Chapter 1
The Consort was coming to dinner.
Hurried attempts to cancel that dinner—for obvious reasons—met with no resistance. Unfortunately, they met with no response whatsoever. Kaylin had, with Bellusdeo’s help, attempted to use the Imperial messenger service to relay news of the cancellation, but to no avail. The Consort was not within the High Halls. Kaylin had no idea where, exactly, the Consort was; she had last seen evidence of her presence in the Hallionne near the West March.
And no one in the High Halls apparently felt up to receiving a message intended for the Consort herself. They were conspicuous in their absence; according to the messenger service, the High Halls were practically empty.
Kaylin had other avenues of approach and, when the messenger service failed, chose to use them. She, unlike most of the mortals or Barrani in the Empire, held the True Names of a number of significant Barrani lords. She started at the bottom.
Ynpharion.
“Kaylin, dear, don’t play with your food.” Helen’s Avatar was not physically in the dining room, but she kept watch over the occupants of the house. The house was her body, after all.
“I’m not playing with it. I’m eating it slowly.”
“I’ve watched you eat slowly,” Mandoran said, “and that’s not eating. Food is meant to enter your mouth. Which is closed.” Before Kaylin could snap at him, he added, “Most of us don’t mind if your mouth is closed. You’ve done nothing but swear all morning. And afternoon. And it’s not even your day off.”
This was not true. Technically it wasn’tsupposedto be a day off, but she had been given leave to take a few, where “leave” in this case meant Marcus’s very rumbly suggestion. Apparently the upper echelons—the Lord of Hawks at the very least—knew about the upcoming dinner, and everyone considered preparation for said dinner to be of vastly more import than catching petty criminals.
Kaylin didn’t agree.
She did, however, find it vastly more stressful.
She had been given permission to cancel the dinner. She had not, however, managed to reach the dinner’s most important attendee: the Consort. If the Consort showed up at her door on the appointed evening, she was going to be welcomed, and she was going to be fed.
Bellusdeo seemed entirely sanguine about the visit, which Kaylin tried not to resent. Her eyes were slightly orange tinted, but that could also be explained by the presence of close to an extra dozen Barrani beneath Helen’s roof. She had expected the visitors—Teela’s friends from a very distant childhood—to be vastly more difficult about Dragons in their living space, but the cohort seemed to view Bellusdeo largely through the lens of Mandoran. And when that had become reassuring Kaylin didn’t quite know.
They were therefore not worried about Bellusdeo. They didn’t feel she was the biggest danger they currently faced. Since this was more or less true, Kaylin didn’t ask; it also seemed rude to ask when Bellusdeo was sitting in the same room. Bellusdeo, however, didn’t seem inclined to give the cohort any privacy; if they wanted privacy, they could stay in their own rooms.
Mandoran no longer considered alleviating boredom by heading out into the city streets. He wasn’t bored, at the moment. Although the cohort could fall silent without warning, Kaylin was certain that the inside of their heads was one long, continuous argument, the subject of which—or one of the subjects—was the Consort.
Who was coming to dinner.
Sedarias was in favor of the dinner. Annarion and Mandoran were not. It wasn’t clear to Kaylin how the rest of the votes were falling, but it didn’t matter. Even if they voted universally against the visit, none of them could tell the Consort what to do. Any attempt to do so would probably start the war they had only narrowly averted.
Kaylin, however, was actually angry with the Consort. She wanted an apology from that august personage before she was allowed in the house.
Helen was politic; she had no opinion on the matter one way or another. In those exact words. Multiple times.
The Barrani—with the exception of Teela, also on brief leave of absence and also living in rooms Helen had provided—didn’t really consider Kaylin’s anger sensible or relevant. Any anger they now felt was pointed at each other and their current disagreements, whatever they were.
Teelawasangry with the Consort. She was angry with Kaylin. She was angry with Annarion. Since she didn’t expect to get any relief from venting that annoyance, she was currently most angry with Tain. Kaylin had suggested—very quietly—that Tain at least head into the Halls of Law for a normal day at work; Tain failed to hear her. Given the superiority of Barrani hearing, Kaylin took the hint.
So: Tain was at the dining room table—a place he frequently avoided—across from Teela, and frankly, given the color of his eyes, he wasn’t any happier than his partner.
Bellusdeo was angry with the Emperor, who had strongly suggested that she return to the Imperial Palace for the duration of the cohort’s stay, and all but commanded that she at least skip dinner with the Consort. The “all but” was the only reason the Dragon could be mellow, relatively speaking, at meals. Mealtime in the dining room resembled mealtime in the mess hall.
In all, it was easier to deal with criminals than it was to deal with friends. At least for the next few days.
Severn did not appear to be angry with anyone. Which was why he wasn’tatKaylin’s place, of course.
Kaylin’s familiar, perched on her left shoulder, seemed to have recovered from his emergency—and disastrous—trip to the West March; Hope was positively perky and cheerful. This didn’t improve Kaylin’s mood any.
Ynpharion, I know you’re there.
I am currently occupied.
You can talk to the Consort.
