Robin then looked at the strands that led to the space that most of Kavallac occupied. He frowned. “I think,” he finally said, “that it has to be done all at once. This part,” he added, pointing to something that was invisible to Kaylin’s eyes from this distance, “and this part—there has to be a third repetition.”
“I will cheerfully strangle Larrantin the next time he dares to set foot in my library,” Starrante then said. “The third is echo or reflection.”
“I think so—I think that’s what Larrantin meant—but she’s not trapped in an echo, right? I think you’ll hurt her if all of the parts don’t come together at the same time.”
“Be patient, mortal child. This is new to me, as well. I have never seen the library in this state; had you asked me, my theory would have posited an entirely different outcome. What your eyes see is not what my eyes see—and perhaps situations such as these are the reason two very physically different sets of eyes exist at all.”
Kaylin turned back to the portal.
It had now expanded, its shape uneven and splotchy—like a very badly blown piece of glass.
“Be ready!” Sedarias shouted.
“Corporal,” Emmerian said, “stand back.”
“Don’t!” Kaylin shouted. “It’s not safe! You’ll be too tall as a Dragon!”
“I understand that,” Emmerian said without looking back.
Kavallac roared, her red eyes very much centered on Starrante. Kaylin didn’t understand native Dragon, but she knew a shut the hell up and get moving when she heard it.
They were almost out of time. Starrante had not yet finished. He was pushing his body—and spitting up even pinker webbing—as fast as he safely could, where safety in this case relied on having a healer attached like a barnacle to his hairy, heaving sides.
Kaylin turned, once again, to look at the blobby, misshapen portal. Bellusdeo was standing directly beneath a growing outcrop, and at her back, his hands deformed into the longer claws of his people, stood Emmerian. To Kaylin’s eye, it looked as if he had attempted to transform, and had been stuck at a midpoint; it wasn’t comfortable. His skin was a gray-blue shade, his claws the blue of his Dragon form.
The misshapen portal didn’t shatter. It melted. Bellusdeo moved—quickly—to avoid the possible splash, but there was no splash; it dripped its way to the floor, and as it did, Candallar finally emerged.
He was robed in light and shadow; his eyes at this distance were black, and seemed too large for his otherwise regular features. His hair was a nimbus of moving color.
Bellusdeo’s breath struck him full in the chest as he placed his feet firmly on the ground that Starrante had cobbled together. He took a step back at the force of the flame, but it might have been hot air for all the effect it had otherwise; his cape seemed to undulate in a way that put the flames out, reached around either side of his rib cage to do so.
In his left hand, he carried the rod; across his chest, a medallion shone harshly white. He also now carried a sword, as if he meant to close with his enemies. Kaylin shouted a single word as Bellusdeo tensed to leap; it was Emmerian who pulled her back.
The sword struck the path that Starrante had built, and as it did, the path cracked. The crack traveled slowly toward the Arbiter. There was nothing that any of the three—Sedarias, Emmerian, Bellusdeo—could do to stop it. Nothing Kaylin herself could do, either.
But Annarion became visible. He stood astride the path, watching as the singular crack approached them all; he knelt. Kaylin couldn’t see his eyes, but she was certain they weren’t his normal eyes. He carried something in his hands—a dark strand, something that did not look at all like rope.
It was the magic that Candallar had used to attempt to break through Starrante’s webbed pane, but Annarion held it in both hands. It moved as if it were a snake. Annarion drove it into the ground, into the crack that had started to form.
To either side of Candallar, in the lee of his cape, stepped two men: Illanen and Baltrin. Illanen carried the book in his left hand; his right was free. Baltrin continued to hold his staff. In the odd light cast by Candallar’s magic, both men looked different to her eye.
She was watching them as they lifted their right arms; watching as those arms fell. In Baltrin’s case, that was a literal description. His right arm fell away from just above his elbow as something cut or pierced it. She thought it was because of the cracks and breaks that Candallar had reintroduced to the library by his arrival.
No.
Mandoran had arrived. She saw him flicker in place; saw the glint of his sword; saw him disperse. He had not spoken a word, and his expression was...not an expression that normally adorned his face.
Baltrin cried out, the spell that he intended to cast forgotten; Candallar turned toward Mandoran, and purple fire exploded in exactly the place he’d dispersed from. But this wasn’t simple invisibility. Had it been, Mandoran would likely be dead.
He reappeared behind Annarion, and Kaylin saw that he’d lost hair. The black drape of Barrani locks was now a jagged, diagonal line that started somewhere below his shoulder and reached to his waist.
Annarion said nothing; Mandoran, sword readied, back to Kaylin, stood his ground. Sedarias’s sword cut the wave of purple flame meant to keep them all at bay, and it traveled to either side of her—and to either side of Annarion.
Androsse stepped out of thin air, placed a palm on Annarion’s bent head, and whispered a series of words that tickled Kaylin’s hearing. The syllables were faint; she couldn’t resolve them into language—but they set up a buzzing on the inside of her ears that she could feel travel along her spine.
She pushed the healing, surprised at how much damage Starrante’s body was sustaining. All she could see was the webbing, and the speed at which he arranged it—and nothing in that was obviously damaging.
Starrante pulled the webs tight, a sudden motion that strained every muscle in his body. She was half-afraid his limbs would break or snap; the webbing was heavy, and it resisted. “Androsse!”
Kavallac snapped into place. Kaylin could feel it because Starrante could feel it; the weight of the webs abated, and the Dragon Arbiter dwindled into her human form. “About time,” she said, her words and voice clear. She was in front of Starrante, but they now existed in the same slice of library space. “Androsse!”
“I am somewhat occupied,” the Arbiter replied.
“The occupation would be unnecessary if you could join us.”
“A moment, please.” He placed both hands on Annarion’s head, and once again spoke. “Speed will be of the essence unless you wish to sacrifice our allies,” he said without looking up.
“We will sacrifice everything if you do not hurry. Your eyes in this space are not what they should be!”
Androsse then turned to close the gap between Starrante and him, leaving Annarion, Mandoran and Sedarias to hold the ground steady for as long as it took. Bellusdeo, lightning sparking, was deflecting the incoming magical attacks, but those attacks had a momentum, a force, that drove her back. Emmerian was her wall. Kaylin saw the moment his legs—or his feet—transformed; his boots tore, as did the legs of his pants. He dug claws into the stone as Bellusdeo found her footing.
Androsse had reached a midpoint between Starrante and Kavallac; he reached out with both hands. Starrante reached out for his right hand; Kavallac reached out for his left. She could see Kavallac clearly, Androsse in profile; Starrante she could sense because she hadn’t lifted her hand. To her surprise, Starrante bent a limb in a way that implied it was broken; he wrapped it carefully around Robin.
All three of the Arbiters began to glow. Kaylin didn’t have a word to describe the color of that light. It felt golden to her. It felt very like the light her marks sometimes shed. Those marks were silent and still; the Arbiters were likewise silent and still.
But in that stillness made of o
dd light and silence, she heard the sound of stone cracking—but backward. They were asserting control over the library, and it was a delicate, perfect control. She wondered if books had been lost to the breaking of the space the Arbiters called home, but didn’t ask. The only lives that had been lost were the lives of Arcanists who had come in search of Kavallac and Androsse, and no part of Kaylin could regret that.
Annarion rose as the stone pathway seemed to melt and absorb the breakage he had been desperately trying to slow. Mandoran remained by his side.
Lord Baltrin had dropped to his knees, but he was not dead; the flow of blood from a severed limb had been staunched by flame. The scent of burned flesh lingered as he pushed himself—with the aid of his staff—to his feet. Human eyes didn’t change color by dint of emotion, but their expressions did.
She let her hand fall away from Starrante.
“Gentlemen,” Kavallac said, “You are not welcome here.” Her eyes were a glittering red.
To Kaylin’s dismay, Illanen handed Candallar the book that he had clutched so tightly, bringing the tally of symbols the fieflord now possessed to three. In this space, he had finally claimed the full power of an interim chancellor—or of a chancellor.
“You are mistaken,” Candallar said. His cape fluttered before it joined the still fall of his hair. “The library is the heart of the Academia, and I am now its lord.” Illanen was uninjured, but his perfect skin was dark with what appeared to be ash. Baltrin, robes bloodied, was likewise whole. “It is your companions who are not welcome here.”
Kaylin grimaced. Candallar—without the book—had thrown most of them out of the library once.
“They are welcome here,” Androsse said. “They have our permission to enter the library. The student body has that permission now.”
“Denied,” Candallar said. “The library might be your province, Arbiters—but the Academia is mine.” Kaylin heard his voice as if it were a storm.
“What is the Academia without its heart?” It was Starrante who spoke; he had turned to face Candallar. “You have almost destroyed its heart; we preserve it. You understand the chancellorship only in terms of power, but your definition of power is far too narrow. Seek you to destroy us or master us for your own purpose? When we were sleeping, that was a possibility—but a distant possibility.”
“Oh?” Illanen said softly. “We found you.” His smile was chilly but pleasant. “Your time is past—long past. In the world now, only the Dragons remain, and they, too, are in their twilight.”
“Knowledge remains,” Starrante said. “You are chancellor, Candallar, but interim. Killianas would not accept you as you are now.”
“Where I have power, he will. I found this place. I worked to bring it what it needed. I woke him.” He lifted his hands, and Kaylin could see, circling his wrists, light: blue, red, purple, glints of opal and obsidian between them as if they were chains. “I say again: the library is closed. Return to your resting places, Arbiters—you are not yet required here!”
Kaylin watched, mouth half-open, as the Arbiters began to fade. She reached out to grab Starrante again, but her hand fell through his side—and his leg passed through Robin.
The Arbiters were being dismissed, and when they were gone, Kaylin thought nothing would prevent Candallar from trapping them—and killing them at his leisure.
As if they could hear that thought, the Dragons moved in concert. Bellusdeo tensed. Emmerian sprouted the wings that could not safely be spread before the Arbiters had solidified the library space. But he did not fully transform; Bellusdeo didn’t try.
The two Dragons roared, the sound almost deafening.
Across Candallar’s brow, lights sprang into being—lights similar in motion and color to the bands around his wrist. He lifted both hands as the Arcanist by his side began to cast.
“Leave the female Dragon,” he told Candallar.
Kaylin wasn’t certain that Candallar had heard him. His eyes reflected moving light, the surfaces dark enough they implied the shadow that distorted and transformed. He didn’t call purple flame; he didn’t call anything. It seemed to Kaylin that he was absorbing light and color as Bellusdeo leaped. She didn’t hit him.
She didn’t move at all. Some invisible gravity held her fast.
Something was moving, though. From the heights of the library, wings spread, jaws open in a roar of sound, came a gold Dragon. His breath was silver fire—but no, it wasn’t the Dragon’s breath at all.
It was Hope’s breath. Hope was with the Arkon.
Silver fire—silver mist—blanketed the air and the ground directly in front of Candallar and his two companions; Illanen’s eyes widened until Kaylin could see the whites from where she stood. The Arcanist stepped back, breaking the determined formation of the three; Lord Baltrin’s eyes narrowed and widened as he, too, realized the source of that breath.
Only Candallar stood firm; the silver mist stopped a yard from his face and shoulders, and hung there like a limp cloud, falling slowly to the ground. The ground and its shape changed, bubbling and melting as stone came into contact with the familiar’s breath; steam—or something like it—rose, an opaque wall.
Into the mist, the great golden Dragon landed.
The Arkon had arrived.
Chapter 29
“How dare you!”
Whether the floor shook from the Arkon’s voice or his landing wasn’t clear. Kaylin had heard the Arkon speak his native tongue before—but even his native tongue’s natural thunder was no match for this.
She had interrupted him countless times at his work, or what passed for work within the bowels of the Imperial Library; she had seen him irritated. She had thought she’d seen him angry. She’d been wrong.
This was the Arkon’s anger. It was impressive. She reached out for Robin, wrapping both of her arms around him as if to shield him from Draconic rage. The Arkon’s tail was less than a yard away from where Robin stood.
Pale mist rose to the ceiling, shuddering at the echo of the Arkon’s words. The ceiling contained and magnified them. Kaylin thought the magnification unnatural—but the dim forms of the Arbiters could still be seen out of the corners of the eye.
“I tried to calm him,” a familiar voice said. Terrano appeared, as if stepping sideways out of thin air. “Did you know he used to babysit?”
Kaylin couldn’t easily see past the bulk of the Arkon’s body, given his wings and his placement in front of both her and Robin. “Babysit?”
“In his Aerie, when he was younger. Before all the wars. He was considered patient enough.”
A roar dimmed the rest of Terrano’s words, although the Barrani’s mouth was still moving. “...patient to me. I’m probably the only Barrani to see Dragon eyes go that color and survive.”
“I? How dare I?” Candallar’s voice, muted but audible, pushed past silver mist and fog. Kaylin had no doubt that the fieflord would soon join them. “You have entered my domain, and you are not welcome here.”
The Arkon’s roar was less deafening, possibly because it made no attempt to contain words. But words followed that roar. “This is not your domain.”
“I am lord, here. I am chancellor.”
“You are interim chancellor—a position created at need, for need’s sake. You would never, and will never, be chancellor. Your stupidity in this space has destroyed some of the books—”
“Some books? Look around you—there are so many books in this place, eternity might be required to fully read them all! Almost nothing has been lost—”
The Arkon roared again. “You have no idea what has been lost. You have no idea what knowledge, what thought, what lore graced the pages of books destroyed by your juvenile need to shout mine, mine, mine. You are a disgrace to the word chancellor!
“Even your antics—” Kaylin quibbled deeply with the word antics here, but did so utterly silently
“—in the Academia almost endangered the life of a student.”
“A student that would not be in these classes or this place had I not delivered him.”
The Arkon fell silent. After a moment, in a far more normal tone, he said, “Students are not your possessions. They are not currency.”
“You show your ignorance. They are the currency Killianas requires to live and breathe.” His voice was clearer now.
The Arkon’s, however, had not wavered. He raised it. “Come, Starrante, Androsse, Kavallac. Return to your duties and do not leave them while danger remains.” Kaylin couldn’t see what he’d done—but knew, regardless.
Kaylin was closest to Starrante in position, and was therefore aware of the moment the Arkon’s words—and the books he held—had their desired effect: the Arbiters began to brighten in color, to solidify in shape. She pulled Robin to the side, but let Terrano make his own way clear.
Starrante didn’t seem to notice either of them. Kavallac and Androsse were also turned toward the Arkon’s back—and perhaps to what lay beyond it: Candallar, Illanen and Baltrin.
“I think,” Starrante said softly, “it is time you returned to your classes.” He spoke to Robin, because no one else in the library was part of those classes.
“I’m not sure I can,” Robin replied. “I don’t know how to get there from here.”
“You found the chancellor’s office. I trust that you can, with some effort, find a door.”
When Robin failed to move, he sighed. “I will never do this again,” he told the boy. “I am too old for it, and students are not meant to harry and make demands of librarians—beyond the permissions they seek to study the books the library contains. Remember this.”
“I’m never going to forget any of this,” Robin said.
Starrante spit out a gob of webbing—this time, without the pink residue that strongly implied internal injury. He worked that into a web, just as he’d done any other time. But this web closely resembled a door, and when it was done and Starrante breathed on it, it became a door. With a handle.
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