“Does this involve Candallar?”
“It does.”
“When does this start?”
“Tomorrow. We’ll probably start in Tiamaris, though. It’s one of the two fiefs that border Candallar, and he’s bound to have more accurate information than the Halls of Law.”
“Maggaron will be excited.”
Although Kaylin hated the fiefs that had been her childhood home, she made an exception for the fief of Tiamaris. Ruled by Lord Tiamaris of the Dragon Court, its interior laws mirrored the Emperor’s laws. That had not always been the case, and it made Kaylin aware of how much a fief changed under different rulers.
She understood the necessity of the fiefs: each existed around a central Tower, and the Towers were created to stand sentinel against the fief ofRavellon—the only fief that had neither Tower nor lord that she knew of.
Ravellonwas the home of the most dangerous of the Shadows, the one-offs that had unique abilities. She wasn’t certain if they were spawned in the heart ofRavellon, or if they, like Spike, were prisoners enslaved and in service to...something.
But she knew thatRavellon—unlike the rest of the fiefs—appeared to exist in all worlds. One of those worlds had been Bellusdeo’s home. It had been her kingdom, her empire. It was gone now. The Shadows had devoured it. They had taken control of Maggaron, Bellusdeo’s Ascendant, and Bellusdeo had become some part of him—his weapon, to be exact.
Maggaron and Bellusdeo had escapedRavellon, but the Dragon’s hatred of Shadow, and of the outcaste Dragon who appeared to makeRavellonhis home, would end only whenRavellondid. Being a Dragon, Bellusdeo had perfect memory. There was nothing she had experienced that she couldn’t recall.
Kaylin and Severn, Bellusdeo in tow, crossed the Ablayne by the bridge that led into the fief of Tiamaris. Under the rule of Tiamaris, the fief itself had changed; even the bridge, while sparsely crowded, seemed to be a natural part of the city. As fieflord, he had applied the laws of the Empire—with a few notable exceptions—to the citizens of the fief, and he had started to hire tradesmen to repair the damages the fief had undergone when Barren’s dubious control had finally allowed Shadows to enter the fief.
Since Dragons in their more or less human forms weren’t recognized by most of Elantra’s citizens at a distance, Bellusdeo didn’t cause concern. Maggaron, however, did. His presence on the walk to the bridge meant there was a lot of room in the streets; at almost eight feet in height, he garnered apprehensive attention. He was walking with two Hawks, which might have lessened the fear, but Kaylin was willing to bet her own money that the Swords would be fielding reports.
There was no one across the bridge who would report him; it was in Tiamaris that the remainder of his surviving people lived. They lived near the border betweenRavellonand Tiamaris, and they stood guard against the Shadows that had already destroyed their homeland. In Tiamaris, this was known. Yes, the size of theNorannirwas intimidating—but they looked like very large people, not Shadow.
Nor did the tabard of the Hawk cause either resentment or fear, although here and there it caused curiosity, followed by lectures—some loud, some hissed whispers—from the parents or grandparents of those brave enough to express it.
Kaylin often answered the young-child questions, not because Severn was terrible with children—he wasn’t—but because she was smaller; size and gender made her look like much less of a threat. To the children asking, neither she nor Severn was dangerous; to the parents or grandparents, however, it was different.
This was the biggest change in Tiamaris, to Kaylin’s eye.
Children who felt safe expressed curiosity this way.
In Nightshade, curiosity had been death.
And maybe she was judging the entirety of the fief from her personal experience with it. Same way she’d judged Barren. But Barren was now Tiamaris, and its Tower was now Tara’s; she’d been given free rein to express herself and her own desires, and now had vegetable gardens practically in the streets surrounding the looming white edifice.
“Do you want to inspect the border?” Kaylin asked Bellusdeo.
“Not really.” The Dragon smiled and glanced at Maggaron, who had somehow managednotto terrify children into invisibility. “You might want to look in the other direction, though.”
“Which other direction—Oh.”
Bellusdeo carefully removed her clothing. Maggaron held out both hands, and she dumped its various layers into them. He could do this and avert his gaze, which he did. He didn’t seem embarrassed, though. That took more effort, not that Bellusdeo was against that.
It was not illegal for Dragons tobeDraconic in Tiamaris. And it was not illegal for Dragons to take to the sky in their second form. Bellusdeo, mindful of the damage done to clothing—or perhaps the cost of replacing it—didn’t seem to care all that much if she stood in the streets exposed and stark naked—but even in that form, there was little in the streets that could harm her. Plus, she had Maggaron. And Severn. And Kaylin.
Kaylin was grateful that she’d waited until there were no small children close at hand. The Dragon pushed off the ground with her wings bunched close to her back; she spread them as she gained height. Her shadow shrank as she gained distance.
“I wish,” Kaylin said softly, “that the Emperor would nix the law about Dragons in flight above the city.”
“She doesn’t understand it, either. But the city is the Emperor’s, and she accepts that.”
“I think she’d be happier if she could do this more often.”
Maggaron said nothing.
“You don’t?”
