Cast in Conflict

by Michelle Sagara

  “Yes. But that is now for the cohort to resolve. Thank you.”

  “Why couldn’t they have done that in the first place?”

  Helen was silent for an uncomfortable beat. “I try not to interfere, dear. I try not to ask intrusive questions. I know much of your life and your day—and I do strongly agree with Lord Nightshade—Karriamis is extremely dangerous, and I would vastly prefer you avoided his Tower. But you must make your own decisions, and I accept that.”

  “We weren’t talking about me,” was the uncomfortable reply.

  Helen continued as if Kaylin hadn’t spoken. “However, I have lived with you—with your words, your thoughts, your dreams and your nightmares. Let me ask you just one question. Do you remember what you did on the day you discovered the people who were kidnapping and selling children?”

  Kaylin blinked.

  “You used the power of your marks. Do you remember what you did? No, do not answer. It is not necessary. You do. Do you think that Teela or Tain could have stopped you?”

  “They didn’t care.”

  “No. Do you believe they could have stopped you?”

  Kaylin looked down at her feet.

  “You have very little in common with Sedarias,” Helen continued, her voice much softer. “But not nothing. This is the danger, always, of power; if you lose control—and we all lose control some of the time—the damage done is far, far harder to recover from. What you did for Sedarias, you believe I could do. I could not.

  “To Sedarias, I am a building. She would hear the words, but she would not listen, would not absorb them.”

  “But she lived with Alsanis for centuries!”

  Helen nodded. “Alsanis was, in some fashion, the strict and severe parent that she had never had before. You think that her parents were both strict and severe. They were not. Alsanis was parental; he was old. He interfered. He decided what was best for the children in his care.

  “In her own fashion, and as she is capable of it, she cares deeply for Alsanis—but she wants him at a distance while she finds her own feet. I am...a building. I am not Alsanis; she knows that. She trusts me to keep the people I choose to offer shelter safe. But she cannot listen to me; she could not listen to Alsanis.

  “She could only barely listen to you—but she could and did. You are part of her family, even if she’s afraid that in remaining here she will lose that family.

  “I think it is good that she stays here and makes peace with the fact that they are all conjoined and they are also all separate. They are not Sedarias. The fact that they are not, and that they are still and will always be part of the cohort, is something she must face and accept.

  “But as you have noted, it is not easy. You were afraid that you would personally lose Teela. But you also understood that these long-ago friends were a source of grief and pain, and you wanted Teela to be happy. Both of these feelings were true; they were both yours. You chose. Sometimes it is hard to make the right choice—but life without such conflicts does not exist.

  “Sedarias is very strong, but she is also—as you have seen—fragile. Fragile in ways that you no longer are. Yes, she has had much longer—but not in this world. I will not call it the real world; her time in Alsanis was real. But there, no strangers intruded, no responsibilities to others had to be borne; they couldn’t be.

  “They thought of Teela as lost. They focused on trying to reconnect with her. But even that was not thinking of other people; Teela was a part of them.

  “Now, they have left the nest. They are interacting with other people. They are taking on other responsibilities, or exploring possibilities that did not exist for them for almost the entirety of their lives. They are looking outward, not inward, because they can.

  “Your fear of losing Teela was small, compared to Sedarias’s fear. The cohort are the first people Sedarias dared to openly care for. She is afraid that now that they have choice, the only thing she has to offer is power. The power of Mellarionne, if she can hold it. It’s what she was raised to believe and to value. She is of course wrong. But she is not good at listening, at hearing.”

  “She has to know they’re not lying—they’re talking, all of them, through the bond of their True Names.”

  “What she knows, what she feels, these are not the same. She could listen to you because you are an outsider. But not so much of an outsider that you have a vested interest in placating her, in pleasing her.”

  “So...if she liked me more, she’d listen less?”

  Helen chuckled, but her mouth, when it came to rest, was drawn down in the corners. “Yes. But if you really think about it, you’ll probably understand it.”

  “Will it make me any happier?”

  “Probably not. You’ve often wondered why Teela cares about you. And sometimes you tell yourself it’s only because you have the marks of the Chosen. Not often,” she added softly, “but sometimes. You do not think as compulsively as Sedarias is wont to do, and you don’t dwell often on the fears. But if you did, you would be far more like her.

  “But what you said is true: she would die for them. They are her family in any way you define family. They will stand with or beside her against any enemies. But not against each other, not that way. She did not take control of Mandoran. She did try.”

  “But Severn—”

  “It was not quite the same. But it’s the same impulse, writ large. You weren’t horrified at what Severn attempted.”

  Kaylin had already said this, but nodded.

  “He was. It is Sedarias’s own guilt and self-loathing she must work through. But this is a start: she has stopped making any attempt to justify the actions to herself. Severn never made the attempt—but his action was instinctive, primal. Sedarias has a singular ability to make the instinctive and the primal work for her, rather than against her—but there are snarls and pitfalls.

  “I believe they will be talking for some time. You wanted to ask me something, and we began that discussion before it was so perilously interrupted.”

  Kaylin was exhausted. And hungry. She could barely remember what she’d wanted to talk about; it seemed like she’d been flying above rocks for a week. But Helen led her out of the basement, and back up the stairs to the long hall which led, at its end, to an open-air patio. Severn was seated. And eating.

  He looked up as the two approached, setting fork aside.

  “Sedarias is fine, for now. I used to envy what she built—but another day like this anytime soon would probably kill me.”

  Helen nodded. “Now, what did you want to discuss?”

  It was Severn who answered. “Karriamis.”

  “Ah. I know very little about Karriamis’s history. I understand what he now is—inasmuch as it is possible to understand a person one has never met. He is the core and the heart of the Tower he became to stand against Ravellon.”

  Kaylin nodded. “He wouldn’t tell us why he chose Candallar. He wouldn’t discuss that at all—he implied that you wouldn’t either, but...that you might if I asked persistently.”

  “Pestered is an unfortunate word,” Helen replied.

  “It’s probably deserved. I know better than to interfere in an argument between angry Dragons—but I did it anyway.”

  “You are young. It might be hard to believe, but ten years from now, twenty, you will find it much easier to do what seems pragmatic. You react emotionally. I trust your reactions. But you do not always see all of the context for any given set of emotions that others experience.

  “You are mortal. You know that I choose mortal tenants.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “Some small part of you believes it’s because you will die of old age, and if I have somehow made the wrong choice, I won’t have to suffer with it for long.”

  Did she? Maybe. Maybe she did believe that. But...she didn’t. She didn’t, not most of the time
.

  “Exactly. But you wonder, don’t you?”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “What is your answer, right now?”

  “You wanted me because what I wanted from a home, you wanted to give.” It was a practiced answer; she had said it to herself many times.

  “But?”

  “I don’t give you anything.”

  “This is not true, but I understand the concern. You feel it often: you have taken so much, you have been given so much, and you have given so little in return.”

  “It’s true.”

  “You fail to understand what it is you can give; you think of giving as work, as something that takes effort and will. You think of it as transactional, but only in relation to yourself. You can tell me, clearly, what Teela has given you. You can tell me, just as clearly, what I have given you. But you feel on some level you have done nothing to deserve it. You believe that you belong with the Hawks in the Halls of Law—and you can point to the many things you’ve done because on some level, those are worthy work.

  “I like your openness. Teela could not give it. Bellusdeo could not give it. Severn?”

  He shook his head.

  “No. You are not a child, Kaylin—but you are not yet fully adult. You retain some of the impulsiveness of youth, some of the joy—and the despair and the anger, because nothing is unalloyed. When you are tired, when you are trying your hardest, we feel that we can give something of value to you. Perhaps what you give us is intangible: you appreciate us.

  “You love us.”

  “But...”

  “Love means different things to different people, yes. But even Sedarias understands why you are my tenant, and why she could not be. What she needs is so complex I cannot give it to her. She is not jealous of this. She understood, and understands, why Annarion and Mandoran are fond of you. It is Bellusdeo’s interaction with Mandoran she finds difficult.”

  “Because our association will pass in a few decades.”

  “Yes, dear. She can be patient. She knows how to wait. Bellusdeo, however, is a Dragon, and if Sedarias accepts this—and she does—it goes against the brief childhood she spent in the real world.” Helen exhaled; breeze came. Dishes vanished.

  “She is angry because Mandoran and Annarion, in her view, have thrown away the entirety of their life experience in order to befriend her. Even Terrano has grown to like her—but he is similar in many ways to Mandoran. She is afraid. It is a fear you understand. Do you think Karriamis would accept her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No?”

  “He accepted Candallar.”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I could not ever give Candallar the home he wanted. I would always be a resting place while he looked toward and yearned for his real home. But you are not, I think, wrong in that one regard. He had nothing when he arrived in Karriamis. Candallar was made outcaste—and you must be aware of what that means to Dragonkind. You cannot imagine what Candallar was, when he first arrived.”

  “Why can you?”

  “I have had experience with many, many people during the entirety of my existence. You think you are Kaylin, and you are. And you will remain Kaylin—but experience, for better or worse, will change you. Things that you feared once, you no longer fear. You do not fear starvation; you do not fear the Ferals. You know what you’ve done in a desperate, terrified attempt to survive. You know the moment you decided that survival was not worth the cost you had paid.

  “You are not, now, the child you were seven or eight years ago. You will not be the person you are now in a decade. Some parts of you will remain, and perhaps you will think you have not changed much—but I will know. I will know this Kaylin, and I will know the Kaylin you will become. And perhaps what you will become in the future will not be the person who wanted what I have to give.”

  “That’s never going to happen.”

  Helen smiled. “I will not discuss all the details, but will say it has happened before. What I offered was not, in the end, what the person I sheltered grew into wanting. Ah, no, perhaps needing is a better word.”

  “They left you?”

  Helen nodded. “With my blessing,” she added. “Sometimes a person needs a nest, but they may not remain wingless; as they gain strength and confidence, they need to fly.”

  “But...but...what about you?”

  “I cannot be a prison. Ah, no. I can be a prison, but a prison is not a home. It is not the same with a Tower.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Towers understood that they would be under attack—and they could not anticipate all of the forms of attack; as Bellusdeo said, Shadow is subtle and subversive. The captains can command the Towers.”

  “Not according to Karriamis.”

  Helen said nothing.

  “You think he can be commanded.”

  “I do. And perhaps that is the other reason he chose Candallar. Candallar, Barrani and alone, would instinctively avoid offering commands to a Dragon.”

  “Bellusdeo won’t have that problem.”

  “No? Perhaps not. But Karriamis chose to test her, to destabilize her, in order to claim the opposite. She is uncertain,” Helen added, a rare intrusion into Bellusdeo’s privacy. “The reason she is driven to consider the Tower is her personal war—and its loss. As if captaining a Tower will allow her to redeem herself from her failure.”

  “That wasn’t her failure!”

  Helen smiled gently. “Karriamis, I’m certain, does not agree. But failure defines and shapes us—and not solely because we did fail. How we deal with failure, how we deal with what it means about ourselves and our own capabilities, says more about us than almost anything else could. He does not know who Bellusdeo is, in the wake of catastrophic failure. But dear, neither does she.

  “And while they may have similar goals in regard to Shadow, he is not meant to be a tool of vengeance. If that is all she has to offer, I do not believe she can take the Tower.”

  18

  It took two days for the household to recover. Emmerian and Bellusdeo had finished their discussion by the time Sedarias and the cohort could even begin theirs. Bellusdeo didn’t closet herself in her room, but she was orange-eyed and almost silent when she joined Kaylin in the dining room for meals. Mandoran was likewise mostly silent; he did dredge a smile out of Bellusdeo.

  Although Helen said she wasn’t worried about the cohort now, she was tense; Kaylin could tell because when tense, Helen forgot little details in her appearance—especially her eyes. They had been obsidian for two days.

  Bellusdeo came to breakfast on the third day. She wore a dress, not the familiar Dragon armor; her hair was pulled back and up, but it was the only concession she made to possibly martial action. Mandoran was at the table when she entered the room, as was Kaylin. Terrano and Annarion had joined them. The rest of the cohort—or those who were present—did not.

  “How is she?” Bellusdeo asked Mandoran.

  Mandoran grimaced. “She’d be a lot happier if I left off accompanying you.”

  “Then stay.”

  “I’d be a lot happier if I believed it wasn’t necessary.”

  To Kaylin’s surprise, Bellusdeo didn’t argue. She seemed subdued. Subdued but not beaten. “I will not argue. I owe you a debt.”

  Mandoran winced. “I would vastly prefer no talk of debt between us.”

  “Believe that I would prefer it as well. But it is simple fact. I would leave Kaylin at home, but that would cause arguments with the Emperor, and I am not up to those arguments at present.”

  “And Lord Emmerian?”

  “He will meet us in the fief of Tiamaris; I believe he had questions to ask of Tara, and she agreed to answer what she could.”

 
“Tara’s worried about you?”

  “He was kind enough not to mention it, but—you know Tara. What do you think?”

  Tara was definitely worried. But that was fair. Kaylin had spent two days worrying while trying to look cheerful.

  “You don’t have to go back,” Terrano told the gold Dragon.

  “I don’t want to go back,” Bellusdeo replied. “But I could not live with myself if I did not choose to face Karriamis again. I will not descend into cowardice.”

  “Do you still want the Tower?”

  “That is the question, isn’t it? If you had asked me four days ago, I would have said yes. Now?” She exhaled a bit of smoke. “Now I am uncertain. I admit that although I’ve known Tara since my arrival, it did not occur to me that I would have to compromise with another individual—and at that, a Dragon. I assumed that the Tower would conform to the conflict that has defined both of our lives—mine and Karriamis’s. That we would be compatriots.

  “I am uncertain of anything now. And I am uncertain that I could prevent Karriamis from taking risks I would never, ever take. We could fight—if he confronted me in combat, I think I would almost enjoy that—but I could not win that fight in the only sense that matters. He is the Tower. Agree with him or no, he gave the remainder of his eternity to become sentinel against Ravellon.

  “What we want, the war that we each perceive, is not the same. What I must decide is whether or not there is enough overlap that we might work together.”

  She did not add that Karriamis had to decide whether or not he wanted her to be the Tower’s captain. Kaylin thought he couldn’t do better—but no encounter with Candallar had been pleasant or helpful, and in the end, the fieflord had tried to kill Robin, a crime from which he couldn’t recover in Kaylin’s view.

  It had killed him.

  The Arkon—the former Arkon—had hoped to spare him for Karriamis’s sake. Candallar had not allowed him that grace. Kaylin felt no grief at his passing, but wondered if Karriamis did. She was almost certain, if the circumstances had caused Kaylin to be like Candallar, Helen would still grieve.