“I ask only that you think carefully, Kaylin. You are not Bellusdeo; you did not rule—and lose—a world. But as your life as a Hawk has defined you, her life as a queen—a lost queen, far from home—defined far more of her existence. The scattered remnants of her people, the Norranir, are here, but they, too, are not what they were. They are refugees; they cling to our borders, because war with Shadow is what they know.
“What they did before that war became so all-encompassing, you do not know. Some might have been artists or scholars. But here, this is all that is familiar.”
Kaylin shrugged uneasily. “I told you—I’ve been ordered to keep her company. I’ll do it.”
Tara nodded. “You will not, I think, find her today. But I believe you should also visit the chancellor.”
“You’ve never interrupted him while he’s working,” was the glum reply.
“Well?” The glumness continued when they left Tara. Tiamaris escorted them out, but added no further words; he was not in agreement with his Tower.
She surprised herself. “You understand that Tara’s very existence is about Ravellon, right?”
His eyes were orange, and flecks of red could be seen.
“I’m not saying you’re stupid,” she continued, a rushing press of syllables designed to lessen the red. “But...it makes sense to me that Tara would support Bellusdeo’s interests here. Bellusdeo was...not created, not exactly, but—she grew up fighting Shadow. She sacrificed everything to that war. Everything. I don’t know what she’d be if the Norranir hadn’t arrived. But it’s what she knows. The Norranir have ways of influencing and detecting Shadow that even our experts didn’t before their arrival.
“For Tara, this job is Bellusdeo’s job. This fight is Bellusdeo’s fight. And it’s in the best interests of all of the Towers to allow it.”
“You know what Bellusdeo wants.”
“I know what she probably wants, yes. But I’m just saying—it makes sense for Tara to privilege Bellusdeo as a warrior, not a mother. If the Towers fall, there won’t be Dragons because there won’t be anything.”
Tiamaris stared—glared, really—at her for a minute. Or an hour, if one judged by feeling and not actual passage of time. “Speak to Lannagaros. I have as much influence over Bellusdeo as any other member of the Dragon Court, and sadly, that includes the Emperor.”
“She’s not technically—”
“Out.” He breathed a small plume of actual fire as he spoke.
Kaylin didn’t need to be told twice. To be fair, she didn’t need to be told once, either.
“Is that what you believe?” Severn asked, as they crossed into what had once been the border zone.
“No. I mean, it’s true—I think Bellusdeo is the perfect ally for Tara or any of the Towers, but...no. I think she actually cares about Bellusdeo’s happiness. And Bellusdeo hasn’t been happy for a long, long time.”
“War didn’t make her happy.”
“No.”
“War would make her happy now?”
“I’m going to punch you if you keep this up.”
Severn grinned.
It was true, though. War hadn’t made Bellusdeo happy. Being here, being free, being alive, hadn’t exactly made her happy. Knowing that she was the only hope for the continuance of the Dragon race hadn’t made her happy. But Kaylin didn’t inherently believe that Bellusdeo was doomed to unhappiness.
Maybe all that was left was a choice between different unhappinesses. What was the thing that would make her the least unhappy?
She cursed in Leontine. “Fine. I think we all want Bellusdeo to be happy, and none of us understand how that would work—but we all have ideas. Except for Tiamaris and the Emperor.”
“Let’s talk to the chancellor and see what he has to say. We won’t be accompanying Bellusdeo anywhere today unless she happens to be at the Academia when we arrive.”
Kaylin’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t expect him to be in a good mood. Not if he singed Emmerian’s cape—Emmerian is the least confrontational of the Dragons.”
The streets, as Tara had said, didn’t become elongated or compressed; they didn’t lose color. They seemed solid and as real as any other streets in the fief as Kaylin and Severn walked down them.
They weren’t normal streets, however. The border zone as it existed had become absorbed somehow in the resurrection of the Academia, under its new chancellor. All of these newly solid streets somehow formed borders and boundaries that transcribed the Academia. They didn’t lead to Nightshade, the next fief over. She could turn heel—and tried—and follow the streets back to Tiamaris; different streets must exist in Nightshade now that led to the Academia.
There seemed to be no streets that connected the actual neighboring fiefs.
This made a kind of sense to Kaylin. If one of the Towers fell, the contamination or corruption could not spread to zones the other Towers occupied. It could, however, spread to Elantra, the city that Kaylin—and many, many others—called home.
“These streets still make no sense.”
Severn nodded. “They would be difficult to map, yes.” His tone made clear that some intrepid cartographer would be forced to do it anyway.
“The Emperor doesn’t rule the fiefs. He can’t just order someone to map them.”
“And the chancellor doesn’t rule Bellusdeo, either.”
Fair enough. Kaylin found maps useful—at least Records versions of maps—but not necessary. No doubt their existence in Records implied she was wrong.
“Do you think people could live here?”
“I don’t see why not. I imagine that some people will—but that might be at the chancellor’s discretion. I’m not sure how or why buildings that aren’t related to the Academia nonetheless survive—but clearly they do.”
“That’s another question to ask the chancellor. Some other day. I figure we’ll have our hands full with the Bellusdeo question.” It occurred to her that it might be a good idea to stop talking and start thinking, because she had to have an actual question or two to ask if she did manage to get his attention.
The Academia buildings were the buildings that Kaylin had first encountered, but they were, as the rest of the streets that led to it, solid, their colors the natural colors one would expect of stone, wood and glass. The central parkette around which the buildings curved sported trees and incredibly well-tended grass, as it had the first time Kaylin had seen it. But here, the grass was ridiculously emerald, and the trees in such perfect health that none of it looked real.
The buildings themselves were also in perfect repair. To be fair, if she thought about it, so was Helen—and these buildings were the heart of Academia. Killianas—Killian—was the central intelligence that kept the Academia functioning. He was a building with a much more amorphous set of instructions than Helen.
Or so Helen had said. His creation had been the work of not one, but practically all, of the extant Ancients, those beings who had created the various races that now populated both the city and the Empire. And beyond that, as well.
What they had wanted when they created this place was probably what the Arkon—damn it, the chancellor—had wanted when he had created his own library. But no, the former Arkon’s library had been a private, personal collection of the detritus of the long dead. It wasn’t meant to be occupied, touched, interacted with by any save the Arkon himself.
This was different.
The parkette was occupied, but not by mostly Barrani thugs, although Barrani were present. Kaylin recognized two of them: Serralyn and Valliant. They appeared to be eating lunch. She glanced at Severn; he shrugged.
She decided to leave the two to their lunch and their companions, two of whom were mortals Kaylin didn’t recognize. Even at this distance, she could see Serralyn’s eyes were a brilliant green. Reality would no doubt dim that color, because reality had a way of doing that to hopes and dreams.
But the hopes and dreams that had led Kaylin—eventually—to her life with the Hawks and Helen had still led her to a much better place. Was it perfect? No. And she had certainly daydreamed about perfect, somehow expecting that “better place” would be it. She was almost certain that, reality notwithstanding, Serralyn would be happier here than she had been possibly anywhere else.
“Kaylin!”
It was not the Barrani cohort, or the two members present, who shouted her name. She turned instantly toward the source of that voice; Robin was running across the edge of the grass toward her, narrowly avoiding collision with one tree.
“It is you!”
She smiled. “Robin. Have you met Serralyn and Valliant?”
He nodded, grinning. “Things have been so much better since you guys came. Like, the classes are actually different. They don’t just repeat over and over. And Serralyn and Valliant want to be here. Everyone who’s here wants to be here—no one is a prisoner.”
“Not anymore, no.”
“Have you seen Calarnenne?”
“Please tell me he’s not a student here.”
“Sort of? I mean, he’s not one of us—but he’s welcome here. I think the chancellor likes him. I take it that means no.”
“No, we haven’t seen him.”
“Are you coming to apply?”
“Gods, no. I was a terrible student in the Halls of Law, and I’d be a terrible student now. I get that Serralyn wants to be here—she’s been walking on air for days—and I don’t think she’s stupid for it. But she thinks it’ll be fun and I think I’ll just get expelled. But you want to be here, too.”
“I like it here. I get fed—for free—and I have a safe place to stay, and there’s just so much that’s so interesting. I can leave now, if I want. I couldn’t before.” He lowered his voice. “The chancellor wants students like me.” He beamed. “He said it’s important.”
There probably weren’t a lot of kids like Robin around. Kaylin had thought maybe—just maybe—this could be a home for the children of the fiefs, a safe place for them to learn, if they wanted to learn. A place where starvation and fear of Ferals were irrelevant. Listening to Robin, watching Serralyn, she was less certain.
Robin had, in some fashion that she didn’t understand, been the lynchpin of the Academia’s revival. Something about the way he approached information and knowledge—knowledge that would be impractical and useless for Kaylin’s chosen life—had affected Killian.
“I have a friend,” he said, his voice still low. “She would love it here. I think. The chancellor said I could find her, but—he doesn’t want me to find her on my own.”
“Where does she live?”
“The east warrens. Same as me. Or same as I used to.” His expression fell. “I want her to come here if she’s still alive.” A world of words about life in the warrens—which was not dissimilar to Kaylin’s life in the fiefs, except for the absence of Ferals—was implied by those words.
“When are you going to look for her?”
“I’m not sure.”
“No?”
“I have classes,” he said, as if classes were the job that Kaylin so prized. “And I have to wait until the chancellor has time.”
“You want to wait?”
“Well, he’s a Dragon,” Robin replied, as if that explained everything. It did. No one in the east warrens would be stupid enough to attack a Dragon, if they recognized a Dragon. No one in the east warrens would survive attacking a Dragon if they didn’t. Regardless, Kaylin had a job, and that job probably didn’t include heading into the east warrens to find a friend of Robin’s.
“How long were you in the Academia as a prisoner?”
“I think a year, maybe a bit more or a bit less. Time here—at least when none of us could leave—was a bit strange. It’s normal now.”
So it might have been longer. She didn’t ask if he was certain his friend had survived in the interim. No profit to that question.
“Did you come to talk to the chancellor?”
“If he’s available, yes.”
“You’re supposed to make an appointment.”
“We didn’t know we were coming. Tell me, have you seen Bellusdeo? She was the gold Dragon.”
Robin nodded. “She’s helping the chancellor. Somehow.”
“I live with her. Well, she lives with me.”
“She’s not supposed to be helping the chancellor?”
“Robin, you are way too observant. There’s some disagreement about what Bellusdeo should be doing—but take it from me: it’s never safe to tell a Dragon what to do. Or what not to do. Can you take us to the chancellor’s office?”
“It’s the same place it was before.”
“Yes, but I’m not familiar enough with the building to remember it.”
He nodded and led the way. “We’ll have to hurry,” he added, half apologetically. “Lunch is almost over.”
There was no door ward on the very closed door. Kaylin hesitated. Robin didn’t. He knocked. He was not yet full-grown, and his hands were lighter than Kaylin’s, although the length of his fingers implied they wouldn’t, in the fullness of time, remain that way. He was clearly not afraid to knock on this door or face this particular Dragon in his personal den.
The door rolled open.
The chancellor was in his office, which Robin had said wasn’t guaranteed. He was even seated behind his desk, but didn’t appear to be attending to paperwork. A mirror—long and oval—was situated beside that desk; it was active.
There was a lot of roaring from the mirror, and a few words of similar volume from the chancellor, who appeared to be wreathed in smoke. Kaylin covered both of Robin’s ears with her hands.
In mortals, this volume would have been an indication of dangerous fury.
The Arkon’s eyes, however, as he turned toward the door and the people foolish enough to interrupt him, were orange. Not red-orange; he was annoyed or concerned, but not yet angry.
Kaylin hoped that her presence here wouldn’t change that.
The Arkon turned to the mirror—Kaylin could see its shape, but couldn’t see what the Arkon saw; she knew he spoke to a Dragon, but not which one. When they spoke in their native tongue, there was often too much sound distortion for her to distinguish between their voices. “We will continue this later,” he said, in Barrani.
He then turned fully to face her. “Corporal.”
“Chancellor.”
“What brings you to my office? In general, one is required to have an appointment.”
“Yes, sir. But...I needed appointments to see you in the palace, as well.”
“And never had the courtesy to make them.”
“I mostly came with Bellusdeo, and—”
He lifted a hand. “Yes. I understand. You are not, however, with Bellusdeo today, and you still lack an appointment.” He glanced at Robin. “If you hurry, you will make your class on time. And Robin? The matters that bring the corporal here are not matters that involve the Academia; they are the sad detritus of my previous duties. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Robin bobbed a bow that would have had Diarmat raging at Kaylin for weeks, grinned at Kaylin as he rose, and was gone.
“Do not run in the halls!” The chancellor’s raised voice followed him, bouncing off the walls of the office. But his eyes were a shade of gold that strongly implied he was fond of Robin, that he knew Robin knew this, but was content to let it be.
His eyes were less gold when they turned, once again, to Kaylin. Of course they were. He gestured and the doors once again closed, a politer word for slammed shut.
“You understand,” the chancellor said, “that I am an honorary member of the Dragon Court?”
She nodded. She’d guessed as much.
“Perhaps you don’t understand what honorary means.”
Now that was uncalled for. Kaylin opened her mouth, but the chancellor had not yet finished.
“Lord Tiamaris is an active member of the Dragon Court.” He steepled his hands above the fall of his beard, drawing it closer to his chest. “What have you come to discuss? You have fifteen minutes, unless I feel the discussion is personally relevant to someone who is not an active member of the Court.”
Fine. “We’ve come to ask a couple of questions about Bellusdeo. Tiamaris said she’s been running errands for you.”
The chancellor’s eyes grew orange, and Kaylin decided that Barrani should have been the go-to language. It would have been, had she not been irritated.
“She has undertaken the responsibility of examining the access to the Academia from each of the fiefs.”
“The Emperor—the Dragon Emperor—has asked that I accompany her.”
“I believe some diplomacy, at least in the fief of Farlonne, is involved. That has not been traditionally where your... talents...have been put to use.”
“I will refrain from speaking. I’m meant to be a guard.”
“You are meant to be a babysitter,” he replied. “And Bellusdeo is not in need of one.”
“Imperial command,” Kaylin replied. “I don’t have to like it. I just have to obey.”
The chancellor exhaled. It was a small wonder that he hadn’t managed to reduce his desk to ash.
“It is not,” a familiar voice said. Killian—Killianas—walked through the closed door, without bothering to open it first. “Within the buildings that comprise the Academia, I have some control over the physical state of the furniture.”
The first thing Kaylin noticed was that Killian was no longer missing an eye. The second was that he looked fully Barrani; he might have been a Barrani student were it not for the way he’d entered the chancellor’s office.
The former Arkon didn’t seem to resent his presence the way he resented Kaylin’s, which was fair. In some fashion Killianas was the Academia.
“Bellusdeo has, as you are aware, been meeting with the chancellor. He has offered what little advice he feels competent to offer.”
“Have you talked with her?”
“I have. I have spoken with her more frequently than the chancellor, who is extremely busy at the moment. We have much to do in order to rebuild what was almost lost. She has also visited the librarians and spoken at length with at least one of them.”
“Why did she want to talk to you?”
“I am not at all certain that she did. She is not natural student material, but she is absolutely willing to do the research necessary when she feels it is germane to her duties.”
Kaylin frowned. “Was it Starrante she talked to?”
“Yes. Before you ask, I was not privy to their discussion. The library is a space that is accessed through the Academia, but I have no control over, or command of, the librarians, and no ability to influence what occurs within their space.”
Kaylin nodded.
“You are concerned for Bellusdeo?”
“Always. My life depends on it.”
“I see. Lannagaros?”
“Speak with the corporal, by all means.”
Killian nodded.
Kaylin then turned to Killian and said, “Tell me everything you know about Karriamis.”
“Everything? That might take longer than you have.”
“The Arkon—I mean the chancellor—said that Karriamis was, before he became the heart of a Tower, a Dragon.”
Killian nodded.
“Candallar was the captain of the Tower Karriamis became.”
Killian nodded again.
“Karriamis was interested in finding the Academia, if it still existed.”
“Yes. He was not the only Tower who had that interest. And his was not the only Tower that anchored the very little that remained of the Academia after the Towers rose. Even Towers that were not personally interested in the Academia provided an anchor; I am not certain all of the Towers were aware of this, but I do not see how they could not be.”
“Nightshade’s Tower never talked to Nightshade about the Academia,” Kaylin pointed out. “I mean, if it had, Nightshade would have sought the Academia out himself.”
“I believe this is materially true. You have enough experience to understand two things: that the Towers were built, just as the Academia was, from living people, and that those people were not the same; they had different underlying likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams, over which the responsibility of guarding against Ravellon had primacy.
“You wish to know what Towers look for in a lord. I cannot answer. I know what I look for in a chancellor. You know what Helen looks for in a tenant. You understand some part of what Tara wanted from Tiamaris. These three things are not the same. No more were the lords the same.
“Towers have some attachment to their captains. Karriamis did not wish Candallar to be destroyed—and the chancellor would not have destroyed him, in the end, had Candallar not decided that he could wrest control of the Academia from the chancellor by destroying the handful of students upon whom the heart of the Academia—me—depends.
“Candallar overstepped; he is dead. His Tower is uncaptained.”
“From personal experience, I can tell you that the Towers without captains can protect their territories for a few years.”
Killian nodded. “The power of the Tower within its own confines is absolute. But within the confines of its territory, less so. There is a reason the Towers have captains, but I am not at all certain that the reasons are the same for each of the Towers.”
“Did you know them?”
“No. Their responsibilities were not my responsibilities. I could not become a Tower, even were I to somehow be extracted from the Academia; I would never have been chosen.”
“You were aware of Karriamis.”
Killian nodded again. “I am aware of Karriamis now. He is called Candallar by the people of his fief. I do not understand this.”
“Most people don’t willingly walk into a Tower. They know who the fieflord is; they call the fief—and its Tower—by that name. When the fieflord dies, or when the fieflord abandons his or her Tower, the person who replaces the fieflord becomes the name associated with the fief.”
“Why?”
“Because the fieflords rule? I don’t honestly know. Maybe in other fiefs the custom isn’t the same. I didn’t know that Castle Nightshade was sentient. I believed that the fieflord in his own Tower was omnipotent.”
“That is not the case.”
“No, I’ve since learned more about it. But—”
“You want to know what Karriamis wants.”
She nodded.
“You are not the only interested party who does.”
“Bellusdeo asked you.”
“She did.”
“Who else?”
Killian glanced at the chancellor, who nodded.
“Terrano. I am somewhat fond of him, but grateful that he has not applied to become a student.”
“No Tower would accept Terrano!”
“In that, we agree. But it is not Terrano who would become the lord, as you must suspect.”
Kaylin nodded. “Has Bellusdeo visited Candallar?”
Silence.
Kaylin understood this one, and turned once again to the chancellor. Before he could speak—if he intended to speak—she said, “I want Bellusdeo to be happy and safe. I think she’d be good at being a captain, and frankly, if Tiamaris could rule every single fief, I think the citizens of all the fiefs would be better off.”
“He cannot, as you well know.”
She nodded. “But...I think Bellusdeo would be more like Tiamaris than Nightshade.”
“Karriamis accepted Candallar.”
Kaylin nodded.
“You are wondering why.”
“I don’t think Candallar wanted to be captain of a Tower.”
“No. In that I agree. A series of events led him to the Tower, and he had the will and the power to take it. But it was not his primary desire. Discovering the Academia after all this time was not his primary desire, either; it was—I was—a tool. A way to return to the power he did desire. Lord Nightshade is different in every aspect; they shared a race, and a status within that race, but they are not the same men. Lord Nightshade is fully capable of defending himself against those who would use his status as an excuse to murder him. He would be capable were he not a fieflord. Candallar did not have that confidence.”
With reason. Candallar was not Nightshade’s equal.
“No.” Killian’s smile was soft; his eyes were obsidian, but he corrected that color as she noticed. “I cannot tell you what you want to know—I do not have the answer. I am uncertain that Karriamis will accept any of your friends; it appeared to me that he was fond of Candallar, and your friends in aggregate were responsible for his death.”
“That was the chancellor!”
“In the end, yes—but the opportunity to do so was provided by your various associates.”
“Is there a reason you feel that way?”
“Bellusdeo is expected to make a report to the chancellor before the end of day. If you wish, you may retrace her conversational steps while you wait.”
“We don’t need to wait—”
We want to talk to Starrante, Severn surprised her by saying.
“...could we get dinner with the rest of the students?”
The chancellor graciously gave permission to the two Hawks. It was, Killian explained, his permission to either give or withhold.
“You may join the students in the dining hall if you exit my office immediately and fail to return.”
“Ever, or today?”
“I would like to say ever, but Killianas is fond of you and I do not feel he would enforce it.”
Kaylin and Severn left the office as if he were the Hawklord and they were his Hawks.
“I would be unlikely to enforce it,” Killian agreed—after the door had all but slammed shut on their backs. “He is unlikely to mean it.”
“If he forbade anyone else the Academia?”
“If he forbids anyone the Academia in a serious fashion, yes, I am capable of that, just as your Helen is; I am perhaps more capable of it than your Helen currently is. He finds you frustrating, but you are less frustrating at the moment than much of the work he must do, and he understands that your unique properties often provide an early warning that might otherwise be lacking.”
“Unique properties?”
“You are Chosen. But come. The library is not generally open to random visitors; I believe Starrante will be pleased to see you.”
“Did Bellusdeo visit him?”
“Yes.”
Starrante was, as Killian had suggested, pleased to speak with Kaylin and Severn. What she hadn’t expected, upon entering a library that looked very much like the library she had first entered, was that Kavallac and Androsse would also be present. Kavallac was, or had been, a Dragon before she became a librarian; Androsse had been a Barrani Ancestor.
If the three weren’t sentient buildings in the way Killian was, they were confined in a similar fashion. Within the confines of the library, they were more powerful than they had probably been when they had walked the city streets—or the forests that preceded them—but they were bound here. They couldn’t leave.
If they could, Kavallac would have been a second living female Dragon. It would have taken the heat off Bellusdeo, although Kavallac seemed no more likely to want to become the mother of her race than Bellusdeo.
Kavallac, however, couldn’t make the choice to do so, even if she desired the continuation of the race.
“Corporal,” Starrante said, his forelegs weaving a complicated web directly between them. She understood that this was meant as an honor or an acknowledgment, but still found it unsettling. She wondered if Starrante found her as unsettling, but doubted it. He’d been the librarian for a long damn time, and he’d no doubt encountered the many student races who didn’t possess the legs, body, and web-spitting abilities his own race considered normal.
“Arbiter.” She offered him a bow that Diarmat wouldn’t have held in contempt had he been present. She then bowed to both Kavallac and Androsse in turn, as did Severn.
“Corporal Handred wished to speak with you.”
Severn nodded.
“What do you wish to speak about?”
“The Towers,” he replied.
The three arbiters glanced at each other. “The creation of the Towers almost doomed the Academia.” It was Kavallac who replied.
Severn nodded. “Did you know Karriamis, or know of him?”
Silence again, as if the air had been sucked out of the room.
It was Kavallac who replied. “Yes.”