Page 51 of Cast in Conflict

To her surprise, High Barrani didn’t come naturally to Marshalle; she seemed to be concentrating on Kaylin’s actual words.

She therefore slid into Elantran again. “The new chancellor of the Academia had to kill him or he’d have murdered all the remaining students. And us,” she added. “I’m not sure he was all that worried about us, either.”

“Durant has questions about the...Academia.”

“Neither of us,” Kaylin said, indicating Bellusdeo as well, “can really answer them. I mean, we can try, but there’s probably going to be a lot of hand-waving. Have any of you actually tried to visit the Academia?”

“We’re not, frankly, certain what it is,” Marshalle replied. “Anyone living in the fief has noticed the lack of the border zone by now. Is that because of the Academia’s rise?”

“It’s complicated. I really think you should talk to the chancellor.”

“Very well,” the gates said.

Since gates couldn’t normally converse, Kaylin assumed the Tower had an Avatar somewhere else—but no. The gates rolled open, as if they were normal gates, and a man stood between them.

“I am Durant,” he said. He offered Bellusdeo a nod, not a bow. Human eyes didn’t shift color; they had to use the rest of their face to express emotion, if they wanted to take that risk. Durant hadn’t, but as he met Kaylin’s eyes, he did smile. “You appear to know more about this Academia, this lack of a border zone, than we have currently discovered.

“If you are willing to accept my escort—and my guards, of course—I would like to visit it, or at least see it with my own eyes. We might talk while we walk,” he added, addressing Bellusdeo.

Bellusdeo’s eyes were once again orange with flecks of gold, not red. “I believe I would enjoy that.”

08

Kaylin wasn’t certain what she had expected of Durant, given the fact that his Tower looked as if it could have been built by perfectly normal architects, with its brick and stone face, its shorter, squatter size, and its unusual wall adornment. Her expectations, given the shape and size of his Tower and her prior experience with fieflords, had been mixed.

He wasn’t Tara; he wasn’t dressed in gardening clothing, and his front yard hadn’t become a large vegetable-and-food garden. But Tara was the Tower; it was Tiamaris who was lord.

Durant was not particularly tall—Severn was visibly taller—and not particularly striking; his face was round in shape, lacking the Barrani length and angularity. His beard was not the impressive beards of the Dragons who chose to grow them—if grow was even the right word. Had she met him on patrol, he might have blended in well with most of the citizens on her beat.

But she would have given him a second look, or even a third. If he lacked Barrani slenderness, he also lacked the coldness, the reserve, the innate arrogance, with which the Barrani girded themselves. Even thinking this, her eyes flicked to Mandoran, whose eyes were a steady Barrani blue.

She couldn’t pinpoint Durant’s age, but thought him a man in his midthirties, perhaps early forties; his hair had not yet grayed, but lines had worn themselves into the corners of his eyes. He wasn’t a small man, even given his average height, his hands square and solid, his eyes a pale brown. His eyelashes seemed absurdly full as they framed those eyes.

“Do I pass muster?” he asked, as he held out a hand.

She took it. Some people tightened their grip, as if handshakes were a gesture of dominance. Durant didn’t. Nor did he simply brush palms as if Kaylin were a possibly contagious disease or petty criminal.

“Sorry,” she said, half meaning it. “You’re the first mortal fieflord I’ve met.”

“You’ve met others?”

She nodded. “Tiamaris, Nightshade, Candallar. I’ve seen Farlonne but haven’t really spoken to her.”

“You’re taking a tour of the fiefs? You left the best for last?” He grinned.

She matched it. Had she been on her own, she’d’ve been willing to risk his Tower.

Hope squawked, with words in it. Too impulsive.

Since she couldn’t speak to Hope without speaking, she ignored the comment. Durant, however, didn’t. His gaze moved off her face to the left of it, where Hope was standing. If Hope was being critical, he didn’t sense any immediate danger.

“What is that?” Durant asked.

“Her familiar.” It was Bellusdeo who replied. She placed a slight emphasis on the first word of the two-word sentence.

This caused Durant’s grin to deepen. Marshalle, on the other hand, looked unamused. If Durant was at ease, Marshalle was not. Marshalle’s reaction made more sense: there was a gold Dragon, a giant, and a Barrani at the front gates. Durant didn’t seem to care.

That, Kaylin thought, was why she would have noticed him on any street in the city: there was an ease in the way he occupied this street that spoke of confidence. He had no need to be thought of as a danger, as an important man, as a power. He might have been at home in any of the Hawk beats. She half thought the people in those beats would adapt to him, even if they were in the warrens.

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