be no way to distinguish you from any other motherless human urchin.”
The words, and the callous sentiment that informed them so perfectly, caused Kaylin’s jaws to ache.
“I knew, when Severn Handred came to my Castle for the first time, that the long wait was almost done. Barrani are immortal, but we are not famed for our patience. I was not, initially, absorbed by the boredom and frustration of waiting. There was much, indeed, that I had to discover, much to achieve, before your arrival.”
“You knew that the Outcaste—the Dragon—would be here.”
“No. That, I did not know, not immediately.” He stepped toward her, and she stood her ground, tensing slightly as he raised his hand to touch her cheek. It was, oddly enough, the cheek that was unmarked. “I was not, then, the man I am now. What I could read from you—and I did try—was not so complete.
“But I waited, Kaylin.”
“You marked me.”
“Yes.”
“But you never said a word.”
“No. I knew, when we first met, that the time for speech would follow. But I did not wish to influence or change what might occur in the Tower in my past and your future. Had I, who knows what might have occurred in the darkness there? We might have no fieflord, no Tiamaris, and the shadows might now be spilling across the Ablayne, and from there, to the whole of the Empire.
“I interfered very, very little in your life. I knew very little of my role in it. I learned, for instance, that you would go to the High Halls, that you would face the test of the Tower there. You are not guarded or careful with your knowledge. Perhaps, if you lived to be my age, you would learn this caution.
“But perhaps not.” His fingers stroked her cheek; his eyes were a blue that spoke of sky, not cobalt. She didn’t know what it meant, and didn’t want to know. “I have been careful. I have been cautious.
“But the fief of Tiamaris now exists. The moment our paths crossed at that Tower in your timeline, I was free. I am no longer constrained by the possible future. I am no longer constrained by any attempt to meet the future as promised, by a single day, in the past.
“I understood,” he continued, “when Illien fell, what the significance of that long-ago meeting might be. I understood what the fall of Illien might presage. And I understood, as well, that you might face death when you returned, after centuries, to the Tower you had wakened.”
“That’s why you were there?”
“It is why I took that risk. Understand that I have played many games in the long stretch of years between our first meeting and that one. I explored, as Lord Tiamaris explored, and I learned what was possible for one with my abilities to learn. The Castle was not entirely expected, but I had explored such buildings before. I could not be certain that you would survive this entry into the Tower.”
“I might not have.”
“No. But I could no more join you in Illien’s Tower than Illien could join you in mine.”
“Would the Tower have known?”
“That I am bound to another? Yes.”
She wanted to ask how he knew. She didn’t.
“And in truth I would not risk my fief in the attempt. Had the Tower fallen, or had you fallen in the Tower, the shadows at the heart of the fief would now have two borders to my lands, and my power and ability to defend what I have taken—and held—would be taxed. Possibly to the point of failure.” He let his hand trail down to the underside of her jaw, and then, slowly, let it drop.
“But Tiamaris now exists. I feel his name as strongly as I have ever felt Illien’s or Liatt’s. In truth,” he added with a grimace, “it is stronger. He will never again venture across this border, and I fear that any forays I make across his will be instantly known.”
She took a deep breath, because now that his hand was not so close to her skin, she could. “Why does Castle Nightshade have a portal? The Tower doesn’t.”
“Tiamaris’s tower…does not?”
She mentally kicked herself. “No. The Tower’s Avatar thought it wasn’t needed.”
He raised a dark brow. “You mean, the Tower’s Avatar felt that you disliked them enough that she chose not to have one where you might be forced to use it.” Not a question.
Since it was more or less true, Kaylin shrugged. It was a fief shrug.
“It will compromise her security,” Nightshade offered, his eyes darkening into a more familiar shade of annoyance at the gesture itself. “But if you think there are no portals in her domain, you are mistaken. There will be at least one. She cannot be so foolish as to leave her heart unguarded.”
“I know what lies at the heart of that Tower,” Kaylin replied.
“I know. But there will be a portal somewhere within the Tower. You might never see it, although I think it unlikely that you will be able to avoid it entirely. The Tower trusts you, inasmuch as it is allowed to trust one not its Lord.” He walked over to the low table, and lifted a silver goblet. The contents absorbed some of his attention. “You gambled, Kaylin. It is an interesting gamble.
“A Dragon has never, to my knowledge, been fieflord before. It will also be interesting.” He sat, slowly, on the couch opposite Kaylin, who stood, motionless, to one side of the low table. “You cannot know how you intrigued me, the first time we met.
“You, dirty and underslept mortal urchin, bearing marks of power that even now you do not understand. Severn, who bears a weapon that whispers if you are aware of how to listen accompanied you, and Tiamaris, Dragon Lord, was by your side but clearly not your master.
“I had spent much of my life in the West March, and some of it at Court. I had endured—and passed—the test of Name. I had survived my family and my extended family’s particular exuberance for political power plays. It is something that whiled away time, and I learned to excel at it.”
No surprises there.
“But the entry into the Tower made the first meeting almost unremarkable. The Tower’s voice…I can still hear it. I can see her wings,” he added softly, “and see the obsidian glint of her skin as she landed and took the throne itself.”
“I can still see the bodies,” Kaylin replied, and this time, she did sit.
“You could see those before the Tower,” he answered. “The Tower did not tell you anything you did not already know. She helped you, in a fashion, to unburden yourself. Not more, and not less.”
Kaylin nodded; it was true. She was uncomfortable here, in this room, and she couldn’t really tell herself it was because of the portal transition—if that’s what it was—because she didn’t believe it. Nightshade’s gaze was now upon her face; it was as if there was nothing at all between his eyes and hers. Honesty with Severn, she could manage.
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