The Aerian Arcanist stood behind Teela. He hadn’t once attempted to fly. Kaylin had thought, initially, that his choice to walk might be political—the act of a gracious host. Now she wasn’t so certain. He was pale, his blue eyes narrowed; he looked, as she approached him, like he’d had way too much to drink and way too little time to sleep it off.
The familiar roared again. Neither Bellusdeo nor the outcaste responded as his voice rebounded off stone walls, stone heights; nor did they respond as he turned, at last, toward the entrance of the Aerie, flapping in place while the shadows of Aerians cut across his small body.
Limned in a kind of white nimbus, two familiar figures joined him: Mandoran and Annarion. They hovered a moment in the air, wingless but weightless, before they caught sight of Kaylin and Severn. They both avoided meeting Teela’s gaze, which was pretty much all glare. Or at least that’s what Kaylin assumed they were doing. She was wrong, as it happened. They were staring at the outcaste.
And the outcaste turned the attention that had been focused so completely on Bellusdeo toward the two new arrivals. He fell silent, then; utterly silent. His wings stilled. He might have been made of flesh-colored stone, he moved so little.
Mandoran gained instant weight; Annarion lost it. They parted in midair as a focused beam of dark fire erupted across the exact position they had previously occupied. The outcaste’s eyes were red, his expression wild as he breathed again; he forgot the Aerians, or perhaps didn’t care about their survival.
She understood that he wouldn’t care about the Hawks—they were too mortal and slight to damage him without preparation. But the Aerians that had served him, the Aerians that had called himpraevolo, were caught in the tail of this oddly colored flame, and it devoured them in an instant.
And as it did, the outcaste grew in size.
He had not shed his Aerian form, although his wings were almost Draconic at this point. They still had feathers, but the feathers glimmered as if metallic, as if scales had somehow been warped and transformed in a very specific way.
Kaylin turned toward Teela and the Arcanist who sheltered behind her.
“I told them not to come.” The Barrani Hawk didn’t shrug; her jaw was set in a very hard line, her eyes were almost indigo. Tain looked pained at their arrival, but not surprised, or rather, not surprised at them. He was worried about Teela.
So was the outcaste, because Teela drew her very big sword. Kaylin could almost hear the sword’s name in the scrape of metal leaving sheath; it felt syllabic. The Barrani Hawk, the only one who was a Lord of the High Court, stepped forward, away from the Arcanist; her partner did the same.
Kaylin took her place. There wasn’t a lot she could do about Dragons, Dragon outcastes or winged combat; the Hawks weren’t generally supplied with ranged weaponry, and even if they were, her ability to draw a bow or aim it was laughable, if one took the weaponsmaster at his word.
Bellusdeo roared.
The outcaste roared—and breathed.
The familiar added his voice to theirs.
Mandoran, damn it, laughed.
And Kaylin turned to the Arcanist. “You can’t fly, can you?” she asked.
* * *
The Arcanist was stiff, silent, possessed of the natural hauteur that came from a life of power and a lack of privation. It had clearly been dented badly sometime in the recent past.
“I have wings.”
“Yes—but they’re not doing anything. You can’t fly.”
A whistle sounded in the air above and behind them; it was high and piercing, which it pretty much needed to be to be heard over the Dragons.
“What,” the Aerian demanded of Kaylin, “did you bring here?”
She laughed, although most of what fueled that laughter was tension and outrage. “You’re asking that of me? You have a Dragon outcaste who lives inRavellonin your Aerie—in your personal damn guard—and you’re asking that ofme?”
“They’ll destroy the landing,” he replied. As a reply, it sucked.
“Fine. Bellusdeo won’t let us fall.”
She wouldn’t bet much on his chances. Neither, apparently, would he. He appeared to be making a decision. “No. I cannot fly. My powers have been curtailed, of late.”
“Because Moran has the bracelet.”
He said nothing, but tensed. The outcaste roared.
And the roar that answered was not, in fact, Bellusdeo’s. The great shadow of the Emperor’s indigo form intercepted all the natural light that normally poured into the mouth of the cave. Kaylin didn’t need to look to see that his eyes—which were the size of her head—were a bloodred.
