Cast in Conflict

by Michelle Sagara

  The rune rose from her arm, shedding gray as its light brightened; it became blue, and the light cast, harsh. It reminded Kaylin of the morgue. This was not a comfortable thought. She could heal, yes; it was the only truly unalloyed blessing the marks had given her.

  But Kaylin couldn’t heal a corpse. No one could. Karriamis, damn him, had once been a Dragon—he’d probably know for certain if Emmerian was dead. But if he was injured? If he was dying?

  Surely he would have said something.

  Damn it, what had he said? She’d been kind of angry at a lot of it and had probably overfocused on the parts she considered garbage. Emmerian doesn’t want to be seen.

  She exhaled. “Emmerian, I don’t know if you can hear me—it’s Kaylin.”

  Silence.

  “I would like to get you out of here—preferably through the nearest back door—before Bellusdeo arrives.”

  She felt a tremor beneath her feet, and looked down. The ground on which she was standing was ice—or ice-like; it was what was shedding this odd fog.

  Beneath the ice she could now see the open—and red—eye of a blue Dragon.

  20

  “Karriamis!”

  The Tower didn’t answer. One red eye flickered, as if, trapped beneath the frozen floor, Emmerian was trying to close his eyelids, with about as much success as one would expect of someone stuck in an ice block.

  He’s with us now, Severn said. Karriamis is here.

  Tell him—She cut off words that would have been considered too foul for Marcus, her sergeant. Tell him to let Emmerian go.

  He says he has not imprisoned Emmerian.

  He didn’t put himself into a freaking giant block of ice on his own!

  Severn understood her anger. He is saying that’s exactly what happened. He apologizes for allowing it, but points out that he did not invite Emmerian to visit; Emmerian came on his own—and if Karriamis is a Dragon, he, too, is wary of enraged Dragons.

  How does that mean Karriamis didn’t do this?

  The Tower has defenses, he says.

  And you believe him? You believe that any part of this Tower isn’t under his control?

  Severn didn’t answer. Which meant no. I believe he believes Emmerian can free himself if he so chooses.

  Then what does he expect me to do?

  Convince him to choose. Those weren’t the words the Tower had used.

  She looked down.

  Emmerian wasn’t her favorite Dragon, but he was, aside from the old Arkon, Bellusdeo’s. He was so diffident and apologetic on those occasions when he had been commanded to interfere that neither the gold Dragon nor Kaylin could take him personally.

  And he truly seemed to appreciate who Bellusdeo was. What she had once been. He seemed to understand some part of the loss that the Arkon didn’t. No, she thought, that wasn’t true.

  “Emmerian, listen. The Arkon—ugh, the chancellor—knew her when she was young. And there were eight more that were almost exactly like her. He understood what she’d lost when she lost the Aerie. He didn’t know her when she was a queen. He knows she ruled a world.

  “But...I don’t think the chancellor can see that in her. Not even now.” Kaylin was coming to some sort of conclusion, but without any sense that it was important enough to move Emmerian. And while she didn’t believe Karriamis—he couldn’t have put himself in here—she believed, reluctantly, that he could pull himself out.

  She believed it because Severn believed it.

  “The entire Dragon Court knows what she was. They believe it. But they see her as a Dragon first. She loves the Arkon, because he knew her. He indulges her because she was a child the last time he saw her—I mean, before she was freed and came to Elantra. She knows it. He’s home—or what’s left of that childhood home, and we all want that some of the time.

  “He knows what she lost. But he can’t see it clearly as part of who she is now. To the Arkon,” she continued, giving up on the changed name, “what she was is important. He doesn’t care about future babies. Not really. He thinks Bellusdeo will come around eventually because she was a queen. She understands responsibility and sacrifice better than anyone.”

  The eye moved. Emmerian was watching her. She could feel the ground beneath her feet rumble in a way that implied breath or breathing. It was almost as if she was standing on Emmerian himself, and not the barrier that separated them.

  On good days, this would have been a terrible idea. But whatever she was saying, he heard. He listened.

  “I’ve been told by almost everyone in my house that I’m oblivious. I miss things that other people don’t miss. I didn’t understand the significance of the words Karriamis said the last time we visited.” But she thought, as she stared at the giant eye, which was still crimson, that she might, now.

  Helen had said something about Emmerian weeks ago.

  Something about Emmerian and Bellusdeo.

  Karriamis must have picked up on that somehow, from someone—but she doubted it was Emmerian. What was it? What had it been?

  But surely your ability to stand by while Bellusdeo is in danger makes you ineligible to be guardian of your race?

  Guardian had many meanings in Kaylin’s life. Marrin of the foundling halls was guardian of all of the foundlings beneath her large roof. Guardian of the Imperial Law was just another word for the Hawks and the Swords. But both Bellusdeo and Emmerian had been angry at Karriamis’s dismissive question.

  Oh.

  He didn’t mean guardian as Kaylin used the word; he meant father. As in, father to Bellusdeo’s children—the children who were the future of Dragonkind. Emmerian did not step in when Bellusdeo fought. He had done it only once, and he had been embarrassed.

  He understood that Bellusdeo chose—for better or worse—her own battles. She had never commanded Emmerian. He had fought in the wars that divided Bellusdeo from her people; he had been, or become, a warrior. He had—he said—looked up to the Arkon as the pinnacle of the height a warrior could achieve in his distant youth.

  But the Arkon had never wanted war. He had fought it, yes. He had abandoned the one thing he did want. And he had returned to it. She didn’t know what Emmerian had abandoned, if he’d abandoned anything at all. She had the sense that he was young when he joined the war flights, young when he fought—but not as young as she had been when she had unofficially joined the Hawks.

  In the Hawks, she had found what she wanted; she had found the thing she could dedicate her life to.

  Emmerian hadn’t found that in war. Like Tiamaris, youngest of the Dragons, he seemed to be content to wait, to watch. He served the Emperor.

  But Bellusdeo had found what she needed or wanted in war—and she’d lost it. And she’d returned to Elantra, a world that had been visited only in subtle ways by the damage that had destroyed her adoptive home. Her war wasn’t over. She was not the Arkon, to set aside the mantle of battle.

  Karriamis was right—she hated to think it, but did. The Tower could not be the instrument of, the tool of, vengeance. What Bellusdeo wanted she could not have, but captaining the Tower made her part of the front line. And Bellusdeo knew, now, that it wasn’t as simple as that. Karriamis had asked her a question.

  She had retreated because she couldn’t answer it.

  Sedarias wouldn’t have been able to answer it had it been asked of her, either.

  Emmerian never seemed to want anything with the visceral rage or desire that characterized either Bellusdeo or Sedarias. He didn’t seem to want with the visceral desperation that had caused Kaylin to attach herself to the Halls of Law and hold on as tightly as she could with both hands.

  Oblivious, she thought. She folded her knees and sat on the ice while mist rolled up above her head. She closed her eyes. She could see the marks on her arms come to life, but they remained level with her skin. She understood, though; it w
asn’t the marks that were needed here.

  If Emmerian was not Sedarias—and he was nothing like the leader of the cohort—he was trapped by some of the same things. They were things Kaylin understood—how could she not?

  She had wanted the Hawks desperately.

  She had been certain she had not deserved them. She had done things that would prevent her from ever joining their ranks—but she’d done them outside of the remit of Imperial Law. As if that made a difference. And it did—a bureaucratic difference. She could stay.

  Teela had fought for it. Marcus—growly and terrifying—had fought for it. She hadn’t understood why, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they win. That she be allowed to stay in this life that she so desperately wanted to be worthy of when she wasn’t.

  She opened her eyes.

  * * *

  Emmerian stood opposite her, his back toward her, his hands loosely clasped behind him.

  “Bellusdeo will not be happy that you are here,” he said.

  “You don’t care about that.”

  “I do, actually. It is her relationship with—and her dependence on—you that has caused some difficulty at court. But,” he exhaled. “I don’t fear it in the same way, no.”

  “Is Karriamis right?” she asked.

  He met her gaze in silence.

  “Was it you? Or was it Bellusdeo? He must have taken that thought from someone.” She stopped. “Oh.”

  He said nothing.

  “But I don’t understand—if it wasn’t you...” She tried again. “You admire her. You respect her. You see her, not as a necessary mother, but as...Bellusdeo. If somehow it was her...”

  “I am not the youngest of the court; that would be Tiamaris. And he has achieved something singular; he has found his hoard. He has claimed his territory. You know the chancellor. You have encountered the Emperor and Lord Diarmat. And you have personal experience with the current Arkon. You have seen them all fight.”

  “I saw you fight as well.”

  He shook his head. “I have never been considered exceptional among my kin. I was content not to be. I understood my duties. I performed them to the best of my abilities.” His hands tightened. “Has Bellusdeo spoken to you about the phenomenon of draconic hoards?”

  “A little?”

  “Has Lord Sanabalis? The chancellor?”

  “Also a little. I think Bellusdeo said that sometimes the Dragon involved would go insane.”

  “Yes. I have seen much of it, in my distant youth, before the wars that almost destroyed our ancient people.”

  “But the Empire is the Emperor’s hoard.”

  “Yes. And Tara is Tiamaris’s. Insanity is not always guaranteed, and in its absence, what is left is focus, responsibility, dedication. It is not considered a sign of adulthood; I am adult. But it is always considered significant. We do not dream of a specific hoard; it remains amorphous. To what, in the end, can we give the whole of our thought, our dedication, our love? What is broad enough to bear the focus of the Dragons?”

  “The Academia is the chancellor’s hoard,” she said, frowning.

  Emmerian nodded. “And, as you must suspect, it is not. It is what he hoped for, yearned for, dreamed of in his own youth—but he is not as Tiamaris is; for Tiamaris it was instant—the yearning, the force of it, the commitment. For Lannagaros, it was different. The Barrani cannot see the difference, and will not question it. It is his hoard.”

  “You think Bellusdeo could?”

  “Of course she could. But Kaylin, he does not have to be in the grip of that fate, that destiny, to commit everything he has or will ever be to the Academia. He has accepted the chancellorship. Nothing will move him from it. But he risks no insanity; the force of commitment does not skirt the edge of the long fall into darkness. He is flexible, and he will not feel easily threatened by things that are not a threat.”

  “You think Tiamaris would?”

  “I cannot say. As part of a military flight, I have acted against those whose hoard has chipped away at all sanity; they are a danger that you cannot, from your position, understand.”

  “I think I can.”

  “Yes, because you are not a Dragon and you have not experienced that madness. Tiamaris is protective. You understand that. You would not raise hand against Tara, regardless. Tiamaris understands that Tara is a living person, and he values her happiness. He has allowed her to make questionable decisions—the lack of portal being one—because that is her desire. And I believe she is happy.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “I do not believe he will—or can—fall prey to madness. He could have reasonably denied her the request to dispense with portals. He could have denied the one, localized mirror he has allowed at her request. There are many things he could justify for reasons of security.

  “He could deny her her gardens, so unusual even in the fiefs. He could deny her contact with any of the many citizens of the fief who have come to aid in those gardens, to work there. He could, in the end, command that she imprison herself—because again, it would keep her safe.”

  Kaylin stared at him. “It would destroy her.”

  “Would it?”

  “There was a reason Barren almost fell. She could not live like that.”

  “Ah.” He turned to her, a hint of a smile on his face, although his eyes carried no trace of amusement. “No. But for those who fall prey to the fear, Tara would cease to be a person. She would be an object of fear and possession.”

  “Do any of the others start out sane and reasonable and then...fall?”

  “It has happened,” he replied.

  “You’ve seen this.”

  “Yes. Twice. No, more than twice, but twice it became more personal. These two were my friends, my comrades in arms, people with whom I had shared the rash idealism and optimism of youth. They trained hard. They worked hard—as did I. We were almost inseparable.”

  Kaylin waited.

  “We are, in general, a far more solitary people than you are. We are more solitary than even the Barrani, who oft appear to live on and for suspicion and murder.”

  “That’s a bit harsh.”

  “Yes. I assume that you have no desire to hear me be more harsh, and I apologize for the digression. We do not suffer if we are isolated for stretches of time; it gives us room to breathe.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “Therefore, our friendship—forged in youth and war—was considered odd. Unusual. One of the elders in that youth—he is long dead—took me aside and offered me advice.”

  “Only you?”

  “I do not know. If he offered similar advice to my two friends, they did not share—but I did not choose to share, either.”

  “The advice was about hoards?”

  “It was. It was about the effect that the compulsion can have on the young. Tiamaris is sometimes called ‘young Tiamaris’ by Lord Sanabalis and the chancellor, but he is not young by my reckoning. Younger than I, yes. But old enough that he has had experience and interests that offer grounding.

  “Our interest was the war, and our experiences in it. We did not know how to return gracefully from it; we felt diminished. It was a shock to us to see the Arkon—Lannagaros as he was, then—become a...scholar. A Dragon who preferred a desk and books to arts military, arts arcane.”

  “He knows a fair bit about the arcane, if I’m any judge.”

  “Yes. He does. Much of it subtle, and not meant for war.”

  “His was the defining spell in the battle for the High Halls.”

  Emmerian’s smile was genuine; he shook his head. “I told you—we were young. Young and ignorant. I did not understand how he could have been the pinnacle of achievement—in our eyes—and settle for what he became.

  “But my belief in him was strong enough that I began to look at what consumed his time
, his attention.”

  “Your friends didn’t.”

  “No. They were bitter, but people oft are when the object of their worship is shown to be less than perfect. They did not understand my attempts, either, and we grew distant.”

  “You’re not like him, though.”

  “No. His academic desires remained a mystery to me. The only overlap we shared was curiosity about languages—living or dead. The Empire has not existed for as long as the wars between the Barrani and my kin, but when the Emperor chose—was driven to choose—there was work to be done. It was a stretching of wings, for me; a return to my youth.

  “It was not so, for them. They were my age, and if we were not born in the same clutch, we were born at the same time. The Empire did not yet exist when the first of my friends, restless and drifting without a solid sense of purpose, found his hoard.”

  “Can I ask what it was?”

  “You may—obviously—ask.”

  “You won’t answer.”

  “It is not relevant, and it is still oddly painful. He was...not the Dragon I had known. His sense of responsibility, his sense of duty had been deepened and warped; he could not even see us. But he had destroyed mortal settlements, and killed a handful of Barrani, and we had no desire to rekindle the wars; they served neither Barrani nor Dragonkind well. My friend and I traveled to him.

  “He could not hear us. He could not identify our voices. I remember that clearly. What he heard when we spoke, I do not know. I could hear his voice from miles away.”

  Given his expression, Kaylin didn’t ask what had happened to the friend. She was certain she didn’t want to know.

  “We made vows on that day, my remaining friend and I, that we would not fall into the same terrible trap. We didn’t understand what had happened, and the elders merely said it was hoard-madness, hoard-sickness. I think...they had memories similar to the ones I share with you now. I was no longer a whelpling; I could not press for answers.

  “But...I had access to Lannagaros, and he was, if not patient...” and at this memory, he smiled again, rueful. Happier. “...he was informative. The subject itself—hoard-sickness—had been studied by both Dragonkind and other races; the Dragons are not famously good record keepers in general. It is what made Lannagaros’s postwar choice so strange. But he was not the first to be so strange, and in the absence of the responsibility of war, it was the life he chose. He was not happy,” he added. “It took me many decades to understand that his melancholy was not due to the lack of war, the lack of position. But he was so dedicated to the preservation of knowledge, I understood it, at the time, as his hoard. It was not a hoard that I, as a young Dragon, would ever have accepted.”