Page 85 of Cast in Conflict

“Do you think people could live here?” It was Mandoran who asked.

“I don’t see why not. Do you think the Ferals could come here now?”

“I don’t see why not,” he replied, mimicking her tone. “But the buildings of the fiefs provided some protection against them?”

“Some. You didn’t want to be in the streets. But if parts of a wall were missing, you didn’t want to be in the building either—they’d enter through them. They’d scratch doors as well—but they couldn’t bring them down. Or not easily.” She shook her head to clear it. She still had nightmares about Ferals. Even knowing that she walked the streets beside a Barrani and a Dragon didn’t change those.

She could mark the point of transition between the streets that led to the Academia and the streets that had been part of Candallar for much longer. The Candallar buildings, like the Nightshade buildings, hadn’t been preserved in the odd stasis of the border zone; they looked worn and run-down.

Kaylin became less concerned about the buildings and her own history in dwellings that were practically falling down. They’d been empty because they were almost as unsafe as the Ferals themselves to the people who’d abandoned them. They were infinitely safer to people who would otherwise be in the streets when the Ferals roamed.

She looked up as Bellusdeo paused.

“Is...that what the Tower looked like when you did your flyover?”

“No.”

“Do you think someone else got here before either of us could?” Mandoran asked.

“I know as much about the Towers as either of you do. Why would you expect me to have the answers?”

“Tara changed,” Kaylin said. “When Tiamaris claimed the Tower, she changed.”

“Tara and Karriamis were alike only in their determination to protect the rest of the world from Ravellon.” But Bellusdeo looked at this new edifice, frowning.

It didn’t look like a Tower, to Kaylin’s eye; it looked like a cliff face. This was only disturbing because it lacked the bulk of the rest of the cliff; it might have been a standing stone, worn by the passage of many rivers, all of which had long since dried up.

It was as broad at the base as the entirety of Castle Nightshade’s visible grounds, and it seemed to lack something as architecturally practical as a door.

The streets were, predictably, almost entirely empty in all directions—but someone wearing golden plate mail and attended by at least one Barrani was someone to go out of one’s way to avoid. Kaylin would have looked only if she’d been safe above the ground and there were shutters to peer through.

As they stared at the Tower, Bellusdeo frowned.

Kaylin understood why almost immediately; a shadow, moving in the opposite direction of the wind, passed overhead.

If they had had any hope of enticing the fief’s citizens into the streets where they might ask questions, Bellusdeo dashed them. She lifted her face, exposing her throat as she looked in the direction of, yes, the Dragon flying overhead. She roared.

Kaylin was not a native Dragon speaker or interpreter. The roar meant one of two things: land or go away.

As the Dragon that had cast the familiar shadow landed, Kaylin assumed Bellusdeo had said the former, because she recognized the Dragon: it was Emmerian. He immediately transformed into the person-with-plate-armor form, and dropped to one knee before the gold Dragon. Kaylin then revised her assumption.

Bellusdeo glared at him, but her eyes, although still orange, revealed flecks of gold. “Have you been circling the fiefs since we left home this morning?”

“No.”

“Have you been circling Candallar?”

He grimaced, lifting his head. “It is in Candallar that the greatest threat to your safety would be. Lannagaros has the Academia well in hand, and I doubt occupied Towers would seek to antagonize a Dragon of your stature and abilities.”

“Get up. I dislike the entire bent knee paradigm. It implies that I can’t see respect when it’s offered otherwise.”

Emmerian rose, a single fluid unbending of knee and head and shoulders. His armor, blue to Bellusdeo’s gold, was a statement. If he did not expect that she would encounter difficulty she could not handle, he intended to be her backup.

Just as Severn had been Kaylin’s. Or maybe she’d been his; in the thick of things it was harder to separate. Oddly, watching Bellusdeo’s orange eyes, she thought there was very little chance that the gold Dragon would send the blue one away. But little chance wasn’t zero chance. They all waited, except for Hope, who was once again draped limply across her shoulders.

Bellusdeo finally snorted smoke and turned, once again, toward the Tower of Candallar, such as it was. “Do you imagine that the Tower looked like this before Candallar’s death?” she asked.

“It did not,” Emmerian replied. “Young Tiamaris—ah, apologies, Lord Tiamaris—entered the fiefs. He kept a safe distance from the Towers, but this is not what his report described. I would say the Tower is announcing the lack of a lord.”

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