Cast in Flame. Michelle Sagara

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СКАЧАТЬ had always assumed that the passage through the portal was a misery—for her—because of the sensitivity to magic that had come to her with the runic marks that covered so much of her skin. No one else seemed to be hit as hard by the transition between the outside world and the interior of the Castle.

      She revised this opinion now, because crossing through the obsidian doors didn’t immediately slap her in the face with overwhelming nausea. To be fair to Nightshade, she’d never entered his castle with her small and squawky companion before. He was making quiet, snuffling noises. It sounded almost like he was snoring.

      She glanced at him; he was alert and watchful, although his wings were folded. Whatever he saw, he expected her to see on her own. Severn was on Kaylin’s right, and Teela, on the other side of him. Teela was pale.

      “Can you hear Annarion any better?” Kaylin asked.

      “Yes.” The word was so sharp it forbid any further questions.

      The portcullis had led, when used, to the grand, harshly lit foyer of Castle Nightshade.

      The door did not.

      It led, instead, to a room Kaylin had seen only once in the past: the statuary. She recognized it because some of the statues were still in the place she’d last seen them; the room was otherwise hollow. It felt strangely empty. The first time she had seen it, music had played, like the background discussion of a large crowd. The statues themselves had come to life, shaking off immobility with joy and excitement.

      This room had been proof—if it were needed—that Nightshade was not mortal. He owned the statues, yes—but they hadn’t started out as base stone. They had started out the way Severn or Kaylin had: messy biology. He therefore wasn’t imbuing statues with life so much as allowing life to return to them.

      There were humans here. A Leontine. They were beautiful in their frozen, stone encasement; they were far more beautiful when life returned to them. She could imagine that, had they continued to live in the world outside this Castle, they would have been loved or adored or followed.

      She couldn’t tell when they’d left the outside world, although she was certain historians would have had some guesses, given the style of the clothing they wore. Or, in the case of the Leontine, didn’t.

      But wherever they’d come from, they had ended up here, in a room that looked like a storybook throne room, with majestic pillars fronting the walls to either side. Between those pillars, a handful of statues remained. Kaylin didn’t have Barrani memory; she couldn’t recall whether or not they occupied the same positions they once had.

      But she knew there were fewer of them, because she could see moving, half-dazed people wandering the interior of the room. It wasn’t clear to Kaylin whether or not any of these people could see each other; they weren’t talking if they could, but they weren’t fighting either.

      “Nightshade said that the Castle allowed him to transform his visitors,” Kaylin told Teela. “...Was he lying?”

      “Not necessarily,” was the cool reply. “There are a handful of Barrani that might attempt—and succeed at—a similar transformation. Corporal?”

      Severn let Teela out of the chain’s loop. He didn’t, however, release Kaylin. She didn’t insist, either. She’d seen halls warp and elongate when she was standing on solid ground; she wasn’t willing to bet that they were guaranteed to remain together.

      The small dragon squawked. He caught Teela’s attention, but the occupants of the room seemed unaware of his presence, or at least unconcerned by it. They seemed similarly unconcerned with Teela as she approached them. Her steps were sharp and heavy.

      If it came to that, so was her sword; she’d unsheathed it. Barrani Hawks didn’t—as a rule—carry swords. But the fiefs weren’t home to the Hawks and the Halls of Law, and Teela hadn’t chosen to carry sticks into the fiefs, on account of possible Ferals.

      The small dragon hissed, tightening his claws. He also opened his wings, but they were high enough Kaylin assumed he was expressing his august displeasure, rather than giving her a different view of the world as he sometimes did with his wings.

      Kaylin remembered her first reaction to this room. She remembered the stiff, tense, hurt outrage that Annarion had directed squarely at his older brother in the West March before he had departed.

      “Can you tell Annarion that the statues agreed to this? It was a—a form of immortality. They were probably in love with his brother.”

      “Annarion is well aware of the effects Immortals have on the lesser races.”

      Lesser races. Kaylin rolled her eyes. She loved Teela like family, but there were whole days she had to work at it. “His words or your words?”

      “He hasn’t lived in this city. He hasn’t experienced the changes that have come down with the passage of centuries. They’re his words. But they could have been mine, once. They probably were. He sees mortals as essentially helpless.”

      “And you don’t?”

      Teela shrugged. “I see them as essentially mortal. If one confounds me, I put off thinking about them because they’ll be dead soon, even if I do nothing.”

      Whole very long days.

      “Annarion set them free?”

      “That’s the gist of it, I think. You could ask them. Some have rejected the transformation, but I don’t think their decision will stand. Annarion is angry.”

      “Did he always have this kind of temper?”

      “He was, of all of us, the most even-tempered.” Teela slowly sheathed her sword; the Leontine standing in the center of the room looked almost docile, which was both striking and very disturbing. “And the most idealistic. Never anger the idealistic. They feel right is on their side—and right excuses much.”

      “I don’t object in principle to his objections,” Kaylin pointed out. “Just the condescension they’re wrapped in.”

      “You can take that up with Annarion.”

      “If we can find him.”

      Teela nodded. “Can you find Nightshade?”

      “I haven’t tried. I forget just how much I hate this place until I’m in it. Do you know if Annarion’s found the vampires?”

      “...Vampires.”

      Severn raised a brow, but said nothing.

      “I don’t know what you’d call them,” Kaylin replied, trying—and failing—not to sound defensive. “They’re Barrani. They’re apparently ancient Barrani. They react to blood. I think they were already in the Castle when Nightshade took over. He said they chose the Barrani version of sleep here.”

      Condescension and arrogance drained from Teela’s expression. Normally, this would have been a good thing. Today it was anything but.

       CHAPTER SIX

      “Nightshade took the СКАЧАТЬ