Page 114 of Cast in Conflict

“What are you doing?” Terrano practically screamed. His voice wasn’t directly beside her ear, but she caught a lot of colorful Leontine regardless.

She reached instinctively for Severn as she fell—whether to anchor herself or to somehow save him, she couldn’t say—but Severn was beyond her. Above her. And she could see Terrano’s hands beneath her partner’s arms. Severn was safe, for the moment.

Kaylin herself was victim to gravity. The marks on her arms provided no aerial buoyancy; she plunged toward the two people she could easily see: Sedarias and Mandoran. They both looked up as she approached at growing speed.

It was Sedarias who gestured, not Mandoran; Mandoran shouted in the same disgusted astonishment as Terrano. Kaylin’s descent slowed as she approached Sedarias; she could see the color of the Barrani woman’s eyes. They were obsidian with flecks of color, like black opals, a gem Kaylin had never liked: too hard, too much like the Shadows that threatened to destroy the city.

Sedarias’s expression rippled as Kaylin continued to fall; her focus—which had been on Mandoran—shifted slowly, as if she were struggling to move the entirety of her enraged and bereaved attention to where it needed to be.

And where it needed to be, Kaylin thought, was where they all wanted it to be: on Kaylin, and on Kaylin’s immediate survival. The rest of the conflict could wait the few seconds it would take to decide Kaylin’s fate.

The leader of the cohort lifted her arms, opening them; Mandoran, facing her, did the same. Kaylin could not recall why she had thought this was a good idea; she had intended for Hope to land.

As it was, the landing was going to be hers. She prayed that Terrano had managed to prevent Severn’s unintentional landing, but had no time to think anything else; she fell into Sedarias’s outstretched arms.

And fell through them.

She didn’t hit stone. Beneath Sedarias’s feet—and beneath Mandoran’s—there had been nothing but rock. There was no rock where Kaylin landed, if landing was even the right word. She looked down; there was nothing beneath her feet. But what she couldn’t see was solid. Solid, dark, far less unforgiving than the rocks.

“You shouldn’t be here, dear,” Helen said, her voice disembodied.

“Where is here?”

Her home didn’t answer.

“Are you an idiot?”

Kaylin turned in the direction of the voice. As she did she saw light: her marks. In the darkness they were the only thing she could see. “Often,” she replied.

“It’s no wonder Teela worries about you so much—you have a death wish. What were you thinking?”

Kaylin shrugged as the voice drew closer. “You really want to know?”

“I asked, didn’t I?” Sedarias’s voice was a rumble encased by sharp edges.

“I was thinking that Mandoran might need some help.”

She could hear a second intake of breath, sharp but different from Sedarias’s.

“Mandoran? You think Mandoran needs help?”

“She’s really not as bright as she wants to be,” Mandoran said. He coalesced in this darkness, shining faintly. Sedarias could still not be seen. To Kaylin, brow folded, he said, “Seriously, what were you thinking? You can’t honestly imagine Sedarias would hurt me?”

“You’re not a patch on Sedarias. She’s powerful and martial. I wouldn’t worry if it was Bellusdeo; Bellusdeo could hold her own.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“I could,” Sedarias snapped, appearing at last, as Mandoran did. She was about three feet taller, and she looked down—and down again—to see both her chosen brother and her landlord.

“Could what?”

“I could have handled the Dragon.”

“I handled the Dragon.”

If a storm cloud had dropped lightning bolts without warning, Kaylin wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Seriously,” Terrano said, appearing—as they appeared—in the darkness. He glanced at Kaylin’s arms, frowning. “None of us should have made any attempt to—as you put it—handle the Dragon.”

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