Page 167 of Cast in Conflict

He was gone.

Bellusdeo once again began to shimmer in place, but this time, she was silent.

Emmerian was not; the outcaste’s fire clipped his right wing, and the wing burned; the fire seemed to cling to it. The blue Dragon shifted, mobility now impaired; Kaylin could see the flash of light, of blade, of something that might have been lightning if lightning moved in circles.

From the right, the Aerians—the shadows—moved. Teela’s lightning struck all but one from the air; the one did not skitter off Emmerian’s side, but pierced it.

“Kaylin,” Bellusdeo said, voice a rumble of sound, a distant thunder to Teela’s lightning, “climb.”

Outside was where Kaylin wanted to be; she instantly climbed up the gold Dragon’s back. She didn’t know what kind of test Karriamis intended this to be; she had no idea if, by making this decision, Bellusdeo was failing, or had failed. She didn’t much care, because Bellusdeo didn’t.

But as she settled on a back that wasn’t really meant for riding—not that Kaylin had mastered horses, either, although her initial attempts had amused the hell out of the Swords—she heard a very familiar voice. It was raised in a cry of pain or warning, and it guttered in the middle like a doused candle’s flame.

She tightened her legs, head bent to break the wind, and shouted a name as Bellusdeo leaped through a window that served as portal.

“Mandoran!”

He’s alive, Severn said, before the bulk of the gold Dragon had cleared the window. Sedarias says he’s alive.

What the hell hit him? I didn’t even see him!

The Aerians. Sedarias says they’re phased—what we see isn’t all that’s there. The parts we can’t see are growing. I don’t think they could have left Ravellon had they been what they are now. But now is what we’re facing.

If she’d remained in the Tower, she was certain she would strangle the damn Avatar, she was so angry. “Hope!”

Her familiar came instantly to her shoulder and lifted a wing to cover both of her eyes.

With Hope’s wing in place, she saw what Sedarias meant. For one, the Shadow that rode them was larger—taller, certainly, but also longer; it extended past the natural length of their wings, and it lengthened in tendrils from all four of their limbs.

The spears that she’d seen thrown were...still attached to their bearers, even after they’d unleashed them. Nor did they seem to have only one—the spears seemed to grow and solidify from the shadows that surrounded the Aerians, like a slow refill.

She turned in the direction Mandoran’s voice had come from—but it was harder to see past Bellusdeo’s head and neck, as Bellusdeo had immediately leaped toward the cutoff scream.

“Move over,” Terrano said.

She could see him clearly with the aid of Hope’s wing. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to help the idiot before he gets cut in half.” He raised his voice. “Bellusdeo—when I ask, give me five seconds of cover. I need you stay in one spot when I shout ‘stop.’”

She didn’t ask him why.

What Bellusdeo could see was clearly not what Terrano—or Kaylin, vision augmented by translucent wing—could see. What she couldn’t see at all, even with Hope’s wing, was Mandoran. She couldn’t hear him, either.

“Relax,” Terrano shouted in her ear. “He’s still alive.”

“Where?”

“We’re about to find out. Stop!”

Terrano jumped off the Dragon’s back.

“He better know what he’s doing,” Kaylin said—before she, too, came off the Dragon’s back. Bellusdeo hadn’t moved. Terrano had.

This time, Kaylin did shriek—but in Leontine.

“I need my ears—bad enough all the Dragons are shouting in their native tongue. Pay attention; I don’t think we’re going to have long.”

“To do what?”

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