Page 96 of Cast in Conflict

And she had to stop calling him that.

“You really do,” the old man said, rising as they approached, his voice enclosed by an actual throat and mouth. “Arkon is a title; it is a function. I believe the former Arkon has chosen to undertake an entirely different responsibility.”

“Did you know him?” she asked softly.

The old man smiled. It was the whole of his answer. “Come,” he said. “Be seated wherever you feel comfortable. Ah, no,” he added, swiveling his head to look at Mandoran. “Be seated wherever I can comfortably speak with you.”

“You can speak with me anywhere, clearly,” Mandoran replied.

“Yes, but your companions can’t.”

“For my part, I speak with him more than enough in daily life, so you needn’t be bothered on my account,” Bellusdeo said.

The Dragon—the Tower—smiled. “It is entirely, as you all suspect, on my own account. I apologize,” he added, his voice grave, “for the manner of my first greeting. But I had to know.”

He gestured. Kaylin, not Mandoran and not a Dragon, took a seat, as did Severn. Hope hopped down off her shoulder to sit beside her plate. Apparently he recognized some of the foods that had been laid out for them, and expected to be able to pick at some of them. As far as she knew, he didn’t really need to eat, so it was a waste.

On the other hand, a cranky, loud familiar complaining in her ear was its own misery, so maybe it wasn’t.

“What did you have to know?” Bellusdeo asked, voice pleasant, eyes the color of blood. She’d raised her inner membranes to mute the color, but it wasn’t going well. “That I failed? That all but a bare handful of my people were lost to Shadow and death? You might have asked. I would have told you.”

“It is not a question one asks in polite company.”

This caused Bellusdeo’s lips to quirk up in what might have been a smile, if smiles were dark and edged. “Were you perhaps under the impression that you were in polite company?”

“At the moment, that is my hope. You must forgive me; I am very seldom host to guests who arrive here. Usually that is both the prerogative and the responsibility of my captain, or lord if you prefer.” His eyes didn’t darken, but they were obsidian.

“Who is dead,” Bellusdeo replied, not giving a conversational inch, although she did take a seat. Emmerian, as Severn and Kaylin, had taken a seat immediately. Mandoran grimaced and pulled up a chair—scraping it across stones—beside the gold Dragon. It was where he often sat at breakfast.

“Yes. You did not kill him.”

“No. And I resent it.”

The older Dragon nodded almost sagely. “You have questions.”

“I do.”

“I may not tender answers you like, or answers at all, but I will make the attempt.”

“Why did you choose Candallar as lord?”

“What you saw of him at his end was not all that he was,” the Tower replied, after a long pause. “What he was when he first arrived is not what he became. We—or perhaps, you and Lord Emmerian—are creatures of solitude except in the crèche and in times of war. It is effort to live with too many in one space, and it does not always bring out the best in us. I am amazed that you have managed.”

Kaylin knew why.

And Kaylin knew Karriamis knew it as well. She almost rose.

“It is difficult to have contested hoards; I am certain you will have been taught these lessons.”

She nodded.

“Barrani are not driven by the same imperative, the same biological frenzy. They are social creatures by nature. Candallar was. He was driven out of his home, and he came in desperation to my Tower at a time when it was convenient for me.”

“Is it true,” Kaylin asked, before Bellusdeo could, “that you allowed a guest of Candallar’s to pass through the Ravellon barrier and bring a Shadow back with him?”

14

The very clear, blue skies above this artificial garden darkened.

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