Cast in Sorrow. Michelle Sagara

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СКАЧАТЬ it is the seat of the Warden; it has been my home for all but a few decades.”

      “Were the rest spent in the High Halls?”

      “Yes. In the shadow of a Dragon, surrounded by a sea of mortals and the specter of failure.”

      She glanced from the sky to the Warden; no trace of humor touched his expression.

      “I hated your city. I hated the noise, the smell, the lack of peace; it is never silent unless one is encased in the stone of the High Halls.”

      “You found them suffocating,” Kaylin guessed.

      He nodded. “I do not hear the voice of the green when I am in your city.”

      “Can you hear it now?”

      He did smile then. Kaylin had been cautioned not to trust the Barrani; at times, it was hard.

      “Ah. Can you see them?”

      She squinted obligingly into the night sky. She could see treetops, the occasional glimpse of a building’s roof, and a lot of stars. She was about to remind the Warden of the marked inferiority of mortal vision when she caught a glimpse of wings.

      She glanced at his face; the entirety of the deck was bathed in a gentle luminescence. His eyes, as he watched the eagles, were green. They were the color of the dress she wore. His eyes rounded as the eagles approached; he stood and walked to the edge of the platform. It had rails—but they were decorative, and they were short.

      Severn was a shadow on this deck. He had not spoken, and hadn’t moved, since they’d arrived. When she cast a worried glance in his direction, she was surprised; she’d expected him to be wary and watchful. He was the latter, but his eyes were on the approaching eagles, his lips turned up in a half smile that seemed almost unconscious.

      When they were close, the Warden held out one arm. “Lord Kaylin, if you would do the same, they will both land.”

      She held out one arm looking so dubious that Severn chuckled. “I don’t have arm guards. I have a dress I’m sure it’s an act of treason to damage, and given the Barrani, it won’t matter if the eagles cause that damage. I’m wearing it. It’ll be my fault.”

      The first of the eagles landed on the raised arm of the Warden.

      The second landed on Kaylin’s left forearm. As it alighted, the marks on her arms began to glow. If she’d had suspicions that these weren’t real birds, it was confirmed; this one weighed no more than the small dragon.

      The small dragon, however, sat up. He warbled.

      “Well met,” the eagle said—to the small dragon. The Warden turned at the sound of his voice. The eagle on his arm said, “And well met, Barian. It has been long indeed since we have spoken.”

      “Too long,” the Warden replied. He lifted his free hand and gently stroked the bird’s head, as if it were the head of a newborn babe. “What does the recitation hold for us?”

      The eagle surprised them both. He answered. But he answered in a language that, while tantalizingly familiar in its parts, failed in all ways to cohere. Kaylin turned to Lord Barian. “Did you understand a word of that?”

      He laughed. It was a shock of sound, coming as it did from a Barrani. “Perhaps one. I am fond of the sound of it; they spoke it often in my childhood.”

      “Your language is confining,” the eagle on Kaylin’s arm said. “But you are a confined people, huddling in your singular shapes; you are easily broken.”

      She frowned. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard this. “The Warden calls you the dreams of the Hallionne.”

      “He does.”

      “But you came from the shadows he called the nightmares of the Hallionne.”

      “Did we?”

      “Yes. What landed in my hands a few hours ago were shadows. But you emerged from them when—”

      “Yes?”

      “When the marks on my arms started to glow.” It sounded lame even to Kaylin, and she’d said it.

      “Are we, brother?” her bird said to the bird on the Warden’s arm. “Are we dreams or nightmares?”

      “They are the same,” the other bird replied. “Dream. Nightmare. They are things done beneath the surface of the world.”

      “So...you don’t feel any different than you did when you landed?”

      They regarded each other for a long moment, and then turned their beady eyes—and she’d seldom seen eyes that fit that description so perfectly—on Kaylin. “Did we land?”

      “More or less the same way you landed just now, but with less feathers.”

      They regarded each other again, and Kaylin snorted. What had been a suspicion was hardening into certainty as they spoke. “When I visited Hallionne Bertolle, his brothers woke. I don’t know if Bertolle has dreams; I don’t know what the Hallionne of the West March is called. No one speaks his—or her—name.”

      “No one who dwells in this small enclave has ever spoken his name,” the bird replied. “Bertolle’s brothers have woken from the long sleep?”

      “They had a little help,” Kaylin said, with sudden misgivings. She was certain she’d have bruised shins if Teela had come with them. “Were they not supposed to wake?”

      But the birds now had words for each other, and as they conversed in their odd, melodious language, she turned to Lord Barian, who was staring at her. “What it is that you truly do in the city of Elantra?” His eyes were blue—but they weren’t the shade that meant anger or suspicion.

      “I’m a Private. I serve the Halls of Law in that capacity. I hope one day to be Corporal.”

      “Truly? You bear those marks, you can speak to the sleeping lost brethren of the Hallionne Bertolle, and you can wake the dreams of Hallionne Alsanis, yet you work as a Private? I recall very little about the Halls of Law; it is an institution that is irrelevant to the Barrani.”

      “It’s not. For crimes Barrani commit against each other, the laws of exception can be invoked by the party deemed to be the injured party. But for crimes committed against other races, the Barrani are under the purview of the Imperial Hawks.”

      “And if not the Hawks, the Wolves?”

      Kaylin shrugged. “The Emperor.”

      “It has long been a marvel to me that he shelters behind the ranks of his mortals.”

      She shook her head, determined not to be offended, although it was hard. “We’re not there for his protection, of course. We’re there for the protection of the rest of the city. If the Emperor so chooses he can burn down half the city—but most of the people who die in the resultant fire won’t be criminals. We do what his fire can’t. Is Alsanis the name of the Hallionne that was lost?”

      “Yes. Does An’Teela СКАЧАТЬ