“And you know they have one because?”
Sedarias said, “Are we talking or leaving?” Clearly, this was not a matter she wished discussed in front of a Dragon.
This irritated Kaylin, but it didn’t seem to irritate Bellusdeo, who nodded in what almost seemed like approval.
*
“Are you certain you have control of at least this part of the path?” Kaylin asked Alsanis, for perhaps the thirtieth time. Hallionne, or at least the Hallionne Alsanis, did not seem to be troubled by either the repetition or the worry.
“I did not lose control of the path the first time,” he said. He’d only said this about fifteen times. “The path I created did exist; your friends could not find it. They stepped onto a layer that had been constructed deliberately over top of it, and it swept them away.
“And the Barrani who constructed that layer did so from within you.”
This was the only point that seemed to trouble the cohort.
“Sedarias has some idea of how it was done,” Alsanis said.
“Terrano should bloody well know.”
“Terrano was not always a strategist.”
“Meaning he didn’t make the plans.”
“Or follow them, half of the time. Were it not for the structure provided by the cohort ensemble, I highly doubt he would have been capable of troubling the Hallionne Orbaranne as he did. No, it is to Sedarias you wish to speak.”
Fine. “Are you certain that the portal pathways will be safe for us?”
“We are aware of how they accomplished their attack.”
Kaylin wanted to shriek. “Can they do it again?”
It was Sedarias who answered. “Not immediately and not without Alsanis’s cooperation. He is aware of the avenue of attack used, and he has come up with an effective counter to it.”
“They didn’t have his cooperation the first time,” Kaylin quite reasonably pointed out. “Look—from what I saw, they were carrying Shadow. Both of them. They didn’t enter through the front doors, but they were standing at the heart of his power. How could he not have noticed that?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Sedarias said, throwing her hands up in frustration.
“She has,” Alsanis replied. “I have chosen not to answer.”
The cohort fell silent. Kaylin glanced at Bellusdeo and Terrano; Terrano was watching his friends as if, by strength of will alone, he could join what was obviously their discussion.
Kaylin then stared at the Hallionne’s Avatar.
“It is best, Lord Kaylin, that you engage in discussions of this nature with care. Were you Barrani, it would be less unsafe, but your expressions give much away, even when your words do not. I do not mistrust your intent,” Alsanis added, “but I have misgivings about your abilities.”
Because that was so much better.
“This is how it starts,” Bellusdeo said quietly.
The cohort looked toward her, even Terrano. “Those who seek power—the way one seeks one of the Dragonslayers—find power in Shadow. In small amounts, they consider it akin to the use of elemental magics, but small becomes large, because once one has broken certain taboos safely, there’s no reason not to continue.
“Shadow has power. And in small quantities, if it can even be measured, it has no will; it is inert, in the way fire or water are when summoned to light or douse candles. Theoretically, even at that size, there is a trace of the living element, but it is too quiet, too slight, to be sensed. So, too, Shadow.”
“And you know this how?” Terrano demanded. Sedarias kicked him; she knew the answer. She knew what Annarion and Mandoran knew.
“From experience.” The Dragon’s eyes were orange, but they were fixed at a point above and beyond the cohort’s collective head. “Shadow can be used to combat shadow in subtle ways. In that fashion, it is very like the elements. If we summon fire in a large enough quantity, fire opposes us. The will of fire is to burn—at least when caged and summoned. The will of Shadow is different.”
Kaylin glanced at Spike.
“I have now encountered Shadows who I would not consider enemies,” Bellusdeo continued, speaking the words as if grudging every one of them. “And I believe that those Shadows have the same will—if not the same function—as the rest of us. But this creature,” she said, indicating Spike, “was not under its own control when it ventured into the West March.
“And I believe that the members of your High Court who are being fed power—or absorbing it under their own recognizance—are in danger of becoming transformed and enslaved, just as it was. In the end, if they draw enough power, the Shadows have a doorway into the rest of Elantra. The Towers in the fiefs serve as a solid defense against a frontal assault. I do not believe Shadow can easily escape it.
“But the fieflords can—and have—entered Ravellon before, and emerged unharmed. Is it possible that the fieflords are allowing key Barrani Lords a path into Ravellon?”
“If the money was good,” Kaylin replied, uneasy now.
“You may well find that Shadow has begun a subtle infiltration of your city in a way that the Towers cannot easily prevent. I believe it of utmost import that we return to the Empire.”
“And put an end to the war?”
“As you’ve pointed out, your familiar appeared here without warning in the shape of a Dragon. No one who saw him believed that he was draconic, but it is a pretext for cessation of political hostilities.” When Kaylin stared at her, Bellusdeo snorted. “It saves face.”
“I’m not sure I want to save their faces.”
Terrano snickered.
“Portal paths,” Kaylin said.
*
The cohort were silent, which didn’t really mean much except that Terrano couldn’t take part in their conversation. Kaylin caught a few eye rolls, which meant the conversation was not all one-sided, and Sedarias did not notably cheer up. But Alsanis took them to the portal pathways without incident; the ground didn’t fall out from beneath their feet, and Bellusdeo did not go full Dragon.
Kaylin was slightly surprised that the cohort accepted a Dragon in their midst so readily, but probably shouldn’t have been. While they were holed up in Alsanis, Mandoran and Bellusdeo were bickering half a continent away. They had seen Bellusdeo as Mandoran and Annarion had; they’d seen her fight. They were aware that she had been injured in the defense of the High Halls.
And they were aware, as well, of her status, not as a member of the Dragon Court, but as a displaced person, a person who had been swept out of her life in the Aeries and deposited in an entirely different world. They were aware, as Mandoran was, that any old friends she possessed—those that had managed to survive three wars—were sleeping the long sleep of Dragons; she could not return to their sides.