Page 47 of Cast in Atonement

“You didn’t ask.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because this isn’t an investigation for the Halls of Law. It’s...” Kaylin trailed off. There were some words she just wasn’t good with. She’d never be good with them. At heart, she was an orphan from the fiefs. Yes, she was a Hawk, and she’d made that define her because it was better than being a helpless, useless fiefling, with no money, no purpose other than survival, however survival could be attained.

Bellusdeo had once been a queen, an empress. She had led wars. She was the heart of the future of Dragonkind. She, too, had fought for survival. But never the way Kaylin had. There were thousands of people like Kaylin in the world. There was only one Bellusdeo.

“What is it?” Bellusdeo had never been famous for her patience, at least not in this world.

“I think of you as a friend. I don’t have family, so my friends are important to me. I know there are things you don’t want to talk about, and things you want kept secret. This one—the Outcaste—is the biggest one.

“If you don’t want Kavallac to know, I don’t want to mention it.”

“Even if you’re a Hawk?”

“Even then. I won’t ask without your permission.”

Bellusdeo exhaled smoke, her eyes flecked now with red. “How pathetic do you think me, Corporal?”

Kaylin flinched, but held Bellusdeo’s gaze with her own. “I don’t think you’re pathetic at all.”

“You must, if you feel that even the mention of the Outcaste will cause so much damage.”

It wasn’t only the damage to Bellusdeo that she was worried about. She almost asked if Bellusdeo considered her a friend, but couldn’t. She couldn’t force those words out of her mouth. She didn’t want to look pathetic. She regretted her life choices, or at least the ones she’d made in the last five minutes.

“Ask her. At this very moment, hiding my own folly seems almost irrelevant.”

They returned to the Arbiters and the chancellor; the four were speaking quiet Barrani. Bellusdeo would hear the words at this distance, but Kaylin wouldn’t, the difference in their hearing was so marked. The words stilled as Bellusdeo approached. Or as Kaylin did.

Kavallac turned to the Hawk.

Kaylin began. “Dragons who are male are born with the physical prowess of your race. They find their adult names—and forms—somehow. It’s not necessary that I know,” she added, as the Arbiter’s expression shifted. “I want to make sure I understand what you’ve said. The girls are born almost like Wevaran are born: they have parts of what must become the adult name—and when they achieve that, they gain the physical prowess; the emotional and intellectual strength is accessible at birth, but they have to grow into it.”

“Yes.”

“What happens if, on a distant world with no mother to guide them, the girls reach the age of maturity in terms of human form without somehow merging with their sisters?”

Kavallac’s eyes had shaded from copper to orange. “They would remain as sisters.”

“What then happens if a Dragon—a male Dragon—teaches those sisters how to form a True Name in the way that the male Dragons are forced to search for one? Assume the male Dragon had a vested interest in the results but possibly didn’t know that the women are born with some fragmentary elements of a name.”

Her eyes, predictably, adopted flecks of red. “I perceive that this is not a theoretical question.”

“No. It’s not.”

Kavallac turned to Bellusdeo, who had adopted a familiar posture which Kaylin recognized only belatedly: it was how she stood when Kaylin was at work and the gold Dragon was shadowing her. Bellusdeo met Kavallac’s gaze in silence; the investigation was in the corporal’s hands.

Kaylin looked to Starrante, who was huddled, legs drawn into his body, all but two of his eye stalks housed there as well. “Has that ever happened to your kin?”

“We cannot leave our birthing place,” was his slow reply. “Not until we are complete. We are not Dragons; our design predates that race.”

“If, in the birthing place, there was a way for the hatchlings to find, to build, an adult name the way Dragons do, how would that affect the gaining of a name?”

“You ask a complicated question. I have no immediate answer.”

Kaylin nodded, and returned to Kavallac. “I have the same question for you. If the immature sisters could be guided the way the male hatchlings were, what effect would that have? If the sisters—all of the sisters—could fully transform into their draconic shape, would there be any need to merge?”

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