Chapter 7 Kasira
KASIRA
KASIRA WOKE FACE DOWN ON THE DESK. SHE DIDN’T REMEMBER falling asleep, only what had felt like an endless array of questions.
Under what conditions must balestone be mined?
How do you put out a Scarlin fire?
What did the Avari export before they closed their borders?
The first predawn rays filtered through the room’s vast windows as she peeled her face from the wood, rubbing her sore neck.
She envied those who could slumber carelessly.
She had never been a good sleeper, whereas Revna had been able to fall asleep on her feet, a thought Kasira carefully folded away.
“Ah, you’re awake.” Iylis peered over the top of a low-backed couch. “I have breakfast.”
Kasira joined him by the fire, grateful to find a tray of still-warm buttered toast on the ottoman. Iylis stretched nearly the entire length of the couch, a small book spread between his paws, filled with rows of circular pouches.
“Are those coins?” she asked, keeping her distance from the snow leopard. A polite interest was to be expected, but Eirlana would not settle into nonchalance with a beast so quickly, despite Kasira’s curiosity.
“I collect them.” Iylis straightened proudly. “I have coins from before the Avari retreated into seclusion, silver dallacks from before the unification of the Jacari clans, and even a Miravi nult from before they switched from balestone to silver. That one is my favorite; it glows!”
“Iylis, I thought we agreed no coin lectures before noon?” Allaster swept into the room, all traces of last night’s dishevelment gone. His hair curled neatly across his brow, his silver-blue eyes ringed in kohl. He paused when he saw her. “You’re still here, are you?”
She levelled a cool look at him. “Where else would I be?”
“And here I’d been hoping it was all a dream.” He waved a hand, and the tray shimmered, refilling with toast. He took a slice and strode to the desk where her test lay in an untidy sprawl.
“Mind the rug!” Iylis called after him. “You’ll get crumbs everywhere.”
Kasira straightened as Allaster snatched up the papers, flipping through pages on his way back to them.
She had been very careful about the questions she had answered.
The ones about beasts common to the Isherwood had been simple—and expected knowledge of a Kal—and she had correctly answered several about artifacts that originated in Kalthos.
The section on magical theory she had all but skipped, and she had left more blank about foreign policy than she would have liked had she had the proper time to prepare. To Allaster, it would look—
“Stop!” She lurched forward as he fed the thick stack of sheets to the fire. She watched the flames lick hungrily at hours of work, reducing it to ash. “What was the point of having me do all that if you weren’t even going to check it?”
He shrugged. “I was curious if you actually would. Besides, I did check it. I don’t need a hundred pages to tell me you know a marginal amount about beasts, nothing of artifacts, and even less about foreign policy, which, for a lady of your stature, is rather odd, don’t you think? ” He raised his hand.
“Don’t you dare—” Snap.
They appeared outside in a small paddock.
Morning dew clung to the long blades of grass, the sky the pale orange of an autumn leaf.
She breathed through the fading nausea, until she realized they were not alone in the enclosure.
One of the winged canine beasts stared them down from the far side—a Relin.
It was nearly as tall as her, with a skeletal frame, muscular legs, and a boxy head.
One wing clung tightly to its gaunt back, the other missing.
For one protracted moment, Kasira’s Malik instincts battled with Eirlana’s expected fear.
Relins were some of the swiftest beasts she knew, with curved three-inch fangs descending from their upper jaw.
You never ran from a Relin—you wouldn’t be fast enough.
Her hand shifted a fraction toward her concealed blade, but in the end, she held true to her role.
With a feigned cry of alarm, she clambered up the fence and dropped to the other side, her injuries twinging with pain. She glared haughtily through the slats at a bemused Allaster. “What was the meaning of that?”
“Relins are class O beasts,” he answered blithely. “Which means they’re less than harmless. Benlo here eats only plants and fish.”
Sure enough, Benlo was slowly consuming his body weight in grass and hadn’t paused even when they had appeared near him.
Kasira had killed more than one of his fellows in her time in the Malikinar, watched people die because of those fangs.
She didn’t think Allaster was the best judge of what constituted harmless.
Carefully, she let her expression shift, revealing the briefest flicker of curiosity, before she caught Allaster staring and quickly let it darken into a frown.
“I’m going to assume you’ve never worked with a beast in your life?” he inquired.
She lifted her chin. “Of course not. You run from them, or you kill them, before they kill you.”
Allaster’s expression hardened, and she feared she had gone too far.
A con was about more than what you knew about your mark; it was about what they knew of you.
To Allaster, she was a religious fanatic who despised everything he stood for and had come to dismantle it.
She had to change that perception, but slowly, so as to not rouse his suspicions.
She would feed him little pieces of herself: a lingering glance of curiosity at a beast, an extra hour spent reading about the Library, a conversation that showed she too was a person, not a role.
But first she had to give him a baseline to compare against—without invoking the wrath of an immortal sorcerer.
In the end, Allaster only snapped his fingers.
They materialized in a vast oval training ground with a floor of hard-packed earth.
A domed metal cage occupied one side, a sparring arena the other.
She stumbled, her boot clanging against metal, and turned to face an endless wall of weapons.
There were Kalish daggers and short swords, Jacari longbows, and even an ancient Avari hunting axe she longed to heft. It must have been here for centuries.
“Staffs should do.” Allaster pulled two wooden rods off the wall and tossed her one. “I know they’re a favorite among Kalish nobility.”
They were, though not among the country nobles.
Staff sparring was a common hobby for those at court, but as a minor noble, it was less likely Eirlana would have been trained as a child.
That said, there was no hiding her muscled build, nor her comfort with the weapon.
It would be much easier to convince Allaster she’d had an unorthodox upbringing than that she was a weapons prodigy, and where Eirlana might not wield a staff with ease, Kasira could.
Allaster appraised her openly, the intensity of his gaze making her skin prickle.
“I wonder: Of all three tests, why is this the only one you came prepared for?” He didn’t wait for an answer, striking at her shoulder.
She deflected the blow and countered quickly, ignoring the way her wounds complained.
He spun his staff lengthwise to catch her down strike, and she immediately swung hers up from the bottom, clipping his shin.
Surprise flitted across his face, and she rolled her neck. “My family’s lands bordered the Isherwood,” she said, a truth for her and Eirlana. “I had reason to know how to handle myself.” Then she was on him again. Back and forth they went, catching strikes and trading blows in a brutal dance.
Allaster was too close to the truth for her to convince him that all the details he’d noticed weren’t true—which meant she needed to spin them into another story.
Something like a girl who grew up in close proximity to beasts, who had reasons to learn to defend herself, and a story to tell that would force Allaster to reconsider his assumptions about her.
“Do I pass your test, Librarian?” She struck at his arm. “Are you sufficiently satisfied of my identity?”
Allaster blocked her attack, then countered, but she retreated out of range. “Hardly. You’re more soldier than scholar, and I’m tired of playing this game. Tell your master to face me outright, and let’s be done with this charade.”
“That would require me to have a master, and despite your confidence, that alone is not enough to manifest one.” He caught her next blow, and they both threw their weights behind their weapons, the distance between them closing to inches.
This close, he smelled of paper and ink and something sharper, and his strength radiated through the cross of their staffs.
“Tell me,” he growled. “Why did they choose you?”
She offered him a joyless smile. “Because I am expendable, and they had the power to make me.”
“And you expect me to trust that they don’t intend to exert that power?” He gave her an arch look. “I don’t believe for a second that Vera would waste this opportunity on a throwaway.”
Interesting. He’d referred to Ambassador Vera by her first name. As the Kalish Ambassador to the Library, it made sense that Allaster and Vera knew each other. But his tone spoke of a storied history. It would explain why he was so convinced that anyone Vera selected would be a pawn.
Kasira drove her shoulder forward, shoving him back a step, and then lowered her staff. “Unless they knew you would be so busy suspecting me, you wouldn’t see the real threat until it was too late.”