Yes.Mandoran is perceptive. He sees what is there. And he is not entirely wrong: The outcaste Dragon and Teela’s chosen kin have similarities. But they are not the same.
“Did he just call Shadow?”
Yes, Kaylin. The Towers will prevent most of those from obeying that call.
Kaylin hesitated.
The familiar frowned. Or rather, she felt as if he had frowned; she couldn’t see his face. She couldn’t see any of him except for the claws across her shoulders. He was attempting to maneuver himself above the golden Dragon. Kaylin didn’t actually give much for her chances if she was dropped onto the Dragon’s back without the Dragon’s permission.
* * *
She could scream her lungs out and not get Bellusdeo’s attention at the moment. The golden Dragon was practically berserk. Her wings were high, and she used them to effect against the Aerians who had served as guards to the outcaste. The Hawks stayed well away from her. They’d seen her fight, and they knew she could take care of herself.
But she broke the other Aerians with a wing slam, and Kaylin wasn’t going to fare any better if she couldn’t get the Dragon’s attention. She was afraid now.
She was afraid because, carried as she was by the familiar, her vision had shifted. The shift was subtle, and entirely unlike having a small wing draped over her eyes; she saw the cavern as a cavern, she saw the outcaste as a Dragon; she saw a gold Dragon, an indigo Dragon—and in the distance, she could see two Dragons hovering. There wasn’t space for them to join the fight without causing trouble for Bellusdeo and the Emperor, but she could almostseetheir anxiety.
She could see some Aerians. She could no longer see Moran; she assumed that Moran was deeper in the Aerie, and at this point, Moran wasn’t her problem.
Bellusdeo was. She could see the wound Bellusdeo had taken. It wasn’t, as Mandoran had said, a significant wound. Bellusdeo had taken worse in the fight above the High Halls—and that injuryhadslowed her down. This one? She’d barely notice it, and clearly hadn’t.
But Kaylin noticed it. She could see it, not as a wound—although it did bleed—but as a net, a thing that was spreading slowly, subtly, from the point of entry into the rest of Bellusdeo’s body. She had said that the outcaste was fighting a delaying action; it had been a visceral hunch. It was fact now.
Whatever he’d wanted from Bellusdeo all those centuries ago, whatever he’d wanted when Bellusdeo had first appeared as a Dragon above Elantra, he still wanted.
And Kaylin was certain that whatever he wanted for Bellusdeo, she didn’t. She needed to touch the golden Dragonnow. And she needed to survive it. She wasn’t at all certain that she could accomplish the first and guarantee the second—but if she died, she couldn’t heal the wound.
I can help, the familiar said.
How?
What Mandoran and Annarion do, I can do.
Yes, but I can’t—
You are with me, Kaylin. You are part of the world that I touch. Mandoran’s clothing does not remain behind when he transitions; Annarion’s weapons do not disappear.
She’d never thought about that before.
Your marks are glowing.
I know. She hesitated. She’d felt this before: the tingling, and the weight.I think I’m about to lose some of them.Even as she thought it, marks began to lift themselves from her skin; they passed through the cloth that usually hid them from public view without tearing anything.
They did not cohere; they traveled slowly out from Kaylin, their trajectory affected by the movement of the dragon familiar, as if they were simply large, golden landmarks, drifting weightless in the currents of a room that was such a fury of sound there should have been gales.
Kaylin flinched as Bellusdeo’s wing rose and swept in a scythe of motion toward the familiar.
Blink, he told Kaylin.
She had, of course, attempted to throw herself out of the way. She hadn’t received any training in aerial combat—beyond witnessing it when she could sneak into the Aerie in the Halls—and her survival instincts were honed for ground work. The dragon familiar, however, had both of her shoulders in his figurative hands; throwing herself out of the way had done precisely nothing.
Get ready, he said while she was trying to remember to breathe. The great, slashing arc of Bellusdeo’s wing should have sent her flying in the opposite direction—at best. It seemed to pass through her instead, but she felt it anyway.
Yes, I’m sorry. There will be bruising. I do not think anything is broken.
He roared. He roared, and Kaylin vibrated with the sound, the sensation of sound. It was like, and unlike, the usual Dragon roars. The familiar’s voice caused the floating runes to vibrate in a way the regular Dragon roars didn’t.
“Kaylin!” She turned, or tried, as she heard Mandoran’s voice.
