The Chronicles of Elantra 5 - Cast in Silence by Michelle Sagara Page A

the outside, where his law and his casual cruelty had no purchase. For just a moment, the bitterness of that hypocrisy caused her throat to thicken. She swallowed it, anyway. Time to move on.
    “What borders Barren on the other side?”
    “Understand that what I tell you is not fact in the way that Liatt is fact; the fief does not border me. But if information gathered in the fiefs in the usual way can be trusted, Candallar.”
    “Will Candallar hold?”
    Nightshade said nothing. It was not helpful.
     
    Tiamaris bowed to Nightshade. “I must leave,” he told the fief lord.
    Nor did the fief lord appear surprised by the abrupt announcement. “Will you allow the Private to remain for a few moments?”
    “I cannot leave without her; the orders I were given were quite…explicit.”
    This, too, did not appear to surprise Nightshade. Kaylin felt his amusement, but also his annoyance; they were almost perfectly balanced. His eyes, however, were the emerald green of Barrani calm, with perhaps a hint of blue to deepen the color. “Then escort her,” he told Tiamaris. “She will return.” He offered the briefest of bows to the Dragon Lord. “The information I can surrender in safety, I will. If anything changes along the borders, I will inform Private Neya; she may then inform the Emperor.”
    Tiamaris nodded and turned to leave the room, but Lord Nightshade had not quite finished. “Kaylin.”
    “Yes?”
    “I will not surrender you to Barren.”
     
    Tiamaris did not run back to the bridge. Dragon dignity was good for something. He did, however, walk quickly, and the difference in their relative strides meant that Kaylin’s dignity had to suffer; she had to jog to keep up. Only when they had crossed the bridge itself—with a distant crowd of witnesses who were too curious to clear the streets and too damn smart to approach—did he turn.
    “We go to the palace,” he told her.
    She nodded; she’d expected that much.
    “You are not yet relieved of your duty for the day. Accompany me.”
    She nodded again, not that he noticed. “Tiamaris—” she began, as he stepped into the street.
    He failed to hear her, which was probably deliberate. Dragons didn’t flag a carriage down; they simply stood in the way and waited for it to stop. This was, in Kaylin’s experience, a risky proposition, but on the other hand, Dragons were built in such a way that if the risk played out poorly it didn’t exactly kill them.
    “Tiamaris,” Kaylin said, as she climbed into the cab, “if you’re going to make a habit of this, station an Imperial carriage by the bridge.”
    He ignored her advice.
    “I mean it. We have enough trouble with the Swords as is—I don’t need to file a counterreport to explain a small riot or a large panic if we don’t luck out with a decent driver.”
     
    When they reached the palace gates, guards met the cab. They didn’t lead it into the courtyard, but they did clear the path as Tiamaris emerged. His eyes were a shade of orange that looked a little too deep, and none of the Imperial guards could fail to understand what that meant, but just in case, he lowered his inner membranes, so the color was much more pronounced. If they noticed his tabard—or Kaylin’s—they failed to be offended by it.
    She followed Tiamaris into the Great Hall, and then stopped as he lifted a hand. “Wait here,” he told her quietly. “I go in haste to the Emperor, but even in haste, your poor understanding of Court etiquette would not be excused.”
    She started to argue because it was automatic, and snapped her jaw shut before the words left her mouth, settling in to wait. Waiting in these halls, with the stray glances of guards who were no doubt paid triple what she earned was a bit intimidating, but she didn’t have to wait there long; Sanabalis emerged from the doors at the far end.
    “Private,” he said as he approached her, making clear what the tone—at least in front of the guards—would be, “please