“You do not need to tell me the dangers of Shadow,” Bellusdeo said.
“And the dangers of the outcaste?” the Arkon asked. Given Bellusdeo’s expression, Kaylin wouldn’t have dared.
“Or that.” Her answer was chilly; her eyes were orange. Before the Arkon could answer, she raised her inner eye membranes, which slightly muted her eye color.
“Did you not hear him, on the day you emerged from the fiefs?”
Bellusdeo didn’t answer.
“He did not want your destruction. I do not believe he wants it now. I do not know what he found in Ravellon—or perhaps what found him there—but if he is driven, if he is no longer truly Dragon, some base part of that remains.”
“He almost destroyed me.”
“It is the way of our kind, when our wishes are thwarted. The Emperor is the shining counterexample. But I do not believe that destruction was his intent. You are female.”
If Kaylin had had a direct link to the Arkon she would have been screaming down it, about now. Then again, raised eye membranes and orange eyes were probably enough of a signal. She considered leaving the discussion, the room and, with luck, the library, before the two Dragons started speaking in their native tongue.
That would certainly distract them, Severn said.
“I believe he hoped—he intended—to share his new kingdom with you. I believe that he wished to have a clutch, and children of his own.”
“He destroyed my sisters,” Bellusdeo continued, her lips a thin line, her knuckles white.
“They are part of you, now. Perhaps he understood what you must become—I am more learned than he, but I would have made different assumptions. And I would, regardless, never have attempted to force a choice on you; I had enough experience with you in your youth to know how well that would have worked.”
Some of the tension left Bellusdeo’s expression, then. “Do you still think you can save your friend?”
“No. He is outcaste, and he is dangerous beyond belief. It would help me greatly to believe that there is nothing of my friend left in the outcaste. I cannot, sadly. And so I think he did not fully emerge as an adult by our standards; he was, in the interior of his thoughts, outcaste, always. He was everything I was not—everything most of us were not.
“But he was like mortal kin to the Emperor. It is a blow from which the flight has never fully recovered, and his death will not change that. And I wonder if he might not have become consumed by Ravellon if we had approached him as the private and her friends approach Mandoran and Annarion. He did not, in the end, belong with or to us; perhaps what he desired was a place that would truly be home to one such as he.”
Kaylin frowned; it was the thoughtful frown. “If all of this is true, why does he take the form of a large black Dragon? If I understand what you’ve said, he should be able to take different forms. I mean, if he’s not a Dragon, if he’s found a place in which he can mostly be himself, why does he still choose the form of a Dragon?”
“I cannot answer that question,” the Arkon replied. “And it pains me, Kaylin.”
She was silent for a beat, an acknowledgment of the awkward nature of this kind of pain. But she was here for a reason.
“What does the outcaste have to offer the Aerians?”
“You believe Margot’s vision to be substantially true?”
“She’s an Oracle. You can’t expect reliability out of Oracles.”
“Exactly. But you expect, somehow, that there is reliability in this vision?”
Ugh. “I think the outcaste is somehow involved with the Aerians, yes. Possibly only one Aerian Arcanist—but if that’s the case, the Aerian Arcanist is causing Caste Court problems for the current praevolo.”
“And?”
“We’re going to meet him. I mean, I’m going to meet him. With a Barrani or two for company.”
“And a Dragon,” Bellusdeo added.
“I don’t think—”
“And a Dragon, Kaylin.”
She decided against arguing with Bellusdeo in her current mood. “...And a Dragon.”
“What do you intend to discuss?”
Kaylin exhaled. “I don’t know. I have a growing suspicion that the bastard thinks he can somehow remove Moran’s wings and affix them to someone else.”
“The praevolo cannot be made outcaste.”
“Do we know that for fact? Or is that just another ‘truth’ that’s been passed down through the generations?”
The Arkon’s smile seemed genuine. “We know nothing, of course, for fact. We sift through known truths in an attempt to see what underpins them. I assume, however, that there is some truth in the fact. Were there no truth—or were there no perceived truth—it would not be necessary to have your sergeant assassinated.”
“But they tried. So they thought it was necessary to kill her—to release the praevolo power, somehow. If they thought they could just remove her wings and give them to someone else—”
Silence.
“Kaylin?” Bellusdeo asked.
“Well, I know this is going to sound stupid, but—if they did assassinate her, if she did die, where would the body go?”
The ensuing silence was texturally different.
“We know—we have definitive proof—that wings can be removed. Is there anything to say that those wings have to be removed from a living body?”
Chapter 24
There was a lot of silence on the way home. The Arkon didn’t have an answer to Kaylin’s question; he suggested that the Aerians might. He couldn’t tell her how the wings were removed, and was willing—with obvious and great reluctance—to accept her statement that they were.
But he had done some study on the single flight feather in his possession. It was, he said, immune to most things. The obvious ones—water, air—had not been extensively tested, but fire had.
And Shadow.
Kaylin didn’t ask how he’d tested the latter. She understood the Arkon’s concern with Shadow—in a strange way, it mirrored Bellusdeo’s. It was not as personal, on the surface, but that was probably because the Arkon was old enough that experience tempered pain or anger. But he spoke with authority when he spoke of testing, and Kaylin accepted it, with questions.
He then asked, politely and without edge, if he might speak at length with Moran dar Carafel. Kaylin said, “I’ll ask.”
He accepted that, without demanding that she succeed, and then pretty much ushered them out of the library, making certain they exited the doors before he returned to his research.
“He wants to see the bracelet,” Bellusdeo said, when they were quit of the palace.
Kaylin nodded; that was her guess, as well.
“You have a very grim turn of thought, by the way. I almost admire it.”
“What I don’t understand,” Kaylin said, “is why they waited.”
“Why they waited?”
“Until she was injured.”
“You can’t guess?”
At Bellusdeo’s tone, Kaylin frowned. “Politics?”
“Almost certainly. Ever since Moran donned the robes and the bracelet, she’s been treated entirely differently in the Halls. You must have noticed it.”
Thinking of Clint on one knee for an extended duration, Kaylin nodded.
“People can be both political and religious at the same time. Since Moran chose to wear the bracelet, have there been any assassination attempts?”
“Not that we know of, no.”
“It’s political. The Caste Court is, in my opinion, divided. I’m beginning to think that the people who wanted the augury—the Oracle, as you call it—weren’t necessarily the people who were trying to get Moran’s wings, either figuratively or literally. Or, rather, they were willing to do things up to a point.
r />
“But when Moran flew, everything changed. The wings are injured. In your opinion, they shouldn’t be able to carry her—but they did. They can. So. Before she flew, there was uneasiness. I’d say there’s a split in the Caste Court now. Moran is praevolo. People with ambition can delude themselves; they can talk themselves into believing anything. The fact that Moran didn’t fly when injured would be proof to them that she was a fraud.
“Now, that can’t be argued. And if she’s not a fraud...”
“It’s an actual crime to some of them?”
“That’s my take. I’m not Aerian,” she added. “But I did rule over a bunch of ambitious, fractious, frequently selfish people in my time. I would say that there are some who are old-school—I like that term, by the way—and they’re afraid of what the more ambitious among their kin are planning.”
“Well, that makes two of us. It’s nice to know that conniving, backstabbing political jerks have some sense.”
* * *
“Well?” Kaylin asked, arms folded, back against the nearest stretch of blank wall. She was bracketed by paintings; Moran had been in the dining room when Teela, Kaylin and Bellusdeo had returned from the High Halls. Teela had chosen to stay; Tain had headed home. He wasn’t, he said, up to listening to the children squabble.
The children, as he called them, were not squabbling now; the entire house seemed blanketed in thick silence. It was not the happy, peaceful kind.
Mandoran was at the table. To his left, to Kaylin’s surprise, was Maggaron; they appeared to be speaking. Moran was perched on her stool, her back stiff, her eyes the wrong color; they had lightened when Kaylin entered the room.
They’d darkened when Kaylin asked the only question she wanted answered at the moment. “Can a dead person be made outcaste by the Aerian Court?”
Moran didn’t answer. Kaylin prompted her again, and she maintained her silence. It was a rigid, stiff-winged silence, with a lot of blue in the eyes.
“What would the point be?” Mandoran demanded. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for weeks. Barrani didn’t, in theory, need sleep; they did need rest or repose or something similar. Kaylin had never entirely been clear on what. “Making a dead person outcaste has to serve some purpose.”
“Outcaste means something different to the Aerians,” Kaylin replied, silently willing Mandoran to either shut up or leave.
“What does it mean to the Aerians?”
“Mandoran. Trying to have an important conversation, here.”
“I am joining it. I am tired of thinking about Barrani politics, the Barrani Court and Barrani bloody family. It is very loud in my head at the moment, and I’d appreciate any attempt to distract me.”
This seemed to amuse Moran. It didn’t amuse Kaylin. Because she was unamused, she wasn’t diplomatic. “The Aerians don’t kill their outcastes. They remove their wings. Remove. They don’t cut them off. They take them away.”
Mandoran frowned. “What do you mean, take them away?”
“I mean the wings cease to exist. The person who had them is still alive, but the wings, and their ability to fly, are gone.”
“But they don’t kill them.”
“The don’t have to—”
“They used to remove the wings of the outcaste,” Moran said, “and then throw them off the peak of the Aerie.”
Kaylin almost blanched. Teela and Mandoran seemed entirely unmoved.
“They don’t do that anymore. The person is cast out of the Southern Reach, but they are set down on the ground, where they are doomed to remain.” She rose and headed to the door, but paused midway between door and table, as if she had forgotten what she’d intended to do. “Why are you asking?”
“Because we’ve been thinking that assassinating you would free up the power of the praevolo. You were born in obscurity, and that’s offended someone in power. You’re dar Carafel, but in name only, and frankly, you hate the name and don’t use it.
“But what if that’s not what they intend? The praevolo can’t be made outcaste.”
“You’re certain of that?” Moran asked, lifting a brow and using her sergeant voice.
“Yes, sir.” Kaylin grimaced. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Clint believes it. I think all the Aerians in the Halls believe it. You’ve gone from being a pariah to being the local hero, by the way.”
“Do. Not. Start.”
Kaylin had some sympathy with this. She hated it when the Barrani Hawks called her Lord Kaylin in the office. But it wasn’t the same thing, and they both knew it.
“Do you have any idea how the whole wing removal thing works?”
Moran was silent.
“I’m not asking for the fun of it. It is not fun for either of us.”
“You’re asking for a reason.”
“Yes.”
“And that?”
“Big, ugly outcaste black Dragon who calls Ravellon his home.”
Moran’s eyes shaded to what Kaylin thought of as Barrani blue. So did Mandoran’s. Bellusdeo’s eyes were the orange they generally became when the outcaste Dragon was mentioned at all.
“What does the outcaste Dragon have to do with outcaste Aerians?”
“What if the outcaste Dragon could offer the outcaste Aerians their wings back? What if he could offer the ruling Aerians the power of the praevolo, without the inconvenience of having to worry about who that praevolo actually is?” She drew a deeper, longer breath. “Moran, what if the power of flight, and the power of the praevolo, were somehow related to Shadow and its magic?”
* * *
Moran said a long, long nothing. Kaylin thought she would leave—she was making eyes at the door as if seriously considering that option. But in the end, she exhaled heavily and said, “I owe you at least this much.”
“You don’t,” Kaylin countered. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“You’ve given me shelter, Kaylin; you’ve given me a place in which I can feel at home, even if it’s not my home. That’s a rare gift, at least for someone like me.”
“I didn’t do that, though. Helen did.”
Helen coughed. She was not currently in the dining room, but of course her voice was. She was aware of anything that occurred within her walls.
“You’ve never seen someone declared outcaste.” It wasn’t a question.
“No. You have?”
“Once. Only once. It is not a private ceremony. Many cultures approve of, and even encourage, public executions.”
“They believe,” Teela said, taking a seat, but turning it around so the back faced the table, “that execution serves as a deterrent. If the death—the punishment—is publicly seen, the reasoning goes, people will assume that they’ll face the same fate if they commit the same crime. It doesn’t work that way, in my experience.”
“No?”
“People see the condemned as stupid. They believe that they would never be in that position because they are not stupid. And my apologies, Moran. I did not mean to interrupt.”
“Interruptions—most interruptions—are gratefully accepted. I admit that Annarion shouting at his brother wears a bit on the nerves; there’s almost nowhere you can go in this house that drowns it out.”
“If it helps,” Mandoran said, “Nightshade is shouting, too. His voice doesn’t carry the same way if you’re far enough from it.”
“Because he is only speaking on one level,” Helen told him.
Mandoran joined Teela, moving from his chair into one closer to the Barrani Hawk. He leaned into her left shoulder as if his spine had momentarily deserted him. Teela rolled her eyes, but didn’t move.
“There is ceremony involved in the...excision of wings.”
“Ceremony? Like—religious ceremony?”
<
br /> “Very like, yes. In theory, the gods are not invoked.”
“In theory.”
“In practice, however, there is very little difference. Up until the moment the wings dissolve, the supplicant, the criminal, has hope that the sentence will be stayed. In theory, the removal requires permission.”
“From who?”
Moran shook her head. She started to answer twice, but barely made it through the first syllable of the first word.
“They ask,” Helen said, coming to Moran’s rescue, “the spirit of the praevolo.”
* * *
For one long moment, silence reigned. Moran did not, however, deny Helen’s words—and once those words were out there, Kaylin understood why Moran hadn’t been able to give them voice.
“And the living praevolo gets no say?”
“Maybe in the past. I’ve been the living praevolo since birth, and no one—no one—has asked my permission.” The words were bitter, terrible, desolate. “I would never have allowed them to take Lillias’s wings. She saved my life. Her crime—if I understand the politics at all—was saving my life. I’m not a god. I’m not the Avatar of a god. I’m a sergeant. I’m a Hawk.”
Kaylin heard the guilt, the anger, even the self-loathing in Moran’s voice. “You think somehow if you were a better praevolo, if you’d played their game, Lillias wouldn’t have lost her wings.”
Moran didn’t answer.
“You were a child. Lillias lost her wings because she wouldn’t allow you to be killed. There is nothing you could have done to prevent what happened.”
“And now?” Moran asked, bitterness seeping into her expression, which hardened and aged her face.
“Right now, I’d like to concentrate on my question. Could the wings be removed from a corpse?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are there stories of it being done?”
“Two or three.”
“When the wings are removed, what happens to them?”
“When I said dissolve, I meant it. The wings fade. They disintegrate, starting from the flight feathers and moving in. It isn’t—I’m told—a painful process. It doesn’t physically hurt.”