Oddly, it was Ynpharion who answered what wasn’t a question. It was. But Terrano was a child. A dangerous child, yes. He did not care about the effects of his teachings on any but the cohort, as you call them—and the cohort were safe.
They weren’t so safe when Alsanis was attacked.
The Arcanists have always been ambitious. He planted a seed, and they grew it. I do not know, he added, a hint of worry in his tone, what has grown from it, or how large it has become.
We’re probably about to find out.
I doubt you will see all of it. He paused, and then added, Survive, Kaylin. This was surprising enough that she almost missed a step. On flat ground.
“I need to put this down,” Kaylin told the Arkon. “I can’t fight while carrying it.”
“Physical combat should not, at this point, be your concern,” was the Arkon’s reply. He turned to Bellusdeo. “Do not even think it. This hall was not meant to accommodate your Draconic form, and you cannot easily fight what you cannot see.”
It was Sedarias who said, “We can.”
“You did not see them, either.”
“No. It’s Helen’s fault; she has been teaching us—somewhat unkindly, I feel—to navigate the streets of your city. We are allowed out into those streets now, but there are strict commands about what we can and cannot do. Terrano and Mandoran appear to be exempt from this; Helen feels that they are flexible enough to understand the effects of their power and form.
“But it is my guess that the Barrani—and humans—who have learned to be somewhat more flexible in their base state have not had Helen as a teacher. There is some danger in what they do.” Her smile grew an edge. “But they have neither our experience nor our base power.” That smile gentled slightly. “If you feel the need to put down the thing you are carrying, do so. It is possible that your familiar will see dangers that we cannot if we are fighting.”
Kaylin turned to the long desk that fronted familiar stairs.
Coming down those stairs now was an equally familiar Barrani man. Larrantin.
She froze, her perpetual reluctant inner student coming to the fore. Beating her down, she offered Larrantin a bow. It wasn’t a bow that would have pleased Diarmat, but she was cold and shivering.
Larrantin’s expression was mildly peevish. “Have you failed to deliver a simple message?”
“It wasn’t safe, at the time.”
“Oh?”
“Killianas was otherwise occupied.”
Larrantin’s frown deepened, but the edges of irritation vanished. “I see.”
“Can you keep this for now? We’re going to try to meet with him again. It’s just that there are a lot of people between him and us, and they don’t want us to be anywhere near here.”
Larrantin nodded and held out a hand.
Kaylin placed the book in it, unwrapping it from the small blanket she’d used to protect herself from the cold it radiated. When Larrantin took it, the runes on its cover flared blue and white; ice lit from within by a bright, steady light.
Behind her back, someone sucked in one long breath. He exhaled a word.
“Larrantin.” It was, of course, the Arkon.
Larrantin frowned. He glanced past Kaylin, but her companions remained invisible to his eyes. “I will hold this for now, but I feel it essential that Killianas receive it soon.”
* * *
Sedarias and Annarion headed to the right, away from the desk. Annarion stopped and looked over his shoulder.
“For the record,” Bellusdeo said, “I’m against this.”
The Arkon, however, said nothing.
Kaylin scurried after the two Barrani. She was joined by Severn. When she raised a brow at him, he mouthed the word partner. When she snorted, he said, “We were seconded by the Imperial Palace as Hawks. You don’t go into a brawl—or worse—without backup.”
Neither Sedarias nor Annarion appeared to be surprised by this.
“I believe you said Larrantin couldn’t leave this building,” Sedarias said.
Kaylin nodded. “If you two are going to melt through a wall, I can’t leave that way.”
“No. But I think it best not to open the doors at the moment.”
“What are we doing?”
“Finding a suitable window.”
Kaylin wasn’t certain that the window wouldn’t cause the same problem the doors would, but she deferred to Sedarias. Severn had nodded.
Hope continued to keep his wing in front of Kaylin’s eyes as they moved through the wide, long hall; they reached a door that opened into a room that was much larger than Larrantin’s office had been. Maybe this was where whoever had once lived in these buildings had held parties. It seemed far too fancy for lectures.
Sedarias entered this room. She had wanted windows, and windows were here in abundance, although they were above ground level, and built into four large bays. None of those windows looked likely to open without damage.
Sedarias and Annarion were silent, but it was a silence that caused a lot of shifting facial expressions; Kaylin guessed that they were discussing their next moves with the absent cohort. While they did, Kaylin approached the window from the curtain side. She glanced through it; saw grass and trees. It was interesting; through this window, the muted, washed-out colors had been replaced by the vibrancy of actual life.
The people gathered in the center of the circle had thinned in numbers. She could guess where the others had gone, but couldn’t see the building’s front door from this angle, and didn’t try.
Eight people remained in the large grass circle. Six were Barrani, two human. Illanen and Baltrin weren’t among them.
“I don’t think you’ll find Baltrin here at this time of day,” Severn said. “His movements are more easily tracked. He’s not on vacation, has not taken a leave of absence, and must therefore occupy his office and the duties to which he clings.” Once again, Severn spoke Barrani, but this time for the benefit of their two companions.
“The Barrani are not so easily monitored, by either their own people or ours. It is possible—I think it likely—that Illanen will be at the front door.”
“He won’t be the problem.”
Severn glanced at her, the tone of the flat sentence a warning.
“Killian’s doors have just opened,” she said. “And I think that’s Candallar leaving the building.”
* * *
“I see him,” Severn said. His glance slid to Hope, who huffed.
“We see him, as well,” Sedarias added.
They couldn’t see the rest of the gathered people. Kaylin wasn’t certain if Candallar’s visibility was a good sign or a bad one. “Does he look normal to you?”
Sedarias exhaled. “We don’t see what you see here. You’ve said—to your eyes—that the streets, roads and buildings are lacking color. To us, they’re not. We know what you see,” she added, “because it’s what Teela saw. To us, then, the buildings look like Elantran buildings—but better. More impressive.
“Do the people you can see resemble the exterior of the buildings and the rest of the landscape?”
Kaylin nodded.
“Candallar?”
“He looks like the rest of us to me.”
Sedarias bowed her head for three long beats. When she lifted her face, her eyes were a disturbing color; black with flecks of color. She then glanced at Annarion.
“Helen’s not going to like it,” he said.
The glance became a glare, and several silent beats passed before he closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were a different, disturbing color: a milky white that also possessed flecks of moving color.
Sedarias didn’t tell Annarion that Helen didn’t need to know, because they were the cohort. They could, with effort, hide their thoughts from Helen—but it wasn’t a sustainable effort. They trusted he
r; she would never harm them. Helen was therefore going to know.
“We won’t leave the fiefs like this,” Sedarias then said—to Kaylin. “But whatever you’re looking at, we can’t see the normal way.”
Hope squawked.
They both turned toward the nearest window, taking positions that would make them less obvious to outside observers. They were silent, which said nothing; the cohort on the insides of their heads were probably talking up a storm.
“I am going to strangle Terrano,” Sedarias then said, although she didn’t look away from the window.
“You missed him more than anyone,” Kaylin pointed out.
“My aim is not that bad.”
“Terrano seemed to think he was mostly obeying your orders.”
Sedarias’s head whipped around, and Kaylin saw that her eyes had shifted color: they were now the same as Annarion’s. “Orders? Clearly Terrano came from a family far more lax than my own. I made suggestions.”
Annarion snickered.
“You can see them now?” Kaylin asked quickly.
“We can.”
“And this makes you want to strangle Terrano because?”
“To view them at all requires a shift in our physicality. It’s a very particular shift,” she added.
Kaylin frowned. “Do you think they could do this outside of the border zone?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it would be detected?”
Sedarias nodded. “Helen would notice immediately. If you’re worried about the Dragons—”
“We would notice,” the Arkon said from the far doors. “Or rather, the magic required would cause a significant disturbance. They are not, however, more empowered than they would otherwise be.”
“Could they attempt to assassinate you without becoming visible to the rest of us?”
“We’re about to find out.”
“You’re supposed to be with—”
“The rest of us,” Bellusdeo then said, “are with him. Or we would be if he would move out of the doorway.”
* * *
Sedarias said nothing; her eyes were narrowed. Annarion glanced once at her, and she nodded, but the nod was measured and deliberate. This wasn’t a natural transition for Sedarias. Annarion might have had eyes like this all his life. It was Annarion who seemed to have the most difficulty maintaining the strictly Barrani biology he’d been born to.
No, she thought, that wasn’t it. Terrano could shift his form at will, and Mandoran wasn’t far behind. But Helen judged neither of them a threat. It had been Annarion she’d worried most about. Whatever he was doing wasn’t the same thing. Regardless, he didn’t seem to have trouble with his new eyes.
He lifted a palm to touch a pane of glass. “I don’t think we’ll have to break it.”
“We will if the Dragons are going to follow us out.”
“The Dragons are not going to follow you out,” Bellusdeo replied, glaring at the Arkon’s back. She then said to Sedarias—or Kaylin, it was hard to tell which, “I don’t believe our invisible visitors can open the front doors.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Candallar has just left Killian’s residence. He is walking in a straight line to the building we currently occupy. I believe Candallar will be able to do what the rest of the people here can’t.”
“You think that’s why he’s here?” Kaylin asked.
“I can’t think of another reason, at the moment; I’m open to suggestions. But I don’t think breaking the windows would be a good idea. To us, this room is as solid, as fully realized, as any room in the Imperial Palace would be. The exterior of the building is not. I’m not sure what happens—to this building or to its occupants—should the windows themselves be open.”
“The doors—”
“Doors are meant to be opened and closed. I don’t believe these windows are.” She then cleared her throat, Dragon style. “Lannagaros.”
It was Emmerian who entered the room; Emmerian who placed a flat palm across the Arkon’s left shoulder. “Arkon.”
The Arkon exhaled. Kaylin couldn’t have continued to make that sound for half as long—and if she’d tried, she’d be gasping for breath at the end of it. “I concur.” In tone, it sounded like an argument.
Annarion jumped up to the window ledge, his feet making no sound. He might have weighed nothing. He turned back toward Sedarias, and she grimaced, an expression very much like one that might have graced Mandoran’s face. “Did I mention that I’m going to strangle Terrano?”
“Only about a hundred times this morning. I won’t try to stop you if you let me strangle Mandoran.”
Bellusdeo cleared her throat again. It was the same rumble of Dragon sound, but louder and shorter. She would have made a great sergeant.
“Fine. We won’t stop you if you try to kill Mandoran,” Annarion said.
This took the edge off the red-orange Bellusdeo’s eyes had become. Annarion smiled at her, his lips half quirked in one corner. He then turned and stepped through the windowpane. Without breaking it first.
Sedarias leaped just as lightly up to the abandoned window seat. “Go back to the front hall,” she told the Dragons. “Candallar is almost at the front doors.” To Kaylin, she added, “Retrieve the book from Larrantin, if that is now possible. I do not think it wise to let anything fall into Candallar’s hands.”
* * *
Kaylin turned immediately to leave the room. The Arkon, however, cleared his throat in much the same way Bellusdeo had.
“I have it.”
The words took a moment to make sense.
“I am uncertain how you managed to contain it or carry it,” the Dragon librarian continued. “It is not a book in any sense of the word; what you see as a book is...not what I see.”
“Now or before you picked it up?” The Arkon was indeed carrying the blanketed bundle. “I gave it to Larrantin.”
“He must have set it down, then. I picked it up from the front desk. I would have gladly taken it from his hands as you did, could I but see him.”
Kaylin wheeled toward Bellusdeo; the gold Dragon shrugged. “I am not his keeper.”
“It might be dangerous!”
“You cannot possibly be under the impression that Lannagaros takes orders from me. He barely takes orders from the Emperor, and when he does—”
“I understand the spirit of the Emperor’s requests,” the Arkon said.
“Oh, please. If you understood them, you wouldn’t be here at all.”
“I said I understood them,” the oldest member of the Dragon Court said. “I didn’t say I mindlessly obeyed.”
Bellusdeo’s snort had smoke in it. But she caught up with Kaylin and shouldered her out of the way as she returned to the abandoned front desk. Her armor gleamed in the interior light in a way that suggested a source of illumination Kaylin couldn’t otherwise see. Her eyes were orange.
The Arkon, however, remained well behind Bellusdeo and the two Hawks; Emmerian stayed with him, although he’d retrieved his hand.
People were unpredictable. Kaylin had considered—and probably still did—the Arkon a source of knowledge and wisdom. If he was cantankerous, and he absolutely was, he was steady. This Arkon, she hadn’t met, hadn’t seen. And clearly, neither had Bellusdeo.
It was harder to read Emmerian. Of the Dragon Court, he was the quietest presence. He was the man sent to interfere with her first attempt to find herself a new apartment. She couldn’t resent him for it; she had found Helen, after all. Helen was the home she had always wanted, but hadn’t known enough to even daydream about. She wouldn’t have found Helen without Emmerian’s unwelcome interference. She’d’ve happily taken the room on offer.
It was Emmerian who kept an eye on Bellusdeo—but at a safe distance. She couldn’t, now that she considered it, imagine that he
would do so the way someone like Diarmat would. Emmerian seemed to understand what Bellusdeo required. Even here, he allowed Bellusdeo to take the lead.
Bellusdeo, who had led armies and fought until the last against the encroachment of Shadow. She had not fought in the Draco-Barrani wars, although she had been educated and trained—inasmuch as a juvenile Dragon female could be—to do so.
Kaylin had been, for the entirety of her life with the Hawks, either a mascot or a private. Until now. She couldn’t imagine leading armies. If she’d daydreamed about being Empress as a child, it was because she hadn’t understood the weight of the responsibility that came with that position.
Hadn’t considered the guilt that followed a loss. She’d never thought to survive for as long as Bellusdeo had.
“I wish we’d kept Annarion,” Kaylin said as she faced the closed front doors.
“Not Sedarias?”
“Annarion’s not Mandoran, but he’s used to the rest of us. Sedarias keeps her own counsel. If Annarion were here, we’d know what’s happening on the other side of the door.”
“Annarion’s sword-work is the best of the cohort’s,” Bellusdeo said, her voice softer. “This is not where you want him.”
Kaylin, surprised, turned to Bellusdeo—but noted that Emmerian seemed slightly surprised, as well.
“I am considered reckless,” Bellusdeo said, her smile brief but genuine. “But I understand why we are here and the cohort are outside. They can see their enemies. I cannot.”
Kaylin, about to tell her that a wall of fiery breath might change that, said nothing.
The Arkon snorted, as well. He didn’t look over his shoulder to see Bellusdeo. “Stop that.” His voice was grim.
“Stop what?” Bellusdeo’s tone was so deliberately innocent, Kaylin realized that she’d missed something that the Arkon hadn’t.
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