Fifty Three: The Delegation

"My lord, I don't think it's wise for me to be here."

Nova spoke the words as if outside of herself; it seemed a miracle she could make herself understood, considering the racing white noise occupying her thoughts.

Harkenn glanced at her from his tense post at the hearth. His face contorted as if to snap at her, but whatever was on her face must have been bad enough to give even Faellian pause. He turned back to the flames, scowling.

"I'm not having them playing their sinister little mind tricks on me without my knowledge," he said tartly, by which he meant that her hopes of escape were dashed. If she hadn't felt numb from head to toe with shock and fear, she thought she might have given into weeping, like she hadn't done for so many years. Her heart lifted a little and then sank again at his next words, "I've sent for Nerahardt. If I don't trust his judgement I'll expect yours. Aside from that, pretend to be a brick in the wall for all I care."

They won't see me as a brick in the wall. But to the lord she might as well have been, for all the good saying that aloud would do her.

She sat back in her chair, fingers tangled in the chain bolted to the collar around her neck. Her stumps dug into the chair's back, reminding her harshly of how stunted and scarred they were. She wondered if she would recognise anyone in the contingent, and couldn't decide whether it would be worse if she did or didn't. They would surely all know who she was. Harkenn had not made it a secret when he took the Caelumese ruler's niece as a slave.

When the news had arrived that a Caelumese contingent had arrived from the Barrens, she had stared at the soldier who announced it until he fidgeted, seeming more discomfited by her disbelieving stare than by the lord's raging. After ten years, the idea that others of her kind were so close seemed incomprehensible. Jeorge had been enough of a shock, but there was only one of him, and he was in and out frequently enough that the idea no longer concerned her overly much. Two dozen, at the soldier's count, though; that was potentially catastrophic. No Caelumese contingent had set foot in Shadow's Reach since the Annexe War. Faced so baldly with her past, the war didn't feel like it was that long ago after all.

Harkenn was clearly feeling the tension, too. He paced up and down once. He muttered, "Maybe I shouldn't have sent the Whisperer away."

Nova concurred. Sending Nika away had been a very poor decision on the lord's part, in her mind. Not quite as bad as forcing her to come face to face with the arrivals, but altogether unwise; while Nika wasn't Yddris, he had still been taught by him. He was unlikely to be completely useless, and he certainly had better manners than his former teacher.

"Too late now," the lord said, slightly louder. "I won't have him stumbling into the middle of the meeting."

Nova said nothing; not that anything she could say would be welcome or heeded anyway. Tension sang in every nerve as she stared hard at the door, not sure what she was wishing would happen – that they would disappear, or not see her at all. Neither would happen.

She still jumped when the knock came, despite watching the door. A grey-faced maid opened it after a pause and bowed with clasped hands.

"The Caelumese representatives, my lord." She ducked to the side to allow three people through, eyes on the ground. It was probably a sound strategy, but Nova couldn't make herself look down, transfixed by a welling feeling of horror. The three who stepped inside were unknown to her, but they wore the braided hairstyles of members of the court, even their plainer travel clothing opulent with embroidery. The way they moved, the way they looked around as they entered, as if assessing status and relative advantage, was an image she knew well even if the faces were unfamiliar. Two of them ignored her presence entirely, bowing just low enough to the lord to prevent offence while making their views clear. The third, a woman who wore the thick braid of an imperial judge, met Nova's eye as if by accident. A questing of aura tickled the edges of Nova's awareness, and the woman's eyes widened with surprise even before she'd had a chance to slam up her defences; a titan effort, after years of not needing them. Using them on Jeorge had seemed a pointless waste of energy, but now she locked them so tightly she could barely perceive the visitors' auras in turn. She had no desire to know these people.

If Harkenn had any inkling of the exchange, he showed no sign of it. He stood and greeted each of them with stiff courtesy, forcing the woman to avert her stare and give a tight nod in return. She was tall and fine-boned, her wings a pale sepia. She looked faintly familiar, in retrospect. Perhaps a relative of one of the judges who had condemned her; Angels had a habit of sticking to family businesses. Nova's regard cooled further.

The other two were men; one was a high military rank, the other a diplomat. The soldier was auburn and dark-eyed, his wings charcoal-grey. Though Angels aged slowly, the evidence of the man's years told in scars and the hard lines in his brow and chin. He had certainly fought in the Annexe War, and the lord was affording him the most wary attention because of it. It was a mistake; the pale, delicate-looking diplomat was likely the most dangerous of the three.

At some time while she was appraising them, they had begun talking.

"I must confess myself surprised," Harkenn was saying, his tone full of manufactured good humour. "Between dealing with these crises on my doorstep, I had not yet got around to sending a messenger to Caelum regarding the floods or the food shortages. In fact, I'm not sure even the plague messenger would have reached you yet."

Nova had been with the lord long enough to know that the messenger had not been sent and never would have. Behind the walls of Caelum, Nictavian struggles were no concern to the Angels, nor had they ever expressed a desire to be involved or offer aid.

While the three were thinking of a response to the implied enquiry – the lord's bluntness seemed to have shocked them – someone knocked on the office door and Jeorge entered.

"Nerahardt," the diplomat exclaimed. "I did wonder where you'd got to. I missed your sour face around court."

Jeorge's answering smile could have frozen the Aven. "Cael. I didn't think Lucifer would have been able to spare you for this trip."

"Yes, well." The two men regarded each other the way two dogs might size each other up before a fight. "It seems he saw a need for my skills here. And I suppose...yours?"

Nova hadn't ever thought to find herself privately rooting for Jeorge in a confrontation. She knew Cael's type; old nobility that predated the ruling family's reign and had the attitude to match it. All the same, she watched Jeorge's reaction closely. It didn't mean she trusted him, either.

"In some senses," Nerahardt replied carefully. His ankles and bad foot had now healed enough to go down to one crutch, and he hobbled over to join Nova in the corner with as much dignity as he could muster. Their eyes met as he stopped by her chair, but his walls were up as tightly as hers. A small smile quirked one corner of his mouth.

"We've heard rumours," the judge prompted, drawing Cael back to the conversation with the lord, who had become stiff with offence. It was hard to tell, after dampening her sensitivity so much, whether he affected it or whether it was genuine. "We do have some friends here, Lord Harkenn. The war did not destroy all ties."

The mention of the war landed heavy in the middle of the conversation. The woman seemed to sense that it was a miscalculation and did not attempt to add anything when Cael smoothly took over. "What Evangeline is trying to say is that the request for aid didn't come through official avenues. Lucifer extends his deepest regrets over the effects of the season on Nictaven's people."

That smug bastard. Familiar hatred caused her walls to falter. The soldier glanced at her as she slammed them back up, and then looked again.

"Anarabelle," he said. He nodded a short acknowledgement. Cael finally deigned to notice her, undisguised delight flaring in his gaze. It was not for joy of seeing her alive, she was sure – except perhaps in the sense that it was much easier to torment a living person than a dead one.

"Anarabelle!" he exclaimed. "I heard rumours you were here."

"We seem to be discussing rumours an awful lot today," Harkenn interjected. His scowl seemed etched into his face. "A polite reminder that the slave cannot converse freely without my permission."

Shame and gratitude warred within her as the words simultaneously humiliated her and absolved her of any need to respond. No one in the room was under any illusion over her status, yet something about the way the lord said it, as if she were an object to be disregarded, was uniquely terrible in its implication. Especially in the presence of those who knew how far she had fallen and who likely worked for someone who would rather see her dead. She just wasn't sure that it was more or less humiliating than having to find a response to that. She didn't know them but they knew her, and that made her uneasy. She had been gone from Caelum for the last ten years and it was the first time in that decade where she felt that it put her on the back foot.

She caught Jeorge's eye again as she leaned back, and glowered at the pity in his eyes. It was all very well for some.

"We would be glad to discuss this all further with you." Harkenn seemed suddenly aware that he had made an error in forcing her to stay here; all three visitors couldn't keep their eyes off her now. Was she the real reason they were here? The idea put ice into her veins. "Allow me to see you accommodated in the guest chambers while I set a time for the Heads of the Houses to join me in the discussion."

It was a clear dismissal, a reassertion of authority when it looked as though Cael might challenge it. He was probably some high court lord's son on his first outing beyond the Annexe. Nova wished him joy of it, as long as the joy involved a messy encounter with a Fleshmonger at some stage. At the lord's words he drew himself up, outrage in every line of his face, but the soldier placed a hand on his shoulder. The movement was almost casual and accompanied no glance or eye contact between the two, but Cael quickly subsided into a short bow.

"We respect the wisdom of this decision and would be grateful to avail ourselves of your hospitality. It has been a long journey."

They turned back to the door, but Harkenn called them back with a terse, "I do hope you didn't leave any soldiers outside my gates when you entered, Sir Cael."

The diplomat's face went carefully blank and he opened his mouth, but the lord wasn't done.

"You seem to have been aware of our burgeoning civil strife in the city, and yet when I came to my study today it seemed suddenly very...quiet." The orange glare turned a shade more dangerous. "Until we have discussed terms and agreements your soldiers are to stay with you and leave my city guard to their jobs. If they fail to comply I will consider it a breach of the peace banner you arrived under and make the lapse abundantly clear to your superiors back home. Do we understand each other?"

Cael looked as though he understood it very well. Most would have cowered before the lord's fury, but he seemed to grow colder with it. "They will stay in the quarters you offer them unless or until agreed otherwise, Lord Harkenn, I assure you."

"Then a good day to you, Sir Cael. I will see you at dinner."

The three left, taking a lot of the sudden tension with them. Cael's expression promised that he wouldn't take the affront lightly, but the other two conversed quietly with each other as they left. Nova listened until she could no longer hear them and then cautiously began to lower her walls. It had been a long time since she'd had to use any and the effort of keeping them up was exhausting. In much the same way that overdoing magic use could overwhelm an Unspoken, the inherent magic of Angels took effort to use and worked like a muscle, built up with practice. Nova's muscle had been sorely neglected, just like the rest of her. She could have curled up in the chair and gone to sleep, succumbing to the black spots at the edges of her vision, there and then.

"That," Harkenn said, sitting down heavily, "inspired no confidence at all."

"My lord?" Jeorge asked. His tone was carefully neutral as he said, "I had not expected that the meeting would be so short."

"Neither did I," Harkenn snapped. "Are you questioning my judgement, Nerahardt? They came in with an agenda, and I'm not letting them use it without the Assembly panel behind me. Not after the last one."

The last one. Nova thought he knew which one he meant. She had been on the other side of things then, when a delegation much like this one had come out to the Reach to negotiate. A month after the delegation left, the two cities were at war. It was not so long ago that it wasn't fresh in everyone's mind.

"You will be at the full meeting," Harkenn said, visibly pulling himself together and glowering at Jeorge, and then switching its force to Nova. "You will not. I had not anticipated they would take quite such an interest in you and I won't have it used against me."

She bit down hard on her 'I told you so', even though it hovered perilously close to the tip of her tongue. She was a high-profile exile in Caelum, known to still be alive. The lord had let habit override his logic in this matter, but it was more than her life was worth to say so. Jeorge nodded gravely at the instruction, and she thought he might have been thinking along similar lines. She thought of Cael's expression when he noticed her and shuddered. She would have loved to read his aura at that point to gage the danger, but he would be just as adept at reading it the other way. She had never bothered to block Jeorge out, but he only saw her emotions. If it had only been the judge and the soldier, she would also have been safer. Members of higher social circles than the ones they and Jeorge occupied could catch glimpses of thoughts and specifics, and that idea terrified her. Draining her limited energy to block out Jeorge on a regular basis wasn't worth it, but a whole lot more rode on not letting Cael rifle through her head.

"I think you should also keep the otherworld girl out of their view, my lord, if you would allow me to suggest it," Jeorge added.

Harkenn looked up sharply. "Why?"

"They had men asking questions of the servants about the portal. It seems to me that they would take great interest in the siblings that came through it, and the girl is much more apparent. If she comes face to face with Cael, he could do her great harm."

"He would not dare." But Harkenn sounded as if he knew the Angel would, given the chance.

"He can make it look like he hasn't done anything, my lord," Nova said flatly. "There would be little evidence. His skills lie in reading and manipulating aura. It would concern me that they have sent someone of his skillset in a supposedly peaceful delegation, sir."

"Oh, he's not one of those, is he?" Harkenn popped the cap off a decanter of wine on his desk and swigged straight from the neck. "Night take me, this just gets better and better. Are the other two skilled in this way?"

"Not as far as I can tell, my lord."

"Can you provide her any protection against this kind of intrusion, or am I just to hide her in a cupboard and hope he doesn't look?" The sarcasm in the lord's voice could have downed a demon, but Nova spotted a chance in the question. If she could find a way to do so, she would have a legitimate, sanctioned reason to spend more time with Grace. She would be kept out of the delegation's way along with her. The only flaw was that she wasn't certain it was possible.

"I don't know, my lord." She forced out the admission, knowing it might damage her chances but also knowing that looking too eager would get his suspicions up – and that would scupper them entirely. "I can protect myself, at great effort, but my skills are neither as advanced nor as well-exercised as his."

"Anarabelle was training for these skills before she left," Jeorge put in, ignoring her glower. "But events overtook."

She hadn't wanted that brought up. She didn't want the lord to think her any more useful or valuable than he did now, didn't want to give him any reason to keep her more closely by his side. If she'd had the strength she would have been happy to knock half Jeorge's teeth down his throat. As it was, her limbs felt limp as wet linen from the exertion and she could only convey her frustration with her eyes. Jeorge pretended not to understand.

"Well then, it seems appropriate for you to work out how to do it." Harkenn took another long draught of wine. "That girl knows far too much confidential information to risk. If you cannot do that, she will be moved elsewhere until they leave."

Nova swallowed. Grace wasn't any safer outside the castle, with Devils trying to meet with her. But the risk of that versus the known danger of the Caelumese within the walls was much smaller. It would just mean that she'd leave, and Nova would be alone to hide away from the Annexe delegation and the reminders of her past. She was not proud of remaining silent as the lord thought it through.

"Yes, that's what will happen. She will not leave the servants' quarters while she is in the castle, and Jan will not have her serve any Caelumese for any reason or under any circumstances. And you will protect her. If you can't, she will be moved to Yddris's for the foreseeable future." The gaze sharpened. "And you will not engage in any inappropriate behaviour with her, do you understand me? So much as a finger out of line and you'll be flogged."

"Yes, my lord," she said. She feared that elaborating would betray her relief and anticipation. One foot wrong and he would change his mind in a flash - especially since she had been putting fingers out of line for a very long time.

"Now get out and tell Jan what I want done."

She presumed that Grace would still be down at Yddris's house with Nika, so she was surprised to find her sitting under the washing lines with her head bent over a book. The kitchens had busied up with the arrival of the delegation, and the bustle was comforting. The fire burned low in the hearth as the big ovens were stoked back to life. Talk of the Caelumese arrivals was rife, both fear and excitement in faces and voices. It had been months since the castle had needed the kitchens for anything other than regular day to day running or clearing up after disaster, so Nova guessed feelings would be mixed. Guests were exciting, it was just that no one was expecting these ones. For herself, she was glad. She wouldn't be expected to even be at any dinners for the Caelumese, let alone perform for them. It would be free time, alone with Grace. She supposed that went some way towards making up for the terror it all struck into her.

"You're back early," she said, sitting down on the bench beside her. Grace didn't look surprised to see her as she looked up. She smiled wanly, but her worry line creased her forehead.

"There was...an incident," she admitted. She put her marker back in the book and closed it, and then sighed. Nova stole a glance at it; a history of the Annexe War, of course. Grace's words caught her attention before she had a chance to feel sour about that.

"What kind of incident?"

"A Devil broke into Yddris's house, so Nika brought me back early."

As if the day could get any worse. "A Devil? Who?"

"I didn't see his face." Grace shrugged. "He was missing a leg and...." She trailed off. "Nika said he was linked to Jordan somehow. Not to me, but...they discussed him. As if it had come up before. Harkenn suggested as much, too, remember, when that acolyte came up here about that note. I think it might have been the Devil who tried to meet with me, and he's got something to do with Jordan."

"Was he the man on Harkenn's poster?"

"I didn't see, Nova." She scowled. "But he was an arsehole at any rate."

"Men who don't scruple about murder generally are," Nova replied lightly, trying not to betray the heavy feeling in her gut. Thorne was going to have a fit when he found out. If he had the chance before his sister started in on him that was, she added to herself, looking at the scowl on Grace's face. He had altogether underestimated Grace's ability to sense when she was being left out of something.

"I suppose this will mean I'm stuck here. Nika will tell the lord about it, I'm sure." Grace ran her hand over the cover of the book and sighed. "And I've got some heavy questions to ask of my brother when he gets back." She finally looked Nova fully in the face, and her expression smoothed into concern. "Nika mentioned that Harkenn forced you to be in with this delegation. Shit, I've just been rambling about myself this whole time. Are you okay?"

Nova gave a humourless little smile. "I'm afraid I've got more bad news for you."