Cast in Conflict Page 6

  “They’re one-offs,” Kaylin countered.

  “Yes. What would make you retire from the Hawks you serve? You offer aid to the guild of midwives, to the foundling hall. Would that not be enough to sustain you?”

  No.

  04

  “I ask only that you think carefully, Kaylin. You are not Bellusdeo; you did not rule—and lose—a world. But as your life as a Hawk has defined you, her life as a queen—a lost queen, far from home—defined far more of her existence. The scattered remnants of her people, the Norranir, are here, but they, too, are not what they were. They are refugees; they cling to our borders, because war with Shadow is what they know.

  “What they did before that war became so all-encompassing, you do not know. Some might have been artists or scholars. But here, this is all that is familiar.”

  Kaylin shrugged uneasily. “I told you—I’ve been ordered to keep her company. I’ll do it.”

  Tara nodded. “You will not, I think, find her today. But I believe you should also visit the chancellor.”

  “You’ve never interrupted him while he’s working,” was the glum reply.

  * * *

  “Well?” The glumness continued when they left Tara. Tiamaris escorted them out, but added no further words; he was not in agreement with his Tower.

  She surprised herself. “You understand that Tara’s very existence is about Ravellon, right?”

  His eyes were orange, and flecks of red could be seen.

  “I’m not saying you’re stupid,” she continued, a rushing press of syllables designed to lessen the red. “But...it makes sense to me that Tara would support Bellusdeo’s interests here. Bellusdeo was...not created, not exactly, but—she grew up fighting Shadow. She sacrificed everything to that war. Everything. I don’t know what she’d be if the Norranir hadn’t arrived. But it’s what she knows. The Norranir have ways of influencing and detecting Shadow that even our experts didn’t before their arrival.

  “For Tara, this job is Bellusdeo’s job. This fight is Bellusdeo’s fight. And it’s in the best interests of all of the Towers to allow it.”

  “You know what Bellusdeo wants.”

  “I know what she probably wants, yes. But I’m just saying—it makes sense for Tara to privilege Bellusdeo as a warrior, not a mother. If the Towers fall, there won’t be Dragons because there won’t be anything.”

  Tiamaris stared—glared, really—at her for a minute. Or an hour, if one judged by feeling and not actual passage of time. “Speak to Lannagaros. I have as much influence over Bellusdeo as any other member of the Dragon Court, and sadly, that includes the Emperor.”

  “She’s not technically—”

  “Out.” He breathed a small plume of actual fire as he spoke.

  Kaylin didn’t need to be told twice. To be fair, she didn’t need to be told once, either.

  * * *

  “Is that what you believe?” Severn asked, as they crossed into what had once been the border zone.

  “No. I mean, it’s true—I think Bellusdeo is the perfect ally for Tara or any of the Towers, but...no. I think she actually cares about Bellusdeo’s happiness. And Bellusdeo hasn’t been happy for a long, long time.”

  “War didn’t make her happy.”

  “No.”

  “War would make her happy now?”

  “I’m going to punch you if you keep this up.”

  Severn grinned.

  It was true, though. War hadn’t made Bellusdeo happy. Being here, being free, being alive, hadn’t exactly made her happy. Knowing that she was the only hope for the continuance of the Dragon race hadn’t made her happy. But Kaylin didn’t inherently believe that Bellusdeo was doomed to unhappiness.

  Maybe all that was left was a choice between different unhappinesses. What was the thing that would make her the least unhappy?

  She cursed in Leontine. “Fine. I think we all want Bellusdeo to be happy, and none of us understand how that would work—but we all have ideas. Except for Tiamaris and the Emperor.”

  “Let’s talk to the chancellor and see what he has to say. We won’t be accompanying Bellusdeo anywhere today unless she happens to be at the Academia when we arrive.”

  Kaylin’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t expect him to be in a good mood. Not if he singed Emmerian’s cape—Emmerian is the least confrontational of the Dragons.”

  * * *

  The streets, as Tara had said, didn’t become elongated or compressed; they didn’t lose color. They seemed solid and as real as any other streets in the fief as Kaylin and Severn walked down them.

  They weren’t normal streets, however. The border zone as it existed had become absorbed somehow in the resurrection of the Academia, under its new chancellor. All of these newly solid streets somehow formed borders and boundaries that transcribed the Academia. They didn’t lead to Nightshade, the next fief over. She could turn heel—and tried—and follow the streets back to Tiamaris; different streets must exist in Nightshade now that led to the Academia.

  There seemed to be no streets that connected the actual neighboring fiefs.

  This made a kind of sense to Kaylin. If one of the Towers fell, the contamination or corruption could not spread to zones the other Towers occupied. It could, however, spread to Elantra, the city that Kaylin—and many, many others—called home.

  “These streets still make no sense.”

  Severn nodded. “They would be difficult to map, yes.” His tone made clear that some intrepid cartographer would be forced to do it anyway.

  “The Emperor doesn’t rule the fiefs. He can’t just order someone to map them.”

  “And the chancellor doesn’t rule Bellusdeo, either.”

  Fair enough. Kaylin found maps useful—at least Records versions of maps—but not necessary. No doubt their existence in Records implied she was wrong.

  “Do you think people could live here?”

  “I don’t see why not. I imagine that some people will—but that might be at the chancellor’s discretion. I’m not sure how or why buildings that aren’t related to the Academia nonetheless survive—but clearly they do.”

  “That’s another question to ask the chancellor. Some other day. I figure we’ll have our hands full with the Bellusdeo question.” It occurred to her that it might be a good idea to stop talking and start thinking, because she had to have an actual question or two to ask if she did manage to get his attention.

  * * *

  The Academia buildings were the buildings that Kaylin had first encountered, but they were, as the rest of the streets that led to it, solid, their colors the natural colors one would expect of stone, wood and glass. The central parkette around which the buildings curved sported trees and incredibly well-tended grass, as it had the first time Kaylin had seen it. But here, the grass was ridiculously emerald, and the trees in such perfect health that none of it looked real.

  The buildings themselves were also in perfect repair. To be fair, if she thought about it, so was Helen—and these buildings were the heart of Academia. Killianas—Killian—was the central intelligence that kept the Academia functioning. He was a building with a much more amorphous set of instructions than Helen.

  Or so Helen had said. His creation had been the work of not one, but practically all, of the extant Ancients, those beings who had created the various races that now populated both the city and the Empire. And beyond that, as well.

  What they had wanted when they created this place was probably what the Arkon—damn it, the chancellor—had wanted when he had created his own library. But no, the former Arkon’s library had been a private, personal collection of the detritus of the long dead. It wasn’t meant to be occupied, touched, interacted with by any save the Arkon himself.

  This was different.

  The parkette was occupied, but not by mostly Barrani thugs, although Barrani were pres
ent. Kaylin recognized two of them: Serralyn and Valliant. They appeared to be eating lunch. She glanced at Severn; he shrugged.

  She decided to leave the two to their lunch and their companions, two of whom were mortals Kaylin didn’t recognize. Even at this distance, she could see Serralyn’s eyes were a brilliant green. Reality would no doubt dim that color, because reality had a way of doing that to hopes and dreams.

  But the hopes and dreams that had led Kaylin—eventually—to her life with the Hawks and Helen had still led her to a much better place. Was it perfect? No. And she had certainly daydreamed about perfect, somehow expecting that “better place” would be it. She was almost certain that, reality notwithstanding, Serralyn would be happier here than she had been possibly anywhere else.

  “Kaylin!”

  It was not the Barrani cohort, or the two members present, who shouted her name. She turned instantly toward the source of that voice; Robin was running across the edge of the grass toward her, narrowly avoiding collision with one tree.

  “It is you!”

  She smiled. “Robin. Have you met Serralyn and Valliant?”

  He nodded, grinning. “Things have been so much better since you guys came. Like, the classes are actually different. They don’t just repeat over and over. And Serralyn and Valliant want to be here. Everyone who’s here wants to be here—no one is a prisoner.”

  “Not anymore, no.”

  “Have you seen Calarnenne?”

  “Please tell me he’s not a student here.”

  “Sort of? I mean, he’s not one of us—but he’s welcome here. I think the chancellor likes him. I take it that means no.”

  “No, we haven’t seen him.”

  “Are you coming to apply?”

  “Gods, no. I was a terrible student in the Halls of Law, and I’d be a terrible student now. I get that Serralyn wants to be here—she’s been walking on air for days—and I don’t think she’s stupid for it. But she thinks it’ll be fun and I think I’ll just get expelled. But you want to be here, too.”

  “I like it here. I get fed—for free—and I have a safe place to stay, and there’s just so much that’s so interesting. I can leave now, if I want. I couldn’t before.” He lowered his voice. “The chancellor wants students like me.” He beamed. “He said it’s important.”

  There probably weren’t a lot of kids like Robin around. Kaylin had thought maybe—just maybe—this could be a home for the children of the fiefs, a safe place for them to learn, if they wanted to learn. A place where starvation and fear of Ferals were irrelevant. Listening to Robin, watching Serralyn, she was less certain.

  Robin had, in some fashion that she didn’t understand, been the lynchpin of the Academia’s revival. Something about the way he approached information and knowledge—knowledge that would be impractical and useless for Kaylin’s chosen life—had affected Killian.

  “I have a friend,” he said, his voice still low. “She would love it here. I think. The chancellor said I could find her, but—he doesn’t want me to find her on my own.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “The east warrens. Same as me. Or same as I used to.” His expression fell. “I want her to come here if she’s still alive.” A world of words about life in the warrens—which was not dissimilar to Kaylin’s life in the fiefs, except for the absence of Ferals—was implied by those words.

  “When are you going to look for her?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “No?”

  “I have classes,” he said, as if classes were the job that Kaylin so prized. “And I have to wait until the chancellor has time.”

  “You want to wait?”

  “Well, he’s a Dragon,” Robin replied, as if that explained everything. It did. No one in the east warrens would be stupid enough to attack a Dragon, if they recognized a Dragon. No one in the east warrens would survive attacking a Dragon if they didn’t. Regardless, Kaylin had a job, and that job probably didn’t include heading into the east warrens to find a friend of Robin’s.

  “How long were you in the Academia as a prisoner?”

  “I think a year, maybe a bit more or a bit less. Time here—at least when none of us could leave—was a bit strange. It’s normal now.”

  So it might have been longer. She didn’t ask if he was certain his friend had survived in the interim. No profit to that question.

  “Did you come to talk to the chancellor?”

  “If he’s available, yes.”

  “You’re supposed to make an appointment.”

  “We didn’t know we were coming. Tell me, have you seen Bellusdeo? She was the gold Dragon.”

  Robin nodded. “She’s helping the chancellor. Somehow.”

  “I live with her. Well, she lives with me.”

  “She’s not supposed to be helping the chancellor?”

  “Robin, you are way too observant. There’s some disagreement about what Bellusdeo should be doing—but take it from me: it’s never safe to tell a Dragon what to do. Or what not to do. Can you take us to the chancellor’s office?”

  “It’s the same place it was before.”

  “Yes, but I’m not familiar enough with the building to remember it.”

  He nodded and led the way. “We’ll have to hurry,” he added, half apologetically. “Lunch is almost over.”

  * * *

  There was no door ward on the very closed door. Kaylin hesitated. Robin didn’t. He knocked. He was not yet full-grown, and his hands were lighter than Kaylin’s, although the length of his fingers implied they wouldn’t, in the fullness of time, remain that way. He was clearly not afraid to knock on this door or face this particular Dragon in his personal den.

  The door rolled open.

  The chancellor was in his office, which Robin had said wasn’t guaranteed. He was even seated behind his desk, but didn’t appear to be attending to paperwork. A mirror—long and oval—was situated beside that desk; it was active.

  There was a lot of roaring from the mirror, and a few words of similar volume from the chancellor, who appeared to be wreathed in smoke. Kaylin covered both of Robin’s ears with her hands.

  In mortals, this volume would have been an indication of dangerous fury.

  The Arkon’s eyes, however, as he turned toward the door and the people foolish enough to interrupt him, were orange. Not red-orange; he was annoyed or concerned, but not yet angry.

  Kaylin hoped that her presence here wouldn’t change that.

  The Arkon turned to the mirror—Kaylin could see its shape, but couldn’t see what the Arkon saw; she knew he spoke to a Dragon, but not which one. When they spoke in their native tongue, there was often too much sound distortion for her to distinguish between their voices. “We will continue this later,” he said, in Barrani.

  He then turned fully to face her. “Corporal.”

  “Chancellor.”

  “What brings you to my office? In general, one is required to have an appointment.”

  “Yes, sir. But...I needed appointments to see you in the palace, as well.”

  “And never had the courtesy to make them.”

  “I mostly came with Bellusdeo, and—”

  He lifted a hand. “Yes. I understand. You are not, however, with Bellusdeo today, and you still lack an appointment.” He glanced at Robin. “If you hurry, you will make your class on time. And Robin? The matters that bring the corporal here are not matters that involve the Academia; they are the sad detritus of my previous duties. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” Robin bobbed a bow that would have had Diarmat raging at Kaylin for weeks, grinned at Kaylin as he rose, and was gone.

  “Do not run in the halls!” The chancellor’s raised voice followed him, bouncing off the walls of the office. But his eyes were a shade of gold that strongly implied he was fond of Robin, that he kn
ew Robin knew this, but was content to let it be.

  His eyes were less gold when they turned, once again, to Kaylin. Of course they were. He gestured and the doors once again closed, a politer word for slammed shut.

  “You understand,” the chancellor said, “that I am an honorary member of the Dragon Court?”

  She nodded. She’d guessed as much.

  “Perhaps you don’t understand what honorary means.”

  Now that was uncalled for. Kaylin opened her mouth, but the chancellor had not yet finished.

  “Lord Tiamaris is an active member of the Dragon Court.” He steepled his hands above the fall of his beard, drawing it closer to his chest. “What have you come to discuss? You have fifteen minutes, unless I feel the discussion is personally relevant to someone who is not an active member of the Court.”

  Fine. “We’ve come to ask a couple of questions about Bellusdeo. Tiamaris said she’s been running errands for you.”

  The chancellor’s eyes grew orange, and Kaylin decided that Barrani should have been the go-to language. It would have been, had she not been irritated.

  “She has undertaken the responsibility of examining the access to the Academia from each of the fiefs.”

  “The Emperor—the Dragon Emperor—has asked that I accompany her.”

  “I believe some diplomacy, at least in the fief of Farlonne, is involved. That has not been traditionally where your... talents...have been put to use.”

  “I will refrain from speaking. I’m meant to be a guard.”

  “You are meant to be a babysitter,” he replied. “And Bellusdeo is not in need of one.”

  “Imperial command,” Kaylin replied. “I don’t have to like it. I just have to obey.”

  The chancellor exhaled. It was a small wonder that he hadn’t managed to reduce his desk to ash.

  “It is not,” a familiar voice said. Killian—Killianas—walked through the closed door, without bothering to open it first. “Within the buildings that comprise the Academia, I have some control over the physical state of the furniture.”