“Have you seen the Shadow adopt other forms?”
“It can adopt other forms,” Kaylin said.
Whir. Click click click. “Lady,” Helen then said, “Spike asks—if it is possible—that you show him any other forms the Shadow itself might have adopted. Spike understands that you are drawing from your personal experience—and explaining what ‘personal experience’ means is difficult—but asks if the forms are confined to these two for that reason.”
“He used the larger one to attack us. I mean to physically attack us,” Kaylin said when the Consort failed to answer.
“The Consort,” Helen then said, “does not believe that other forms have been used in her presence. Or rather, that forms other than the larger one and a selection of Barrani appearances have been used. It is of note that when he attacked the High Seat itself, he chose—or was perhaps confined to—a Barrani appearance.”
Silence fell.
This time, it was the Arkon who broke it. “I understand now why an unfortunate, noisy fate chose me as one of your guests for the evening.” He nodded to Helen. “I cannot speak for the Consort, and I cannot speak for the Barrani High Court. But the Dragon Court has long known what lies beneath the High Halls.
“I am the oldest member of the Dragon Court, and my interest has long been in antiquities and history.” He then turned to Kaylin. No, not Kaylin, Spike, who now rested in a vibrating whir in her hand. He then rose and bowed to the Consort. “Lady, if you will, I will require the table and space at which to work. What you have presented is, no doubt, helpful to the young men and women who have gathered beneath Lord Kaylin’s roof, but what I will present may be of aid to Spike. I do not believe he has enough information; if he has suspicions, perhaps I may clarify them for him.”
The Consort nodded and the image that rested above her hands dispersed. Plates did not return, but a tall glass did, and she clasped it in both of her hands. The surface of the water trembled. To Kaylin’s eye, the Consort was slightly off color; she looked exhausted. Perfect, but exhausted.
The Arkon then began.
He didn’t put his hands on the table; he didn’t otherwise murmur or cast, as the Consort had done. Kaylin’s skin was almost numb at this point, but she flinched as a new wave of different pain ran across it, raising goose bumps. In the early years, she had assumed that all magic had this effect; her experience in the past year had made it clear that only certain types caused pain.
Beside her ear, her familiar squawked. It wasn’t the angry variety; it was, for the familiar, almost quiet.
“Yes,” the Arkon replied. “And for your information, there is no record that indicates that previous Chosen were afflicted with the same sensitivity to magic. Lord Kaylin is not the only mortal to be Chosen, but mortals who bore those marks were rare, and little remains of their history. Lord Kaylin does not consider use of magic in such circumstances to be a threat or a danger.” He did not look up as he rumbled—and he did rumble; his voice had taken on the cadence and depth of his race, although—thank whichever gods were listening—not the volume.
Bellusdeo was leaning into the table now, her hands gripping its edge, knuckles white. Her eyes were red-orange, but anyone who lived with the Dragon expected that, since the discussion had moved to Shadow, and was likely to remain there for some time.
The Arkon’s image did not start out as moving fog or smoke. It started, suddenly, in flame, a bonfire of orange, yellow and red, with a heart of white. It was the heart that gave way first, as something began to unfurl in its center.
“This,” the Arkon said, and he had no difficulty adding words to the emerging images, unlike the Consort, “was at the height of the war, the first war. Geographically, you are unlikely to recognize it; it is much changed from what you will see. Much changed.”
Kaylin expected to see forest. Or fields. Or something primitive. “Is it where Elantra was built?”
The Arkon failed to answer.
The heart of the fire widened; the last of the bracketing flames died away, as if starved of fuel. What remained, now, was a spire of stone that rose far above even the Towers in the fiefs. It might have looked small, but at its base was a building that looked almost like a fairy-tale palace; the walls were a gray-white that glistened, and colored windows were evenly spaced along portions of the visible wall.
“Do you recognize it?” the Arkon asked.
Kaylin started to answer, but the question wasn’t aimed at her, and she fell silent.
“I do,” the Consort replied. “But only from images and paintings that survive the war. The building...did not.”
“You believe that the Dragon Flights destroyed it.”
“And you do not?”
“No. But I know what did. And if the palace itself was a gutted ruin by the end of that war, the Tower remained.”
“It was once like I was,” Helen replied softly. “With different imperatives.”
“You know of this.”
“I know only what I was told. I am not very mobile.”
“And who told you?”
“The Sorcerer for whom I was a partial residence.”
