Page 138 of Cast in Conflict

“Yes, but she won’t stick around.”

“I don’t want her to be angry at Emmerian.”

“Emmerian, the Dragon, who has the best chance of surviving the full force of Dragon rage. Got it. You’re making as much sense as you usually do. Do you think Karriamis will hurt him?”

“I don’t know. I would have bet against it—but...”

“Emmerian lost his temper.”

She nodded. “Helen contained it. I’m not sure Bellusdeo was happy about it, but, well—she was angry in her own way, so she might not have noticed it. He was angry at Karriamis. Even I noticed it. Karriamis almost certainly did. And if Emmerian does lose his temper, Karriamis can hurt—or kill—him.”

“Helen?” Mandoran said, although the Avatar was not standing on the lawn.

“Karriamis can hurt or kill him,” Helen said.

Mandoran lifted his face to the sky as if pleading for some absent god to grant him patience. “You know, he always struck me as sane, rational and self-controlled. Like Severn. Fine. Fine.”

“Sedarias is okay with you coming?”

“Of course not. But she’s okay enough that she’s not storming out here to have words with Karriamis in person, and that’s about the best we can hope for. I think this is a waste of time.”

“Betting?”

“Fine.”

“Stakes?”

“I get to choose dinners for the next week, and Helen has to make them and you have to eat them.”

“You’ll be eating the same thing?”

“Of course.”

“Fine. Done.”

“The thing I don’t understand,” Kaylin said, looking at the Tower of Karriamis—which was, for once, an actual Tower, not a cliff face or a cave, “is why he’d even come back here.”

“You’re not sure he’s here?”

“No, I’m sure he’s here—but only because Helen was relatively certain.”

“He’s here for Bellusdeo’s sake,” Mandoran said. “That was Sedarias, by the way. I personally think it’s stupid.” He winced at what was likely Sedarias’s reply, but didn’t share it. “Don’t look smug—she thinks you’re stupid as well.”

“So, like usual.”

“No, she thinks you’re more oblivious than usual. Do you understand what Emmerian wants?”

“I think he wants Bellusdeo to be happy. Or happier.”

“Well, I for one agree with Sedarias. You’re clueless. Oblivious. Look—you were even there when Karriamis’s Avatar asked Emmerian whether or not he felt he could be the guardian of his people.”

“And?”

Mandoran turned to Severn. “You explain it.”

Severn’s smile was a pleasant, very polite wall. “I believe there are doors just beyond this hedge wall; you can see the peak rising above them. Shall we knock?”

“He knows we’re here,” Kaylin muttered.

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