Page 40 of Cast in Conflict

“Yes, dear.”

“And that shutting him in a windowless dungeon is likely to be frowned on by the Emperor?”

“Burning down half a building is also frowned on by the Emperor.”

“So, wait—the roaring is coming from the training room?”

Since the answer was now obvious to Helen, she failed to reply.

Kaylin glanced at Terrano. “Just what in the hells did you guys do?”

“Us? In case it’s escaped your attention, none of us are fire-breathers. We tend to, what is that phrase, Helen? Use our words.”

“So does Emmerian. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him truly Dragon-angry. Not like this. You’re sure it was Emmerian?”

“She’s sure,” Terrano replied, before Helen could. “It’s not like the rest of us don’t recognize him. He might not stand out compared to the Emperor or the Arkon, but he’s a Dragon. We’re not likely to miss him.”

The basement stairs, usually an unstable spiral around a central column, were not the stairs Kaylin recognized. This was good; Terrano had been walking almost in lockstep with Kaylin, and they wouldn’t both fit, otherwise.

There was no central pillar here. The kitchen closet door opened out onto a large, flat platform. Across from the door, steps that wouldn’t look out of place in the High Halls appeared; they led down. Solid walls formed boundaries on either side, and torches—well, sort-of torches in that the light didn’t flicker at all—followed the incline into the darkness.

All things equal, Kaylin vastly preferred these stairs, but had a suspicion that the previous iteration existed to underscore the dangers the various rooms here contained.

The stone beneath her feet shook; here, the roaring was more felt than seen—a destructive act of nature, not an act of communication.

“Terrano, move faster!”

“I’m trying,” he snapped.

Kaylin reached out, caught his hand, felt a small, sharp shock as their palms made contact. “I really, really think we don’t have time to meander.” She picked up the pace; Helen’s bubble was almost certainly centered around Kaylin, not one of the most difficult members of the cohort. Dragging him by the hand as if he were an errant foundling, she began to run.

The training room was only a room if one called enormous, grand halls rooms. Kaylin, not an architect of any kind, didn’t quibble. There were large, closed doors at the far end—one suited for very fancy carriages and wagons; were it not for the intricate details carved into the wood of those doors, Kaylin might have confused it for the doors that fronted loading docks on account of their size.

Hope was now standing on her shoulder, his body upright and canted slightly forward. He squawked. Since she couldn’t understand the words, she assumed they weren’t meant for her.

The doors rolled open. She forgot about the doors as they rolled to either side, as if pushed by invisible hands.

The hall they opened into wasn’t composed of the bare walls of the previous training room. The ceilings here were high, the halls wide, and the walls for as far as the eye could see—and admittedly Kaylin’s vision had nothing on Barrani or Dragon sight—were decorated with statues, engravings, small alcoves. Every decorative detail was rendered in stone.

Some of that stone had melted, but even as Kaylin’s gaze swept across the mess, form reasserted itself.

“How far away from your core is this?” Kaylin asked.

Helen didn’t answer.

Kaylin and Terrano entered the hall. At this distance, she couldn’t see people.

“They are there,” Helen said, although Kaylin hadn’t spoken aloud. “Most of the cohort is—or was—less corporeal.”

A flash of blue lightning changed the color of the hall. “Is that Teela?”

“Yes, dear. I did say most.”

“Are both of the Dragons draconic?”

Helen didn’t answer.

The hall was longer than most city blocks. Kaylin, who had to patrol, was familiar with the length of those blocks. She’d traveled three before she could see the Dragons. She could also see Maggaron.

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