Michelle Sagara – Cast in Flame (страница 8)

The Dragon looked up as Kaylin entered the room; her eyes were golden. Clearly, the Keeper’s abode suited her.

It suited her far more than the Palace.

“The Keeper was just regaling us with details of your first meeting,” she said.

Mandoran, whose back was to the door, swiveled in his chair.

“It wasn’t the first meeting,” Evanton said, gently correcting her. “That was far less remarkable, although I remember thinking her unconscionably young to be keeping company with the Barrani Hawks.”

“No talking about me as if I weren’t in the room,” Kaylin replied, taking the chair closest to Bellusdeo.

“You weren’t in the room at the time.”

“Here, now. Did small and squawky stay with Grethan?” The apprentice was nowhere in sight. Neither was Kaylin’s most constant—and annoying—companion.

“No. He’s in the fireplace.” Bellusdeo nodded toward the fire in question. It was set into the wall, but reminded Kaylin—once again—of the Palace. Even the pokers looked like they were made of brass. And shiny.

“There’s a fire in the fireplace,” Kaylin quite reasonably pointed out.

“He doesn’t take up a lot of room, and it’s not like fire burns him. You can go and poke the fire if you want—he’s there.” Bellusdeo’s expression made clear that if Dragons of any size didn’t burn, mortals of any size did.

“I hope he puts himself out before he lands on my shoulders again.” Kaylin turned back to her tea.

Squawk.

Mandoran grinned. “I have to say, I’ve never met a mortal a tenth as interesting as you are. I can almost understand why Teela is so attached to you.”

“Teela,” Teela said, “dislikes being spoken of in the third person even more than Private Neya. She is also far more effective at discouragement.”

Mandoran laughed. “So she is. I don’t know where you found the private, but I’d hold on to her, if I were you. Honestly, I wish everyone had descended on this strange, smelly, crowded place. Sedarias is beside herself with envy at where I am. In the Keeper’s Garden!”

“It’s not that exciting,” Evanton said, his usual crankiness asserting itself.

“It is—she’s the only one of us who’d met the Keeper. Not you,” Mandoran added, as if that were necessary. “And Teela doesn’t count. Can I talk to the elements?”

“Perhaps another day,” Teela said, before Evanton could reply.

“But I hear the water,” Mandoran said, his eyes green, his expression both familiar and strange. It took Kaylin a few minutes to understand why: it was very similar to the hesitant joy that the foundlings sometimes showed. She’d never seen anything remotely similar on a Barrani face before.

Evanton rose. “With your permission, Lord Teela, I believe the water wishes to converse with Mandoran. I will lead him there, and return.”

Mandoran was out of his chair before Evanton had finished speaking.

CHAPTER THREE

“I’ve never seen a Barrani so young at heart,” Bellusdeo said softly, when they’d left.

“No. You wouldn’t have,” Teela replied. They were both speaking in Elantran. “We weren’t considered of age to be meeting Dragons. I doubt very much that the rest of my friends would be considered so, now, were it not for the fact that they were born centuries ago.”

“It can’t be easy for them.”

Teela’s eyes paled; a ring of gold shifted the color of her irises. Bellusdeo had surprised her. Perhaps because she had, Teela answered honestly. “No. It won’t be any easier for them than I imagine it is for you. We want home, in our youth. And when we’ve traveled far and suffered much, we want it more fiercely.

“But home is a myth. A tale. A children’s fable. What will you do, Bellusdeo?”

Bellusdeo looked into her tea, as if she were scrying. “I don’t know. What will your friends do?”

“At least one of them will take the Test of Name within the next few weeks. If I can’t talk him out of it, Mandoran will also take the test. I think he intends to accompany Annarion.”

Kaylin found the tea too hot to drink, which was good, because she didn’t choke on it. “He can’t!”

“He can, kitling. There are no rules that govern the test—as you should well know. If you can enter the tower and read the word that will define you, you can traverse it. If you survive, you are Lord of the High Court. Annarion cannot be moved. His brother is furious. Mandoran might be more amenable to common sense.”

“We’re relying on his common sense?” Kaylin’s eyebrows disappeared up her forehead.

“No. There is no ‘we’ in this equation. Mandoran is not—repeat not—your problem. Your problem at the moment is finding a place to live in the city. Focus on that, and keep your nose out of trouble while you do it. We’ll take care of Mandoran.” She broke off and looked to Bellusdeo, who was sitting completely still. “Kaylin knows most of the city reasonably well. She doesn’t have our memory, but she doesn’t need it.”

“It’s not her knowledge that worries me.”

“No. But if you’ve listened to Evanton’s horror story, you understand that she is capable of surviving much, much worse than a simple apartment hunt. Even with a Dragon or two in tow. She survived the loss of her home,” Teela added, coming to the point in a way that she seldom did with anyone but Tain or Kaylin. “And between us, had she not been there, I don’t think you would have survived.” Eyes narrowing, Teela paused. “You don’t think you would have survived, either.” It wasn’t a question.

“No. I had time to speak with the Imperial mages in your absence. I had time to assess their reports. But Teela, it’s absolutely certain that the bomb would not have been thrown had I not been resident there.”

Teela shrugged. “I didn’t say Kaylin was wise. She’s not. But in this case, accept her lack of wisdom as the gift it is. She means well—mostly—and sometimes you have to encourage that.”

“Meaning well was not highly prized in the home of my childhood.”

Teela chuckled. “It was actively discouraged, in mine. But mortal lives are so short; they believe, and they die before that belief is entirely lost. It makes them curiously compelling.”

“Is that why you’re a Hawk?”

“No.” Teela hesitated, which was unusual. “And possibly yes. I didn’t come to the Hawks looking for Kaylin Neya; I was surprised when I found her.”

“Hello,” Kaylin said, raising a hand. “I’m actually sitting here.”

They both looked at her. Teela opened her mouth, no doubt to say something cutting, when the small dragon flew out of the fire, squawking at the top of his little lungs. Just in case volume wasn’t attention-grabbing enough, he made a beeline for Kaylin’s shoulders, landed with fully extended claws, and whacked her face with a wing.

“I don’t know why you never had cats,” Teela said, rising. “They couldn’t possibly be any worse.” Her eyes, however, had settled into Barrani danger blue.

Bellusdeo’s were now orange.

“Can you understand him?” Kaylin asked, vacating her own chair before the small dragon bit a hole through her ear lobe.

“In this case, I don’t think it’s necessary.” Teela rose and headed toward the door. It was awkward to have three grown women converge on said door at the same time, but Kaylin had the sinking feeling that awkward wasn’t even on the list of their problems.

* * *

The door opened into torrential rain. The ceiling, such as it was—and the Garden was so elastic in shape and size, Kaylin didn’t put much faith in Evanton’s roof—was completely invisible; the skies were the gray-green of heavy cloud, and lightning illuminated the landscape in brief, bright flashes.

She couldn’t see raging plumes of fire, and the ground just outside of the hut wasn’t shaking in a way that implied it was about to break beneath their feet. But the wind was howling.

Literally.

Kaylin turned to the small dragon. “Where,” she shouted, “is Evanton?”

He lifted a wing and plastered it against her upper face. He’d done this before, in the outlands, where vision was so subjective it was the only way to see what was actually in front of her. The Garden, in theory, didn’t have that problem.

But when the wing covered her eyes, she could see past the driving rain; she could see past the flying leaves and the debris that might once have been offerings to each of the elemental shrines. She could see the clouds, and froze for a moment.

“Kitling!”

The clouds wore the shape and form of a woman. She was not familiar to Kaylin; she was too large—far too large—and too angry; her eyes were the size of the moons, even narrowed as they were. More disturbing were her wings. Kaylin had always loved Aerians because of their wings; she knew that those wings were weapons; that they could break a man’s arm. But the wings of the storm—of the water—were like tidal waves; there was nothing beautiful about them, and the only freedom they implied was death.

“Can you see the Keeper?” Bellusdeo shouted. Her voice felt like rumbling earth.

“No—but the water is here, and it’s enraged!”

“Only the water? Kaylin—can you see any of the other elementals?”

She started to say air, and stopped. The storm was entirely a thing of the water. “No.”

The ground shook beneath Kaylin’s feet. Leontine left her open mouth. But it wasn’t the elemental earth joining the rumble; it was Bellusdeo. Bellusdeo, in her golden, draconian form. “Don’t just stand their gawking—get on. That applies to you as well, Lord Teela.”