“And I do not so choose. What I will not allow myself, for the sake of my hoard, I will allow no others.” He pinned Kaylin to her seat with the steady, unblinking orange of his eyes. “You fail to understand the value of the respect that comes from fear. I did not expect that.”
“Respect doesn’t come from fear. Obedience and terror do. I didn’trespectBarren or Nightshade. I was terrified that they would kill me if they noticed me at all. I did whatever I wastold to dobecause of that fear.
“I don’t obey my sergeant because I’mafraidof him. I’m afraid that I won’t live up to him. I’m afraid that I’m no good at my job—but I try. I try to get better. I want hisrespect, because he’s damn good at what he does. His job is his duty. My job ismyduty. And I’m not doing it because I’m afraidof you.”
Chapter 14
“I begin to understand why Lord Diarmat’s lessons were considered necessary. I also begin to understand why Kaylin has never been formally introduced at court, even if she is Chosen,” Bellusdeo said. Her eyes had drifted toward the gold during most of Kaylin’s speech. She was no longer on the edge of rage at the Emperor.
“Even so,” the Emperor agreed. “I do not despise you because you are ill-mannered or common. I cannot, however, afford even the appearance of favoritism in front of the combined might of the representatives of the Caste Courts, and what remains of my flight. Most of the weight of stable rulership requires respect—and much of that respect comes, in the end, from fear.
“You are afraid to fail. That is both understandable and admirable. Fear, however, motivates many. In your case, you have something to lose; you do everything you can to avoid the shadow of that loss. It is the same with the Caste Courts of the various races, saving perhaps the Leontines and the Tha’alani. They have something to lose: position, life. If they enrage me enough that I take action against them, the ire of their compatriots, the peoples of their race, might well be enough to destroy them.
“They do not wish this. They must act with care. If you are seen to act carelessly, without even the minimum of courtly respect, they will challenge me. Or resent you. Possibly both. They will believe they can escape such challenge unscathed because you do.
“I cannot allow that. I am cognizant of your role in the protection of my city and my Empire. I am grateful for it. But the instability you might introduce by being, as you so quaintly put it, ‘yourself,’ is just as much of a danger; it is just quieter and more subtle.
“In the words of Lord Diarmat, you are dangerously self-indulgent and lazy when it comes to things outside the purview of the Hawks. You do not understand that proper behaviorisa job. That it is learned the way you once learned the laws, or Barrani, or Aerian. You believe you are despised because of your mean birth and your life in the streets of the fiefs. Perhaps that is even comforting to you—I do not myself understand the comfort to be taken from that belief.”
These were more words than she had had from the Emperor in her life. They weren’t, sadly, the ones she had daydreamed of hearing. Maybe they were the ones she deserved.
Her silence seemed to goad him, which wasn’t at this point her intent. Mostly her intent involved shrinking so much she was barely visible above the table line, and crawling away. She wanted to defend herself. But she looked at Severn, her partner, her onetime protector, and she realized thathe’dlearned. He’d learned all of this stuff. He was older, true. But he’d never been as prickly, as self-conscious, as she’d been.
I was, he told her gently, and privately.I was just as concerned. But the five years does make a difference. Whatever you fear now, it will change in five years. Trust me.
But the Eternal Emperor hadn’t finished yet. “If, for some reason, I chose to be so indulgent—and you have value to my Hawks, and to the Empire itself—consider the changes wrought in your own life. You would be perceived—by men and women of power from all races—as a favorite. As a person who has the Emperor’s ear. As a person who could tell the Emperor—or ask the Emperor for—anything.
“They would seek you out. They would seek to make use of you; to make you a pawn in the games that they play in the interracial courts. If I am to follow my own Laws, I could not simply destroy them in my irritation.”
“I would have,” Bellusdeo said quietly.
“Yes. But your Empire was not your hoard,” was the Emperor’s equally quiet reply. “You value the Chosen. That has been clear since you first returned to our world. Do you not see the danger to her?”
It was clear from the golden Dragon’s expression that she did. But it was clear as well that almost everything the Emperor had said had surprised her. She was watching him closely now, her expression one of concentration. Or confusion. The confusion was slow to clear; it hadn’t by the time the Emperor started to speak again.
“If you were so approached, how would you handle that approach?” His smile was knife thin. Sharp. “You are, of course, yourself, as you perceive it. You would handle it with outrage, and possibly insult.” He glanced at Bellusdeo as if for confirmation. Her lips compressed and then, after a pause, she nodded. “And thus you would offend men and women of power. You have friends in high places, Private Neya. You have the Consort and the High Lord of the Barrani; you have Ybelline of the Tha’alani. I do not think you have made many friends among the Leontines, but perhaps I am less cognizant of their role in your life.”
Kaylin thought of Marcus, but said nothing.
“Those connections might be embarrassed. They might not. They have clearly chosen to accept your behavior in the past. But it is simple to maintain a friendship that isirrelevantto your responsibilities, and their friendship, for you, a mortal woman who serves as a Hawk, is irrelevant.
“It will not remain so if you are given free rein at court. You believe that the Dragon Court seeks to preserve your life; you believe that that is the reason you have been assiduously kept from the royal presence. And it is. But not solely for the reasons you believe. You will be even more of a target than you have been in the past if you cannot learn to behave.”
The familiar, who had been indolently listening in, squawked loudly.
“I do believe you have the capacity to protect her from most assassination attempts,” the Emperor replied—with far more gravity. “But the power of the familiar is, legend would have us believe, directly proportional to the will and the power of the master.” His tone made clear what he thought of at least one of those things, but then again, so had his whole monologue.
“You have no friends in the Reaches,” he continued. “Moran dar Carafel, should she survive the public claim she has now made, would be one—and you have a Dragon as escort while she is on duty because of that. The Aerian Caste Court is almost in a political frenzy. I imagine that there will be a shuffling of positions when it is clear that the pawn they used to entangle the Elani merchant was, in fact, human. You are certain he was not also outcaste?”
Moran went white.
So did the Hawklord.
The Emperor effected not to notice—or perhaps he just didn’t. Most things that could threaten Aerians weren’t going to be much of a danger to a Dragon.
“You’ve seen—pardon me, Your Majesty, you haven’t seen—the Records capture Margot sent to the Halls of Law. At no point during the conversation in capture did the man’s eyes change color—and his eyes werebrown.”
“That could be the effect of glamor or enchantment.”