Cast in Flame

by Michelle Sagara

  “Not anymore, no. But—there’s something about someone who’s shared your experiences. I love the Hawks. I love all of you, even Joey’s mother.”

  “Who is not a Hawk.”

  “I probably know more about Joey’s mother than I know about my own.”

  “Fair point.”

  “I’m aware that we’ve built seven years of history, working together. I hated Barren. I hated my life in the fiefs. I would kill before I went back to it. Or die. But...I feel close to Morse because of that life. Because she understands it in a way that—”

  “That I don’t?”

  “Yes. To be fair, you probably don’t understand my happy life, either.”

  “I am content with that particular ignorance—beyond a desire to see that life continue. You are not boring, remember?”

  “Neither are Mandoran or Annarion, and I don’t see you dancing a jig about them.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Bellusdeo was not, technically, given permission to accompany Kaylin to the fief of Tiamaris. Kaylin, aware of whose neck was actually on the line, mirrored the Imperial Palace Library. She got a face full of orange-eyed, annoyed Royal Librarian for her trouble.

  “Is this an emergency?” the Arkon demanded, tufts of smoke leaving the corners of his mouth.

  “Yes?”

  “You sound doubtful.”

  Bellusdeo stepped into the mirror’s view. Her eyes had tinted toward bronze, but she never went full-on red in the Arkon’s presence. “Lannagaros.”

  “Bellusdeo,” he replied—in an entirely different tone of voice. Even his eyes brightened to gold. “My apologies.”

  “Apologies to me are never necessary, Lannagaros—but I find you a touch hard on Kaylin.”

  “Private Neya is like a particularly bright kitten,” was his unselfconscious reply. “I find it best to set hard boundaries, and police them ferociously; she is perfectly capable of demanding inordinate amounts of my time, otherwise.”

  Dragons.

  Kaylin cleared her throat. “I’m about to head down to Tiamaris. We want to speak with Tara. Bellusdeo hasn’t seen Maggaron for a few weeks.”

  The Arkon frowned. “When you say ‘we’, Private, do you refer to yourself and Bellusdeo exclusively?”

  The Dragon and the private exchanged a glance.

  “I will assume that is a no.” More smoke escaped the corners of his mouth. He would have looked like a sage out of a story if he’d actually bothered holding a pipe. “You are taking Teela’s friends?”

  This time, Kaylin kept her eyes firmly on the mirror; she felt Bellusdeo’s gaze smack the side of her face. “If they’ll agree, yes. They’re having a bit of a problem adjusting to the new world paradigm.”

  He surprised her. He chuckled. It was dry enough to light paper. “I imagine they are. I would appreciate the opportunity to meet and speak with them, in future.”

  Kaylin thought it would be far easier to get them to visit a Tower in the fiefs, even one owned by a Dragon, than it would to get them to visit the Palace, since the Dragon in the Palace ruled the Empire. She didn’t have to say this.

  “I would not, of course, invite them here.” Which would have been a relief, but he was the Arkon. “I hear that you visited the Keeper today.”

  Bellusdeo’s smile froze, although it still remained on her face. Somehow. “Lannagaros—”

  “I consider him a wise choice of acquaintance. I meant no criticism. The Emperor was concerned about the outcome of your last visit, but as you did not emerge on a second visit in full armor, he is somewhat mollified. Was the visit interesting in any way?”

  Bellusdeo’s eyes narrowed. “You are not, I hope, interfering?”

  “I would interfere in a heartbeat if you but asked,” was his formal reply.

  Her smile unfroze. It was pensive. “Did I ever ask for help in the Aerie?”

  “Not when you actually needed it, no. A request for aid was always a sign of trouble to come.”

  At that, Bellusdeo did smile; it made her look much younger. “You were always so stiff and proper,” she said, with obvious fondness.

  “It has not, generally, worked to my detriment.”

  “No, I don’t imagine it has. It rarely worked to mine, either. Yes, we had a peaceful visit with the Keeper. He reminds me a little of you, you know. Don’t make that face.”

  “He’s mortal.”

  “He’s the Keeper. Mortality is his weakness, but it has not yet killed him. I don’t believe he’ll allow it to kill him, either, until he’s fully trained his replacement.”

  “And the private mirrored me to ask if you might accompany her to Tiamaris, did she?”

  “The private,” Kaylin pointed out, “is right here. You could ask me.”

  “Or you could fail to be offended, and answer.”

  Kaylin snorted, without the smoke. The small dragon, however, batted her cheek with his head. “Yes, that’s why I interrupted you. Bellusdeo would like to accompany us.”

  “You consider it safe?”

  “I’m not convinced that what I consider safe is the deciding factor here, but yes, I consider it safe.”

  “There is something you are not telling me.”

  “You usually don’t like it when I—as you put it—chatter endlessly.”

  A white brow rose. His eyes, however, remained the gold they’d become in conversing with Bellusdeo. “Very well. I will inform Lord Emmerian. He may choose to join you.”

  Bellusdeo said nothing.

  “In different circumstances, you would like Emmerian. Of all the young Dragons, he is the least likely, in my opinion, to find his hoard. He is easily contented.”

  This didn’t mean much to Kaylin; it clearly meant something to Bellusdeo. “He is not,” she conceded, “Diarmat.”

  “No. There is only one Diarmat. We are lucky to have him,” the Arkon added, as if trying to be fair, “but he requires tolerance.”

  “Spoken like a man who doesn’t have to take his infernal etiquette lessons.”

  “Indeed. He is very hierarchical, and I am above him in that hierarchy. In different circumstances, Bellusdeo, you would be, as well.”

  “I am unwilling to leave Kaylin to suffer his odiousness alone.”

  “And Kaylin,” Kaylin added, “appreciates her presence immensely. We have a lesson tomorrow night.”

  “Do not remind me. Very well, Lannagaros. Inform Emmerian if you must. We will be heading almost directly from the Halls to the fief.”

  * * *

  Kaylin took the time to mirror Tara to tell her that she was arriving with an unspecified number of guests.

  “You don’t usually mirror before you arrive.”

  “I don’t usually know exactly when I’m arriving,” Kaylin replied, hesitant. “But—you always know before I get there.”

  “Yes. I know when you cross the Ablayne. Who are your guests?”

  “Bellusdeo.”

  “I will inform Maggaron.”

  The Dragon thanked her.

  “...and Lord Teela of the Barrani High Court. She’s a Hawk. Tiamaris knows her.”

  Tara’s face, in the mirror’s surface, went blank for a moment as she consulted with the Tower’s Lord. “He is surprised.”

  “Yes, well.”

  “He is suspicious.”

  Bellusdeo chuckled. “And not without reason. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but Teela has visiting...relatives...staying in the City.”

  Tara frowned. It wasn’t an angry or even disapproving frown; she frowned when something confused her. “Teela,” she finally said, “has many relatives staying in the City.”

  “Yes, but these two are new to Elantra.”

  “And she wishes to
bring them here?” Her face went momentarily blank again, and it remained that way for much longer. When it cleared, Tiamaris was standing in the mirror’s frame beside his Avatar. His eyes were a lovely, lambent gold, and he smiled when he saw Bellusdeo. His smile dimmed when he turned his attention on Kaylin. She felt very under-appreciated.

  Without preamble, he said, “There was some trouble along the Nightshade border last night.”

  “...Trouble.”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “There was a small, localized shadow storm. Some of the buildings on my side of the border were damaged; the border zone itself is, at the moment, untraverseable.” His eyes narrowed. “Given your expression, I assume this is not a complete surprise to you.”

  “Oh, it’s a surprise,” Kaylin replied, shrinking a few inches. “There was some difficulty in Castle Nightshade last night.”

  “Was it resolved?”

  “He still holds the Castle.”

  “And now, coincidentally, you have decided not only to visit my fief, but to bring at least one guest who would not, in my opinion, willingly visit had she many other options. And she is bringing strangers with her. They are Barrani?”

  Kaylin chose the safe reply. “More or less.”

  It was only safe when used on someone other than a Dragon.

  “She means to say: they were, once,” Bellusdeo said, stepping in to rescue her from the growing orange of Tiamaris’s eyes. “They believe themselves to be Barrani now.”

  “Were these friends guests at Castle Nightshade last night?”

  “One of them was, yes.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Tara, however, placed an arm on Tiamaris’s sleeve. He glanced down at her—her Avatar form was shorter than his mortal form—and snorted. There’d been a lot of visible smoke in this series of conversations. He fell silent as Tara turned toward Kaylin, her expression troubled.

  “Lord Nightshade is not known for the risks he takes with his castle.”

  Kaylin nodded. “The visitor was his brother. His younger brother. He—” she hadn’t intended to tell Tara what happened. She’d hoped Annarion would, and that Tara might understand, without prejudice, what no one else could. Given Tiamaris, that wasn’t going to be an option. “You know that Castle Nightshade was sleeping. I mean—you’re awake. Castle Nightshade wasn’t.”

  Tara nodded slowly.

  “Nightshade and his brother got into a bit of an argument.”

  “Did the younger brother attempt to kill the Lord of the Castle?”

  Kaylin shook her head emphatically. “He—the younger brother—is upset and disappointed in Nightshade and what Nightshade’s become. They haven’t seen each other for, oh, centuries.”

  “But he did not attempt to harm Lord Nightshade?”

  “No.”

  “The Castle reacted to the presence of the younger brother.” It wasn’t really a question, but Kaylin nodded.

  “The younger brother—his name’s Annarion, by the way—somehow spoke to the Castle. He’s not sure how. No one is. But the Castle...woke.”

  “Annarion woke the Castle?”

  “I think it’s more accurate to say the Castle woke itself. And...it’s not really a Castle, anymore.”

  To Tara, for whom architecture was fluid, this wouldn’t necessarily mean much. Tiamaris’s eyes, however, widened. “And you want to bring this Annarion here?”

  “Because Tara’s already awake. I met the Avatar of Nightshade. Awake, he’s...nothing at all like Tara. I’d be happy if I never saw him again, anywhere, for any reason. Tara’s already awake. Annarion can’t accidentally wake her, and if he does somehow speak to her in a way that he can’t speak to the rest of us, she’ll know exactly what he’s doing. She may be able to tell him how not to speak with Castle Nightshade in future. He’s very attached to his brother,” she added. “Knowing that he’s thrown the entire fief—and the Tower—into a state of chaos is probably killing him.”

  Tiamaris said, “I dislike this intensely.”

  But Tara’s grip tightened briefly.

  “You wish to do this?”

  The Tower’s Avatar nodded. “Kaylin wouldn’t bring people whom she knew to be a threat.”

  “Kaylin is blessed by a profound optimism, one that frequently stems from equally profound ignorance.” He exhaled. “If Tara considers the risk worthwhile, I will allow it. But I do so with reservations.”

  * * *

  If Annarion and Mandoran were no longer Barrani in the strict sense of the word, they were considered Barrani by the average person bustling from one place to the next, where most of those average were mortals, and most of those mortals were human. Given that it was after-work hours, Kaylin’s tabard was in the mess of her locker; she wore her normal clothing.

  So did Teela. Bellusdeo brought the average up; if her clothing was simple, it was simple for Court. Most of the people who passed her by didn’t recognize her for the Dragon she was; she was simply a tall, attractive woman. There may have been flirting.

  The bridge across the Ablayne to Tiamaris was not heavily traveled in the evening. A pair of guards stood on the far side—that was new. They had apparently been informed that guests were expected. They weren’t Swords; they radiated nervousness when they stopped the party to ask their business, eyeing the three Barrani. Since it was nervousness due to perfectly reasonable fear, Teela chose not to take offense.

  Neither did Annarion or Mandoran.

  “I will never understand how you can live in such a crowded, noisy place,” the latter said, when they were well out of the guards’ earshot. “And the smell!”

  “You get used to it.”

  “I don’t see how.” The Barrani clearly didn’t bet as a pastime, because if they had, Mandoran would have been laying money on the figurative table, given his expression. Since the streets of Tiamaris weren’t as crowded or noisy, he subsided, although his outrage at the crowds and the smell were more entertaining than the slightly sulky boredom that surfaced in their place.

  Since Mandoran could whine in the privacy of his thoughts, Kaylin assumed this was passive-aggressive criticism on his part. Given the tenor of rants in the office, it was mild; she didn’t particularly feel offended on behalf of Elantra. She did feel offended on behalf of mortals, but that was pretty much business as usual when dealing with Barrani.

  Mandoran opened his mouth—again—and Teela glared. Annarion chuckled. His smile froze as he caught sight of the Tower of the fief of Tiamaris.

  It was a white tower; something reflective at the heights caught light and scattered it across the rooftops of the much shorter buildings surrounding it. Kaylin wasn’t a student of architecture; she knew what she liked. What she liked mostly consisted of a roof that wasn’t leaking and walls that were more or less straight. Doors that actually opened and closed without getting stuck in their frames were good, too.

  But she liked this tower. She liked the Lord who ruled it, and through it, the fief that bore his name. Barren, which is what the fief had been called before Tiamaris’s arrival, had been her home for six months. Jail would have been both safer and less soul-destroying. But if Tiamaris had been fieflord when she had arrived here, she would probably never have left. She might be one of the guards at the foot of the bridge.

  Or one of the guards who patrolled the streets when the sun set. With luck—and plans to visit a residence on the sleepy street of Ashwood—they’d clear the fief before then. The evening streets were patrolled for a reason: Ferals hunted in them. Even with guards and a Dragon captaining their various squads, people still got unlucky.

  A lot fewer of them, though.

  “That is your Tara?” Mandoran asked, poking Kaylin in the ribs. “Don’t frown like that—this is the third time I�
�ve asked.”

  “The frown comes with the face,” she told him. It deepened. Mandoran was not looking up. He was looking ahead. Ahead into what were, to Kaylin’s eye, empty streets. The streets were under construction—or at least two of the buildings were. She started to answer and fell silent as two people turned a corner and headed toward them.

  She recognized them instantly. One was the Tower’s Lord, and one, the Tower’s Avatar.

  * * *

  Tiamaris was in full Dragon armor. Kaylin had seen him like this only a handful of times. She glanced at Bellusdeo, whose eyes had both narrowed and shaded to a copper-bronze as she caught sight of the Dragon Lord. Given the arrival of three Barrani—who were not by any stretch of the definition “frequent” visitors, she could almost understand why: he was trying to make a statement without stooping to inevitable threats or warnings.

  As statements went, given the darkening eyes of all three of the Barrani, it was effective. It wasn’t Tiamaris’s natural armor that made Kaylin so uneasy, though. It was Tara’s dress.

  Tara generally wore gardening aprons, and as she did the actual gardening, they were usually smudged with both fingerprints and dirt, especially around the knees. Today, all signs of the woman who insisted on growing food on her front and back lawns so that she might contribute something useful to the citizens of the fief were gone.

  She wore a dress that would be at home in the Barrani High Halls. It was, as the Tower itself, ivory in color, and if it wasn’t made of stone, it looked about as friendly. The reflective material of the dress was gold thread, gold embroidery and beads of some sort. Two months ago, Tara was still getting the hang of the significance of nonmartial wear; she understood the use of armor in all its forms, but couldn’t quite grasp that dresses such as this one were the equivalent of armor in a more subtle battlefield. Even Kaylin had not been that naive.

  The small dragon sat up on her shoulder and squawked.

  Tiamaris stopped. He lifted a brow, and before Kaylin could clamp a hand over small and squawky’s big mouth, he replied. The large Dragon’s reply, on the other hand, shook the streets. If they’d been empty as a natural consequence of the time of day before, they’d be empty for other reasons now.