Cast in Sorrow

Annarion was not amused. Not even close. The mark on her cheek seemed to inflame, rather than quell, his fury. He was not, however, angry at her. “I am aware of who Lord Kaylin is.” He bowed to her. He bowed stiffly and very formally, granting her a respect that she would never have gotten in the High Halls. “Private Neya,” he added, accenting the name in Elantran.

“It’s my preferred title, yes.” She hesitated, and then said, “I heard you’re leaving the West March.”

He seemed unsurprised. “Yes. I have spoken with the Lady, and she has agreed to allow me to accompany her party back to the High Halls. I will present myself to the High Lord.”

“You’re not a Lord of the Court.”

“Not yet.”

Kaylin felt her stomach drop, the way it would have had she jumped off a cliff. Her brows rose, her eyes rounding; she couldn’t stop them. “You can’t seriously be thinking of taking the test of name?”

“Can I not? My brother has, and he has survived.”

“I don’t mean to insult you,” she said, in even Elantran. “But you didn’t do a great job of holding on to it the last time.”

His brows rose, and color came to his cheeks. He didn’t, however, argue.

“Look,” she continued, when Nightshade failed to speak, “you can go to the High Halls. But the name—”

“I will have no standing in the High Court unless I take—and pass—that test. And I require standing. In the end, we all will.”

“If you fail, your name will be lost!”

He stared at her. “Of course.”

She stared right back.

“You cannot think that I would fail a test that even a mortal could pass?”

“Everyone else in the history of the High Halls who has failed hasn’t been mortal.”

“I am aware of that. My brother all but insisted you undergo that test.”

She started to argue, and faltered. “I am not,” she said, with greater dignity, “his brother or his kin. I’m—as you point out—merely mortal. One of the masses. If I failed, he lost nothing.”

For some reason, this made Annarion more angry, not less. Kaylin was used to judging Barrani mood by eye color; in Annarion’s case, it wasn’t necessary. “Is this what he told you?”

“He didn’t need to say it,” she replied, gentling her voice. “I’ve worked with Barrani for almost half my life. I understand most of their attitudes.”

“Marking someone was considered barbaric, even in our youth. Did you agree to this?”

“Why are you even asking the question when you already know the answer?”

His brows rose; his lips twitched. He looked very much like his brother then. “I wish to hear my brother’s defense.”

“He doesn’t have one.”

“No. But even that admission would tell me something; it is why he refuses to speak. Can you bear that mark and not understand even this about him?” He looked at Nightshade. “Brother, what have you become in my absence?” His voice broke.

Kaylin felt it like a blow, and couldn’t say why. She lifted a hand almost involuntarily. “He gave me his name. Annarion—he gave me his name.”

Nightshade’s eyes darkened. He said, and did, nothing. Not even in a way that Annarion couldn’t hear.

Annarion stared at his brother’s graven face. “Teela asks me to tell you, Private Neya,” he said, “that two wrongs don’t make a right. She expects this to mean something to you.”

Kaylin winced. Teela would be listening. Of course she would. And she’d probably have about a hundred things to say about it in the morning. She considered taking the portal paths and hoping that she landed someplace close to Elantra just to avoid them.

“But, Lord Kaylin, understand the difference: his name was his to offer, just as mine was mine to offer. What you did not offer, he should never have taken. And he would not have, when I knew him. He would not have.” He turned to Nightshade then. “How can time change a man so?”

“I owe you no explanation,” Nightshade said softly. “Nor do I owe the High Court one; I am Outcaste. The matters of the Court are not—”

“You can say that, even now, when you came as Teller?” Annarion demanded, his voice rising.

“The crown came to me.”

“Will you play these games with me?”

Nightshade smiled. “All of the best games are for the highest stakes.”

Kaylin thought Annarion would hit him. She stepped between them, facing the younger man and seeing, beneath his fury, his bewildered pain. “You were gone,” she said. “You were lost. Do you think it meant nothing? Do you think it caused no pain?” She hesitated; he marked it.

“Teela’s not happy.”

“Teela is never happy. You’ll have a few centuries to get acquainted with this fact.” She caught his arm. “Come back to your room.”

“Do you think to protect him?” Annarion demanded.

Kaylin shook her head.

“Do you think, then, to protect me?” He laughed. He laughed out loud; it was a bitter, but genuinely amused sound.

Kaylin tightened her grip on his arm; the small dragon hissed.

Annarion’s brows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

The dragon squawked.

“If you do not watch your tongue—”

“Wait, wait—you can understand him?”

Annarion looked confused. “Yes.”

She turned narrowed eyes on the dragon, who shrugged his wings and refused to meet her gaze.

“Lord Kaylin—he is yours and you can’t understand him?”

She exhaled. She turned to Nightshade, whose eyes had lightened slightly. “Can you understand a word he’s squawking?”

“No, Lord Kaylin.” He met—and held—his brother’s gaze. “I have given you what advice I can. If you will not consider it, if you will not accept its hard-won wisdom, I will leave you.”

“I will return home.”

“There is no home, Annarion.”

“There must—”

“I am Outcaste. If you wish to earn the scorn of the Court, you may come to visit the fiefs—but you will find no home to your liking there.”

“Our line—”

“You will recall our cousins? Their children hold the line.”

Annarion’s eyes darkened. “And you dare to tell me that I am not to take the test of name? You can stand there and talk to me of unnecessary risk? I am severely disappointed in you, Calarnenne. You have abandoned the responsibility of our family and our line; do not even dream of demanding that I do the same.” He turned, Kaylin still attached to his arm, and walked away.

Go with him. If I am not to strangle him with my own hands, I would not have him perish. I am, however, seriously tempted; I have not been this angry since...

Since you last saw him?

Or perhaps just after. You will find him a staunch ally in future—if he survives. He is young. He will not become someone you would approve of when he is reckoned adult by our people, but while your lives overlap, he will be someone that you can understand. And perhaps you will understand him better than I.

Teela is almost as old as you are, and I approve of her.

You do not know all of her history; no more do you know mine. Annarion’s, however, is within the grasp of your brief life to date. Mortals have a saying: Be careful what you wish for. It is...vexing. I will not see