(eng) Michelle Sagara - Elantra 12 by Cast in Flight

Author:Cast in Flight [Flight, Cast in]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

The Barrani guarding the prisoner were playing dice. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a cultural pastime of the Barrani, but they’d adapted well to it. Humans didn’t play with them, though, as the Barrani had a fairly rarified concept of cheating: It didn’t count if you won. Since the Barrani had an aptitude for magic, and the type of magic that helped dice stop on certain faces was so trivial it wouldn’t be worthy of note among their own kin, it was a great way to throw money away. No Hawk, no matter how green, was willing to lose their temper and start a brawl when the opponent was Barrani.

Well, unless they were drunk. Or young. Kaylin winced, thinking about being young and drunk, and decided to think about the prisoner instead.

He was skittish. Of course he was. Nevoran was here.

“I’ve cooperated! I’ve answered all your questions!”

Fear, Kaylin thought, was the contagion that the Tha’alanari were trained to keep away from the racial mind. Fear was, to the Tha’alani, a particular type of insanity; if left untended, unquieted, it spread like fire through dry grass, with about the same results.

She had hated the Tha’alani when she had first come to the Halls of Law. She didn’t hate them now. But she understood the man’s fear and tried—very hard—not to judge him. Her natural protective instincts made this harder than it should have been. He’d come to threaten and control Margot. But...Kaylin had done worse, in her time.

“Yes. You have. But there are elements of your story that require further investigation. Before you start whining,” the Leontine growled, “I don’t believe you’ve lied. But an Arcane bomb destroyed an important room or two in the Halls and everyone is on edge.

“You were carrying Shadow.”

The man blanched. He had seen it with his own eyes; he couldn’t deny it. It was, Kaylin thought, the heart of his fear. He didn’t feel different. But what if he was? What if the Shadow had transformed him, somehow?

“Well, so was the bomb. Private Neya has experience with Shadow. None of that prior experience is useful. We don’t know how you were infested with Shadow; we know that you were, and that it was purged. By the private. What we need to know, now, is who hired you—”

“I told you that!”

“And what they gave or exchanged with you that might have been a way to convey that Shadow. It’s obviously not something you noticed.”

The man’s eyes were wide; he was almost green and sweating. Kaylin understood this, as well. She turned to Nevoran, lifting her face. Nevoran’s eyes rounded, and then his lips quirked in an almost bitter smile. But he dropped his stalks to Kaylin’s forehead.

I’m really, really sorry.

I am not aware that you have anything to be sorry about. The decision was the Emperor’s, or the Hawklord’s. It was not, and is not, yours. You wish him to witness this contact, yes?

Yes. I can’t tell him that you’re not going to read his mind—of course you are.

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