Page 4 of Cast in Conflict

“You’re unlikely to try to kill people if they know what you’re actually thinking. It’s never really far beneath the—”

“Thief! Thief! Help!”

Both of the Hawks dropped the discussion as they pivoted and turned in the direction of the shouting. At least it was something normal.

Kaylin had already come to a decision by the time she reached home. Talking to Bellusdeo was out. Talking to Helen about Bellusdeo—or about what Bellusdeo was thinking or doing—was also a no-go. Kaylin didn’t even consider approaching Maggaron, and not just because of his height.

She was, however, living with a host of other people, two of whom were set to move out at any minute. This had caused a bit of a ruckus, but not an unhappy one; more of a frenzied one. Serralyn and Valliant had applied to the new Academia, and they had both been accepted. The chancellor had interviewed them personally. While they had very little experience with Dragons that didn’t involve the immediate deaths of all Barrani in sight, they were determined to go through with it.

They were slightly surprised by their encounter. Although they had met the chancellor before—most recently when Sedarias had volunteered the entire cohort as movers between the palace and the Academia—his interaction at that time had been pinched, orange-red-eyed and snappish.

The pinched part, according to Serralyn and Valliant, remained, but his eyes were almost gold when he invited them into his office, and almost the same color when he saw them to the office door. That he didn’t then demand to see them to the front doors and shut them in their faces was a bonus.

Because the two had been accepted as students of the Academia, they were expected to live on campus. They were the first of the visiting cohort to actually leave.

Part of their discussion had been negotiations about communication. The Academia interfered with their ability to talk to the other members of the cohort. The chancellor had agreed not to limit the communications, with the clear understanding that visitors—the rest of the cohort—were required to, as he called it, sign in when they visited the campus.

Kaylin was glad; she was half-certain they wouldn’t agree to leave without that concession. Well, no. She was certain they’d leave, but equally certain that one of the cohort—likely Terrano—would find some way of communicating regardless. Permission was better. Or at least safer. Probably.

Moving out in the next week was therefore in the cards, and it showed. Had Helen not been sentient, the household would have been in a frenzy of panic and excitement. As it was, panic was never allowed to fully take hold.

But it distracted the cohort and it distracted Helen.

Sedarias would remain based within Helen, but she had begun to make visits to the High Halls as An’Mellarionne. Annarion, Eddorian, Karian and Allaron accompanied her as her personal guards, although they were Lords of the High Court themselves.

From this, Kaylin assumed that Sedarias was the first of the cohort to attempt to establish herself as a more traditional power, and the rest of the cohort had eternity, being immortal, to establish themselves as powers in their own right. It wasn’t a surprise that Sedarias was the current priority, though; the resources of Mellarionne were in danger of being subsumed by Mellarionne allies—or former allies who had yet to be swept away in the investigation that had followed the transformation of the High Halls.

Not that it had taken a great amount of investigation. The High Halls was, once again, a fully functional, sentient building. Barrani lords disliked being exposed to sentient buildings; they wanted to keep their thoughts and secrets to themselves. But rooms in the High Halls were a visible sign of rank and power. To abandon them was not as easily done as avoiding the interior of a waking Hallionne.

The cohort had the advantage, there. They had spent almost the entirety of their lives as “guests” of a sentient building. They had no fear of their thoughts being known. Sedarias could move far more freely, far more comfortably, in the reconstituted High Halls than most of the Lords of the High Court.

The cohort had been prisoners, but they had had each other, and the prison had become home. Kaylin was almost certain the Hallionne Alsanis missed them. Their life plans had been interrupted, not ended, although not all of Sedarias’s friends planned to take their rightful places among the High Court. They had landed on their feet after a very rocky start.

Watching them, Kaylin finally accepted that Bellusdeo hadn’t.

The Dragon was alive, yes. She was a friend. Where permitted by Imperial dictate, she had accompanied Kaylin into unpredictable danger. And thank gods for that.

But everything beneath her feet now, to belabor the metaphor, was not her ground. Helen. Kaylin. The former Arkon, who was the only solid reminder of the home she had lost, had left the Imperial palace for good.

Bellusdeo carried the future of her entire species in both hands. But that wasn’t who or what she was, either. Kaylin wondered if—hoped that—Bellusdeo’s daily jaunts toward the fiefs were visits to the former Arkon. That would be for the best.

Which is why Kaylin couldn’t quite make herself believe it. It was too convenient, and that wasn’t how their life worked.

“Helen, where’s Mandoran?”

“I believe he and Terrano are in the training room.”

Ugh. “Since that’s usually not all that safe, can you ask him to come up to the dining room?”

“I can. You’ll probably get Terrano as well.” The sentence wasn’t a question, but the last few words tailed up as if it were.

“That’s fine.”

Kaylin didn’t just get Terrano. She also got Fallessian and Torrisant. There were four members of Teela’s cohort of twelve that had remained almost entirely silent for their stay. Two had gone with Sedarias to the High Halls. Two remained with Helen, and had apparently also been in the training room with Mandoran and Terrano. It wasn’t likely to kill them.

Teela, of the twelve, had a job she wanted to keep. She had offered to accompany Sedarias to the High Halls—but at hours that didn’t conflict with that job. Had she been afraid for Sedarias, she would have taken a leave of absence. She hadn’t.

“Karian didn’t want to go,” Fallessian said, speaking as if he was recovering from a terrible cold. Kaylin couldn’t remember hearing him actually speak before, so the cold was unlikely the problem.

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