“Now, watch,” the Arkon said. And in the distance, approaching that palace in an almost synchronized beat of wings, came Dragons.
Chapter 11
The Dragons grew larger as Kaylin obeyed the Arkon’s command. She had heard of Dragon Flights, but had never seen one in action. She had seen Dragons in combat—the entire Imperial Court had taken to the skies when the High Halls had come under attack by the ancient version of Barrani—and had thought she understood what the term meant.
But watching these Dragons flying in formation made a lie of that. There was a cohesion to their flight patterns, a power to their movement and a far greater uniformity of color than there had been any other time she had seen a Dragon adopt its draconic form. They weren’t wearing uniforms or armor—Dragons didn’t need either—but might as well have been.
What the Dragon Flights gave her was a sense of the size of the palace. She had always thought the High Halls immense; the ceilings towered, where there were ceilings, and the halls themselves were—at least near the front—wide enough for an army to march through. They were modest in comparison to this.
“Is there more than one Flight?” she asked, frowning.
“There are four,” the Arkon replied. “There were not four by the end of this battle.”
Ynpharion’s distress had lessened. He, like the Consort, Teela or anyone else in this room with the exception of the Arkon—and Helen—had not been alive at the time of this battle. He was now watching the Arkon’s magical display with an interest, a curiosity, that was very unlike him.
“Which Flight was yours?” Kaylin asked.
The Arkon, once again, did not answer. Bellusdeo, however, snorted smoke. Kaylin shut up.
As the Dragons approached the palace Tower, their forces split, the flight formation shifting as they veered to either side. The Arkon had not chosen to grace his images with sound, but as the Dragons opened their jaws, she could almost hear the thunder of their war cries.
From the ground—it must have been from the ground—lightning struck that living cloud.
The image once again shifted, but the Dragons did not diminish in size; instead, the whole of the moving display expanded to rest above the entirety of the dining room table. Lightning struck again, and this time, one set of wings stuttered, causing a gap in the flight formation that broke the illusion of invulnerability, of death on wings.
Kaylin could now see the army that claimed the ground. She could see the moment lightning leaped from within its far more numerous ranks and took to sky, to targets that were so large they should have been easy to hit.
That is the High Lord’s banner, Ynpharion said.There, in the center of the formation.
There were alotof banners in that field of armored men.
Kaylin flinched.Did the High Lord survive?
Silence. She took that as a no. Maybe, on balance, this history lesson of the Arkon’s was not the best idea for a mixed dinner.
“It is not the war itself that he is attempting to show us,” Helen replied. Given the brief movement of gazes, Helen hadn’t taken any care to keep this from the ears of her guests. “And no, the High Lord of the time did not survive this battle. But, Kaylin, I believe the Arkon is attempting to show the destruction of the palace, rather than the death of the High Lord.”
“They are linked,” the Arkon said. “Ah, now. Look.”
Kaylin did, but what she saw was flame, fire, lightning and a vortex of wind—visible because it made such a dent in the formation of the aerial attackers. These were elemental attacks.
“Where were you?” Kaylin asked.
“I am going to bite you if you continue to interrupt,” Bellusdeo snapped. “He is obviously flying in from the opposite direction; this would be the view he would have had at the time.”
If it had been obvious, Kaylin wouldn’t have asked. She did shut up, though.
Lightning. Fire. Arrows that glittered too brightly in the cloudy skies. Wind. No water that she could see, and the Barrani weren’t stupid enough to attempt to summon fire. But there was something on that field that rose like lightning but did not flash the same color, the same bright, harsh visual spear.
“What,” the Consort said softly, seeing what Kaylin saw, and marking it in the same way, “was that?”
The Arkon nodded with approval, and Kaylin wished she’d asked the question first, since the ones she had asked so far clearly weren’t the right ones.
“In the noise and the clamor of battle, it is seldom that we have the time to observe or communicate what we’ve seen. It is not,” he added softly, “what every combatant on that field saw.”
“You were not Arkon then.”
“No. But it is because of my peculiar magical sensibilities that I was, in the end, selected to become so. Kaylin?”
