Read Online Cast In Secret by Michelle Sagara - Free Book Online Page A

other side of the guard house and show you the way to her home.”

    “Someone” was another guard, another man in mail. His hair was a pale shade of brown, but it was long, and he wore it in a braid over his left shoulder. His eyes were clear, not golden the way Dragons’ eyes were, but still some shade that was paler than brown, darker than sunlight. He bowed, rising, and she thought him younger than the guard at the gate. His eyes were alive with unspoken curiosity, and his expression was actually an expression.
    He stared at her, and she stared back.
    “I’m Epharim,” he finally said, his stalks weaving through stray strands of his hair. He waited, and then after a moment, he reddened and held out a hand.
    Kaylin took it slowly, and shook it. If it was true you could tell a lot about a person by shaking their hand, she wasn’t sure what she could take out of this handshake. It was stiff, hesitant, almost entirely unnatural.
    “Did I do that right?” he said, retrieving his hand, his gaze still far too intent.
    “Do what?”
    “Greet you.”
    “Yes, Epharim,” Severn replied, stepping on Kaylin’s foot before she could open her mouth. Well, before she could speak, at any rate. “I am Corporal Severn Handred, and this is Private Kaylin Neya. We serve the Emperor in the Halls of Law.” He offered his hand in turn, and Epharim took it, repeating the gesture that was supposed to be a handshake.
    He beamed. “And what does it mean?” Each word a little too distinct, as if speech itself were something new and unfamiliar. Or as if the language were. But he spoke the common tongue of Elantra, and if the cadences were off, they were, each and every syllable, completely recognizable.
    Severn said, “We don’t use names that have specific meanings.” Clearly, Severn had been a master student in racial studies.
    “You don’t have a naming tongue?” Epharim’s brows rose. And as they did, Kaylin noticed – with the training she had excelled in – that the passersby in the street all seemed to slow, that their stalks, from different heights, perched upon different shades of hair, seemed to turn toward them. Or toward Epharim.
    “Are we causing a scene?” she asked in low tones.
    Epharim looked confused. Well, more confused. “A scene? Like in a play?”
    “No. A scene, as in everyone in the street for miles stops to stare at us as if we’re insane.”
    He blinked. Looked at the people who were – yes – staring at them, and then looked back at Kaylin. “This… is a scene?”
    Severn stepped on her other foot.
    “People don’t normally stop to stare like that.”
    Again his brows rippled, this time toward the bridge of his straight, perfect nose. “They don’t?”
    “No.”
    “Then how are they expected to observe?”
    “Observe what?”
    “You. Corporal Severn Handred.”
    “Severn will do,” Severn said. “It is our custom.”
    “They’re not supposed to,” Kaylin replied, ignoring Severn. “They have other things to do, don’t they?”
    “They have things to do,” Epharim agreed, still standing there, anchoring Kaylin in place while stragglers farther down also stopped walking and turned to look back. “But most of them have never seen one of your kind so close. They will remember,” he added, as if this was supposed to be a comfort. She had the momentary urge to pull out her beat stick and approach them with a smile that was about as soft as steel, telling them to move along.
    But there were children there, their stalks slender, and to her surprise, almost transparent, their eyes wide and openly curious. Too far away to see her own reflection in those eyes, she knew then what she would want reflected, and the impulse left her. She turned slowly back to Epharim, who was beaming at her with an expression she now recognized – a childlike wonder so out of place on the face of a grown man she had failed to see it at first.
    She had never seen Tha’alani children before. Never seen