct made it hard; she did not want to pass through that door.

“Teela,” Severn said, curt and loud.

Kaylin’s ineffectual struggle hadn’t actually garnered the Barrani’s attention; Severn’s bark did. She stopped walking and looked back at him.

Kaylin’s gaze bounced between them a couple of times, like a die in a random game of chance. “The door,” she said at last, when she came up sapphires. Teela’s eyes.

Teela frowned, and those eyes narrowed. But she asked no further question. Instead, she turned to look at the door. It was a Hawk’s gaze, and it transformed her face.

Her cursing transformed her voice. It was short, but it lingered. “Step back,” she said. She turned back down the hall and dragged a polearm from the wall. It was a halberd.

“Farther back,” she added as she readied the haft. Severn caught Kaylin by the shoulders, frowned, and then lifted her off her feet. He ran back the way they’d come, leaving Teela behind. Kaylin could hear his heart. Could almost feel it, even though he wore armor. Funny thing, that.

“What are you—”

Teela threw the halberd. It wasn’t a damn spear; it shouldn’t have traveled like one. But it did.

The door exploded. It shattered, wooden shards the size of stakes blowing out in a circle. The halberd’s blade shattered as well, and a blue flame burned in its wake.

Without a pause, Teela grabbed another weapon from the wall. It was a pike. She set its end against the floor and stood there, hand on hip, as if she were in the drill circle in the courtyard of the Halls of Law.

“What’s it look like now?” she asked Kaylin.

Severn set her down gently, but he did not let go of her.

“It looks like a bloody big hole,” Kaylin replied.

“A scary hole?”

“Could you be more patronizing?”

“With effort.”

“Don’t bother.”

The fleeting smile transformed Teela’s expression. It was grim, and it didn’t last long. “Good spotting,” she said, as if this were an everyday occurrence.

“Don’t you think someone’s going to be a bit upset?”

“Oh, probably.” She didn’t put the pike down. “Look at what it did to the frame.” Her whistle was pure Hawk.

The stone frame that had held the door and its hinges looked like a standing crater. The roof was pocked.

“What was that?”

Teela shrugged. “A warning.”

“A warning?”

“Of a sort. I imagine it was meant to be a permanent warning.” She seemed to relax then. “Which means we still have some time.” Then, thinking the better of it, she added, “But not much. Don’t gawk.”

That was Teela all over. Any other Hawk would have had the sense to ask Kaylin why she’d hesitated to go near the door. To Teela, the answer wasn’t important. Which was good. Kaylin herself had no idea why, and extemporizing about anything that wasn’t illegal betting was beyond her meager skills.

“Welcome,” Teela added, her voice so thick with sarcasm it was a wonder words could wedge themselves through, “to the High Court.” And taking the pike off the ground, holding it like she would the staff that was her favored weapon, she walked through the wreckage of the door.

Kaylin noted that Severn did not draw a weapon. And did not let go of her shoulder. They followed in Teela’s wake.

There were no other traps. Or rather, no magical ones. Teela led them through another series of rooms and past two halls, and finally stopped in front of a curtained arch.

“Here,” she said quietly. “There will be guards.” She paused, and then added, “They’re mine.”

Which made no sense.

“In service to my line,” Teela told her, as if this would somehow explain everything. “Loyal?”

The muttered humans was answer enough. Teela pushed the curtains aside and entered the room. It was much larger than it looked through fabric.

There were chairs here, kin to the great chairs she’d seen in the large room, but smaller and paler in color. There was a still pond to the side of the room, adorned by rocks that glistened with falling water. Except that there wasn’t any.

There was a table, but it was small; a mirror, but it, too, was modest.

Beyond all of these things was a large bed, a circular bed that was—yes—canopied. Golden gauze had been drawn, but it was translucent. She could see that someone lay there.

By the bed were four guards. They were dressed in something that should have been armor, but it was too ornate, too oddly shaped. Master artisans would have either wept or dis-dained such ostentation. Teela tapped the ground with the haft of the pike.

As one, the four men looked to her.

“This,” Teela said, nodding to Kaylin, “is my kyuthe. She honors us by her presence.”

Kaylin frowned. The word was obviously Barrani; it was stilted enough in delivery that it had to be High Barrani. But she didn’t recognize it.

The guards looked at her. Two pairs of eyes widened slightly, and without thinking, Kaylin lifted a hand to cover her cheek. It was the first time she had remembered it since Severn had helped her out of the death trap that was otherwise known as a carriage.