Cast In Shadow. Michelle Sagara

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      “Is he even alive?” Severn asked, from the vantage of the open door. There were no lights, and the windows were all shuttered. Brecht had always been damn proud of the fact that he had windows. Well, one of them, anyway. The ones near the door were pretty much boards, these days.

      “He’s alive,” Kaylin replied, grimacing. “He’s not conscious, but he is alive.” She stood over the ungainly heap that Brecht usually became when he’d emptied too many bottles. Counted the empties beside him, and whistled. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to wake him up.”

      “Hang on,” Severn said. “I’ll be back in a second.”

      “Where you going?”

      “The old well.”

      She laughed. “Don’t forget a bucket. This isn’t the city market.”

      “Good point.”

      Brecht sputtered a lot when the water hit his face. He had to; he had been in the middle of a very noisy inhale. His eyes were red and round when they opened, and he grabbed an empty, cracking it on the hardwood of his personal chair. It shattered in about the right way, leaving him with a suitable weapon. Not that he was in any shape to wield one.

      Kaylin stood in front of him, and held out both palms, indicating that she meant him no harm. Or, judging from the water that now streamed down him as if he were a mountain, no more harm. He swore a lot, which she expected.

      He even got up, although he wobbled. His legs were like large logs.

      “Brecht,” Kaylin said softly. “Sorry about waking you, but we need to talk.”

      “Bar’s closed.” This wasn’t evidence that he was actually awake; Brecht could say this in his sleep. She’d seen it.

      “We don’t want to talk when the bar’s open,” Kaylin replied. “Too many people. And some of them, we’d have to kill.”

      “Not in my bar.”

      She shrugged. “We’d try to take the fight outside.”

      He closed his eyes and rubbed water off his face. Didn’t work. Dropping the bottle, or the half of it that he still held, he tried mopping his face with his apron. Given that that, too, was soaked, it didn’t help much either. The swearing that followed, on the other hand, seemed to do him a world of good.

      He shook himself, like a Leontine waking, and then his bloodshot eyes narrowed. “Is that Elianne? And Severn? Together?”

      Before she could frame a reply, he muttered, “I’ve got to drink something better than swill.” But he continued to stare at her, and after a minute, he snorted. Water flew out his nostrils. “Do that again,” he added, “and you won’t be.”

      “Together?”

      “Alive.” He frowned. “Who’s the nob?”

      “Tiamaris. He’s a—a friend.”

      Suspicion, which was his natural expression, chased surprise off his face. “A friend of who?”

      “Mine, sort of. Look, Brecht, we need to—”

      “Yeah, I heard you. You need to talk. Tell you what. You go behind the counter and get me a bottle of—”

      “No,” Severn said.

      Brecht cursed him for a three-mothered cur. All in all, it was almost affectionate. “What do you need to talk about?” he said after he’d finished.

      She started to speak, stopped and waited.

      He lost about four inches in height. “I should have known,” he said softly. “Look, Elianne—”

      “I’m called Kaylin, now,” she said quietly.

      “Shit, I barely remembered the old name.” Which was probably true. “You got out,” he added. “We heard about it. I thought it was a lie—I thought you were dead, like the others.”

      She closed her eyes. She could not look at Severn.

      Severn said nothing.

      “But it’s started again,” the old man continued. His hands were over his face when she opened her eyes. Old hands, now. Seven years had changed him. “Connie’s lost her boy. I found him.”

      “What did you do?”

      “I sent a runner. You don’t know him,” he added. “He came after your time. I sent a runner to the damn Lords of Law.”

      She nodded.

      But Severn didn’t. He stepped in, toward Brecht, and grabbed him by the shirt collar.

      “Severn—” she began.

      “He’s lying,” Severn said. Menace enfolded the scant syllables.

      “Lying? Why?”

      “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell us, Brecht?” Before she could say another word, Severn’s long knife was in his hand. Brecht was no fool; he didn’t even try to reach for a bottle.

      “Severn, this is stupid. Look—the Lords of Law have the body,” she snapped.

      “They have it now. Brecht, who did you send the runner to?”

      Brecht was absolutely stone still.

      And Kaylin, caught by Severn, by the change in him, was still as well. But she was a Hawk. She’d spent seven years under the harsh tutelage of both Lord Grammayre and Marcus. The hair on the back of her neck began to rise, and her arms goose-bumped suddenly.

      She looked at Tiamaris and saw that his eyes were a deep, unnatural red; that he had already turned away from the pathetic bartender and the not so pathetic Shadow Wolf.

      Toward the door. The open door.

      In it, the answer stood. And he smiled. “Why, to me, Severn,” he said softly, in perfect Barrani. “Thank you, Brecht. You’ve done well, and you will be rewarded.” His Elantran was also perfect, and she was surprised to hear it. Then again, Brecht probably didn’t speak any Barrani worth listening to. Unless you liked inventive cursing.

      Kaylin wasn’t certain that that reward wouldn’t be death; Severn’s eyes were black. She knew what that meant. Hated it. Without thinking, she reached out and grabbed his knife hand, curling her fingers round his wrist.

      He stared at her. Stared at the hand that she had willingly placed around his wrist. Understood what she was asking, understood that she would never ask in words.

      Severn slowly released old Brecht and turned at last to face the outcaste Barrani lord known, in this fief, as Nightshade.

      CHAPTER

       4

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