Cast in Flame

by Michelle Sagara

  She had not even tried to heal him. “Corporal Handred is using his weapon very near to where the familiar is hovering in our world. I think the Arkon is doing a variant of the same spell—but with much weaker chains.”

  One dark brow rose.

  “Meaning, if you’re going to arrive anywhere near where the ancestor is standing, don’t.”

  “Noted.” He grimaced as Kaylin withdrew her arm.

  “You owe me nothing,” she told him. “Everything you did, you did for the Lady’s sake.”

  He chuckled, which surprised her. “You are becoming more familiar with the social mores of my kin.”

  “Yes. And so far I’ve even survived them.”

  * * *

  She didn’t watch Evarrim go, and made no attempt to follow. Instead, she approached the two men locked in combat, looking for an opening of some kind. There wasn’t one. They both moved far too quickly. There would be a safe opening in the combat when one of them was dead.

  Kaylin.

  We can’t leave Annarion here.

  No. He should not have come. These lands are not safe for him; they are far too destabilizing.

  At least we don’t have Mandoran.

  No. I believe Helen contained him when she realized Annarion had departed. Mandoran will not be best pleased.

  At the moment, Mandoran was not her problem. Annarion was. He maintained the shape and form of a Barrani—but his grip was tenuous. Kaylin didn’t think it would last. She thought his eyes had grown larger and darker as the fighting progressed.

  He had not killed the ancestor. Watching him, Kaylin thought he might be capable of it. But only if he continued with the transformation that was slowly taking place. Of the two of Teela’s cohort who’d come from the West March to Elantra, Annarion had been the more reasonable. None of that reason was in evidence now.

  “Where is my brother?”

  Do you know where Nightshade is? she asked her familiar.

  No.

  Could you find him?

  Under one of two circumstances, yes.

  I’m going to assume that one of the two is the one I’ve already rejected.

  Yes.

  The other?

  You travel with me.

  This sounded a lot like “I can find him if you find him first” to Kaylin; she didn’t argue. Instead, she said, Can you help me pull Annarion out?

  His silence went on a beat too long. Yes. But I do not think we will be able to fully contain or constrict the enemy if I do so. I believe Annarion may be able to kill him, in the end. Even as he spoke he shifted, heading toward Kaylin, who stood a good five yards from the wide-ranging blades.

  Kaylin, watching, wondered what would remain of Annarion in the end, in that case.

  The familiar’s feet did not solidify the ground as he landed. But his eyes were the size of her head, and they looked very, very much like the chaos that Annarion was leaving in his wake. She climbed up on his back; he was warm and solid, and even resting there soothed the trembling ache of her limbs. He pushed himself off the ground in one lazy, slow leap.

  Gravity didn’t seem to be an issue in the outlands. And these were the outlands, even if they weren’t in the West March.

  The familiar circled inches above the moving heads—and weapons, which were more important—of the two combatants in the gray zone.

  The ancestor is a danger, the familiar said.

  Yes. Kaylin exhaled. But there’s an entire Dragon Court and probably every Barrani Arcanist in the city who can deal with the ancestor, now. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice total strangers to kill him. There is no way that Teela would be willing to let Annarion go.

  It is not Teela’s decision.

  No. It’s mine. But I don’t want to lose him, either.

  Interesting. Why not?

  Because he’s important to Teela. And he’s important to Nightshade. And because I like him. She wasn’t as certain about Mandoran. On the other hand, if he didn’t stop getting in Bellusdeo’s face, her certainty would be the least of his problems.

  She took one deep breath. I’m not the Emperor. I’m not the Hawklord. I’m not even a corporal yet. I’m a private. Sometimes I get to make decisions based on what’s right for my own life. The Barrani still exist as a race. They faced the ancestors before. They won.

  He said nothing.

  Teela was unhappy about Annarion for a long time. She finally found him—found them—again. Maybe he’ll commit suicide some other way. He almost certainly will. But he can do it on someone else’s watch.

  Everything has consequences, he said, in a rumbling internal voice that seemed, for a moment, larger than the inside of Kaylin’s head.

  Yes. Everything does. Breathing does. Not breathing. Stealing. Not stealing. Killing—and not killing. I’ve done all of it. Some of the consequences are good. Some are bad. I used to want to find something safe and good and preserve it forever. I used to think that was possible.

  You still do.

  Bastard. I still want that, yes. Because everyone does. I don’t believe I can have it because everything changes. But some of the changes are good. And some of the bad leads to good.

  Some of the good leads to bad, to use your terminology.

  Yes. But not all of it—and if we don’t try, we’re just surrendering. We’re giving up. We don’t reach for anything. Speaking of which, she added, tightening her knees, grab Annarion.

  That would not be wise.

  Then swing in slowly enough that I can grab him without losing an arm or my head.

  That would be even less wise.

  Kaylin looked across to the fighting and said, “We’re going to lose him. He’s not going to come back.”

  Had you not interfered, Kaylin, he would never have come back to begin with. Perhaps that is his fate.

  Fate. If Kaylin had been born to any other race, her eyes would be red, blue, or distinctly gray by now. Fate, she said, is bullshit. Take me down if you’re not willing to risk it yourself.

  She felt, of all things, his amusement; it was rich and thick and it pushed the anger aside, which left simple determination behind. She finally sheathed the dagger she’d been carrying.

  The familiar swooped in low. His wings passed through the two combatants without touching either. They looked like ghost wings; she’d expected them to be as solid as the part of his body that was currently supporting her weight. She tightened her knees, folded forward and to the side, and reached out with her right hand.

  She caught Annarion by the shoulder, and saw the arc of his blade as he moved.

  The familiar’s wing became solid in the blink of an eye. Both the ancestor and Annarion were almost flattened by it, which was enough—barely—to knock Annarion back. It probably saved Kaylin’s life; it certainly saved her arm. She pulled him up—was surprised at how easy it was. He seemed to weigh almost nothing.

  His eyes were black. They looked very similar to the familiar’s eyes, but his expression lost some of its focused rage as he blinked. “Lord Kaylin?”

  Ugh.

  “We’re leaving.”

  “We can’t—my brother—”

  “I give you my word—as a Hawk, as Chosen—that I will find your damn brother. But you won’t be able to come back to us if you stay here. You’ve already been here too long.” When he stiffened, she said, “Mandoran, Teela—tell him. Tell him he has to come back with me. Because I’m leaving, and he’s going to have to kill me if he wants to stay and fight.”

  Fire—purple flame—engulfed them both.

  It didn’t burn. It didn’t—to Kaylin—feel hot. She looked beyond Annarion to the ground, where the ancestor stood; mist surrounded his feet in swirls that reminded her more of sand than liquid. His hands were gloved in fla
me as the mist thickened. Purple flame. She couldn’t see his eyes, although he was looking up, at Annarion.

  Annarion, dangling over the familiar’s side, cursed and attempted to turn; Kaylin tightened her grip. She was aware that the familiar was somehow helping, because her arms were not strong enough to hold Annarion above the ground for long. Or maybe it was just the outlands, and the laws of gravity didn’t apply.

  The familiar didn’t insert his usual opinion. The mist continued to thicken around the ancestor’s feet. It also rose. The fire that surrounded the ancestor’s hands left them, flying upward, toward where Annarion dangled. It enveloped him again. It failed to burn. It failed to find any purchase at all, and if flames weren’t normally purple or magical, these still appeared to need some kind of fuel.

  Annarion wasn’t a Hawk; he didn’t curse. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Breaking my arms, by feel,” she replied.

  “The fire—”

  “That’s probably the familiar.” Her arms were still glowing with harsh blue light; her clothing dampened the brilliance—but not by much. “You can thank him later.” The mist continued to rise until it obscured the ancestor completely. “I don’t think he can follow us.”

  “He’s not going to try to follow,” Annarion said. “He’s going to retreat. He’ll try to escape.”

  Kaylin, watching the mist thicken, agreed. “I think you damaged him, here. I’m not sure he can escape the force he’s facing on the other side of the divide as easily.” She hoped not. “Is he still on the other side?”

  “Yes. The outlands are more...flexible.” He grimaced as the pillar of mist collapsed, dispersing to ground fog. No sign of the ancestor remained. Annarion levered himself up and onto the back of the Dragon, sitting rather than dangling by her arms.

  * * *

  Ynpharion.

  Lord Kaylin. She felt his tension—and also, fractured leg. He was exhausted, in pain, worried—but underlying all that was a subdued, strange sense of triumph. His usual suspicion and disgust at the hint of her presence was entirely absent. It felt...odd.

  What is the ancestor doing where you are? Is he still there?

  He is. There was a long pause. The Dragons are landing.

  The Emperor?

  Yes. The Emperor and the members of the court who remained in the air. Do you wish to see what unfolds?

  She did. She knew it was hard on him, and wondered why she approached Ynpharion—the only person whose name she knew who despised her. Severn was there. But she had never been comfortable reaching out to Severn this way. No; she had never reached out to him like this. This was like...invasion.

  Ynpharion’s general sense of disgust returned. Kaylin was guarding her thoughts about as poorly as she always did when frazzled and stressed. I do not understand mortals, he finally said.

  Would you take the name of someone you—you cared for?

  In a tone that was very like Teela’s on a bad day, he said, Watch, Lord Kaylin.

  * * *

  The indigo Dragon was the first to land.

  He looked like a gleaming shard of night; his wings did not settle, but spread. To either side, Barrani fanned out; they faced the ancestor, but were extremely aware of the crimson-eyed Dragon in their midst. He lifted head, elongated neck and looked down to the center of the basin, where the ancestor stood his ground, alone in a field of glinting, twisting strands.

  The Emperor roared. Kaylin didn’t understand any of the actual words—but the sound crushed syllables, compressing them into an expression of rage so intense fire would have been superfluous. She knew why. Something had attacked his hoard.

  Something would pay.

  He leaped; Sanabalis and Tiamaris found room to land in the space he vacated. Neither of the two shifted into their human forms.

  Above the basin, Aerians deserted the sky; one or two remained. They would carry the crystals that would add the evening’s events to Records; even if they fell, the crystals would retain what they saw.

  The Emperor landed as the ancestor leaped. The ancestor didn’t sprout wings—but he didn’t apparently need them. Depriving him of the power of true words had not deprived him of power. His fire, here, was white. White and blue.

  The Emperor’s was red.

  White and red met in a horizontal pillar; the ground, frozen briefly by the ancestor’s magic, once again began to melt. The heat, on the other hand, didn’t bother the Dragon. It bothered Kaylin; she was so tightly enmeshed in Ynpharion’s view, she could feel it. She would have taken an involuntary step back, but she wasn’t in her own body, and Ynpharion’s leg was in bad shape.

  Tiamaris leaped into the air above the basin; his breath fanned the ground upon which their enemy had chosen to make his stand. The fire burned nothing that wasn’t already molten.

  The ancestor didn’t turn; he shifted only his left arm. He didn’t even look over his shoulder to see where he was aiming. But his fire—if it was fire—hit Tiamaris’s left wing, just as it had hit Bellusdeo’s. Tiamaris was silent as he crested awkwardly toward the ground. Sanabalis chose to leap, rather than fly; the reasons for that were obvious. He added breath in an orange-white cone, and this caused the ancestor to stagger for the first time.

  Diarmat and Emmerian weren’t immediately visible.

  What is the Arkon doing? Kaylin demanded. She was, in the safety of the outlands insubstantiality, holding her breath, which was about as useful as it sounded.

  Bleeding, was Ynpharion’s calm and unconcerned reply.

  What? Why? But she knew. The chains were still spinning. They inhibited the ancestor’s power, somehow, and the cost of that inhibition was still being paid.

  Arrows flew. Kaylin couldn’t tell whether or not they’d been fired by Swords or Barrani. It didn’t matter. They disintegrated feet away from their target; ash remained in a growing cloud. The advantage of having a Dragon for an opponent was its size. At a distance there was just that much more of a target.

  The Arkon’s counter enchantment will break, Ynpharion said. The speed at which the ancestor casts will be matched, once again, by his power.

  Sanabalis moved closer, bridging the distance between landing and enemy; his fire continued to burn, and it struck the white fire shields of his enemy as if it were a battering ram. But the white fire wasn’t a gate; it wasn’t a door. It was a wall. Kaylin looked for cracks; she found none.

  The street beyond the basin’s lip exploded in small columns of flame to either side. They trailed down the street’s center as far as the eye could see.

  Kaylin lost sight of the combat in the center of the conflagration because Ynpharion threw himself out of their range. Ynpharion’s hair wasn’t as lucky; it burned; white flames seemed to cling to whatever they touched. Like anything that clung, it could be removed—but not without effort. Not without power.

  She turned to see the high ridges of indigo wings. She saw similar ridges of gray—or silver; given white fire, they were one and the same. She saw the peak of tail slam ground, again and again, as if to break something. Whatever it was, she couldn’t see it.

  But she could see the minute gold joined the battle. She knew it wasn’t the Arkon, either; it was—of course it was—Bellusdeo. She was of a size with the Emperor, but her eyes were the darker red. She didn’t draw breath; she didn’t roar. She didn’t attempt to land in a triangular point to close off any obvious avenue of escape; instead, she rose.

  Kaylin, who’d healed her damaged wings once this evening, would have cursed in perfect Leontine had she been the owner of Ynpharion’s throat.

  What is she doing? Tell her to stop! Tell her to stop right now! If Tiamaris couldn’t remain in the air, she won’t—

  Do you honestly think I have any control over a Dragon Empress-in-waiting? Ynpharion’s disbelief colore
d the force of his words.

  Of course not. And if she did step fully into Ynpharion’s body—if she did take the control he had offered—Bellusdeo was just as likely to breathe on her as she was to listen. The golden Dragon—the erstwhile roommate—rose to dizzying height—at least to Kaylin. The Dragons had remained high above the ground during the early leg of the fight, because at a distance the ancestor’s magic was too attenuated to instantly kill.

  But she knew Bellusdeo. That wasn’t what was happening here.

  * * *

  Take us to Bellusdeo, she told the familiar. Take us there now.

  Silence.

  You can stop him—

  This time the silence was Kaylin’s. She hated everything about the marks and the familiar and the outlands and the ancestors for one long, solid breath. It burned the back of her throat. She returned to Ynpharion.

  * * *

  Ynpharion might have been the bearer of a memory crystal. He had gained his footing—bracing his leg with magic and will. He stood to one side of the Barrani warband, which now separated like a curtain. Through the gap walked the Lord of the High Court. He wore armor that looked like it would have been at home on a Dragon in human form. Kaylin prayed desperately that that’s not where it had come from.

  Ynpharion’s sudden silence was not the right answer to that prayer.

  The High Lord carried no obvious weapon. No greatsword. No staff. He wore a circlet very like Evarrim’s, but the gem in its center was not a ruby. Nor was it diamond or emerald or sapphire. At this distance, Kaylin couldn’t identify it; she only knew that it was huge.

  Where he walked, flames guttered. Where he looked, rock solidified. His eyes, from this distance, were almost...green. Kaylin was shocked at the color.

  Do not be, Ynpharion said, grim now. What he does, he cannot do in rage; it will consume him. There are very, very few of our kin who can wield the power he has chosen to wield—and of those who might, only one—in my opinion—who could do so safely. He must maintain perfect awareness—and perfect control.