Page 45 of Cast in Atonement

“So on the day we were considered of age to join our mother, and she told us that only one of us would survive, it was not the welcome step into adulthood we had anticipated. One of my sisters, who tended to be more vocal and more immediate in her reactions, said as much. We lacked the full vocal cords of our adult people, but our voices were higher pitched, and hers carried. The mother simply nodded.

“We asked if she had killed her siblings. She had not. And, Bellusdeo, you have not killed your sisters, either.”

“Then why—” the gold Dragon’s voice was low, shaky “—are they weeping? Why are they trapped and bound to me?”

Kavallac’s inner eye membranes rose, but the muted color was copper. So much sorrow in draconic eyes today. “There are accidents in the Aerie. I mentioned that some of my siblings had scars, did I not? Our bodies in childhood are frail—they are not the bodies of the male children. One of my sisters did not survive. Our people are not famous healers with reason.

“We went from five to four, and the mother grieved; her wails shook the Aerie for the entirety of the day.” Kavallac exhaled, bowing her head in remembrance before she continued. “We had not yet finished our lessons, our classes. But in those classes, we were—Ah.” She frowned. “Lannagaros, this cannot leave the library. Do you understand? I am willing to speak of things that would never have been spoken of in your presence, because I perceive you are our young queen’s sole emotional support, and the rest of the Dragon Court is appallingly ignorant.”

The chancellor nodded, bowing his head as if to the greater power.

“In her presence, we learned each other’s True Names.”

Kaylin’s brows rose into her hairline before they descended again.

Bellusdeo hesitated, and then said, “Did you not learn them before this?”

“It was forbidden.”

“Rules that can’t be enforced shouldn’t exist.”

Kavallac chuckled. “You ignored those rules. Of course you did. You knew the True Names of your sisters.”

“It was easiest.”

Kaylin wondered if this was why Bellusdeo could tolerate the cohort so well. They had made the same choice that she and her sisters had, if for different reasons. She stopped. Were the reasons that different, after all? The girls were born frail; they were raised separately for their own safety and survival. They did not leave the Aerie often—if at all—because they had no wings. They couldn’t fly.

“That was a disturbing lesson, but necessary. We thought, at the time, that it was to promote either closeness or caution. It opened up a world to us; we had lived together as the closest of kin for all of our lives—but we became far, far closer as a result.

“Our mother told us that the reason we were born as we were was to learn, to absorb, to have different interests, different passions, different ambitions; to accumulate magical knowledge, historical knowledge—everything individuals who were nonetheless closely connected would have.

“She asked us what we were willing to lose, if we were willing to lose anything at all. She asked us if we could imagine murdering—that was her word, and I feel in retrospect that it was far too melodramatic—our sisters. We had already lost one, and the grief of that taught us everything we needed to know about loss. We could not countenance another such loss—let alone becoming the cause of it.”

Bellusdeo nodded. She had no words.

“She left us with that question, and with the discussions that arose from it—the desperation, the certainty that only one of us could survive, the discussions about which one of us it would ultimately be. We criticized each other’s choices, and we elevated them as well—the choices we had not, by inclination, made ourselves. We called for votes, we called for consensus—it was a tumultuous, difficult period. We did hate our mother then.

“We eventually came to a decision: we chose. We had experienced loss and grief and we did not want to be the only survivor; we did not want to live with that loss in isolation.” Kavallac lifted her face; she was smiling, and there was a serenity to that smile that was rare.

“I had no choice,” Bellusdeo whispered. “We had no choice. We had gone in search of our adult names, as we were taught.” Her eyes flared a deep, almost shocking red.

“Taught by who?”

“A...male Dragon.” The loathing in her words transformed grief to the crimson of rage. “He taught us how adult names are found and made.”

“That is not how our adult names are made or found,” Kavallac replied.

“I know. I know that now.” Bellusdeo’s voice was low, almost a whisper.

Kavallac glanced at the chancellor. He said nothing, but his eyes had shifted from grief to anger, the rage slower to arrive than Bellusdeo’s.

Kavallac lifted a hand—as if she were, in truth, Bellusdeo’s mother, and not an Arbiter of this endless library. “When I speak now, I speak as a single person. But every single one of my surviving sisters is with me. I am multiple.

“On the last day of our childhood lessons, the Aerie mother guided us and explained to us how the mothers of the Aeries come of age. Our names merged—it was fraught and terrifying at the time. But when we emerged from our final lesson, there was, as our mother had said at the beginning, only one of us. But that one was all.

“I could handle a sword. I could read multiple languages. I could cast spells from different schools of magic. I could sing. I could write music. I could remember all of our lives as if they had been only one life: the sum of us, the sum of our childhoods. That is how we who are mothers emerge into the world as adults.

“And I could, at last, become a Dragon; the skies were no longer beyond my reach if the adults would not condescend to carry me.”

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