it was the first time since she’d landed that her eyes had lightened; they remained orange, but with a lot less red in them.
“Climb,” she told the Hawks. “We may be forced to leave these streets and this border quickly.”
* * *
There was a command structure that the three dozen men seemed to follow. To no one’s surprise, the Barrani were at the top of it, but the men who were beneath them in the hierarchy didn’t seem to resent it. The Barrani were blue-eyed; the blue was the midnight variety that could easily be mistaken for black at a distance.
“You have entered the lands of Farlonne,” the Barrani who appeared to be in command said.
“Indeed,” Bellusdeo rumbled back. “We came to inspect the Candallar border.”
“You are not in Candallar now.”
“No. We offer our apologies for our trespass. We come with no ill intent.”
His expression said that he would be the judge of that, but it was a Barrani expression. Turning to another Barrani man, he said something that Kaylin’s hearing couldn’t pick up. The second Barrani then departed, heading back toward a building.
Hope squawked. The Barrani man frowned at the sound—angry birds obviously generally being an indicator of something in the background—and froze. His eyes couldn’t get any darker, and his sword was already drawn. He tensed nonetheless, his expression shifting with the narrowing of his eyes.
“I really think,” Kaylin said, “we should leave. I think the second man is probably informing the fieflord that we’re here.”
“I assume the fieflord is well aware of that. You don’t want to speak with Farlonne?”
“I never want to speak with a fieflord unless I have a very specific purpose. Or an angry sergeant.”
Bellusdeo pushed herself off the ground. “Please convey our apologies to Lord Farlonne,” the Dragon said in a voice that could probably be heard by the absent Lord, although the syllables were High Barrani, “for our trespass. Lord Candallar allowed a man to enter Ravellon from his fief, and his Tower allowed that man, subsequently infested by Shadow, to leave Ravellon.
“We wished to ascertain, in a rudimentary fashion, that the other borders of Ravellon were not likewise compromised.”
“The border of Farlonne,” a new voice replied, “is not compromised.”
A woman in full armor walked out of the building into which the Barrani soldier had walked. The men, gathered in a rough formation around the position Bellusdeo had held on the ground, stiffened. At a single word from the woman who was obviously their commander, they parted, a living wave.
“I would ask,” she said as Bellusdeo had not yet gained height, “that you join me. I accept you at your word.”
“That is not something that many of your kind would do.”
“Many Barrani, or many fieflords?”
Bellusdeo chuckled. “The former. My experience with the latter is limited.”
“I would hear more of your accusations against Candallar, if it pleases you to discuss it.” She lifted an arm and gestured, fist becoming open hand at the end of that arm. Weapons found their sheaths instantly, the movement so precise and so synchronized it might have been performed by soldiers who had been trained to do nothing but drill.
Is Farlonne outcaste? Kaylin asked Ynpharion.
It astonishes me that you failed to even think of asking that question before now.
I didn’t exactly plan on meeting her.
Given your plans to date—and I accept I have seen but a fraction of your life—your reliance on “planning” seems highly suspect. Were I you, I would abandon all hope of what passes for normal in your life and assume that everything will, as you colloquially put it, be on fire in the worst conceivable way possible.
She wondered briefly why it was Ynpharion she’d asked. Clearly, he was wondering the same thing.
Lord Farlonne, unlike Nightshade or Candallar, is not outcaste. She has passed the Test of Name; she is a Lord of the High Court. She has always, according to those who are acquainted with her, been a bit unusual. There has been no motion to have her stripped of her title; there is unlikely ever to be that motion. She has rarely played political games with any finesse.
Or at all?
Or at all.
Bellusdeo considered the fieflord’s request from the air; her response was to land.
“Don’t dismount,” she said in as quiet a voice as a Dragon could use.
“It’s going to be difficult to greet her properly from your back.”
“I believe we’ll survive it.”
“She’s not an outcaste.” Although Kaylin was seated on the Dragon’s back, she knew her well enough by now that she could