would have carried the length of the Long Halls, “Well done, Kaylin. Severn. I believe it is time to retreat.” And she saw that his eyes were burning, red; that he, too, had been prepared to fight.
“Your companions lack a certain wisdom,” the fieflord said, voice close to her ear.
“What did you do here, fieflord?” Tiamaris’s voice was low. Dangerous.
“What you suspect, Tiamaris.”
“That was … foolish.”
“Indeed.” He made the admission casually. “And I am not the only one who will pay the price for it. Take her home. She will need some time to recover.”
Severn slowly wrapped the chain round his waist again. He stepped forward and caught Kaylin as her knees buckled. His grip, one hand on either of her upper arms, was not gentle. Kaylin did not resist him.
“The deaths, fieflord?” Tiamaris said quietly. Or as quietly as his voice would let him.
“Three days,” the fieflord said, “between the first and second.”
“And it has been?”
“One day since the last death. If there is a pattern, it will emerge when we find the next sacrifice.”
“Why do you call them that?” Kaylin looked up, looked back at him.
“Because, Kaylin, it is what we believe they are. Sacrifices. Did the Hawklord not tell you that?”
No, of course not, she thought, bitter now. Bitter and bone-weary.
“You will return to the fiefs,” he added softly. “And to the Long Halls.”
“The hell she will,” Severn said.
They stared at each other for a long moment, and then the fieflord turned and walked away.
It was, of course, night in the fiefs.
And they were walking in it. Or rather, Severn and Tiamaris were walking; Kaylin was stumbling. Severn held her up for as long as he could, but in the end, Tiamaris rumbled, and he lifted her. He was not as gentle as the fieflord, because he was not as dangerously personal.
She preferred it.
“Kaylin,” Tiamaris said quietly. “Do you understand why the fiefs exist?”
She shrugged. Or tried. It was hard, while nesting in the arms of a Dragon.
“Have you never wondered?”
“A hundred times,” she said bitterly. “A thousand. Sometimes in one day.”
Tiamaris frowned stiffly. “I can see that Lord Grammayre had his hands full, if he chose to attempt to teach you.”
“I don’t need history lessons. They won’t keep me alive.” The words were a familiar refrain in her life; they certainly weren’t original.
“Spoken like a ground Hawk,” Tiamaris replied.
She shrugged again. Although he wore no armor, his chest was hard. “I believe,” he said quietly, “that I will let Lord Grammayre deal with this.”
“No,” she said, tired now. “I think I know what you’re asking.”
“Oh?”
“You’re asking me if I’ve ever wondered why the Lords of Law don’t just close the fieflords down permanently.”
“Indeed.”
“Hell, we’ve all wondered that.”
“There is a reason. I think you begin to see some of it. The fiefs are the oldest part of the city. They are, with the exception of ruins to the West and East of Elantra, the oldest part of the Empire; they have stood since the coming of the castes.
“I … spent time in the fiefs, studying the old writings, the old magics. I was not alone, but over half of the mages sent with me did not survive. The old magics are alive, if their architects are not. There are some places in the fiefs that could not easily be conquered without destroying half of the city, if they could be conquered at all. They almost all bear certain … markings.”
Her head hurt, and she didn’t want to think. But she made the effort. “The tattoo,” she said faintly.
“Yes. It is the only living thing I—or any one of us—has seen that speaks of the Old Ones. It is why you have always been of interest.”
“Have I?”
He said nothing, then.
In the dark of the fief’s streets, shadows moved. They were pale white, a blur of motion that hunched three feet above the ground. Severn cursed.
Kaylin was still dressed in the finery of Nightshade, but she wore her daggers again; she hadn’t bothered to change, because there was no privacy, and she wasn’t up to stripping in front of everyone. Severn had taken her clothing. “What?” she asked. Too sharply.
“It’s the ferals,” he said.
She really cursed. She had always been able to outcurse Severn.
In the moonlight—the bright moon—she could see that Severn was right: the ferals had come out to play. And if the Hawks weren’t bloody careful, some poor child would come out in the morning—to play—and would discover what the ferals had left behind.
She’d done it herself, once or twice. Whole nightmares remained of those experiences.
“Severn?”
He was already unlooping the long chain. “There’s only two,” he said softly. Nothing in his voice hinted of fear. Nothing in his posture did either. She wondered if he had changed so much that he felt none.
She hadn’t.
Tiamaris set her down. “Don’t move,” he told her grimly. Her hand had already clutched a throwing knife; it was out of her belt, and the moonlight glinted along one of its two edges. But her hand was weak, and she knew she didn’t have the strength to throw true. Wondered if this was the fieflord’s way of getting rid of her.
Her eyes were already acclimatized to the moonlight. She could see the four-legged lope of the creatures that dominated the fief streets at night. They were not numerous; they didn’t have to be. If you were lucky, you could weather the stretch of a night and never see one.
Unlucky? Well, you only had to see them once.
She hadn’t seen them as a child. But later?
Later, Severn by her side, she had. She was caught by the memory; she could see Severn now, and Severn as he was. The seven years made a difference. The weapon that he wielded made a bigger one.
Hand on dagger, she stood between Tiamaris and Severn, and she waited. The quiet growl of the hunting feral almost made her hair stand on end; it certainly made
