She looked at him as if she thought he was an idiot. Mostly because she did. “Yes. He’s eaten dinner with the Emperor. The Emperor, incidentally, didn’t panic and attempt to reduce him to blue ash.”
“That was not the purpose of that spell.”
“Don’t bother. The particulars don’t matter. If you have some issue with his presence in the Aerie, we can meet on the ground. You’ve clearly spent some time there recently.”
The familiar squawked.
“Do not attempt to harm the Chosen or her familiar,” Bellusdeo said, letting a rumble enter her voice. “I will consider it a hostile—and illegal—act, and will be forced to respond. In kind.”
* * *
The second time the familiar lifted his wing, no one moved—not even Kaylin. Severn’s weapon chain was readied, and his back was, broadly speaking, pointed toward the wall. In the Aerie, this would make a difference. No one wanted to fight while retreating here—retreat in the wrong direction and, unless you had wings yourself, the resultant fall would kill you.
The Arcanist had thus far failed to introduce himself. He didn’t correct this oversight now. His wings rose enough that Kaylin thought he might take flight, a distinct possibility in this cavern. He held his ground.
Kaylin looked at him. She had expected—or even hoped—that she would see Shadow in him or around him; that the familiar’s wings would indicate instant villainy. This didn’t happen.
She’d assumed that he’d tried to take out the familiar to protect himself. If the familiar were dead or gone, his wings would reveal nothing. She was, or had been, wrong. The Arcanist had no prior experience with the familiar or his abilities—why would he assume that he could somehow show Kaylin something that shouldn’t be seen?
Seen through the familiar’s wing, the Aerian looked exactly the same as he did when viewed the normal way. And if he had nothing to fear from the familiar, why had he launched that magical attack?
What he said next surprised her. “How can you carry thatthingon your shoulder?” He’d recovered enough of what Kaylin assumed was his usual poise to convey disgust with a smattering of outrage.
Kaylin didn’t dignify the question with a reply. Instead, she looked at the rest of the room, bristling as it was with occupants. The small dragon didn’t generally lift a wing to cover her eyes unless he wanted her to see something. Since it clearly wasn’t the Arcanist, her gaze moved on.
It came to rest on one of the Aerian guards. The small dragon crooned in her ear. The man looked Aerian, even seen through the translucent mask. His wings were gray, but not black and not speckled; he was almost as tall as Teela, but that wasn’t unusual for Aerians. She wasn’t certain what had caught her eye, but something had, and as she stared intently at him, his lips curved in a smile. It was faintly mocking.
And she realized what it was, then: his eyes were the orange-gold of cautious Dragons.
* * *
To Kaylin’s shock, he turned toward the Arcanist and breathed. Fire cut a swathe through the guards that stood between the Arcanist and the Dragon. She didn’t even wonder which Dragon he was—there was only one he could be.
But the fire didn’t reach the Arcanist; it killed two Aerians, but failed to kill the other four, because it was met, halted, by a similar fire that pushed it back. Bellusdeo had breathed, as well. Her eyes were now bloodred.
Teela had moved into position between the Dragon and the Arcanist; Kaylin’s skin almost screamed in protest as the Barrani Hawk used magic. In her role as a Hawk, she almost never did; magic was confined to small, practical and nonthreatening things, like lighting a very dark room.
This was not that magic.
“It’s not an illusion,” Kaylin shouted. Every word that the Arkon had spoken about outcastes returned to her as she looked at the Dragon-eyed Aerian. For one panicked half second, the rest of the Aerian guards were frozen. When they moved, however, they didn’t move to defend the Arcanist they were, in theory, protecting. They moved into a defensive position around the outcaste, making it clear who their leader actually was.
The Arcanist shouted something in Aerian—Kaylin barely caught the gist of it. The Aerian Hawks, however, were hearing their mother tongue, harshly and quickly spoken, and they responded to what they heard. They didn’t treat the Arcanist’s words as commands. Even if they were of a mind to do so—and Kaylin highly doubted any of them were—they had their priorities.
They’d come to the Aerie as honor guards for thepraevolo, the real one. In a firefight of this nature, it was around thatpraevolothat the Hawks grouped. This left Kaylin and Severn on their own for the brief moment of time it took Bellusdeo to shed all semblance of her human form. When she roared her rage—with fire—it came from the full throat of a very large, very angry gold Dragon.
The outcaste roared back. His eyes were orange now; they were not the bloodred that spoke of an almost killing frenzy. Whatever the Arkon thought the outcaste wanted—or had wanted—from Bellusdeo, what he would get if he dropped his guard here was death. To give Bellusdeo credit, if it were at all possible, it would be a short, brutal one.
Kaylin hesitated for a fraction of a second longer, and then shouted, “Mandoran! Tell Helen to mirror the Emperorright now.” She couldn’t hear his response because he was at home—but he’d be watching through Teela’s eyes. At the moment, Teela’s expression gave nothing away. Tain was to her side, a step back; he was armed with the usual Hawk weapon: a stick.
Teela, however, was armed with something a little more substantial.
Oh, hells.
Alotmore substantial. Kaylin recognized the sword: it was one of the reputed three Dragonslayers.
Nightshade.
You wish me to pass a message to my brother?
