“Because he can’t own her?”
“Because he has his hoard, dear. It will come first. It must come first. He is a Dragon, not a Barrani Lord. The Dragons do not swerve when they have finally chosen. But Bellusdeo requires an autonomy, a freedom, that would clash with the Emperor’s focus and attention. I do not think they are right for each other.”
Kaylin had never been the person that people came to for romantic advice.
“The Emperor did.”
“You’re telling me that’s not romantic.”
“It is not. If the Emperor has his hoard, he is cognizant of the need for Dragon children. He understands Bellusdeo’s significance to the race—and at the moment, the race is confined to the Dragon Court and those who chose to sleep rather than serve. The Emperor understands duty.”
“The Arkon’s too old.”
“As you’ve noted yourself, age does not mean for the immortal what it means for the mortal—but I concur. The Arkon feels that Bellusdeo is a child. He treats her as if she were one, although he is remarkably clear-eyed in his interactions and expectations.”
“Who does that leave? Tiamaris is out. Sanabalis is probably out. She’d kill Diarmat if she could.”
“I do not believe that to be the case, but Lord Diarmat is even more formal and rigid than the Emperor.”
“Then who does that leave? If she has to have children—and she thinks she does, even if she hates the idea—she doesn’t have a lot of choice. She asked the Emperor if she could wake one or two of those who chose to sleep, and he refused her.”
“You are possibly overlooking someone, but I will leave that for the future. I am feeling much more optimistic about the present for the Dragons than I have since Bellusdeo came to live here. I will miss her,” she added, “when she chooses to leave. You should join your guests, dear—they’re probably going to wonder what’s happened to you.”
“Have they stopped talking about me yet?”
“I imagine they will once they’re aware that you’re listening.”
* * *
The parlor discussion, during which dessert and a variety of drinks were served, went on for the next two hours. Kaylin had never seen the Hawklord in an informal gathering before—if the gathering had started out stiffly, it had mellowed—and was surprised when he laughed. She could not remember ever hearing his laughter before.
She found it almost disturbing.
The Emperor’s smiles were similar. She had discovered that he was possessed of an actual sense of humor—but it was bone-dry, easily missed. She found it comforting to know that everyone seemed to like each other, and even more comforting to know that they had enjoyed being guests in her home.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t used to guests—she knew Teela, after all, and Teela pretty much dropped by whenever she felt bored. But this was different. The Emperor and the Hawklord were not men who simply made themselves at home whenever the mood struck them.
She thought the Arkon might be, but he resented deeply being pried out of his library, and in general left it only in emergencies. He clearly considered the state of relations between his Emperor and Bellusdeo to be one, but his eyes had taken only very brief jaunts into orange through the evening.
She saw her guests to the door, thanked them for coming and meant it, and relaxed only when they were finally gone.
Nightshade was with Annarion. “Tell them,” Kaylin said to Helen, “that they’re free to shout at each other now if they absolutely have to—the Emperor’s gone home.”
* * *
After Kaylin had ditched the dress and returned to comfortable clothing, they convened in the dining room. Mandoran joined them.
“They’re not shouting,” Bellusdeo pointed out.
“Yes. Some people would consider that an improvement.”
“I would, in general. Why don’t you?”
“They’re not speaking.”
Kaylin wilted.
“At all.”
“What is the problem?” the golden Dragon asked Mandoran. She was lounging across the nearest chair, in stark contrast to her very proper carriage and bearing during dinner. Apparently Kaylin wasn’t the only person who found propriety almost unbearable at times.
“Hasn’t changed any. Well, no, that’s not true. I think Nightshade’s biggest problem is the Test of Name in the High Halls. Annarion is insisting he’ll take the test; Nightshade is insisting that he can’t. If Nightshade weren’t outcaste, there’d be no question—Annarion would obey. He’d hate it, but he’d obey.
“Nightshade, however, is outcaste. He isn’t the head of his line, and he has no moral power over his younger brother. He has familial power—and Annarion hates it, but can’t quite let that go—but no hierarchical claim. If Nightshade weren’t outcaste, on the other hand, Annarion wouldn’t be so insistent on being tested.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Kaylin told Mandoran.
“So Helen says.”
“I’ve undergone the Test of Name.”
“So Helen also says.” Mandoran folded his arms and tilted his chair back on two legs. “If Annarion goes, I’m going with him.” He grinned. It was not a comforting sight.
“You can’t. The Test of Name is faced alone.”
“According to Teela, you went with Severn.”
“Yes—but we didn’t intend to take the damn test, Mandoran. We stumbled into it by accident. This isn’t a game.”
“No. For Annarion, it isn’t. Just between the two of us, I don’t give a damn about my family line. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the High Court. They sent us to the green. They didn’t care if we died there.”
“I think they hoped you’d all become more powerful.”
“Yes, and that’s why they sent their younger children, their youngest sons or their daughters.” Mandoran was not buying whatever the High Court of old had tried to sell him. Frankly, Kaylin didn’t buy it, either—but she wasn’t Barrani. Her opinion was irrelevant. “Also, frankly, Annarion finds his older brother’s attitude condescending. He dislikes being thought of and treated as a child.”
“By Barrani lights, he sort of is one.”
“Yes. But by our lights, so are you, and you hate it. You should have some sympathy for him.”
She did. But she remembered the godlike Shadow that lay in wait at the base of the Tower of testing, lord and prison for every single Barrani who had failed. He was the test. She wondered what Annarion and Mandoran could, or would, do when confronted with the captives, trapped in eternal hell. She thought Mandoran might be able to walk away, but Nightshade’s younger brother? Never.
“The Tower,” Helen said quietly, “is a test of many things.”
“It’s considered a Test of Name,” Kaylin said.
“And it is that. But I think it is also a test of power. Or perhaps a test of hubris.”
“I don’t think hubris is the right word.”
“You’ve been thinking that Mandoran would be wise enough to accept the power he could not defeat, and escape with his Name and his right to be called Lord.”
“...Yes.”
“But you were also thinking that Annarion couldn’t walk away. He would challenge what he found at the base of the Tower, because he would understand the loss—to the race—of the Names.”
Kaylin fell silent.
“But you are also thinking that Mandoran and Annarion are not Barrani in the traditional sense, or rather, that their abilities are not confined to the abilities granted them by simple birth and simple training. You are wondering what would happen if all of the twelve—or the remaining members, Teela already having passed—chose to take the test together.”
“Funny,” Mandoran said, grinning, “Annarion’s been wondering that, as well. He hasn’t seen
what you’ve seen, of course, and the Lords are forbidden to speak of it. But Sedarias has also said that the tests—and the perceptions of them—are individual.”
“How do you know what I’ve seen?”
“You might have mentioned something to Teela.”
“And Teela shared?”
“Shocking, I know—but she does have that capability.” He grimaced. “Now she’s mad.”
“I’m sorry, dear.” Helen seemed and sounded truly apologetic. “When you think of the Tower of testing, you think, always, of the dead trapped beneath it by the ancient Shadows. You think of the High Lord’s pain, and the Lady’s.”
“Yes, but that’s supposed to be—”
“A secret. Yes. I cannot fathom why. Were I Barrani, I might train and teach my offspring and lead them to war to free my trapped kin.”
“Teela has a thing or two to say,” Mandoran interjected.
“She always does,” Kaylin shot back.
“You don’t need to throw yourself between me and Teela’s anger—but I appreciate the effort.”
Kaylin grimaced. “Share less.”
Mandoran, predictably, laughed. “That’s what Annarion said.”
“And not you?”
Mandoran returned her steady almost glare with a cheeky gaze of his own. “I don’t think his brother’s wrong.” He laughed as her eyebrows rose into her hairline, but the laughter drained abruptly. “Teela’s given us some hint of what you saw. She’s given us some explanation. She saw it herself, when she took, and passed, that test. She has the same burning desire as you have. The same desire, I’m certain, as the High Lord does.
“But she understands why the test exists. If the creature can take your Name, if he can bind you, if he can transform you, you cannot exist as a soldier in the fight against the Shadows. It’s a test for—for corruptibility. Is that a word?”
“It is now. I understand what you’re trying to say.”
“It’s not a test of anything else. If you can face that creature and walk away with your Name and your self intact, the Shadows will not be able to take you unless you give yourself to them. If you cannot walk away, the Shadows would otherwise devour you. Or worse. The High Lord is surrounded by the High Court. Even his guard is composed of Lords who have taken, and passed, that test.
“He is the focal point of all of our defenses in these benighted lands. He has powers that even the strongest of the Arcanists who grace his Court do not have. If he were to be corrupted, those powers would be turned against us in the worst case. In the best, they would simply cease to be used at all. I understand your desire to save the helpless,” Mandoran added. He grimaced. “I’d have to understand it; at least half our cohort has the same desire. Sedarias surprises me, though. She was always the most martial, the most powerful, of our number.
“And by power I mean she understood politics, and was perfectly willing to play that game.”
“And the others? The other half?”
“They’re like me. Is it horrible? Yes. But, Kaylin: no one is forced to take that test. I’ll go, if Annarion goes. I have to go. He’s my kyuthe, my chosen kin. Teela can’t go—she’s gone. She’d need permission, and I don’t think she’d be given it. But if Annarion chooses to go, Helen’s going to get a lot more crowded.”
“Why?”
“None of us would let Annarion go alone.”
“You’re here,” Kaylin pointed out.
“Yes. And they would be here, as well. Even those who think he’s being an idiot.”
“Nightshade thinks he’s being an idiot.”
“Yes.”
“...And Annarion thinks his brother has lost all sense of honor and responsibility.”
“Yes. Got it in two.” Mandoran slumped across the table and said, in a plaintive voice, “I’m starving.”
Helen glanced at the top of his head with mild disapproval. “That is not how we ask for dinner,” she told him. But food did appear to the left of his elbow.
“If I’d realized how complicated this was all going to be,” Mandoran told the tabletop, “I’d’ve stayed in the green.”
“You could have.”
“Annarion’s too straight and narrow to be left on his own. He was the best—or the stupidest—of all of us.” He lifted his head. “He revered his older brother. Even when we changed, when we were altered by the regalia, his regret and desire was to find Nightshade and bring him home. And that was before his brother became outcaste.”
“The current High Lord is not the one who banished him.”
“Yes. We believe there may be avenues available to have him reinstated. Nightshade, however, has professed disinterest in that.”
“The Lady seems to like him.”
“It doesn’t matter, Kaylin. He is outcaste until and unless the High Lord deems otherwise. He is alive—and was left alive—because he captained one of the Seven Towers; he was considered by many an ugly necessity. He is still considered that way—but his life is guaranteed by his position in the fiefs. And Annarion has opposition, regardless. Annarion’s line did not end, but it passed into the hands of distant cousins—and they are all Lords of the Court. They have no desire whatsoever to see Nightshade returned to prominence.
“They’ve even, according to Teela, made moves to demand the return of Meliannos, his great sword, to the Court.”
She snorted. “Good luck with that.”
Mandoran grinned. “I believe Teela’s suggestion was that anyone who felt they could take the sword that he’d earned was free to try. She refused—as a wielder of one of the three—to join in the attempt. I don’t think Teela hates Nightshade, either. Or she didn’t, until he marked you.”
“I think—I think he did that because—”
“Because he wanted to keep you? Because he thought you’d be useful in finding and, possibly, finally rescuing his long-lost younger brother?”
“Something like that.”
“Do me a favor. Don’t say that to Annarion, if you haven’t already. He’s blaming himself enough; he doesn’t need to add that mark to his score.”
“Score?”
“Isn’t that the Elantran word I want?”
Given Mandoran, it probably was the word he meant. Given the gravity of the situation, she said, “I’m sure it’s not.”
“Well, anyway. He feels guilty. We’d like him to stop that; it’s painful and yet at the same time almost boring.”
Bellusdeo snorted smoke. “You are impossible. You are not—quite—boring, and yet I occasionally feel the strong desire to end your existence. Or at least make it vastly less comfortable.”
“Right back at you,” Mandoran said. He propped his head up on his hands, his elbows braced against the table; he then noticed the food and thanked Helen profusely. “You have saved my life,” he told her.
“Yes,” Helen agreed, in a more severe tone. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t go to such lengths to waste my efforts.”
He laughed.
* * *
Bellusdeo surprised Kaylin; as they were heading to their rooms for what Kaylin felt was a much-deserved rest given the stress of the evening, she said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
The gold Dragon smiled; it was almost rueful. “I didn’t think much of your idea for an informal dinner at first.”
“It wasn’t actually my idea.”
“I know. But you agreed. The Emperor didn’t command you; he asked.”
“I like not to be ash. It’s not actually against the law for the Emperor to breathe on me.”
Bellusdeo smiled. “No, it isn’t. As was pointed out. I did not expect to enjoy myself—but, Kaylin, I did. Lannagaros seemed happy as well, and that is important to me.”
Kaylin exha
led. “He cares a lot about both of you. The you part, I can understand. But the Emperor doesn’t seem like the type of person it’s easy—or even smart—to love.”
“If we’re being honest,” Bellusdeo said, “neither were we, when we were young. I think half the clutch-fathers would have reduced us to cinders without a second thought, had we been male. We were—and please, don’t feel it necessary to repeat this—probably a lot more like Mandoran than like Annarion. Lannagaros was so stuffy and so proper, we often targeted him for mischief.
“And yet, he remembers us fondly. Thank you,” she said again. “In a strange way, this evening gives me hope.”
* * *
In the morning, Moran came to the table dressed for war. She wore the very colorful dress, she wore the bracelet, and she had adopted a long spear. She had arrived, Helen said, at the table early, and intended to accompany Kaylin to work.
“Doesn’t that normally work the other way around? We accompany her?”
“Ah. I believe she intends to accompany you to work on a more roundabout route.”
“She wants to see Evanton.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, dear. She believes he will be more helpful or more sympathetic if you are present.”
“She’s dead wrong about that.”
“I’m not sure she is.”
“If Lillias wanted to meet with Moran, don’t you think she’d’ve given her the gift herself? She approached Evanton, who approached me.”
“Yes, dear. I did mention this to Moran.”
“Who doesn’t care.”
“No, dear. Lillias saved Moran’s life when she was much younger. It is highly likely that’s the reason Lillias was made outcaste and stripped of her wings.”
Kaylin let out a volley of angry Leontine, which was best when one felt like raging. It had growling built in.
“I don’t suppose you could tell Moran that I’m sick and staying in bed today?”