Cast in Conflict

by Michelle Sagara

  Serralyn had brought her expression of excitement under control. Her feet actually touched the ground and remained there. Valliant, by expression, could have been any garden variety Barrani male. Neither received undue attention from the guards on the Tiamaris side of the bridge; nor did Kaylin or Severn.

  It wasn’t hard to see why; Tiamaris, the Avatar of his Tower by his side, stood down the road. He was not draconic.

  “Can you see what color his eyes are?” Kaylin whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

  “Orange,” Valliant replied, in a voice only barely audible.

  “Bad orange?”

  “Is there ever good orange?” This was slightly louder, but it had to be as Kaylin had turned, once again, to face fully forward. Tiamaris didn’t move, an indication that he expected his visitors to come to him. Or them.

  “You are on the way to the Academia?” Tara asked as they at last reached the rulers of the fief. She meant the question for Serralyn and Valliant. The presence of a Dragon had dimmed the green in Valliant’s eyes; it had apparently bounced off the green in Serralyn’s. She offered Tiamaris a perfect bow, but did not hold it until given permission to rise. That would have been overkill.

  Sometimes the Barrani used manners as a social sword. Sedarias would.

  “Valliant and Serralyn are, and they’re less familiar with the city, so we’re escorting them.”

  “That is the reason for your outing today?” Tiamaris asked.

  Kaylin glanced at Severn. “Not entirely. I mean, it’s the entire reason for Serralyn and Valliant.”

  “I see. Come, let us escort them, then. We have topics to discuss.” In their absence, his tone heavily implied. Kaylin didn’t bother to tell him that it wouldn’t make much of a difference given Valliant and Serralyn were still living with Helen. Later, they wouldn’t be; they’d be the chancellor’s problem, not Helen’s.

  “I don’t think she considers it a problem,” Tara said. This was surprising. They were not near the physical Tower, and certainly not in it, and while the Towers could observe anything that occurred within the boundaries of their responsibilities, they couldn’t or didn’t generally read thoughts as if they were.

  “It does take effort,” Tara replied.

  Any other Barrani would have been extremely uncomfortable with this obvious display of such invasive, one-way communication, but Serralyn and Valliant were never going to be those Barrani. Even had they been, they lived with Helen. They didn’t expect privacy from sentient buildings.

  It wasn’t wrong to expect privacy when one wasn’t inside said sentient buildings, but they didn’t intend to stay in Tiamaris, and Tiamaris had just granted them the only permission they desired. Serralyn’s steps grew bouncy as they traversed the streets.

  “You don’t need to take us all the way there,” Serralyn told Kaylin. “We know the way from here.”

  Kaylin kind of wanted to see the Academia and its Dragon chancellor, but that wasn’t what she’d been ordered to do. She nodded as Tiamaris came to a stop across an invisible border that she couldn’t see. He could—and had—crossed it before, but only at need. This was his home, even if it was currently under construction.

  The changes that had occurred in the past few weeks were obvious to anyone who had either lived on the fief border or had crossed it; the graying of all visual elements—buildings, roads—no longer occurred. The streets hadn’t completely shifted and people weren’t disgorged into entirely different parts of the fiefs if they simply turned around and walked back.

  But the Academia didn’t exist on the maps. Something about its existence didn’t give it predictable, sensible geography. Kaylin, who had never considered maps to be friends, was fine with this.

  “Come to the Tower,” Tiamaris said, turning. “We can discuss other possible changes.”

  * * *

  The Tower had become characterized by the gardeners who worked in the gardens that now surrounded it. Those gardens had, to Kaylin’s eyes, grown, but a stone path cut across the field directly in front of Tara’s doors. Tara paused here and there as the people working stopped to greet her or ask her questions, but forward momentum was preserved.

  “It is Tiamaris,” Tara said, with open affection. “For some reason, they are more anxious when he is present.”

  “He’s a Dragon.”

  “Yes?”

  “He could breathe on them or bite them in two if they anger him.”

  “She is the greater danger here,” Tiamaris pointed out.

  This was true. “She just doesn’t look all that dangerous when she’s in her gardening clothing.” Which she was.

  “Ah, no, perhaps not.”

  The doors, untouched, retracted, which was new. The fact that Kaylin didn’t have to touch them at all wasn’t. Tara led them to the wide, long hall in which Tiamaris could fully go Dragon and still have room; this hall ended at the pool of liquid that served as Tiamaris’s mirror.

  It was already active when they reached it.

  Kaylin exhaled. “We’re here to ask a few questions about Bellusdeo. Have you talked to her recently?”

  Tiamaris nodded. His eyes remained orange, but no red darkened the shade.

  “The Dragon Court is worried. She’s been a bit strange since the former Arkon became the chancellor. She liked him,” Kaylin added, which was probably unnecessary. “But he’s here.”

  “There,” Tara corrected her. “But yes.” She paused, glancing at Tiamaris; he nodded.

  A bead of light began to glow in the center of the still pool; it split into hundreds of pieces that then began to travel across the surface of the water, or perhaps just beneath it. A map emerged from those lines of light. It traced the boundaries of the fiefs—all of them, including the one in the center the Towers had been created to watch.

  “As you are aware,” Tara said, “the border zones between the lines drawn on the map were not fixed or solid; they existed between the space defined by the Towers. It was not clear to us why, and it was not our primary concern.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “Those border zones have disappeared. The streets that could be perceived in them have also disappeared. You are aware that the cohort and Lord Bellusdeo’s Ascendant did not perceive what you or Lord Severn did.”

  “Teela saw what we saw,” Severn said quietly.

  Tara nodded again.

  “Are the streets now as solid as they look?”

  The Tower and her lord exchanged a glance. “Not entirely.”

  “Which is no.”

  “They are much more solid. Maggaron saw what Bellusdeo saw when they left our fief, and continued to see the same buildings when they approached the Academia. The actual roads from here to the Academia are solid, structural roads. The buildings outside of the Academia are not always in the best repair.”

  “But?”

  “But, as you say. Bellusdeo has confirmed that one or two of the fiefs have borders that are more elastic. They are not what they were, but they are not what Tiamaris and the Academia have become.”

  “The streets to the Academia from Nightshade are solid?”

  Lights brightened. “Yes.”

  “And the streets from Liatt?”

  “Our assumption is that they are—when the Academia existed entirely within the same realm as the fiefs, it occupied geographical space between Liatt and Nightshade. The Academia as it is currently constituted can be reached from any of the fiefs. Or rather,” she added, “the Academia can exit into any of those fiefs. The exit is repeatable; the border zone does not prevent it.”

  “Who investigated?”

  Tiamaris exhaled smoke. “Bellusdeo.”

  “She’s been investigating for the past two weeks?”

  “I believe Lannagaros requested it.”

  Kaylin raised a brow. When Tiamaris
failed to speak, she folded her arms.

  “He is not lying,” Tara told her. “And he is not attempting to withhold information. Lannagaros is chancellor, but he is aware that the Academia needs students. In particular, it needs students whose passion for knowledge and learning is genuine. In the past, there were students—or so he told Bellusdeo—who attended because such attendance implied status.

  “That will not be the case immediately. I think Lannagaros underestimates the possible attraction of the Academia, but it has only been a few weeks—less than an eye blink in the course of his long and exalted existence.”

  Kaylin had difficulty imagining the Arkon as exalted. Respected, yes—she’d seen that with her own eyes. Exalted?

  “He is exalted by Dragonkind, and many, many of the Barrani elders think of him with respect.”

  Tiamaris glared at Kaylin, although she hadn’t spoken.

  “Look—you can’t exalt people you actually know.”

  “The Emperor?”

  “I don’t actually know him. And as I get to know him—entirely because of Bellusdeo—I don’t think I exalt him. Fear him, yes, because anyone who doesn’t would be dead. Respect him? Yes, because politics suck, and he’s dedicated his life to it.”

  Tara cleared her throat. It sounded like an earthquake.

  Hope sat up and squawked loudly.

  “I think it best,” Tara replied, her voice and expression serene. “You may, however, speak to her later.”

  Do not make her give me another headache. Hope settled, disgruntled, across her shoulders, fuming slightly—which in his case was literal.

  “Next time, stay at home.” She wasn’t surprised when he bit her ear.

  Tiamaris’s cleared throat was nowhere near as felt as Tara’s. “Lannagaros has an interest in the accessibility of the Academia. He knows that it can be reached from Tiamaris, so the desire for more information is not something on which the fate of the Academia rests. But it is like him to be concerned about the access from the rest of the fiefs.

  “I have personal reasons for agreeing that this information should be known. Lord Nightshade has, independently, confirmed that the Academia is easily reached from the fief of Nightshade; Bellusdeo has not been sent to Nightshade.”

  “But she’s been sent everywhere else?”

  Tiamaris nodded.

  “No wonder the Dragon Court is concerned.” Concerned hadn’t been her first word choice, but she decided to speak in Barrani instead; it was a lot harder to default to inappropriate language in Barrani. On the other hand, there were so many things that could be considered rude or inappropriate by the Barrani.

  Culture was complicated.

  “Lannagaros understands Bellusdeo better than any of the Dragon Court—and I am no exception. He understands war, and the costs of war; he has found his way through losses that would have driven—that did drive—others of our kind to madness. If Lannagaros did indeed request her aid—”

  “He did,” Tara said quietly.

  “—then I have to trust that in some fashion he feels that this is safe for Bellusdeo.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  Severn, however, so silent he might have been absent, did not. “Not what is safe; what is best,” he said quietly. “I believe Lannagaros trusts that this is best for Bellusdeo.”

  Tiamaris couldn’t pretend that safe and best meant the same thing. He didn’t try. “I have chosen not to argue with her.”

  “My lord went to the Academia directly to speak with the chancellor,” Tara added. “He wished to confer with the chancellor in person, given the implications for the future.”

  “The chancellor told him to mind his own business?”

  Tara laughed, a surprising, chime-like sound that made her seem vastly younger than even Kaylin—as if joy were something only the young could experience. It was a striking thought.

  “He did,” she said, as the laugh faded into sober echo. “But very politely. I believe he was annoyed, not at my lord—who, as you are, is accustomed to the chancellor’s very curmudgeonly outbursts—but at the Emperor. My lord tells me that Bellusdeo has been the subject of some contention since you first discovered her.”

  Tiamaris’s lips were set in a tight, grim line, and his eyes were orange as he glared at Tara. Kaylin could not remember ever seeing him do so before.

  “He does not do so frequently, it’s true. But if this were dangerous to you or Bellusdeo—”

  “It is dangerous,” Tiamaris snapped.

  Hope squawked.

  “Yes. The chancellor, as Tara now calls Lannagaros, considers the dangers inherent in her internal struggle with despair to be far greater. But it will be dangerous to you, which is entirely unnecessary.”

  “You’ve been talking to Emmerian,” Kaylin said, forgetting to speak Barrani.

  “There has been much discussion.” Tiamaris’s eyes calmed. “I find it taxing. Bellusdeo is as old as Lannagaros. She is not a child. Were I Bellusdeo, were I in her position, I would have a clutch or five in order to escape the duties imposed upon me. I am not Bellusdeo.

  “But having Tara, and having the fief and the weight of its responsibility, has perhaps influenced my thinking.”

  “How?”

  “It is,” Tara said, before Kaylin could continue, “a vast amount of work, and at times, the work can seem overwhelming. Not for me,” she added softly. “But for my lord. His decisions—decisions in which his people have little choice—will nonetheless affect the people of the fief. He cannot simply magically transform the fief.

  “I can transform large parts of it,” she continued. “And I have offered to do so. But in the event of a disaster—in event of a breakdown of the barriers that keep Ravellon in check—I will have to withdraw the changes I have made and redirect my power.”

  “Is the power used consistently? I mean—do you have to always use it?”

  Tara nodded. “It is part of me; I will not ‘run out’ of power. But the consequence of an emergency will be, for the residents, a different emergency. After deliberation, my lord has decided to rebuild the normal way, as he calls it. But even that is fraught. Where? When? Money is not the issue it would be for most of our citizens—but it does remain an issue if we are to do things in the normal fashion.

  “Regardless of the work and the stress of making decisions, having the responsibility is what defines him. It’s what defines hoard for him. I believe that the same could be said of the Emperor or Lannagaros. I do not understand Emmerian, but Emmerian is not easily read.”

  “You can’t read him when he’s here?”

  “Not always, and not consistently.” She frowned. “Yes, Helen can—but that is almost certainly because Lord Emmerian allows it. He has come to speak with Tiamaris three times in the past two weeks; he has passed through the fief to speak with Lannagaros. I believe he returned with a singed cape on the last visit; he has not gone again.” She glanced, pointedly, at Tiamaris.

  Tiamaris rumbled. “Bellusdeo will accept you as a companion if you desire it.”

  “I’ve already been seconded—by Sanabalis—to the Imperial service. So has he,” she added, nodding in Severn’s direction.

  “You do not see your value clearly if you can be so casual.”

  Kaylin shook her head. “I see my own value clearly. But I’m a Hawk. I serve the Imperial Laws. I’m the person who’s been trained and taught to interfere when interference is necessary.”

  “In Elantra, yes. Not in the fiefs.”

  “I’ve been sent to the West March,” Kaylin countered. “By command, not like last time. I’ve managed to survive.”

  “So far,” was his dark reply.

  “I believe that Bellusdeo is invested in your survival; I am not certain,” Tara added, once again glancing at Tiamaris, “that she is nearly as invested in her own. You can keep your
self alive in most circumstances of which we are now aware, but Bellusdeo sees you as a mortal, even if you are Chosen. You are part of her home.”

  “She’s part of my home.”

  “Yes. The home that Bellusdeo has built is fragile because it is not rooted or grounded. She is a warrior who has not been allowed to enter the battle; she is a queen without a country or a throne. She has built a home of hope, but it rests on a foundation of loss and despair. She values you, Kaylin Neya.

  “She unwillingly values Mandoran, and this angers her. Favoring a mortal in such a short period of time is essential; a proper reserved approach would waste half your life—if only that. She has no excuse for Mandoran.”

  “You know that Mandoran insists on coming with me.”

  Tara smiled. “I do. She is not concerned with Mandoran’s safety. She will be concerned with yours.”

  “Maggaron is mortal.”

  “Maggaron is Ascendant. There are things she can do to preserve him that she cannot do for you. Regardless, Bellusdeo—as do Tiamaris and the Emperor—desires responsibility. It is the one thing she lacks, and if the burden was almost too great to bear, she has discovered, as no doubt my lord would, that lack of any burden is lack of purpose.

  “The Emperor believes, somehow, that continuing the race is purpose and responsibility. And my lord agrees.”

  “But you don’t?”

  Tara was silent. Given Tiamaris’s expression, that silence was probably the right answer.

  But she was Tara. “It is not good,” she finally said, “for the immortal to have no purpose when they also lack joy. She has done Lannagaros’s tasks faithfully and well. This is not, of course, the first time that Bellusdeo has come to Tiamaris—but there is a difference in her, almost a humming, a sense of...rightness. I am sorry,” she added softly, to Tiamaris. “She has been idle too long.”

  Given the events of the past few months, Kaylin thought idle entirely the wrong word.

  “Tell me, given those events, given the significance of the effects of failure, would you now dedicate your daily life to them?”