Page 44 of Cast in Atonement

“Male Dragons live, from birth, without names.” The Arkon glanced at Kavallac; she nodded. She meant him to continue.

Bellusdeo’s eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth, but Kavallac shook her head, a gentle motion, almost a request.

“When we come of age, we search for our adult names. We are not guaranteed to find them, and if we do, we are not guaranteed to survive the finding. You have tales of Dragons, children’s stories. Perhaps you believe that they arose from ignorance and fear; you have met Dragons. You know what we are.

“But it is our belief that your tales contain a kernel of truth. There are those who could not, or did not, find the names by which they could bind the bestial and the intellectual. They became a danger because they lacked that essential self-control.” The chancellor exhaled. “Yes, Corporal?”

“Are you saying it’s the human form that gives you that?”

“No. I am saying that our ability to hold that form, to truly master it, is the proof that we have developed that self-control, that awareness. We went in search of names that would prove that we had the awareness, the impulse control, necessary to join our kin, to join a flight, and to take war to our enemies without descending into primal instinct and competitiveness better suited to beasts.”

Bellusdeo was frowning, but it was a more measured frown; she was clearly thinking about the chancellor’s words.

“I was born in a different era,” Kavallac said, when it was clear the chancellor had no more to add. “War was not ever on our minds, and the survival of Dragonkind was never in question. None of us bear the burden that you now bear.” She exhaled smoke, her eyes a blend of copper and gold. “I could not have carried it.” When she turned to the chancellor, her tone was far less gentle. “I could not carry it, and I had been taught everything that might have been of aid.”

“They were lost far before that education would have begun.” The chancellor’s expression was neutral, but his eyes had shaded to copper. Copper with flecks of red; it was an unusual combination. “And I was responsible for them as a minder, not an educator. Before we lost them, the Aerie mother was responsible for their teaching, but those lessons were in their future, not their past.”

Kavallac nodded, the copper in her eyes almost glinting. “Perhaps, even if you were taught what we were taught, the experience would not be so easily conveyed; it would be secondhand.” She turned once again to Bellusdeo. “I realize this is not the reason you have traveled to the library, but your situation is unique, and perhaps it will be of aid to you, regardless.

“Lannagaros is not wrong. The Aerie mother, your mother, was responsible for teaching what must be taught. But it could not be taught to children, and you were—all of you—children when you were lost to your Aerie. We were not lost in the same fashion. We were schooled almost as the Academia students are schooled now; we had classrooms, not caverns. Our lessons were lectures; we did not learn to hunt, and we certainly did not learn to kill.

“But we grew, almost as mortals grow, although not nearly as quickly. And when we came of age, we were summoned, at last, to the Aerie. We were excited, I confess; we felt that the journey to join our kin, our kind, had finally begun.

“The mother of our Aerie told us two things on that first day: That we would form an Aerie of our own when we at last laid our clutch, and that there would be only one of us at that time. Only one would remain.”

08

Bellusdeo’s eyes were full-on copper; the Dragon was unusually pale. Armor didn’t bend as easily as cloth; she was therefore upright, rigid.

Kavallac waited until Bellusdeo nodded before she continued.

Kaylin glanced at the chancellor; his expression was a mask. Hard to tell whether or not this had surprised him; his eyes remained predominantly copper.

“As you now imagine, this was a shock to us. Were we meant to kill each other? Were we meant to compete in a complicated duel to the death? We would not do it. If I desired, on any given day, to strangle two or three of my sisters, I would never, ever kill them. If I trusted nothing else, I trusted them. We were not to spend time with our brothers—and perhaps Lannagaros has done us a favor, for his explanation makes clear why.”

Kaylin lifted a hand.

“Corporal.”

“If Dragons finding their adult names, their actual True Names, is expressed by the human form, and girls are born as humans...”

Kavallac’s nod held grudging approval. “Serralyn, my apologies, but I will ask you to leave before I continue; I should not have spoken so freely.”

Serralyn swallowed, nodded, and immediately walked through the portal Kavallac had created with a simple gesture. The Barrani student wasn’t a fool—she had no desire to hear secrets of Dragonkind. Not as a Barrani.

Kaylin glanced at the portal and moved toward it, but it winked out of existence before she could reach it.

“Not you, Chosen. I am told you were present when Bellusdeo at last transcended her childhood. You have some understanding of what I am about to say, and your unusual nature—the marks of the Chosen—might have a role to play in Bellusdeo’s difficulty that the wise cannot foresee.”

Kaylin glanced at Bellusdeo for permission. The gold Dragon failed to see her until Kavallac answered the question she had asked. “Yes, Chosen. No Dragon is adult without possession of a True Name. Every Dragon of your acquaintance has achieved that fusion: word and being.

“But the male Dragons and their arduous process is not the process I faced; it is not the process Bellusdeo and her sisters faced. It is not something that was discussed with the fathers or the other adults within the Aerie.”

Kaylin knew she didn’t know enough about Dragons, but this wasn’t something taught in racial relations classes. If it had been, she’d’ve paid more attention. “You...you had names. From birth.”

“We had nascent names. The immature name I was granted at birth is not the name I now possess. We were never to speak of them, to offer them to others; they had the power that names have. Perhaps the Ancients who created us wished to lessen the threat of youthful folly; we could come into possession of our adult names—and the danger a True Name can present—when we were of an age that that youth would not count against us.

“It is not the way Barrani names work; nor is it the way Wevaran names work. I do not know the process by which Arbiter Androsse’s kin wakened—and that is entirely irrelevant to this discussion.” This was a warning to Androsse, who lingered in the area. She offered no like warning to Starrante.

---