Cast in Shadow (The Chronicles of Elantra Book 1) by Michelle Sagara

Author:Michelle Sagara [Sagara, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2016-06-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

The keep of Castle Nightshade stood apart from the fief it dominated in the distance, like a justifiably arrogant aristocrat—the ones Kaylin was never sent to interview when the Lords of Law were reluctantly summoned. Before its walls, cages dangled from their respective chains; they were empty. If someone had offended the fieflord recently, he—or she—was already dead, and their bodies no longer on display.

People met her gaze, and one or two, made bold by numbers, even held it. But the mark that was almost an embarrassment in the Outer city afforded her legitimacy in the fief; no one dared to raise a hand against her. It would have been useful, when she’d been younger.

But she had the idea it would have been expensive as well. How expensive had yet to be determined, and she was here to do just that. Inasmuch as any Barrani could be, Teela was her friend—but the fact that Teela wasn’t telling her everything was a certainty. Then again, if she wasn’t actively lying, it meant a lot—the Barrani probably lied more easily than they breathed.

The gates that had swallowed her whole on her first visit were waiting; they were lowered. Kaylin wondered if they had ever been raised, but she didn’t ask; instead, she approached them.

As she did, Barrani slid out of the shadows; there seemed to be small guardhouses built to either side of the gate, although she hadn’t seen them on her first visit. Then, she had been almost panicked, and she had let confusion be her guide.

She was done with confusion, for now.

One of the two Barrani guards met her gaze and held it. He was perfect, his face unscarred, his weapons—two swords, which only the Barrani in the fiefs seemed to favor—silent in their sheaths.

She didn’t bow as she approached them. Nor did she hold out her hands, palms up, to show she was unarmed—which wouldn’t have meant much if they were at all competent. She simply walked.

To her surprise, the guards bowed. If there was reluctance or stiffness in the motion, she thought it was due to lack of familiarity with the gesture. As guards of a fieflord, that high caste social nicety couldn’t be called on often.

Certainly not by a motherless foundling or the orphans she’d built into a brief, necessary family.

“Kaylin Neya,” one of the two men said. They were both men. The Barrani women seemed to stay on the right side of the law, at least as far as the fiefs were concerned. They probably had the choice.

She said, without preamble, and in possibly the best Barrani she’d ever forced herself to use, “I’ve come to see Lord Nightshade.”

“He has been waiting for you,” the guard replied, standing to one side. Like a mirror image, the other guard did the same.

She had the strong feeling she could have spoken in the worst Barrani she’d tried in years, and his answer would have been the same. Which was sort of a pity, because it left nothing standing between her and the lowered portcullis.

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