Cast in Flame, Page 3

  “Teela is a Barrani High Lord. She owes her loyalty to—”

  “She’s a Hawk, Sanabalis.”

  Sanabalis was silent for a moment. “Kaylin, you have been the most difficult student I have ever accepted. The rewards are few; the frustration is legion. But you are not—as I’m certain Bellusdeo will tell you—boring. In my fashion, I have grown accustomed to your eccentricities. My opinion carries some weight at court. It will carry exactly none if Bellusdeo comes to harm.” He lifted a hand as Kaylin opened her mouth. “Yes, I am aware that she is not a child. So, too, is the Emperor.

  “But you have told anyone who will listen that you are no longer a child, either. The Emperor therefore wishes you to understand what is at risk for you. Bellusdeo has a home in the Palace. She will be as safe there as she would be—”

  “In a grave.”

  Silence.

  Kaylin watched the color of Dragon eyes closely; she’d folded her arms and widened her stance without conscious intent. But if Sanabalis felt insulted, it didn’t anger him; the color remained a constant, pale orange.

  “You do not understand the politics of the Dragon Court.”

  “Then I recommend better information be taught in racial-integration classes.” She exhaled through clenched teeth and forced herself to relax. “Look, Sanabalis, I don’t understand the problem. The Arkon had no objections. He doesn’t think Bellusdeo can be happy in the Palace. Not right now.”

  “The Arkon is being astonishingly sentimental for one of our kind.”

  “No, he’s just being perceptive. I don’t know what went down at the end of all the wars. I don’t know what choices the surviving Dragons were given—but I’m guessing that many of the Dragons didn’t survive to make that choice. I don’t know what choice Bellusdeo has been offered—but I’m guessing almost none. She’s the only female Dragon. She’s not being asked to choose between death and eternal servitude.” He started to speak, and she held up one hand. “She understands what’s at stake. She has a sense of responsibility. But she’s not a piece of property. The Emperor already has a hoard.”

  “No choice has been demanded of Bellusdeo.”

  “That’s not the way Diarmat sees it.”

  One pale brow rose into an equally pale hairline.

  “...Lord Diarmat.”

  “Lord Diarmat is concerned for the rule of law. The Emperor’s law. He is younger than the Arkon, and he is aware that female Dragons are not an entirely different species.”

  “They’re not technically a different species at all.”

  “Exactly. Lord Diarmat is the only member of the Dragon Court who will risk open hostility to make that point. Bellusdeo is a Dragon, but she is not accorded the responsibilities that exist, for Dragons, in the Empire.”

  “Meaning she’s not forced to swear the same oath the rest of you swore.”

  “Yes.” Sanabalis fell silent. He did not, however, give Kaylin permission to depart, and she was very much aware, given the turn of the day’s events—or at least the evening’s prior—that permission was required. “She is not happy,” he surprised her by saying.

  Kaylin waited.

  “It may come as a surprise to you, but her happiness is of some concern to the Emperor; he balances it with a desire for her safety that is second only to his desire for the safety of his hoard. If you will not take the detachment of guards, I will have them dismissed. Go on your patrol. I will arrange a suitable escort for your...apartment hunting.”

  “Who would that be?”

  He ran his hand over his eyes. “In all likelihood, Private Neya, me. I may attempt to saddle Lord Emmerian with that duty; he has not, to my knowledge, offended Bellusdeo in the last several weeks. Largely,” he added, with a more toothy grin, “because he has avoided her entirely.”

  * * *

  “Why,” Teela said, in the clipped, cool voice that implied annoyance, “are you sulking?”

  “I’m not sulking.” Kaylin did not kick a stone, which took effort.

  Mandoran grinned. “You don’t look like you’re sulking to me—but I’m not as conversant with mortal expressions. Why exactly do your eyes stay that fixed color?”

  “Human.”

  “Doesn’t it make the other mortals wonder if you’re not just animals that talk?”

  “Frequently.” She reached out and caught Bellusdeo’s elbow as the Dragon drew breath; it was the kind of slow, heavy breath which sometimes preceded fire. “Either that or it makes them suspicious, because clearly we’re hiding something. Or we’re insane.”

  “Well, I won’t argue that,” he replied. He was looking at the buildings that lined the streets, the people that walked them, the stray cats and dogs, and the clouds that scudded overhead, as if everything was both new and fascinating. It probably was. He had spent the past many centuries trapped inside the green, which had a tenuous understanding of physical form. At best. His eyes were a shade of blue-green, and he kept to the side of Teela that happened to be farthest from the Dragon. Kaylin had inserted herself between Teela and Bellusdeo, which meant Mandoran and Bellusdeo were as far apart as they could be while still heading in the same general direction.

  They both turned heads, though.

  Mandoran wasn’t encumbered by the regulation tabard that Teela wore, and Bellusdeo looked far more like a Lord of the Dragon Court—by dress, at least—than the average pedestrian. Most women who could afford to dress the way she did didn’t walk anywhere—they took carriages, and usually stayed behind their guards and footmen.

  Kaylin grimaced. She almost wished Bellusdeo were in one of those carriages, because Elani street was the home of wheedling, enterprising frauds, most of whom could happily accost anyone that appeared to have money.

  They were usually better behaved when their victims had Hawks as escorts. Mandoran, on the other hand, didn’t appear to understand that he was a victim. He responded to the offers—in this case, fortune-telling—with unfeigned curiosity and quick delight.

  Teela raised a brow. Mandoran stiffened. Neither spoke out loud. They didn’t have to, if they wanted their conversation to be private; they knew each other’s true names. It had been centuries since either had had call to use them, if one ignored the past few weeks.

  “Teela,” Mandoran said, “doesn’t want me to have fun here.”

  “She’s working. You’ll add to the paperwork if you do.”

  “Yes, that seems to be one of her fears. The other is attempting to throw me into...jail if I misbehave?”

  “I imagine that would be a lot of fun,” Kaylin replied.

  “I’ve offered to visit the High Halls instead of the city streets,” was his cheerful counter. “There, it won’t matter if foolish or stupid people die; it’s considered a form of suicide, and it isn’t Teela’s job to prevent that.”

  “Why did we think this was a good idea?” Kaylin asked her fellow Hawk.

  “I never thought it was a good idea, if I recall. I merely pointed out that compared to your induction into the Hawks, Mandoran was far less likely to be in danger. Or to indirectly cause it. I was perhaps optimistic about the latter.”

  Mandoran snorted. So did Bellusdeo.

  “I thought you were here to keep an eye on Annarion.”

  At that, Mandoran’s smile dimmed. The color of his eyes shifted, but not into the midnight blue that generally meant upcoming injury or death. He glanced at Teela; Teela was studying the occupants of Elani street as if they were fascinating, dangerous, or both.

  “You will have to tell me,” Bellusdeo said to Kaylin, “exactly what did happen on your pilgrimage. It seems you’ve acquired companions.”

  “They’re Teela’s companions, not mine. And there are—at the moment—two of them in the city. You’ve met Mandoran. He’s the outgoing, friendly one with the que
stionable sense of humor.”

  “It seems a fairly standard Barrani sense of humor, if less subtle than rumored.”

  “He’s young for his age.”

  “Not so young,” Mandoran cut in, “that he enjoys being talked about in the third person.”

  “And not so mature,” the Dragon countered, “that he doesn’t enjoy talking about other people present in the same way.”

  He grinned. His eyes were still a wary blue. “Fair enough.” He spoke Elantran. Kaylin doubted a similar phrase existed in Barrani.

  “Where is Annarion anyway?”

  “Kitling.”

  Mandoran raised a black brow. “He’s visiting his brother.”

  Nightshade.

  “And no, before you ask, it’s not going well.”

  “Why didn’t you go with him?”

  “I wasn’t invited. Or rather, I was specifically not invited. Lord Calarnenne was willing to entertain Teela, but for some reason, Teela didn’t choose to accept his invitation.”

  “I am uninterested in playing games of power with Nightshade.”

  “But Annarion—”

  “Is not in danger. Whatever else Nightshade intends in future, the death of his youngest brother is no part of his plan. It is safe for Annarion to rage only in the absence of witnesses. Nightshade didn’t invite me because he was concerned for Annarion’s safety; he wished to confine Annarion’s wrath. I,” she added, with a slender, sharp smile, “did not.” She glanced pointedly at the mark Nightshade had left on Kaylin’s cheek. It was just so much skin to the younger Hawk, but it never failed to annoy Teela.

  “Heads up. Margot on the prowl,” Teela added.

  Margot was possibly the person on Elani street Kaylin disliked the most, not that there was any shortage of rivals for that position. She was a tall, gorgeous redhead, and she made the color look natural. She was statuesque, her skin was fair, her eyes striking, and she could milk money out of stone by oozing wisdom and charm.

  Neither of which Kaylin privately believed she had.

  “She won’t come here,” Kaylin replied. “She’s seen me.”

  If Kaylin played the least-favorite game, so did Margot. Kaylin was on the top of the Hawk’s list, and possibly near the top three across the board. She still blamed Kaylin for the loss of one of her most lucrative clients, which cost Kaylin no sleep at night, ever.

  “Pretty,” Mandoran said, which didn’t help. Margot was not an idiot, whatever else one could call her; she cast an equally appreciative look at Mandoran, but kept her distance. Barrani affairs were seldom safe for mortals, and attempting to bilk a Barrani out of money was a mug’s game; it required stupidity and overbearing ego, and Margot only had one of the two. She pretty much failed to see Kaylin as Kaylin sauntered past.

  “She is attractive,” Teela said—which was obviously meant to irritate Kaylin, because there wasn’t any other reason to say it out loud.

  Bellusdeo shook her head. “By mortal standards, perhaps, but there’s a brittle edge to the line of her mouth I find unappealing.”

  “Guys,” Kaylin snapped. “A little less ogling and a little more patrolling.”

  “I’m not patrolling,” Mandoran chuckled.

  “Technically, you’re not here.”

  He laughed. “You know,” he said, “I think, when you have a place of your own, I’m going to be visiting a lot. You really are much less stodgy than Teela’s become.”

  “Teela is no one’s definition of ‘stodgy.’”

  “Kaylin will not be living on her own, and I don’t do drop-ins,” Bellusdeo pointed out. Her eyes remained golden. Mandoran’s had edged toward green, but a stubborn streak of blue persisted. If he eventually chose to be comfortable around a Dragon, it wasn’t going to be today.

  He shrugged. “From the sound of it, you’re not going to find much of a place of your own anyway.”

  “I can find a place,” Kaylin said. “And Bellusdeo, despite appearances, doesn’t require something palatial or even regal, given where we were living before.”

  “Oh, it’s not your friend that’s going to be the problem.” He glanced at Teela’s expressionless face, and added, “on the other hand, it could be worse for you. You could be living with Tain.” His grimace looked nothing like a Barrani expression.

  Teela cleared her throat. Loudly.

  “You’re living with Tain?”

  “If you can call it living, yes. For some reason, he doesn’t seem to want me to see much of your fair city. I want,” he added, “to visit the Leontines I hear you have living here. I didn’t even know they could function in cities. But your Sergeant seems fine wearing clothes.”

  Bellusdeo glanced at Kaylin. Kaylin turned a tight-lipped stare on Teela, who shrugged. “Surely you expected this?” the Barrani Hawk asked. “You know he hasn’t lived in a mortal city before; he certainly hasn’t lived in this one.”

  “The Leontines,” Kaylin told Mandoran, in chilly Barrani, “are not animals. Nor are the humans. The Aerians are not birds. This is a city, not a zoo—and none of its inhabitants are here to be stared at through cage bars.”

  “Kitling.”

  Mandoran chuckled. “My apologies, Lord Kaylin. I seem to have touched a sensitive spot.”

  “You’ve reminded me of all the things I hate about Immortals. I don’t know if you’d consider that a sensitive point or not.” She didn’t much care, either. The small dragon lifted a head and squawked. When Kaylin, still tight-lipped, ignored him, he nipped her ear.

  “What?” She turned to glare at him, and he avoided her by leaping off her shoulders to hover in the air. When she still failed to understand whatever it was he was trying to tell her, he added sounds to the flap of wings, and when she failed to get that, he flew, head first, toward a window. A storefront window.

  Kaylin ran after him, arms outstretched, while people in the street stopped to stare. She hadn’t been patrolling on Elani for almost two months; the small dragon was still a novelty. Some of the gawkers were no doubt assigning a monetary value to him; she pitied anyone foolish enough to actually try to grab him and carry him off. Actually, scratch that. At the moment, she’d probably enjoy it.

  It was only as she reached up for small and squawky that she recognized which window he’d threatened: it was Evanton’s.

  The door, habitually shut, now swung open; a wizened, bent old man was standing on the other side of the frame, his frown bracketed by a decade’s worth of lines. “Don’t stand there gawking,” he said, matching tone of voice to expression. “Come in. I put tea on ten minutes ago.”

  * * *

  Evanton didn’t actually drink tea. He made it for guests. Given his current mood, those guests might as well have been tax collectors. Bellusdeo entered his store, her eyes rounding. If she’d been mortal, Kaylin would have assumed she was surprised at the clutter and the occasional moving cobweb. She wasn’t. She turned to Evanton, in his apron, his jeweler’s glass hanging on the edge of a tarnished silver chain, his white hair in wisps above the crown of his head.

  And she bowed.

  This seemed to mollify the old man. “You must be Bellusdeo,” he said. “Rise, Lady. While I have a home here, you will always be a welcome, and valued, guest.” His voice was deeper than usual, and to Kaylin’s ear, stronger; it rumbled as if he were almost a Dragon. “I do not know who named you, or from whence they took the name, but it is yours in its entirety. I am honored.”

  Kaylin remembered, belatedly, to close her mouth. She stared at Bellusdeo. Bellusdeo’s eyes were a luminous gold, and her lips were turned up in a gentle, almost reverent smile. “You have the advantage of me in many ways,” she said.

  “Ah, forgive me.” He turned a far less reverent gaze on Kaylin. “Private, introduce us.”

  “Sorry. Bellusdeo, th
is is a friend of mine. He’s called Evanton, around these parts; if he has a family name, he’s never shared. The young man hiding in the kitchen is Grethan, his apprentice.”

  Bellusdeo frowned.

  “Kaylin is, like the rest of the inhabitants of Elantra, very informal,” Evanton said. He was, however, smiling in his slightly pained way.

  “And you allow this?”

  “Lady, she has twice saved my garden. In ignorance, she’s borne the responsibility that has been the entirety of my adult life. She has never demanded reward greater than tea and snacks—and if I am to be honest, she doesn’t so much demand as help herself if I am slow. I am willing to accept informality from her; formality would be so unnatural the awkwardness would likely kill one of us.”

  “Kaylin, do you understand who Evanton is?” Bellusdeo demanded.

  “Yes. He’s the Keeper.”

  “And do you understand what that means?”

  “He—he stops the elements from destroying each other. And incidentally the rest of us, although I don’t think they’d notice that as much.” She hesitated and then said, “How did you know what he is if you didn’t recognize who he is?”

  Bellusdeo now turned to Teela. “Have you never explained?”

  “Teela brought me here, the first time. When I wanted practical enchantments.”

  Evanton winced.

  “Practical?”

  “My daggers don’t make a sound when I draw them.”

  The Dragon looked scandalized.

  Evanton looked even more pained. “We all, as Kaylin likes to say, need to eat.”

  “I should have expected no better from an Empire that so denigrates the Chosen.” Bellusdeo’s eyes were now a deeper than comfortable orange.

  “I am content, Lady,” Evanton said, voice grave. “If the current Empire does not treat me with the regard or respect you now offer, it is a far less lonely place than it once was. Grethan,” he added, his voice developing the gruffness and irritability of age. “You are being rude to a guest.”

  Grethan’s stalks appeared from the left side of the door frame; they were followed, slowly, by the rest of his face. He didn’t look comfortable. He was Tha’alani by birth, but although he had the characteristic racial stalks protruding from his forehead, they were decorative. He couldn’t join the Tha’alaan. He couldn’t speak to his own people the way they spoke among each other unless one of them touched him and entered his thoughts. The deafness had, in the parlance of the Tha’alani, resulted in insanity. In normal human terms, he’d been angry and isolated, and that anger and isolation had almost caused the death of a Tha’alani child.