Page 147 of Cast in Conflict

Emmerian’s smile was genuine; he shook his head. “I told you—we were young. Young and ignorant. I did not understand how he could have been the pinnacle of achievement—in our eyes—and settle for what he became.

“But my belief in him was strong enough that I began to look at what consumed his time, his attention.”

“Your friends didn’t.”

“No. They were bitter, but people oft are when the object of their worship is shown to be less than perfect. They did not understand my attempts, either, and we grew distant.”

“You’re not like him, though.”

“No. His academic desires remained a mystery to me. The only overlap we shared was curiosity about languages—living or dead. The Empire has not existed for as long as the wars between the Barrani and my kin, but when the Emperor chose—was driven to choose—there was work to be done. It was a stretching of wings, for me; a return to my youth.

“It was not so, for them. They were my age, and if we were not born in the same clutch, we were born at the same time. The Empire did not yet exist when the first of my friends, restless and drifting without a solid sense of purpose, found his hoard.”

“Can I ask what it was?”

“You may—obviously—ask.”

“You won’t answer.”

“It is not relevant, and it is still oddly painful. He was...not the Dragon I had known. His sense of responsibility, his sense of duty had been deepened and warped; he could not even see us. But he had destroyed mortal settlements, and killed a handful of Barrani, and we had no desire to rekindle the wars; they served neither Barrani nor Dragonkind well. My friend and I traveled to him.

“He could not hear us. He could not identify our voices. I remember that clearly. What he heard when we spoke, I do not know. I could hear his voice from miles away.”

Given his expression, Kaylin didn’t ask what had happened to the friend. She was certain she didn’t want to know.

“We made vows on that day, my remaining friend and I, that we would not fall into the same terrible trap. We didn’t understand what had happened, and the elders merely said it was hoard-madness, hoard-sickness. I think...they had memories similar to the ones I share with you now. I was no longer a whelpling; I could not press for answers.

“But...I had access to Lannagaros, and he was, if not patient...” and at this memory, he smiled again, rueful. Happier. “...he was informative. The subject itself—hoard-sickness—had been studied by both Dragonkind and other races; the Dragons are not famously good record keepers in general. It is what made Lannagaros’s postwar choice so strange. But he was not the first to be so strange, and in the absence of the responsibility of war, it was the life he chose. He was not happy,” he added. “It took me many decades to understand that his melancholy was not due to the lack of war, the lack of position. But he was so dedicated to the preservation of knowledge, I understood it, at the time, as his hoard. It was not a hoard that I, as a young Dragon, would ever have accepted.”

“And now?”

He shook his head. “Even now. But that knowledge, that preservation, came with a willingness to share—if one was careful about approaching him when he was not absorbed in either study or cataloging. I am not certain you would consider all Dragons who have chosen their hoard entirely rational or sane. There was a reason you were told to touch nothing in Lannagaros’s library.

“He said that some had reached the conclusion that maturity was required. I pointed out examples of mature Dragons who had also...been destroyed. By their madness, and in the end by us.”

“You killed them?”

His lack of answer was an answer. She winced. “Sorry.”

He appeared to hear neither the question nor the apology she offered in its wake. “I digress, perhaps because I wish to speak or think of any other subject.”

“You don’t have to talk. I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“You don’t understand,” he replied, his voice soft, his eyes closed.

“I get told that a lot.”

“Yes.” His smile was slender. “My second friend was older than the first when he found his hoard.”

She waited, almost holding her breath.

“You understand that the Empire is the Emperor’s hoard; you understand that he is unusual. It is...an amorphous concept, this Empire, and it requires a flexibility that most would not possess. Whatever else you think of Dariandaros, this much is true: he is exceptional, singular, and his decisions are never made without an understanding of the consequences. Not one of us would have imagined the caste courts and their laws of exemption; not one of us could.

“Most, however, have less...philosophical hoards. The desire to possess and protect coexist, but you understand why that is always a difficult balance. Tiamaris holds Tara dear, not her fief. But he understands that the people of the fief are important to Tara. What brings her happiness—without risking her existence—he will give her.

“And she has shown...remarkable flexibility. I like her. I could not love her as Tiamaris does. I have never loved anything or anyone that way.”

“Your second friend was...insane? Hoard-sickness?”

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