Page 131 of Cast in Conflict

“I didn’t want to be fieflord.”

“No. And I did not test you. Such a test would be irrelevant, you are so completely open. But Maria was not Durandel. I liked her but I did not think her suitable for the position she occupied. She was fragile, and isolation increased her fragility. You were necessary,” he added, “even if the Tower was not to be yours. And I believe she will be happier now than she has been since her ascension.” His smile was gentle. It seemed genuine.

“It is. If I would not have chosen her, I found her warm and almost charming; I wanted happiness or safety for her. I see I have surprised you.”

He certainly had.

“Anyone who wanted happiness for a person would never wish the fate and responsibility of a Tower upon them. It was almost our undoing.”

“That wasn’t her fault. It was the fault of the captain who abandoned her.”

“Indeed. And I would not suffer the same fate, but perhaps, with my experience, I have more of a sense of how to avoid it.” He turned to Bellusdeo, or perhaps to Emmerian.

“You have been thinking. I expected you to return the day after your departure. I am pleased you did not.”

Bellusdeo didn’t look pleased.

“Come, if you will. I have shown you very little in the way of hospitality. Let me now be host.”

Kaylin had an admittedly academic knowledge of hospitality. Helen understood the general rules far better, and she was chagrined to admit that she relied on Helen to prevent the career-limiting gaffes that would otherwise have been guaranteed.

But even enduring Diarmat’s harsh lessons did not prepare her for Karriamis’s version of hospitality. He led them, not to a parlor of the kind Helen created for important guests, but on what appeared to be a tour of the interior of the cave.

The interior was not a cave. Not to start. It looked very much like the interior of a Barrani hall—but not the halls of stone that informed most of the High Halls. If the exterior of the Tower had been an entrance, the cave was a tunnel; when one emerged, one emerged into carefully cultivated forest. The trees made Kaylin think of the West March.

“I much preferred that decor,” Karriamis said. “But there is stone here—good stone, and warm. It is not appropriate for guests at this time.”

Probably meaning mortal guests, if Kaylin had to guess.

“Indeed. And two of my current guests are mortal, but I assume you are aware of this.”

“We are,” Bellusdeo said, glancing briefly and pointedly in Kaylin’s direction. “But I admit I have seldom seen interiors with this style of decoration.”

“You have not visited the rooms the cohort occupy,” he replied.

Mandoran winced; Kaylin sympathized. He was about as good at hiding thought as she was. But he had Sedarias to drive home the necessity; Nightshade, today, was absent, no doubt by Karriamis’s choice.

“We are said to be creatures of air and fire, and the latter is not conducive to preserve trees such as this. It is true,” he added, “but it is not the whole of the truth. I was born in stone and warmth and darkness, but it was only when I could take wing as an adult that I encountered trees such as this. They were a marvel to me, something that existed in attenuated songs, in old stories meant only for the young.

“It was the start of my interest in studying the world and the mysteries it contained, and when left to my own devices, I prefer it. It is not like Castle Nightshade.”

It certainly wasn’t.

“I am not Arkon. I was once considered for that position, but I would have had to surrender too much of my academic work, and I was reluctant. I envy your Lannagaros; he accepted the weight of responsibility himself. I was younger than he when I was considered.”

“Would you do it now?” Kaylin asked.

“Now? In a theoretical universe in which the heart of the Tower could be changed? I do not know. I have not asked myself that question; it is irrelevant, a daydream. There is no practical use for any answer I might offer.”

“That’s a no,” Mandoran whispered.

Karriamis raised a brow in the Barrani’s direction. He chose to otherwise ignore the comment.

“You will find rooms to the left and the right, but there are no doors to enclose them. For now, I will take you to one of the most important rooms within the Tower. It is a room that has never lost cohesion, and it has never been replaced; nor will it be in future. It is the heart, not of the Tower, but of the Tower’s heart.”

Kaylin was surprised to see a library. She shouldn’t have been. It was as large as the Imperial library on first sight, but not as large as the library whose only entrance or exit existed on the grounds of the Academia.

She wasn’t surprised to find books she could read, but they were perhaps a third of the collection. The rest, language made opaque. They might have been about cutting fingernails.

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