Page 92 of Cast in Conflict

“What do you think you’re doing?” a familiar voice shrieked in her ear.

Mandoran had arrived.

She couldn’t see him. She could feel his hands, hear his voice; he was undeniably solid, just...invisible.

“Listen to her!” she shouted, as Bellusdeo continued to roar. “We have to do something!”

“Yes, we do—but not you.”

“I’m Chosen, damn it—my marks are glowing! I can survive it!”

“Personally I’d be willing to drop you, but Teela would murder me. And possibly the rest of the cohort.”

“She can’t. Helen would never allow it.”

“And as long as we can stay inside Helen for eternity, we’d be safe. But if we could do that, we wouldn’t have sent me here, and frankly, I resent the hell out of it.” He dropped Kaylin almost directly on top of Severn, who caught and braced her rather than getting out of the way.

She still couldn’t see Mandoran.

She could hear him, though. Because he roared. He roared at the top of his lungs, but his roar had syllables in it.

“Was that native dragon?” she shouted at Emmerian.

He nodded. His hands, which had been resting by his side, were now firmly clasped behind his back.

“Can you see him?”

He shook his head. “I can hear him,” he said softly. “If I did not know who—or what—he was, I would have mistaken him for a kinsman.”

Bellusdeo, however, didn’t. She turned instantly in the direction the voice came from, her eyes blood red, her inner membranes down. Fire filled the empty air; a Mandoran shape didn’t emerge from the heat.

“Seriously,” he shouted, from beneath a different part of the vaulted ceiling, “that’s the best you can do? Gust of hot air?”

The next breath was hotter; Kaylin felt as if it should have singed her hair, and it was now pointing in a direction that didn’t include her.

Bellusdeo crouched low; she reminded Kaylin, oddly, of a cat that had decided it had a solid chance of taking a bird out of the air from the ground. Mostly, this failed.

Emmerian finally broke down, the stiff neutrality of his posture instantly realigning itself with the blurry mess of transformation; blue plates became blue scales. He didn’t immediately take to the air.

“He’s not trying to hurt her!” Kaylin shouted.

“I know.” His voice was lower, a rumble of sensation over words that Kaylin understood. “But she is trying to hurt him, and she’ll regret it forever if she manages to succeed.” He, too, bent into his knees, stretched his wings, or at least did something with them, and leaped into the air.

The blue dragon hit the gold dragon. The gold dragon was close enough to the ground to be thrown off course; she landed on all four feet and roared in rage. Emmerian roared back.

So did Mandoran.

Kaylin looked to Severn, breath held. He wasn’t worried.

He’s right. She’ll regret it if she manages to hurt him in her frenzy.

So it’s fine if she hurts Emmerian? Because that’s what’s going to happen.

And we can prevent it how?

They couldn’t. She poked Hope.

I can interfere, Hope said, his voice eerily free of screech. But you will pay the price for the intervention. This is not something you could naturally do with greater effort or more time. It is something I could do—but not for free.

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