Page 107 of Cast in Conflict

“This is what it always looks like?”

“To me, yes.” Terrano exhaled. “You need to remember something—both of you need to remember it. I don’t see what you see. But I see what Severn is doing. It’s complicated. We’re looking at the same things, but...we’re not interpreting them the same way.”

“If vision were interpretative, the law would be in serious trouble when it came to witnesses,” Kaylin said.

“Most people don’t have the flexibility to even see what you’re looking at now. We’re seeing what Sedarias sees. There’s no way to tell you how to interpret if you...can’t already do some of that on your own.”

“So, can we fly here? Because jumping down the side of a cliff isn’t likely to be healthy.”

“Tell me about it,” Terrano said, a note of resignation in an otherwise tense voice. “You don’t have to jump. I’m sure there are stairs somewhere.”

“In a cliff?”

“Somewhere. I’m taking the fast way down.”

“We’re going to look for safe.”

He snorted. “It’s Sedarias. You’ll be looking for a long damn time.”

When Terrano was gone and the rest of the banners had been collected and carefully placed in the small wagon, Kaylin poked Hope. He was seated, not draped across her shoulders, but didn’t look particularly alert.

“We need to get down to wherever Sedarias is.”

He nodded.

“Can you help?”

I can.

“Will I have to sacrifice something for it?”

No. This is something you could do yourself.

Without stairs or wings, Kaylin didn’t see how.

Hope snorted. He pushed himself off her shoulder, hovering in the air for a moment in front of her face. Here, those marks have a greater weight and meaning. Remember that.

“Hope—I don’t even understand where here is. If Helen is somehow stabilizing things so that Severn survives here, we’re obviously still in Helen somehow. But Terrano seemed to think that this was all Sedarias. Those two things don’t line up to my pathetic, tiny, mortal mind.”

Severn glanced at Hope, who seemed to be waiting for something. “Helen creates the rooms for her tenants and guests; those rooms are a merging of what Helen is, at base, with what they need. There’s already a lack of distinct separation in our interactions. This is...more difficult.”

“Sedarias has taken control of some part of Helen?”

“Or Helen has, for reasons of her own, ceded that control to Sedarias in this space. It’s probably a containment measure.”

Hope squawked. He then landed.

“Can we take that control back from her?”

“I wouldn’t try it unless we had no other options.” He watched Hope as Hope began to transform.

Hope’s adoption of the draconic form—that’s the way Kaylin thought of it—was not similar to watching either Bellusdeo or Emmerian. Hope seemed to expand, rather than transform. His body was already translucent, glass-like in appearance; it was far less disturbing to watch a familiar face warp and extend—almost as if it were stretched to a breaking point that never quite arrived.

Hope’s transition seemed far less painful, far more natural.

Climb, Hope told them both. I will carry your wagon.

Kaylin scrambled up on his back; Severn took a seat behind her. True to his word, he carefully grasped the wagon in much, much larger feet, and lifted his bulk into the air with the movement of enormous, translucent wings.

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