Michelle Sagara Read Free Page B

Terrano.” She hesitated again. She glanced around the smallish clearing; Nightshade wasn’t visible. “Severn, I think Nightshade wanted me to attend the regalia because of the lost children.”
    “Was one of them his?”
    Kaylin blinked.
    The thought had honestly never occurred to her. Nightshade wasn’t married. He had no consort. But when the children had been taken to the West March—the same West March she was approaching—Nightshade had been a Lord of the High Court, and not Outcaste. She literally had no idea what his life had been like before the fiefs. He might have had a consort, a wife, of his own. Barrani loyalty was always situational; if Nightshade was made Outcaste, what were the odds that a wife of any position would choose to accompany him into the dismal exile of the fiefs?
    “I...I don’t know. I have no idea if Nightshade has—or had—children.” And she wasn’t going to ask. But the thought was arresting and disturbing, and she tried, mostly successfully, to push it aside. “I don’t think the lost children want Teela dead. I think they want her to—finally—join them. It’s like they think she was left behind, or held back.”
    “And Evarrim is aware of this.”
    “Evarrim is a—”
    Severn cleared his throat, and Kaylin took the hint. “The whole High Court is probably aware of it by now. Terrano wasn’t exactly subtle. I’d guess most, if not all, of the High Court is worried.”
    “They don’t trust Teela.”
    Kaylin rose. “They’re Barrani; they don’t trust anyone.” The small dragon sneezed in her ear. “I think,” she added, glaring at the small dragon, “we’re moving again.”
    * * *
    The forests of the West March, or its environs, weren’t exactly light-filled to begin with. The trees were too tall. But when evening began to set in, Kaylin missed the light. Moonlight was barely visible from where she was standing—and she’d chosen the spot because from here she could see at least one of the moons.
    She stayed in range of Teela. She kept Severn more or less in line of sight. But what she wanted—what she missed about a city that was in theory vastly more crowded and consistently noisy—was a bit of privacy. There were no doors in the forest, and no small, enclosed space she could call her own.
    But she didn’t have that in Elantra anymore, either. The attempt to assassinate Bellusdeo had not only destroyed her flat, it had destroyed a large chunk of the building itself.
    The small dragon snapped at something large and chitinous that was crawling up her arm; the damn bug didn’t even crunch. “Do not breathe on it,” she said when he opened his little jaws.
    The small dragon snapped its jaws shut and whiffled.
    “Kitling.”
    She looked up from a furious attempt to kill a buzzing, flying bloodsucker. The tone of Teela’s voice made insect blood loss a triviality. She walked away from the only obvious—to mortal vision—moonlight, making a beeline for Teela.
    Teela was not the only Barrani to draw weapon; the entire clearing had fallen silent.
    Kaylin listened. She heard nothing.
    Even the insects were quiet for one long, drawn breath. Severn unwound his weapon chain—and to her surprise, that made almost no noise, either.
    The Consort lifted her chin. “From the north,” she said. The Barrani turned.
    In the forest, night was spreading across the ground.

Chapter 2
    The Lord of the West March spoke three short phrases that Kaylin did not understand. Light flared in the forest, spreading across flattened undergrowth and fallen branches until it hit a wall of darkness it couldn’t penetrate.
    The Consort was right: the wall of darkness existed only to the north of the group; to the west, east, and south the summoned light faded naturally. As Kaylin reached Teela’s side, the small dragon dug claws into her shoulders, throwing his wings wide. He almost dislodged the precariously embedded stick that kept most of her hair out of her eyes. Reaching