Cast in Conflict

by Michelle Sagara

  She inhaled. What had happened to Mandoran had happened slowly. What had happened in the West March—the only other experience that was in any way similar to this—had happened quickly. Had these Shadows been the point of attack in the West March, she would not have been able to save the Barrani who’d been injured; she had time only because Emmerian was many, many times the size of a single Barrani warrior.

  She almost despaired—but had she, Emmerian would have noticed instantly.

  No. She had gone to Ravellon for a very brief visit because of Shadows like this. She had emerged with Mandoran and Bakkon. How?

  Ah. The word. The word on her palm, the new mark. The word and the glove of Shadow. The Shadow was not the only spoken voice she could “hear.” The mark on her palm, much quieter, was in its own way a continuous march of syllables. It was the quieter part she needed to work on.

  She began to speak the syllables of the new mark. She began to speak them out loud, to put all of the mechanisms of throat and lung and jaw into the pronunciation, the flow of syllables. The Shadows within Emmerian slowed, the words they spoke coming to a halt as if words were motion. She could see the mark on her palm clearly, although she couldn’t see her palm, pressed as it was against Emmerian’s silver scales.

  As she focused on the word, the Shadow tendrils slowed, coming to an uneven stop in various parts of the Dragon’s flesh. They did not retreat; they spoke, the uniformity of their foreign language giving lie to the idea that they were separate entities.

  She heard Emmerian’s labored breath as if it, too, were just one component of that aforementioned crowd—the member that she had come here to save. She spoke more clearly. The Shadows hissed; she saw them begin, once again, to move. She couldn’t physically reach into Emmerian’s body to touch them, as she had with the wall. She had to force them out.

  Had to excise the small trails of flesh that were no longer entirely Dragon. Was this what had happened to the outcaste? Was the outcaste enslaved, just as Bellusdeo had been?

  Did it matter?

  No. Not right now. She forced syllables of her own out, trying to maintain the strength of her voice while simultaneously ripping out parts of Emmerian’s body—the parts transformed, the parts where a new normal had been established. New normal meant the body would not consider itself damaged; she couldn’t save him by healing alone.

  Her voice faltered every time she encountered a mass of this transformed new version of healthy, and every time the syllables paused, the Shadow tendrils moved. She managed to force one out of the body; she didn’t look to see where it went. She wasn’t alone here; there were others present who could deal with Shadow if they knew it existed.

  But the syllables lagged as she struggled, and the lag caused the damage to spread. It spread more slowly than it had before she’d begun, but she was almost certain that she was going to be overwhelmed—or that Emmerian would. This close to him, if he lost control over himself, she was unlikely to survive.

  As she worked, as she switched focus between the necessary extraction and the word that seemed to halt the Shadows’ spread, a voice joined hers. It was Bakkon—she was almost certain it was Bakkon; there was a bell-like inflection to the syllables, and he spoke them as if they were his native tongue.

  Spoke them as if they were a dirge, a lamentation, an ending that he had not desired; his pain reminded her that bells were often sounded at funerals. But he spoke the syllables clearly, his voice so strong he might have been speaking into her ear. And she could follow his syllables, could mouth them and be pulled along by them while she focused on Emmerian.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder; another voice joined Bakkon’s. To her surprise, she recognized the voice: Sedarias. She had expected Mandoran or Terrano. But no, she was certain they were present, no matter where in the fief they were.

  She swallowed air, and exhaled fear. She wasn’t winning this fight. Although she forced strands of Shadow out of the Dragon, it wasn’t fast enough. It wasn’t enough.

  She was going to lose him. She was going to lose him, and Bellusdeo would lose him; Sedarias could probably get away. Nightshade and Teela had two weapons that could kill Dragons if it became necessary. Bakkon continued to speak; she continued to work, her lips moving almost unconsciously across the syllables the Wevaran had well in hand.

  “ENOUGH!”

  Bellusdeo’s voice. Bellusdeo was on the ground; the force of the roar—in very clear Barrani—caused tremors.

  “When the war is over—when it is finally over and if I survive it—I will captain the Tower while the Tower stands. I will learn the names of the people who will become my people. I will build a better home, a better life, for anyone born here, past or present. I will raise my children in the Aerie of the Tower, and I will teach them to fly and to fight and to seek the freedom of the skies and the weight of the responsibility that comes with that freedom.

  “I will claim no other home. I will surrender no territory while I live.

  “I will learn, Karriamis. I will learn what you have to teach. I will offer you my name.”

  “And is this what you want?” a familiar voice replied. Karriamis, the Avatar of the Tower. And of course he was aware—they were in his fief.

  Emmerian struggled to rise, moving beneath Kaylin’s splayed palms. She heard the wet sound of webbing being spit and attempted to ignore it.

  “This is what I want,” Bellusdeo said.

  “Child—”

  “I didn’t say I would tolerate condescension or disrespect.”

  Karriamis chuckled. “And why do you say this now?”

  “Because you asked what I would do when the war was done. You asked what I want to do when the war is over—and it’s an ending I don’t and can’t believe will happen. It’s a game of make-believe.”

  “No, it is not.”

  “It is. But I will play this game with you. I will play it with myself. I will let myself believe—for just long enough—that I can see an ending and that I’ll survive it.”

  “And if you do, this is what you want?”

  “I want a home of my own,” she replied, voice far lower. As if to say it was somehow disloyal. Kaylin didn’t believe she was lying, though. “I want a place in which I can stand and be...myself.”

  “I see. And you did not want this on prior visits?”

  Kaylin wanted to stand up, turn around, and punch Karriamis in the jaw—assuming he was in his human form.

  Don’t, Emmerian said. It was the first time she had heard his voice so clearly.

  You’re just saying that because you want to hit him first.

  Hit was not what I had in mind, no.

  She was surprised at the clarity of his voice, surprised at the sudden dwindling presence of Shadow within him. She had struggled to contain it, to force it out—but she knew this wasn’t down to anything she’d personally done.

  Bakkon surprised her. He started to chitter, an agitation of sound broken by tiny bells.

  It was Karriamis who replied. “Yes, old friend.” He spoke in Barrani. “I thought never to see you again. And I am heartened by your appearance here; it is clear that you were allowed your escape in the presence of the battle between the Dragons and the Shadows.”

  “I am not so easy to kill as all that,” Bakkon replied.

  The Shadows were gone, now. Kaylin looked up; she could see no outcaste in the air above the fief.

  “He is no longer here. I admit that he is far more subtle—and more powerful—than the Shadows that have previously managed to infiltrate this fief. Come, Chosen—join us.”

  She hesitantly lifted her hand from Emmerian’s flank. When she did, he dwindled in size, his shape changing, the entirety of his presence once again contained in—confined by—a mortal form. He wore silver plate armor; from a distance, he might have been an Imperial Guard.

 
Kaylin turned toward Karriamis, who had adopted a similar form; he wore clothing, not the scale armor forced on the Dragons who would otherwise be butt naked in the streets. Not that this would generally bother Bellusdeo.

  Bellusdeo wasn’t butt naked; she was draconic. Karriamis stood beneath her, tilting his head to meet her enormous eyes—which were, sadly, red.

  “You’re going to want to get in there quickly,” Kaylin murmured to Emmerian.

  “We can all hear you,” Bellusdeo rumbled.

  “We can,” Karriamis agreed, although he didn’t look away from the gold Dragon. Her eyes remained red. “My apologies, Lord Bellusdeo. You were correct in some fashion; this is not the time for testing. I have been watching the borders for the entirety of my existence—but that one, I had not seen.”

  “Which variant of that one?”

  “The outcaste.”

  Kaylin, however, understood. She continued to watch the Dragons but spoke to Nightshade as she did. Can you hear it? Can you hear the name of the fief?

  I can.

  Is it Bellusdeo?

  It is. I am not sure I approve of this Karriamis—but neither he nor the fief is my problem. She felt him wince and sought sight of him with her actual eyes; he was bleeding, but the wound didn’t seem deep.

  It is not deep, and no, I do not require healing. His tone suggested she’d be the one who required it if she tried.

  “Lord Bellusdeo,” Karriamis said. “We await you.” He then turned to Bakkon. “Is it foolish to hope that you have not made a commitment to the Tower of Liatt?”

  “To Aggarok? No. I believe some negotiations might be required, and Aggarok was always difficult. Unless they have changed markedly in the centuries since last we met.”

  “I cannot say. I am not permitted—by construction and design—to leave the fief over which I stand sentinel. But you returned without speaking to him?”

  “I felt the young Chosen might require aid. And to be frank, Aggarok was unsettling before his ascension, and I don’t have the stomach for him at the moment.” He then turned to Kaylin. In a slightly more anxious voice, he said, “You did not lose the bag?”

  “I gave it to Mandoran.”

  “I have it,” Mandoran said, from a distance. “Are you sure you don’t want to take the bag—and the books it contains—to the chancellor of the Academia?”

  “I am certain of very little at the moment, your city seems so bleak and lifeless,” the Wevaran replied.

  Karriamis turned toward Bellusdeo; he lifted a brow in question.

  Smoke jetted out of her nostrils before she lowered her head and began to transform. Her eyes remained red when she was no longer an obvious Dragon. “I can hear Kaylin’s stomach from here. If any of you would care to join us, we’re repairing to the Tower.” She paused. “You can adequately feed everyone?”

  It was Karriamis’s turn to snort. “Of course. I must say it has been quite a while since I last offered to entertain quite so many people—but if that is your desire, it will be my pleasure.”

  Bellusdeo snorted again. She glanced, once, at Emmerian; Emmerian met—and held—her gaze. When she didn’t look away, he nodded. She offered him an arm, Imperial style; he grinned, because he had lifted his arm to do the same. He lowered his arm, accepting hers, and she led them all toward the Tower she had finally claimed as her home.

  * * *

  Sedarias stopped at the border of the Tower’s strongest influence. Terrano, not paying attention, stopped at Sedarias and earned a glare.

  Karriamis turned to the leader of the cohort. “You will not enter?”

  “We are all exhausted,” she said quietly. “And at the moment, I desire no further conflict.”

  “And you believe by entering, such conflict will be engaged?”

  Sedarias exhaled. “I wanted to take the Tower.”

  “No, you did not.”

  One brow rose.

  “You wanted the Tower to be taken. You would not have captained it yourself. While I grant that there is enough connection between all of you, you are nonetheless separate beings.”

  She said nothing, although she shifted her glare to Mandoran.

  “Yes,” Karriamis said, smiling. “But none of your kin—and I will call them kin, forsaking the more exact term—desired this responsibility for anything but the sake of the cohort.”

  “Like you’d care,” muttered Terrano.

  “What makes you think I would not?”

  “Candallar.”

  The Dragon Avatar’s smile sharpened. “You almost make me regret my choice,” he said, with no hint of regret in his tone at all. “I believe I would find association with you interesting and challenging.”

  “Candallar,” Terrano repeated.

  “Do not attempt to silence him; it is a wasted effort.” These words were offered to Sedarias.

  Bellusdeo stood on the periphery of the Tower but had turned to observe the Avatar and the cohort. Her eyes were an orange-red, but as Kaylin watched, they lightened into a purer orange.

  “I could not accept what you offered,” Karriamis said. “Not when the future of the race that birthed me is at stake. Candallar once showed promise; he did not live up to it because he chose fear. He believed on some level that he was not worthy because others did not value him as he desired to be valued.

  “You are not Candallar, An’Mellarionne. But I am not your home. Nor could I be. Yes, there is safety for you and your chosen kin within my walls, but it is not safety you desire; no more do you desire to fight the war I was created to fight. Should you require safety beyond what the mortal can provide—ah, apologies, beyond what Lord Kaylin can provide—you have it.”

  Sedarias was silent for a beat. “You are not offering us that hospitality.”

  “No. It is not mine to offer. I believe Lord Bellusdeo would, should it become necessary—should nothing change. But life is change. I referred to the Hallionne.”

  It was Terrano who said, “Alsanis.”

  Karriamis nodded. “Should you desire safety, Alsanis would always offer you a home—all of you.”

  “We cannot fight our current battles from the West March,” Sedarias told the Avatar.

  “No. Not yet. But I hear his name, an echo of a different time. He was your home for centuries.”

  “He was our prison,” she snapped.

  “So, too, must the very young think, when they cannot yet walk or run independent of their parents.”

  Kaylin winced, but said nothing.

  “He would not imprison you now—any of you. But he, as you, was trapped in his responsibility, and I believe that even a Hallionne can grow lonely. Should you require a fortress, it is the Hallionne who will provide it. Do you doubt me?”

  It was Terrano who said, “No.”

  Bellusdeo came back down the stairs—for the Tower now looked like a Tower, not a cave or a cliff. Her eyes remained orange, but there were now visible flecks of gold in them. “I would take you all in,” she said quietly. “And I offer that now. I will offer it as blood oath, if you require it as proof.”

  Silence descended on the cohort; Sedarias, whose eyes were not surprisingly a martial, Barrani blue, turned toward her. Sedarias wasn’t Teela; she had never shown Bellusdeo the camaraderie that Teela had. She had never descended into teasing at the dining room table, as Mandoran had.

  But they were connected to Sedarias, and she could not avoid feeling some of what they felt. “I didn’t come here to aid you,” she said, voice, like the rest of her, stiff.

  Bellusdeo nodded, as if it were irrelevant.

  “I came to the Tower,” Sedarias continued.

  Kaylin raised a brow in Mandoran’s direction; he nodded.

  “I meant to take the Tower while you were distracted.”

  “Did you try?”

  S
ilence.

  Bellusdeo turned to Karriamis, raising the same brow that Kaylin had at Mandoran.

  Karriamis smiled. Unlike Mandoran, he neither confirmed nor denied.

  Bellusdeo exhaled. There was smoke in the air, but it dissipated as she turned her gaze on Sedarias. “I don’t believe you did try.”

  Sedarias said nothing. Mandoran and Terrano winced but remained silent.

  “But I understand what you wanted,” the Dragon continued, when Sedarias failed to speak. “I understand it, now. We have some things in common; war defined our lives in different ways when we did not have the power to decide for ourselves. But if we are not kin, if you do not consider me part of the family you have built, you are Kaylin’s family. And she is, clearly, yours.”

  “She is not mine.”

  “I understand her mortality is a concern. She will age. She will die. When she does, Helen will seek a new tenant—a mortal tenant. If you have not consolidated your power enough by that point—”

  “How could we in a scant few decades?”

  “—come to me. I will offer the safety that Helen offered; I will offer you a home. I owe you that much.”

  This stopped Sedarias. “You owe us?”

  Bellusdeo nodded.

  “You came to the West March. You found us!”

  “I came to the West March by accident—it was largely Kaylin’s fault.”

  “And you helped her find us?”

  “I was bored.”

  For the first time this evening, Sedarias cracked an actual smile. “Things are certainly never boring when Kaylin is around. It’s a wonder she’s survived.”

  “It takes deliberate effort on the part of the people who are unaccountably fond of her,” Bellusdeo agreed. “But you must know I would have killed her when Karriamis first tested me.”

  Kaylin stopped breathing for one long beat.

  “I know Mandoran feared it,” Sedarias finally conceded.

  “I’m fond of him. I didn’t expect to be—half the time I have to struggle not to turn him to ash.”