She understood that once you started, crime became another tool, another way to survive. That you could want a better life, dream of it, of being a betterperson, and it didn’t matter. Dreams didn’t fill a stomach. But the warrens were onthisside of the Ablayne. They were subject to the Emperor’s Law. The worst excess of human behaviors was curbed here. It wasn’t like the fiefs.
She knew that the tabard she wore put a wall between her and the warren’s residents. But at least it was the East Warrens, not the south.
“Power,” Bellusdeo said, “is always interesting. It is not an absolute, with few exceptions.”
“Exceptions?”
“The Eternal Emperor would be one of them. But he is considered out of reach. His position is not visibly contested in any way. People gather. It’s what people do.”
“Dragons don’t.”
“No. But Dragons have hoards, and hoards can make a Dragon dangerously unstable if they are not prepared for it. We do not make friends the way mortals do.”
“Or the way Barrani do?”
“Or the way Barrani do, no. We have not found there is strength in numbers, except perhaps in the case of war. And even then, it is questionable. I ruled. In any gathering of mortals, at any station of life, there is always a question of power. Or perhaps hierarchy. Even in the fiefs, where one could arguably say there is little true power, people struggle for position. People kill for it, one way or the other.”
“That doesn’t make humanity sound all that appealing.”
The Dragon smiled. “If that was all that humanity contained, perhaps it would be unappealing. The power games of most mortals makes no material difference to my life. But no, power itself is inert. People want it for different reasons. In the warrens—as in your fiefs—they want power because it is tied to survival. But so, too, family, kin, clan. To belong to a group is to gain a negotiable safety from it. It is why gangs clash. It is why reprisals exist.
“I would imagine the warrens are no different from the fiefs. Tell me, have you lost many Hawks to the warrens?”
Kaylin glanced at Severn. It was Severn who answered. “Yes. Not, however, since Barrani joined the force. Aerian patrols were also successful in preserving lives, but they were not considered as effective at deterring crime.”
“And the Barrani themselves are trusted not to add to the crime?”
“They have been,” Severn replied. “Teela, however, has been crucial to their performance.”
“And someone tried to kill her this morning.”
3
Each beat had its own route. Even Elani. Those routes, however, were considered by most beat Hawks to be general guidelines, and deviation from the suggested norm was not career-threatening. Flexibility was a necessity in the life of a beat Hawk, something that the higher-ups did understand, except when it came to quartermasters and uniforms.
Kaylin knew the warrens because she had come here with Teela and Tain before she had been given a rank and a uniform of her own.
BeingwithBarrani, and not hidingfromthem, had been a novel experience. She understood why people in the warrens vanished from visible windows or door frames as the two Hawks walked by. She also understood that the very young, very stupid, or very ambitious could—and occasionally did—attempt to take Hawks down.
It was the reason this was considered a Barrani beat. If the gangs felt they were equal to two officers with tabards, the equation changed markedly when the people who were wearing the tabards were Immortal. The gangs here had lived their lives in the maze of buildings and compromises that were the warrens. They could be forgiven for assuming the law was irrelevant, because in most obvious ways in their limited experience, it was.
It had been both irrelevant and a daydream in the fiefs of Kaylin’s youth, and at least these streets didn’t have Ferals literally devouring the unwary.
But...was that really any better? She wanted to slap herself for even thinking it. Clearly she’d been too comfortable, too safe, for too long. The Ferals were death. You had a hope of negotiating with anything else.
“You’re thinking, again.”
“Ferals,” Kaylin told the Dragon. “We were more terrified of Ferals than almost anything else.” Small and squawky snorted dismissively. Bellusdeo didn’t bother, but it was clear she felt the same.
“That wasn’t a terrified face.”
“It’s just...they weren’t personal. They weren’t plotting against us. They wanted one thing: to eat us. We wanted one thing: to avoid them. The cost for failure was high, but...it wasn’tpersonal. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. Why are you thinking of that here?”
“Because the East Warrens are the closest the city comes to the fiefs I grew up in.”
Bellusdeo frowned. “I would like a word with your Emperor.”
