Page 22 of Cast in Conflict

“She’s part of my home.”

“Yes. The home that Bellusdeo has built is fragile because it is not rooted or grounded. She is a warrior who has not been allowed to enter the battle; she is a queen without a country or a throne. She has built a home of hope, but it rests on a foundation of loss and despair. She values you, Kaylin Neya.

“She unwillingly values Mandoran, and this angers her. Favoring a mortal in such a short period of time is essential; a proper reserved approach would waste half your life—if only that. She has no excuse for Mandoran.”

“You know that Mandoran insists on coming with me.”

Tara smiled. “I do. She is not concerned with Mandoran’s safety. She will be concerned with yours.”

“Maggaron is mortal.”

“Maggaron is Ascendant. There are things she can do to preserve him that she cannot do for you. Regardless, Bellusdeo—as do Tiamaris and the Emperor—desires responsibility. It is the one thing she lacks, and if the burden was almost too great to bear, she has discovered, as no doubt my lord would, that lack of any burden is lack of purpose.

“The Emperor believes, somehow, that continuing the race is purpose and responsibility. And my lord agrees.”

“But you don’t?”

Tara was silent. Given Tiamaris’s expression, that silence was probably the right answer.

But she was Tara. “It is not good,” she finally said, “for the immortal to have no purpose when they also lack joy. She has done Lannagaros’s tasks faithfully and well. This is not, of course, the first time that Bellusdeo has come to Tiamaris—but there is a difference in her, almost a humming, a sense of...rightness. I am sorry,” she added softly, to Tiamaris. “She has been idle too long.”

Given the events of the past few months, Kaylin thought idle entirely the wrong word.

“Tell me, given those events, given the significance of the effects of failure, would you now dedicate your daily life to them?”

“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.”

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