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Cast in Conflict

Page 36

by Michelle Sagara


  Hope squawked loudly in her ear. The rock will not kill you. His tone implied, “if I haven’t, and I’m reconsidering.”

  She had entirely forgotten his presence in Emmerian’s prison. He had not made a single sound.

  I did make the attempt. Given the presence of Lord Emmerian, I decided against forcing the issue, but I am not pleased.

  “Can you please remember that I’m not the one who trapped us there?”

  Hope snorted. You wish to turn left here.

  Since left more or less looked like the same configuration of shaking pillars and stone floor, Kaylin grimaced. Whatever it was Hope saw, she didn’t.

  Clearly the cohort didn’t see it either.

  “Sedarias!”

  Sedarias came to a halt and turned toward Kaylin, her eyes blue, her expression annoyed.

  “Hope says turn left here!”

  The addition of the familiar’s name made a clear difference. “Does he say what’s to the left?”

  She shook her head.

  Sedarias gave Hope a very pointed glare. But she nodded to Terrano and Mandoran, and the entire small group headed toward the left. Beyond the closest pillar, Kaylin saw more wall; there was no door, no arch, to indicate that anything but wall existed.

  Hope squawked loudly. The volume wasn’t necessary; Hope’s voice was either close enough to her ear Dragons shouting didn’t swamp it, or magical in nature. Or both.

  Kaylin didn’t understand the squawking, which meant his words weren’t aimed at her. She no longer required him. It wasn’t a branching hallway they were looking for. It was the pillar itself. She closed her eyes as she approached it, collided—gently—with its curved, engraved surface—and then passed through it.

  * * *

  The roar of Dragons “conversing” vanished, which caused her to open her eyes and pivot. She saw Sedarias, Terrano, Mandoran. There was no pillar, and no obvious door, but absent either, this was a room that reminded Kaylin very much of Helen’s parlor when they had significant guests. There were chairs here, and the walls were adorned with shelves that held both books and the assorted detritus of various tenants. There was even a window that took up half of one wall; sunlight fell to the carpeted floor, without so much as a dust mote to break its beams.

  “It’s only the three of you?” Kaylin asked.

  “Here, yes.”

  “Only three of you came to Karriamis?”

  Sedarias shrugged, but behind her, Mandoran rolled his eyes. “Karriamis didn’t appear to be open to visitors.”

  “So you just walked in without an invitation?”

  “Bellusdeo insisted. Look—I’ve never seen her eyes that color before, and even if the rest of the fief is composed of flimsy, mortal buildings, from what you’ve said, the ones that are still standing are full of actual people. We didn’t think—”

  “You didn’t,” Sedarias corrected him.

  “—that the immediate buildings would survive. She was looking for a fight. There aren’t a lot of Dragons in this fief at best guess; people were probably huddling under tables. Point is, they weren’t fleeing their homes to get as far from the fire-blast radius as possible.

  “So Terrano offered to let her in.”

  “Me?”

  “Fine. Terrano and I offered to let her in.”

  “Who else did you let in?”

  “Sedarias.”

  Food appeared on the largest of the tables. Kaylin wasn’t hungry, but it didn’t occur to her that the food itself was poisoned; Karriamis had many, many ways of killing them all. Or at least killing Kaylin, Emmerian, and Bellusdeo; the rest of the cohort were accustomed to getting around the rules and laws of a Hallionne. Towers were created to stand against the incursions of Shadow; they hadn’t been built to take the cohort into account.

  She once again communicated with her partner. We’re out. Emmerian and Bellusdeo aren’t. Who else is here?

  Annarion entered behind Sedarias. Allaron and Karian are with me; I think the rest of the cohort remained with Helen.

  I doubt it. They’re probably in the fief somewhere.

  According to Sedarias, Helen disapproved of their intent. She didn’t try to keep them locked up; she argued. Nothing she said could reach Bellusdeo—again, according to Sedarias—but the cohort chose to split up. Helen made clear that there was a risk; she considered Annarion far enough along in his lessons that he could head to the fiefs.

  Karian as well. She strongly urged Sedarias to leave Torrisant and Fallessian behind, and given they intended to enter the fiefs...

  She nodded. A large, destructive battle—a battle that had cost the Hawks and the Swords dearly—had occurred in Elantra because of the cohort, or more particularly, Annarion. Something about their presence could be felt and heard by creatures that lived in Ravellon, and Candallar was closer to Ravellon.

  Where are you guys, anyway?

  We haven’t left the foyer. I think Annarion is probably scouting and relaying that information back to Sedarias. Karriamis has made no attempt to throw you all out?

  Not yet.

  Has he spoken to you at all?

  No. He’s clearly willing to speak to the Dragons. Kaylin winced. I think he’ll have time to speak if Bellusdeo and Emmerian don’t somehow manage to reduce his Avatar to ashes. They were trying when I left.

  I don’t think they have any chance of succeeding.

  Kaylin was less certain. It’s an Avatar, so no. It’s only if they’re really determined to take the Tower out that they’ll do anything intelligent. Right now they’re both...angry.

  She felt something different from Severn then: confusion.

  What is it? What’s happened?

  A different voice—a familiar voice—said, We are knocking on the door, and I believe the corporal can hear us.

  It was Nightshade.

  22

  Wait, who is “we”?

  An’Teela and I.

  Why? To Severn, she said, I thought you said Teela wasn’t coming. It’s Teela and Nightshade at the door. Possibly Tain as well, although Nightshade hasn’t mentioned him by name.

  Severn came to a decision; he answered the knock. Teela, without Tain, was standing beside Nightshade in the large frame.

  “Where is Karriamis?” Teela asked.

  “He’s apparently occupied at the moment—he has two angry Dragons on his hands.” He stopped as he looked more closely at the weapons Teela and Nightshade now bore. Because he did, Kaylin saw them as well.

  “We have a problem,” Teela told him, speaking Elantran.

  Severn, not stupid, added one and one together. “The outcaste is on the move?”

  “The outcaste is on the move.”

  “Alone?”

  “What do you think?”

  Why now? He’d been holed up in Ravellon since his failed attempt to somehow corrupt the Aerians. Or so she’d assumed. But he’d been in the Aerie as an Aerian. He could take Aerian form; he could probably take any form he damn well wanted. Which meant he could have been causing trouble anywhere.

  But she was certain, given the weapons Teela and Nightshade now carried, that he hadn’t bothered with that subterfuge. He was draconic.

  Sedarias was clearly receiving the same information Kaylin had, albeit from a different source.

  “Do you think the outcaste wants the Tower?” Kaylin asked. The question filled the room, and Severn heard it as well.

  “The Tower would not take him,” Sedarias replied, which wasn’t entirely a no. “I think he’s here for Bellusdeo.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think? She’s the only female Dragon. We’ve all been concerned—don’t make that face, you already know this—about Imperial Dragon babies. That would, however, be entirely preferable to outcaste Dragon babies.”

 
“You think he wants children?”

  “If he has any dynastic ambitions, yes. In the end, we all require them if our lines are to continue.”

  “Wait, do you want them?”

  “All dynastic ambitions, Kaylin.”

  The idea of Sedarias as a mother caused a mental cramp. She shook her head to clear it. “Bellusdeo would kill him first. If she knows he’s here, and her mood hasn’t gotten any better, that’s the first thing she’s going to try.”

  “She is not a fool.” Sedarias’s tone implied that Kaylin certainly was. “Annarion is going to join his brother.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “I’m sure it’s a terrible idea,” Sedarias replied, eyes a darker blue than they had been. “But I’ll be there as well.”

  “There’s no door here.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t think you have a reliable way to join them.”

  Even Mandoran rolled his eyes. “Look, we can’t do anything with the two raging Dragons. I don’t think they need us. We might be able to do something about the outcaste, especially if we have two of The Three here. And if he starts to attack here, those rickety buildings surrounding the Tower are going to get flattened without any effort on his part. Preserving them would be harder.”

  Kaylin turned to Hope.

  Hope, however, shook his head. It is the same, he told her. You must be willing to sacrifice something of value if you wish me to intercede to save the fieflings. It is not something you could do on your own; it is not something you could do with your marks. Not as you are.

  She grimaced. On days like these, she was grateful that she wasn’t the Emperor, wasn’t a fieflord, wasn’t, in fact, a ruler of anything. The choices she could make without consequence were far more varied than the choices the Emperor could make. She thought it would be exhausting.

  Fine. We’ll figure it out ourselves.

  Hope nodded.

  Kaylin turned to the three members of the cohort in time to see them become transparent, losing solidity as they did.

  “Hey!”

  Mandoran rematerialized.

  “Don’t leave me here—take me with you.”

  “We will,” Sedarias said, although she could no longer be seen, “if you promise that we won’t have to endure your endless whining afterward.”

  “No good,” Terrano added. He, too, could no longer be seen. “Teela wants us to leave you here.”

  “There’s nothing I can do here!”

  “Teela asks, ‘And your point is?’”

  Kaylin replied in Leontine. Nightshade was amused.

  “I can get people to leave their homes.”

  “You’ve already said that being homeless in the fiefs is almost a death sentence.”

  “Even fieflings won’t stay in a burning building—but they’ll get trapped in one that’s crushed.”

  “Teela says she’d like you to use your head for a change.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Karriamis, this close to the outcaste, has actual power. You have both Bellusdeo and Emmerian, and if you can get them to stop arguing, the outcaste will be far, far less of a threat.”

  “She wants me—me—to interrupt three Dragons while they’re fighting?”

  “She wants you to get their attention, and she believes you can.”

  * * *

  Severn didn’t like it, but didn’t disagree. Sedarias, Terrano, and Mandoran fell silent, which probably meant they’d left to join their cohort.

  Nightshade probably wasn’t going to be happy to see Annarion. She’d always wanted a sibling, but had come to understand that sibling relationships weren’t always all they were cut out to be. Or at least not Barrani siblings.

  She stood in a hall that could accommodate flying Dragons and began to look for a door. At least she wouldn’t have to keep screaming just to be heard.

  Hope bit her ear. She reached up and inserted her hand between his small jaws and the rest of her ear when he let go. “What?”

  He huffed. The breath was visible, a small cloud of hanging gray and colored particles. Although all of the Barrani of her acquaintance turned practically green when he breathed anywhere near them, she was more worried about Dragons and fieflings than a cloud of strange smoke.

  This, he said, annoyed, I can help with. Unless you’d prefer to spend hours pounding doorless walls and pillars.

  “Can you keep me alive while I try to get the attention of at least two enraged Dragons?”

  Yes. If Karriamis chooses to intervene—against you—I am less certain of my answer; the range of weapons at his disposal in this place is much less predictable.

  Kaylin nodded. Hope lifted himself off her shoulder and flew, and she followed.

  * * *

  The ground shook, and the cracks in the pillars that had caused her to abandon this hall in the first place were wider. But she knew, if it felt like stone, it wasn’t; it was part of the Tower. Karriamis could kill her easily if he wanted her dead. He could preserve her if he wanted her alive. If he was aware of her at all.

  She came to a stop, skidding on smooth stone, when she saw the fissure that bisected the hall. Red and orange light radiated upward; it looked like a vision of the hells. She didn’t ask Hope if this was where she needed to go; she knew.

  The Dragons no longer encased their roaring with syllables; the cries were raw, but this close she could almost hear the differing textures, and she wondered then if anger had always, always been mixed with so much pain.

  She kind of wanted to strangle Karriamis right now; her anger didn’t have a lot of pain in it. But that wouldn’t help Bellusdeo or Emmerian, and it wouldn’t help Teela, the cohort, or Nightshade.

  Shouting her lungs out wouldn’t help, either. Closing her eyes, she looked at her arms, and the marks—which were glowing blue—left her skin. She could see them clearly—but could also see the marks imprinted on parts of her body her eyes couldn’t normally reach.

  Today, she felt their weight. They’d become so heavy she was forced to her knees; this wasn’t what the marks normally did.

  But she couldn’t wait, couldn’t sit here and let the marks themselves decide what it was she was supposed to do. She knew what she had to accomplish.

  She didn’t know how.

  Words were tools—but they had to be understood, right? She had to understand them, to put them together, to make sense of things. That was the point of language.

  Why the Ancients had thought it was a good idea to have so damn many different languages was a constant irritation. But she didn’t want to give up her mother tongue; she couldn’t reasonably expect others to want to give up theirs. She’d learned how to speak Leontine, Aerian, Barrani. She needed to learn how to speak...

  True Words.

  What, then, did she need these words to do? What could she ask of them? “Make my voice louder”? “Make my words clearer”? But if she said the wrong thing, if she couldn’t break the cycle of anger and rage and pain, volume didn’t matter.

  Yes, she needed to communicate.

  But they had to be willing—or able—to listen. Kaylin in a rage didn’t think clearly; Bellusdeo in a rage didn’t either.

  She had no idea what Emmerian did with rage; whether it ruled him or he ruled it. At the moment, she was pretty certain it was the former. He’d immediately turned on Karriamis when the Avatar had appeared. Bellusdeo hadn’t been far behind.

  Hells, if normal daggers could injure the Tower, Kaylin might have been tempted to join in. But only briefly.

  What she really needed was a giant bucket of extremely cold water that she could just upend over the damn crevice. Something entirely different from what the three Dragons were doing now—which probably involved claws, teeth, wings, and fire. Things that caused a diff
erent type of pain, maybe in an attempt to avoid the deeper one.

  Kaylin understood this.

  She hadn’t expected it of Emmerian or Karriamis, the latter of whom was ancient, which meant old enough to Know Better.

  But no. Old or not, ancient or not, they were people, and people who’d had more than enough time to amass a world of pain. Kaylin had had two and a bit decades, and mortal memory being what it was, she probably didn’t remember a lot of it clearly anymore.

  She was pretty certain that the marks themselves wouldn’t turn into a giant bucket full of ice-cold water. They probably couldn’t be used as a bracing slap in the face either. She needed something...something...

  Silence.

  Silence. Quiet. The peace that existed when the silence wasn’t a product of conflict. The whole of the congregation of moving, circling marks stilled. They began to recede, to once again occupy her skin—all save one.

  It would have taken hundreds of words—she’d’ve spent them gladly if she were good with them—to describe what she now felt, to define it, to speak it clearly in any of the languages she knew. And even then, she thought she’d fail to fully explain, to fully capture, what this particular silence was.

  She might have expected that it would be a simple rune, not a complicated one; she’d’ve been wrong. It was dense with lines and squiggles, and three dots were set in an almost triangular pattern contained by the rest of the structure. But if she thought more about it, this made sense: silence had many textures, and peace had many textures.

  She caught the rune in the palm of her hand and quickly brought her second hand to bear, because the mark grew, maintaining the pattern, but...enlarging it. Here, lines that resembled delicate brush strokes became solid enough to carry the weight of an entire department’s worth of coats. They became substantially heavier; she was glad that she’d already dropped to her knees to brace herself, because it was necessary.

  “I could use a little help here,” she grunted.

 

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