He ignored this. “How old are you, that you ask?”
“I’m twenty.”
“Twenty?”
“Twenty years old.”
He did stop, then, turning to look past the Dragon to the private. No, no, thecorporal. She was corporal now. “Your world changes so swiftly, then. And perhaps that is why you guard your own name so poorly.” He held up a hand as if forestalling further comment, but his gaze had moved to the Dragon as he did. “I intend no harm to your young charge.”
“I am not her—” Kaylin stopped because Bellusdeo held up the same restraining hand.
“No? But she has the care of you, yes? She is your defense. And it is just and reasonable that it be so: you bear the marks of the Chosen.”
The marks were not glowing in any way. But Kaylin had pulled her sleeve back in the reiterating hall below; there was some possibility that he had seen them when she’d done so. It soured her opinion of him, not that she had much of one to begin with.
Severn joined Kaylin, walking by her side. The hall was too narrow for that to be a good fighting position, but Bellusdeo had chosen, for the moment, not to stand and fight. Probably a good thing, given what she’d said about fires and floors.
The halls themselves were wider than the halls beneath their feet—if that was where those halls even existed.
“It will be some small while yet,” the stranger continued. “And perhaps while we walk, you might explain your fiefs and border zones. I understand the general use of all of these words, but you are using them specifically. I find language fascinating,” he added.
Kaylin was nonplused.
Bellusdeo nodded, although she didn’t bother to look back to see that Kaylin had seen the gesture of permission.
“There are six Towers near here. Or near where we accidentally entered your home.”
He nodded. “The six.” He then said six things that she assumed were words related to the Towers. She didn’t understand them, and he spoke quickly as if he were murmuring to himself.
“The six were created—”
“To encloseRavellon. To defend the rest of the world against what might seep out from within it.”
“Okay, so you know that part. People were living in the areas in which the Towers were built. They still live around the Towers. We call those areas the fiefs.”
“Why fief, exactly?”
“I don’t know—that’s what they’ve always been called.” She bit back the frustration that almost pushed ruder words out of her mouth. Even if he was implying—heavily—that she was stupid, the stupid in this case wasn’t her fault. The Lords of the High Court referred to them as fiefs. Hells, it was probably a translation of the original Barrani word.
“And the border zone?”
“The fiefs exist around each Tower. Each fief has boundaries or borders, one facing the city, one facing each of the fiefs it borders, and one facingRavellon. The Towers have knowledge of, and power in, their own territories. They have no knowledge of, or power over, other territories.
“In the rest of the city—which is where I live and work—neighborhood borders are theoretical. The only people who care about them are men and women who love paperwork.”
“Paperwork?”
Ugh. “Rules. Laws.”
“Ah. Continue.”
“The borders in the fiefs don’t work like the borders anywhere else. When you step across a border you don’t immediately enter the next fief. There’s a stretch of gray, a band that seems to widen or constrict on its own, between all the fiefs. That zone doesn’t seem to includeRavellon—at least not from intermittent reports. So...we were attempting to leave one fief—the fief of Tiamaris—to enter its neighbor, the fief of Candallar.”
“And you therefore crossed the border.”
“Yes.”
“And entered the border zone of which you speak.”
