Cast in Conflict

by Michelle Sagara

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll go through with Bakkon.”

  “Seriously?”

  She lifted a hand and smacked the back of his head. “Get. Off. Right. Now.”

  Severn—

  Terrano says they’re arguing with Mandoran. Well, no, they’re shouting at Mandoran and he’s not answering. Terrano is offering to come help persuade him in person.

  No!

  No, indeed. Now they’re arguing with Terrano—and he’s arguing back. According to Terrano. I think this might have even been deliberate.

  And you’re not arguing with me.

  No point. You’re not going to leave the Wevaran until you know he can get through the barrier. Or until you know he can’t.

  She tried to push Mandoran off Bakkon’s back, but there was only so much she could do with one hand, and she was unwilling to release the Wevaran. She didn’t know what the barrier would do. She had seen Shadows stop at its edge before, but hadn’t seen them take a run at it and bounce. And Bakkon was still moving, but with less frenetic, dizzying speed.

  I asked you to stop feeling guilty, the Wevaran said.

  I don’t. Not yet.

  You do understand that you cannot lie to me while we speak in this fashion, yes?

  Fine. Whatever you’re sensing now is nothing compared to the guilt I’m going to carry for the rest of my life if you don’t somehow survive this.

  For the first time, she felt genuine Wevaran amusement. Amusement and a kind of bright resignation. Bakkon approached the Ravellon barrier at what was, in comparison to the rest of their sprint, a jog.

  Tell Terrano to tell people outside of the cohort that Bakkon is like Starrante in the Academia. He’s not—

  Not a Shadow?

  He’s not under anything else’s control.

  Severn nodded; she felt it. She started to speak and stopped, because even internally words and syllables were broken by the roaring of Dragons. This time, it wasn’t the outcaste—it was Bellusdeo, whom she recognized, and Emmerian. She looked up, and then had to look down again; Bakkon’s more straightforward approach wasn’t exactly done on the ground.

  Fire clipped him again, but the fire banked almost before it had a chance to cling. Bakkon saw the barrier. Kaylin saw the effect of the barrier, but not the thing itself.

  You cannot see it.

  No—but don’t try to show me, okay? You have way too many eyes, and I think I’ll just get dizzy, or worse, if I try to look through all of them as you do.

  Fire touched the ground, this fire orange-yellow; purple fire split as if to allow it passage. The ground screamed. That, she didn’t need Wevaran ears to catch.

  “Mandoran—”

  “I’ll teach you useful words when we leave if you stop nagging me!”

  “Fine! What are you doing?” Mandoran was becoming transparent. He was still attached to Bakkon’s back; she could touch him. But she could see through him now, as if he were made of glass.

  He said nothing, and it was loud enough she couldn’t hear him grinding his teeth, which she was pretty certain he was doing.

  Emmerian roared; his shadow covered the zigzagging up-and-down path Bakkon was now following. Mandoran cursed—in Leontine—and said, “Fine, you win.” He leaped up, off Bakkon’s back. He didn’t land on the ground. He didn’t attempt to reach it; wind seemed to yank him off his perch, as if the only gravity he was now subject to had been dependent on the Wevaran’s back.

  “Duck!” That was definitely Mandoran. She ducked. Bakkon all but flattened himself. Emmerian, almost dragging enormous claws across the ground, passed them at speed, the underside of his wings visible. There wasn’t a lot of dust to kick up on this side of the Ravellon border—the only positive Kaylin could think of.

  “LEFT!” Mandoran shouted.

  Bakkon veered instantly.

  Emmerian did not.

  Rising from the previously flat street just in front of the border itself was a giant pillar of Shadow.

  * * *

  Emmerian veered to the same left as Bakkon had; there were no longer any buildings to prevent this. The buildings across which the Wevaran had scuttled at speed had melted or transformed, an instant before Mandoran’s shouting, into something that was taller than any of the visible buildings in Ravellon.

  This, she thought, as it solidified, gaining width as well as height, was like a Tower in shape. Bakkon was utterly silent on the inside of his own head, the whole of his attention given to maneuvering. The street he’d been following, under the wings of a silver Dragon, was gone.

  Emmerian ascended, moving more quickly than Bakkon—but not by much.

  Terrano says Mandoran says there’s no exit the way you were running.

  Was it there before?

  Unclear. Mandoran saw whatever defense was mounted a little bit before the rest of you did. He’s with Emmerian now.

  With?

  I believe he’s on Emmerian’s back. What he can see, Emmerian can’t see.

  And without her familiar, neither could she. Not for the first time in her life, she wished that people could see the same things, could understand all languages, could communicate perfectly. That was the sole benefit of True Words as a language; the meaning of each word couldn’t be mistaken or misunderstood.

  Which was probably why no one could easily speak them.

  Which way? Does Terrano have any other instructions?

  Silence. She could sense Severn, but couldn’t hear him ask the question she’d asked. She was too afraid of falling off Bakkon’s back to focus on the listening as Severn listened.

  Mandoran says the Shadow that looks like a building to you—he’s frustrated with that, by the way—extends both left and right. He also says the rest of the Shadows in Ravellon aren’t standing still behind you. Terrano doesn’t think it’s safe for either Bellusdeo or Emmerian to land.

  The outcaste does it!

  He believes that proves his point.

  She cursed. Bakkon was exhausted, and the exhaustion wasn’t something she could simply heal or cure. He hadn’t, and wouldn’t, stop until he couldn’t move on his own anymore. She was worried that that would be soon.

  If they can’t land and we can’t even touch these...walls, what’s his suggestion?

  Not certain. Terrano says wall is a good description—and the walls are spreading so that they overlap the barrier from the inside. He asks how you got in in the first place.

  She started to tell him that this wasn’t the time for that, but stopped herself. It was a good question; it was a fair question. Maybe if she understood the actual answer beyond I don’t know, they’d have a better chance of surviving this.

  Terrano says your best chance of escape is to continue to the left; he thinks there might be some chance the wall there could be permeable.

  Why?

  It’s Tiamaris, and Bellusdeo’s presence in the sky has pulled all of the Norranir out of their homes. They’re drumming.

  They wouldn’t make it. And more permeable was a gamble she was almost certain would end in death.

  Enslavement, Bakkon said, correcting her.

  Kaylin exhaled. Tell Terrano—tell anyone who can move fast—to head to Liatt.

  For the Wevaran?

  She nodded. Get them to come to Candallar.

  Severn fell silent.

  * * *

  When Mandoran rejoined them, she almost fell off the Wevaran’s back, he appeared so suddenly. He was the color of old—and bad—cheese, and his eyes were a little too large in the contours of his otherwise Barrani face; they were also the wrong color.

  “I think I know what I’m doing,” he told her. He wasn’t shouting, but his voice could be clearly heard, and given the constant presence of roaring Dragons, this said something. “Terrano says Riaknon is
on the way.” He spoke in Elantran, but the very Barrani pronunciation of the name caused Bakkon to stumble.

  Did he say Riaknon?

  Yes. Riaknon is in the Tower of Liatt; he’s been there since the Towers rose.

  And he is on his way?

  Ummm, on his way to someplace outside of the barrier. I don’t think he intends to cross it.

  “A little bit of attention, Kaylin.”

  “Sorry—Bakkon knows Riaknon.”

  “Fine. Does Bakkon think Riaknon can do anything?”

  It is possible, if it’s Riaknon. Starrante could do it—but Starrante is bound. He will not be able to join us.

  “He says maybe. Who did you send to Liatt?”

  “Nightshade.”

  She didn’t swallow her tongue, but it took effort.

  “Tiamaris is in the air from the edge of his fief, just in case you haven’t been watching.”

  She considered pushing her housemate off Bakkon’s back, but not for long. Is there anything you could tell Riaknon—through us—that might help us?

  You could leave, Chosen. It would be better if you did.

  Let’s not go there again. Is there anything you want Riaknon to know?

  His answer was a cascade of clicks and almost bell-like sounds. She was touching him, and in theory, she could understand him as clearly as he could understand her. None of this odd music, however, made sense to her.

  “Nothing I think could be passed on.”

  “What did he say?”

  She tried to repeat it.

  “Oh.”

  Nightshade.

  I am at the Tower of Liatt. She didn’t ask him how he’d gone from Candallar to Liatt so quickly; she was almost certain she didn’t want to know.

  It would not be something you could easily repeat, no. He was amused, but there was enough of a grim, grim undercurrent to the amusement she felt none in return.

  Where is the Wevaran?

  A very good question. He left the Tower, returned to it in haste, returned to me and ordered me to wait. He then created a web with which you would be familiar and stepped through it, shutting it from behind.

  You’re waiting for Liatt?

  That is my assumption, yes—and there she is. She is with another of the Wevaran; her daughter, however, is not present. I will leave you now; if there is more information—ah, no. Lord Liatt has just asked me if I believe the Wevaran you are currently riding is corrupted.

  Tell her no!

  I have indicated that I would not be here if I suspected that he was, yes. She is heading to the former fief of Candallar now.

  * * *

  “Pay attention. I need your help now,” Mandoran was saying. Kaylin’s head hurt. Her eyes hurt. Her stomach was more than queasy. Her ears were also ringing.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “We need to shift a bit to avoid easy detection by the Shadows here.”

  Tell him that is impossible.

  “Bakkon doesn’t believe we can do that.”

  “I didn’t say we’d be invisible—I said we’d be harder to detect. Does that pass muster?”

  What does he intend? The depth of suspicion in the question was like screaming the word no, loudly, in her ears. It wasn’t, however, a No.

  “We’re not like Shadow,” Mandoran said—a fact that Kaylin knew well. She assumed he was speaking for Bakkon’s sake as well as her own. Fire changed the temperature of the air at their back, but the fire was Dragon fire, not outcaste fire; it didn’t cling. Or it didn’t cling to Bakkon. “But we’re no longer entirely like the rest of our kin, either. Terrano believes we can navigate—for a brief period—in Ravellon without falling prey to the corruption that lies at its heart.”

  “How in the hells does he know what lies at its heart? He said he’s never been stupid enough to try to enter!”

  “Not asking that question Right Now,” Mandoran snapped back. “But Terrano thinks it’s how you could get in here at all.”

  “I got in through you!”

  “I wasn’t here until you did whatever the hells it was you did!”

  “You must have been partly here—that was the whole point of the Shadow spears!”

  Bakkon cleared his throat. Loudly. “While it goes against my upbringing to stop the younglings from killing each other, there is a time and place for everything.” He spoke in Barrani. “Chosen, if you are to have any chance of leaving this place, if you are to do the duty for which you were Chosen, you must come up with better answers. I am sorry to add to the pressure.”

  “I told you—I got here by listening. And I’m pretty damn sure what I was listening to so intently won’t get us to the other damn side of this wall!”

  Fire. Shadow. Where they met, the Shadow screamed and withdrew—or at least most of it did. The parts that were visible to Kaylin. She was so accustomed to having Hope slap a wing across her face she felt as if she’d lost the ability to see at all.

  What had she done? Truly, she’d just listened. She’d listened really, really intently. Why? Because she was almost certain that what she heard was part of not-Mandoran, even if she could hear it because she was touching his injured body.

  “Here!” Mandoran shouted.

  Bakkon came to a skittering stop. While the streets were smoking—literally—he looked to an ebon wall—a wall in which hints of all known colors swirled beneath a solid surface. She wasn’t surprised when the wall sprouted eyes.

  She was surprised when they opened and focused on Bakkon, leaving the wall on the slender stalks that Bakkon’s eyes also possessed.

  Emmerian, above, had come to a halt, and now circled in the air in almost a holding pattern. The Aerians—those few that remained in the sky—were engaged enough they couldn’t immediately attempt to turn the Wevaran, and his passengers, into pincushions.

  Bakkon froze for one long moment, and then began to speak. The sounds—chittering and clicking and the soft music of bells—continued for some time. During it, Mandoran dismounted to once again join Emmerian in the air. She could hear him giving directions; could see the fire Emmerian exhaled in plumes seconds later.

  Emmerian, who had been so worried about the cohort’s possible attack on Bellusdeo that he had practically broken into Helen to intervene, had chosen to trust the cohort. Not just Mandoran; Emmerian wasn’t a fool. He knew that the cohort was, in many ways, one being that cast a lot of shadows when in the light.

  The eyeballs withdrew only when Bakkon had finished speaking.

  Do not speak to me for a moment, he said before she could ask him what he’d said. I need to concentrate now. I need to listen—as you listened.

  “Kaylin, we really need to get moving. I don’t want to panic you, but an actual Tower is growing in the center of Ravellon—and we do not want to be here when the doors of that Tower open!”

  As they had never wanted to be here at all, Kaylin tried not to grind her teeth. Instead, she took a few steadying breaths, and then slid off Bakkon’s back. Or tried. Bakkon caught her and pushed her back into her impromptu seat. It is not safe for you to touch the ground here.

  Is it safer to touch the wall?

  Silence.

  But Kaylin had been thinking, in spite of the noise and the fear and the multiple different strands of worry that she’d been unconsciously weaving.

  Bakkon was listening, he said, as she’d listened.

  He spoke again, in what she assumed was his native tongue. She closed her eyes. Either she could hear an echo in the miasma of Ravellon air, or a different Wevaran was speaking across the divide of border and wall. As she listened, she saw the wall undulate.

  She could see the wall with her eyes closed.

  A brief glance at her arms confirmed that the marks of the Chosen were glowing—but they also seemed to be vibrating
in place, as if they wanted to lift themselves off her skin as they so often did, but couldn’t.

  She could almost hear them, as if they, in concert, were trying to speak—to join their voices to the voices of the two Wevaran.

  “Bakkon,” she said, “let me get down. I think I’ll be safe.”

  The limb applying the pressure did not lift.

  “Okay, yes, that’s an exaggeration. But I think I need to be on the ground—or in arm’s reach of the...wall. I think I can make a space here that we might be able to get through.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “Listen to the wall,” she said quietly.

  “How will that help you?”

  “I don’t—I don’t know. But I think I can make the wall listen.”

  He spoke his own tongue; the voice—the other voice—grew louder and less bell-like. His own voice remained almost frustratingly calm.

  “Your friend on the other side does not think this is a good idea.”

  “He probably doesn’t think it’s a disaster,” Kaylin replied, without much thought.

  “Oh?”

  “If he did, he’d make Mandoran come back down here right now.”

  “Funny you should mention that,” a very familiar voice said. It was, predictably, Mandoran.

  28

  “Terrano is with the other Wevaran, right?”

  “Yes. He’s trying to be helpful, but he can’t completely understand what they’re saying. Our Wevaran has some ideas; their Wevaran is pretty sure it’s either unsafe or impossible.”

  “I don’t think we have time for this. Emmerian can only keep things clear for as long as no other winged Shadows take to the air, and Bellusdeo—”

  “She moved. She’s fighting in the airspace over Candallar, now. She told Emmerian to retreat,” he added.

  Kaylin winced, because Emmerian was still here.

  Mandoran surprised her; he grinned. “Sedarias pretty much said the same thing to me that Bellusdeo said to Emmerian. I can’t answer. But I’ve been listening really, really carefully. I’d like to go home,” he added. “Maybe at home the screaming will stop.”