Page 159 of Cast in Conflict

“Hey!”

Mandoran rematerialized.

“Don’t leave me here—take me with you.”

“We will,” Sedarias said, although she could no longer be seen, “if you promise that we won’t have to endure your endless whining afterward.”

“No good,” Terrano added. He, too, could no longer be seen. “Teela wants us to leave you here.”

“There’s nothing I can do here!”

“Teela asks, ‘And your point is?’”

Kaylin replied in Leontine. Nightshade was amused.

“I can get people to leave their homes.”

“You’ve already said that being homeless in the fiefs is almost a death sentence.”

“Even fieflings won’t stay in a burning building—but they’ll get trapped in one that’s crushed.”

“Teela says she’d like you to use your head for a change.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Karriamis, this close to the outcaste, has actual power. You have both Bellusdeo and Emmerian, and if you can get them to stop arguing, the outcaste will be far, far less of a threat.”

“She wants me—me—to interrupt three Dragons while they’re fighting?”

“She wants you to get their attention, and she believes you can.”

Severn didn’t like it, but didn’t disagree. Sedarias, Terrano, and Mandoran fell silent, which probably meant they’d left to join their cohort.

Nightshade probably wasn’t going to be happy to see Annarion. She’d always wanted a sibling, but had come to understand that sibling relationships weren’t always all they were cut out to be. Or at least not Barrani siblings.

She stood in a hall that could accommodate flying Dragons and began to look for a door. At least she wouldn’t have to keep screaming just to be heard.

Hope bit her ear. She reached up and inserted her hand between his small jaws and the rest of her ear when he let go. “What?”

He huffed. The breath was visible, a small cloud of hanging gray and colored particles. Although all of the Barrani of her acquaintance turned practically green when he breathed anywhere near them, she was more worried about Dragons and fieflings than a cloud of strange smoke.

This, he said, annoyed, I can help with. Unless you’d prefer to spend hours pounding doorless walls and pillars.

“Can you keep me alive while I try to get the attention of at least two enraged Dragons?”

Yes. If Karriamis chooses to intervene—against you—I am less certain of my answer; the range of weapons at his disposal in this place is much less predictable.

Kaylin nodded. Hope lifted himself off her shoulder and flew, and she followed.

The ground shook, and the cracks in the pillars that had caused her to abandon this hall in the first place were wider. But she knew, if it felt like stone, it wasn’t; it was part of the Tower. Karriamis could kill her easily if he wanted her dead. He could preserve her if he wanted her alive. If he was aware of her at all.

She came to a stop, skidding on smooth stone, when she saw the fissure that bisected the hall. Red and orange light radiated upward; it looked like a vision of the hells. She didn’t ask Hope if this was where she needed to go; she knew.

The Dragons no longer encased their roaring with syllables; the cries were raw, but this close she could almost hear the differing textures, and she wondered then if anger had always, always been mixed with so much pain.

She kind of wanted to strangle Karriamis right now; her anger didn’t have a lot of pain in it. But that wouldn’t help Bellusdeo or Emmerian, and it wouldn’t help Teela, the cohort, or Nightshade.

Shouting her lungs out wouldn’t help, either. Closing her eyes, she looked at her arms, and the marks—which were glowing blue—left her skin. She could see them clearly—but could also see the marks imprinted on parts of her body her eyes couldn’t normally reach.

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