Cast in Flame

“What?” She turned to glare at him, and he avoided her by leaping off her shoulders to hover in the air. When she still failed to understand whatever it was he was trying to tell her, he added sounds to the flap of wings, and when she failed to get that, he flew, head first, toward a window. A storefront window.

Kaylin ran after him, arms outstretched, while people in the street stopped to stare. She hadn’t been patrolling on Elani for almost two months; the small dragon was still a novelty. Some of the gawkers were no doubt assigning a monetary value to him; she pitied anyone foolish enough to actually try to grab him and carry him off. Actually, scratch that. At the moment, she’d probably enjoy it.

It was only as she reached up for small and squawky that she recognized which window he’d threatened: it was Evanton’s.

The door, habitually shut, now swung open; a wizened, bent old man was standing on the other side of the frame, his frown bracketed by a decade’s worth of lines. “Don’t stand there gawking,” he said, matching tone of voice to expression. “Come in. I put tea on ten minutes ago.”

* * *

Evanton didn’t actually drink tea. He made it for guests. Given his current mood, those guests might as well have been tax collectors. Bellusdeo entered his store, her eyes rounding. If she’d been mortal, Kaylin would have assumed she was surprised at the clutter and the occasional moving cobweb. She wasn’t. She turned to Evanton, in his apron, his jeweler’s glass hanging on the edge of a tarnished silver chain, his white hair in wisps above the crown of his head.

And she bowed.

This seemed to mollify the old man. “You must be Bellusdeo,” he said. “Rise, Lady. While I have a home here, you will always be a welcome, and valued, guest.” His voice was deeper than usual, and to Kaylin’s ear, stronger; it rumbled as if he were almost a Dragon. “I do not know who named you, or from whence they took the name, but it is yours in its entirety. I am honored.”

Kaylin remembered, belatedly, to close her mouth. She stared at Bellusdeo. Bellusdeo’s eyes were a luminous gold, and her lips were turned up in a gentle, almost reverent smile. “You have the advantage of me in many ways,” she said.

“Ah, forgive me.” He turned a far less reverent gaze on Kaylin. “Private, introduce us.”

“Sorry. Bellusdeo, this is a friend of mine. He’s called Evanton, around these parts; if he has a family name, he’s never shared. The young man hiding in the kitchen is Grethan, his apprentice.”

Bellusdeo frowned.

“Kaylin is, like the rest of the inhabitants of Elantra, very informal,” Evanton said. He was, however, smiling in his slightly pained way.

“And you allow this?”

“Lady, she has twice saved my garden. In ignorance, she’s borne the responsibility that has been the entirety of my adult life. She has never demanded reward greater than tea and snacks—and if I am to be honest, she doesn’t so much demand as help herself if I am slow. I am willing to accept informality from her; formality would be so unnatural the awkwardness would likely kill one of us.”

“Kaylin, do you understand who Evanton is?” Bellusdeo demanded.

“Yes. He’s the Keeper.”

“And do you understand what that means?”

“He—he stops the elements from destroying each other. And incidentally the rest of us, although I don’t think they’d notice that as much.” She hesitated and then said, “How did you know what he is if you didn’t recognize who he is?”

Bellusdeo now turned to Teela. “Have you never explained?”

“Teela brought me here, the first time. When I wanted practical enchantments.”

Evanton winced.

“Practical?”

“My daggers don’t make a sound when I draw them.”

The Dragon looked scandalized.

Evanton looked even more pained. “We all, as Kaylin likes to say, need to eat.”

“I should have expected no better from an Empire that so denigrates the Chosen.” Bellusdeo’s eyes were now a deeper than comfortable orange.

“I am content, Lady,” Evanton said, voice grave. “If the current Empire does not treat me with the regard or respect you now offer, it is a far less lonely place than it once was. Grethan,” he added, his voice developing the gruffness and irritability of age. “You are being rude to a guest.”

Grethan’s stalks appeared from the left side of the door frame; they were followed, slowly, by the rest of his face. He didn’t look comfortable. He was Tha’alani by birth, but although he had the characteristic racial stalks protruding from his forehead, they were decorative. He couldn’t join the Tha’alaan. He couldn’t speak to his own people the way they spoke among each other unless one of them touched him and entered his thoughts. The deafness had, in the parlance of the Tha’alani, resulted in insanity. In normal human terms, he’d been angry and isolated, and that anger and isolation had almost caused the death of a Tha’alani child.

A child whose life Grethan had, in the end, saved.

Evanton had taken him in; Kaylin often wondered if what had seemed an act of forgiveness and mercy wasn’t just one long, extended punishment. But the only thing Grethan seemed to fear now was Evanton. He certainly wasn’t afraid of Kaylin, Teela or Bellusdeo.

“Grethan,” Kaylin said. “It’s good to see you’re still alive. Evanton seems to be in a bit of a mood today.”

Bellusdeo’s eyes almost popped out of her head. Kaylin made a mental note not to visit Evanton with Bellusdeo in tow.

The small dragon squawked and landed on Grethan’s shoulder. Grethan looked at least as surprised as Kaylin felt. She recovered first. Grethan seemed entranced.

“So why is Evanton so cranky today?”

“Unfair, Private,” Evanton replied. “Your tea is getting cold. And you’ve failed to introduce me to your other companion—although I suppose you could rightly attribute that lack of manners to Lord Teela.”

“If she were unwise,” Teela replied, her eyes an easy green. “Evanton, this is Mandoran. He has just returned to our lands after a long absence, and everything in them is new, except perhaps rudiments of our language. Mandoran, this is Evanton, the current Keeper.”

“Mandoran?” Evanton frowned. It was a very peculiar frown; his eyes narrowed. In the dim light of the storefront, they seemed momentarily blue, although Evanton’s didn’t, as a general rule, change color. He extended a hand. Mandoran hesitated before extending one of his own. “Come, join us. Grethan, if you can detach yourself from Kaylin’s companion, I would ask that you move refreshments to the Garden.”

Grethan’s eyes widened.

“The kitchen, while suitable for a private of the Hawks, is nowhere near suitable for Lady Bellusdeo.” The official title was Lord, but Kaylin didn’t bother to correct him. “We will therefore repair to the Garden.”

* * *

“What is he up to?” Teela whispered. She was at the back of the line, because Evanton’s rickety halls were at best one person wide. She had maneuvered into the position in front of Kaylin, who had pulled up the back, and had merely stopped walking until everyone else was far enough ahead.

Kaylin shook her head. “I don’t know.” She accepted Teela’s suspicion because she felt some of it herself. “How did Bellusdeo recognize him as the Keeper? Did you, when you first met him?”

Teela exhaled. “Yes.”

“How?”

“Mortals don’t have true names, unless they’ve done something technically questionable.”

“Meaning me.”

“Meaning you, yes. No one is certain what having a name means for a mortal, and given you are—theoretically— mortal, you aren’t considered enough of a threat that an answer must be found. The answer itself would take longer than the rest of your life to obtain.”

“And that’s relevant how?”

“Evanton doesn’t have a name, per se. Not the way Immortals do. But if we meet his eyes for any length of time, we can see four words in their depths. They are names, they are linked to him, and they cannot be used to control him. It is the way the Keepers make themselves known to those who might otherwise intend them harm. If you look, you might be able to make out two of those names—but you might not. I’m not certain Evanton would stand still for long enough.”

“He’s not exactly fast on his feet.”

“No, but in his fashion he knows how to intimidate. I’ve never noticed you engaging in staring contests with him.”

“I’m not the one who does that, Teela.”

Teela chuckled, but her eyes remained an alert blue. “I hate the Garden,” she murmured, squaring her shoulders.

“It can’t be any worse than paperwork.”

* * *

Stepping through the narrow, rickety door at the end of an equally narrow, rickety hall was always a bit of a shock. Evanton’s storefront couldn’t, by any stretch of the truth, be called well lit, and the contrast between his work spaces and the Garden’s brilliant, full-on sunlight made Kaylin’s eyes water.

There was a roof, a domed high ceiling that would have fit right in in the Imperial Palace. There were no obvious glass ceilings or windows, and the roof, unlike the Hawklord’s tower, didn’t appear to open to the sky, so sunlight was in theory impossible. But nothing about this room conformed to what she knew of reality, and Kaylin had long since given up attempting to make sense of it.

She made her way across the flat-stone path laid into grass that would have made pretentious merchants weep with envy, pausing by the still, deep pool that sat, untouched by the breeze that moved almost everything else, in the Garden’s center.

It was the heart of the elemental water, made small and peaceful. Beyond it, burning in a brazier that might have been used for incense, fire. Only in Evanton’s Garden could the elements exist so close to each other in peace.

Beyond them was the small stone hut in which Evanton entertained the few guests he was willing to allow into this space.

“I don’t think it’s because of Bellusdeo that he moved tea,” Kaylin said to Teela, as she made her way to the hut.

“No.”

“I really hope Mandoran doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“He’s not Terrano,” Teela replied. “Terrano was the only one of us likely to throw his life away on a whim.”

He was the only one of the twelve who had not chosen to come home. Somewhere in the spaces that mortals couldn’t occupy, he was racing around the incomprehensible landscape discovering worlds and having fun. Kaylin fervently hoped he stayed there.

“Do you notice anything different about Mandoran? I mean, from before?”

Teela didn’t answer.

* * *

When they reached the hut, the door swung open. Like any building of note in magical space, the interior didn’t fit with the exterior; it was far larger than it had any right to be, for one. The floors were no longer rough stone; they were a gleaming marble, more suitable to a grand foyer than a parlor.

There were chairs of a style Kaylin had never seen in the Garden, and a low flat table that was the rough stone one expected to find outdoors. Tea, in Evanton’s ancient, chipped tea set, was on the table, and steam rose from the spout of the pot. There were four cups, straight, tall cylinders absent handles. Kaylin didn’t understand why cups made for hot liquid were ever without handles, but on the other hand, Bellusdeo was unlikely to burn her hand when picking them up.

The Dragon looked up as Kaylin entered the room; her eyes were golden. Clearly, the Keeper’s abode suited her.

It suited her far more than the Palace.

“The Keeper was just regaling us with details of your first meeting,” she said.

Mandoran, whose back was to the door, swiveled in his chair.

“It wasn’t the first meeting,” Evanton said, gently correcting her. “That was far less remarkable, although I remember thinking her unconscionably young to be keeping company with the Barrani Hawks.”

“No talking about me as if I weren’t in the room,” Kaylin replied, taking the chair closest to Bellusdeo.

“You weren’t in the room at the time.”

“Here, now. Did small and squawky stay with Grethan?” The apprentice was nowhere in sight. Neither was Kaylin’s most constant—and annoying—companion.

“No. He’s in the fireplace.” Bellusdeo nodded toward the fire in question. It was set into the wall, but reminded Kaylin—once again—of the Palace. Even the pokers looked like they were made of brass. And shiny.

“There’s a fire in the fireplace,” Kaylin quite reasonably pointed out.

“He doesn’t take up a lot of room, and it’s not like fire burns him. You can go and poke the fire if you want—he’s there.” Bellusdeo’s expression made clear that if Dragons of any size didn’t burn, mortals of any size did.

“I hope he puts himself out before he lands on my shoulders again.” Kaylin turned back to her tea.

Squawk.

Mandoran grinned. “I have to say, I’ve never met a mortal a tenth as interesting as you are. I can almost understand why Teela is so attached to you.”

“Teela,” Teela said, “dislikes being spoken of in the third person even more than Private Neya. She is also far more effective at discouragement.”

Mandoran laughed. “So she is. I don’t know where you found the private, but I’d hold on to her, if I were you. Honestly, I wish everyone had descended on this strange, smelly, crowded place. Sedarias is beside herself with envy at where I am. In the Keeper’s Garden!”

“It’s not that exciting,” Evanton said, his usual crankiness asserting itself.

“It is—she’s the only one of us who’d met the Keeper. Not you,” Mandoran added, as if that were necessary. “And Teela doesn’t count. Can I talk to the elements?”

“Perhaps another day,” Teela said, before Evanton could reply.

“But I hear the water,” Mandoran said, his eyes green, his expression both familiar and strange. It took Kaylin a few minutes to understand why: it was very similar to the hesitant joy that the foundlings sometimes showed. She’d never seen anything remotely similar on a Barrani face before.

Evanton rose. “With your permission, Lord Teela, I believe the water wishes to converse with Mandoran. I will lead him there, and return.”

Mandoran was out of his chair before Evanton had finished speaking.

CHAPTER THREE

“I’ve never seen a Barrani so young at heart,” Bellusdeo said softly, when they’d left.

“No. You wouldn’t have,” Teela replied. They were both speaking in Elantran. “We weren’t considered of age to be meeting Dragons. I doubt very much that the rest of my friends would be considered so, now, were it not for the fact that they were born centuries ago.”

“It can’t be easy for them.”

Teela’s eyes paled; a ring of gold shifted the color of her irises. Bellusdeo had surprised her. Perhaps because she had, Teela answered honestly. “No. It won’t be any easier for them than I imagine it is for you. We want home, in our youth. And when we’ve traveled far and suffered much, we want it more fiercely.

“But home is a myth. A tale. A children’s fable. What will you do, Bellusdeo?”

Bellusdeo looked into her tea, as if she were scrying. “I don’t know. What will your friends do?”

“At least one of them will take the Test of Name within the next few weeks. If I can’t talk him out of it, Mandoran will also take the test. I think he intends to accompany Annarion.”

Kaylin found the tea too hot to drink, which was good, because she didn’t choke on it. “He can’t!”

“He can, kitling. There are no rules that govern the test—as you should well know. If you can enter the tower and read the word that will define you, you can traverse it. If you survive, you are Lord of the High Court. Annarion cannot be moved. His brother is furious. Mandoran might be more amenable to common sense.”

“We’re relying on his common sense?” Kaylin’s eyebrows disappeared up her forehead.

“No. There is no ‘we’ in this equation. Mandoran is not—repeat not—your problem. Your problem at the moment is finding a place to live in the city. Focus on that, and keep your nose out of trouble while you do it. We’ll take care of Mandoran.” She broke off and looked to Bellusdeo, who was sitting completely still. “Kaylin knows most of the city reasonably well. She doesn’t have our memory, but she doesn’t need it.”

“It’s not her knowledge that worries me.”

“No. But if you’ve listened to Evanton’s horror story, you understand that she is capable of surviving much, much worse than a simple apartment hunt. Even with a Dragon or two in tow. She survived the loss of her home,” Teela added, coming to the point in a way that she seldom did with anyone but Tain or Kaylin. “And between us, had she not been there, I don’t think you would have survived.” Eyes narrowing, Teela paused. “You don’t think you would have survived, either.” It wasn’t a question.

“No. I had time to speak with the Imperial mages in your absence. I had time to assess their reports. But Teela, it’s absolutely certain that the bomb would not have been thrown had I not been resident there.”

Teela shrugged. “I didn’t say Kaylin was wise. She’s not. But in this case, accept her lack of wisdom as the gift it is. She means well—mostly—and sometimes you have to encourage that.”

“Meaning well was not highly prized in the home of my childhood.”

Teela chuckled. “It was actively discouraged, in mine. But mortal lives are so short; they believe, and they die before that belief is entirely lost. It makes them curiously compelling.”

“Is that why you’re a Hawk?”

“No.” Teela hesitated, which was unusual. “And possibly yes. I didn’t come to the Hawks looking for Kaylin Neya; I was surprised when I found her.”

“Hello,” Kaylin said, raising a hand. “I’m actually sitting here.”

They both looked at her. Teela opened her mouth, no doubt to say something cutting, when the small dragon flew out of the fire, squawking at the top of his little lungs. Just in case volume wasn’t attention-grabbing enough, he made a beeline for Kaylin’s shoulders, landed with fully extended claws, and whacked her face with a wing.

“I don’t know why you never had cats,” Teela said, rising. “They couldn’t possibly be any worse.” Her eyes, however, had settled into Barrani danger blue.

Bellusdeo’s were now orange.

“Can you understand him?” Kaylin asked, vacating her own chair before the small dragon bit a hole through her ear lobe.

“In this case, I don’t think it’s necessary.” Teela rose and headed toward the door. It was awkward to have three grown women converge on said door at the same time, but Kaylin had the sinking feeling that awkward wasn’t even on the list of their problems.

* * *

The door opened into torrential rain. The ceiling, such as it was—and the Garden was so elastic in shape and size, Kaylin didn’t put much faith in Evanton’s roof—was completely invisible; the skies were the gray-green of heavy cloud, and lightning illuminated the landscape in brief, bright flashes.

She couldn’t see raging plumes of fire, and the ground just outside of the hut wasn’t shaking in a way that implied it was about to break beneath their feet. But the wind was howling.

Literally.

Kaylin turned to the small dragon. “Where,” she shouted, “is Evanton?”

He lifted a wing and plastered it against her upper face. He’d done this before, in the outlands, where vision was so subjective it was the only way to see what was actually in front of her. The Garden, in theory, didn’t have that problem.

But when the wing covered her eyes, she could see past the driving rain; she could see past the flying leaves and the debris that might once have been offerings to each of the elemental shrines. She could see the clouds, and froze for a moment.

“Kitling!”

The clouds wore the shape and form of a woman. She was not familiar to Kaylin; she was too large—far too large—and too angry; her eyes were the size of the moons, even narrowed as they were. More disturbing were her wings. Kaylin had always loved Aerians because of their wings; she knew that those wings were weapons; that they could break a man’s arm. But the wings of the storm—of the water—were like tidal waves; there was nothing beautiful about them, and the only freedom they implied was death.

“Can you see the Keeper?” Bellusdeo shouted. Her voice felt like rumbling earth.

“No—but the water is here, and it’s enraged!”

“Only the water? Kaylin—can you see any of the other elementals?”

She started to say air, and stopped. The storm was entirely a thing of the water. “No.”

The ground shook beneath Kaylin’s feet. Leontine left her open mouth. But it wasn’t the elemental earth joining the rumble; it was Bellusdeo. Bellusdeo, in her golden, draconian form. “Don’t just stand their gawking—get on. That applies to you as well, Lord Teela.”

“I am never,” Teela said, complying immediately, “going to live this down.”

* * *

Bellusdeo flew into the eye of the storm. Sadly, the eye was just above the jaws. The small dragon had wrapped his tail tightly around Kaylin’s neck, and was digging new runnels into her right collar bone; he’d fallen silent, which was the only blessing. His wing was plastered against her face, above her nose and lips, which made breathing possible, although she was willing to bet more water than air was actually entering her mouth.

“Kitling—your arms!”

She’d noticed. The runic marks that covered over half of her skin were glowing brightly enough they could be seen through her sleeves; they were the color of Bellusdeo’s eyes—and scales—as if only that part of her was now transparent. “Next time,” she shouted, “we are leaving Mandoran at home!” She had no doubt that something Mandoran had done was responsible for the storm, and no certainty at all that she could stop it.

Which wasn’t technically her job; it was Evanton’s. Where in the hells was he?

* * *

Bellusdeo’s flight was not smooth; it inspired no confidence at all. Since Dragons, unlike carriages, didn’t come with built-in handholds, Kaylin’s legs were rigid with an attempt to somehow hold on. She’d never gotten the hang of horses, either. But the Dragon was looking at something Kaylin couldn’t see, and when she dove—through sheets of rain—for ground, Kaylin saw what: Grethan.

Bellusdeo caught him in her claws and lifted him. “Where,” she demanded, “is out?”

“We don’t get out without Evanton!” Kaylin shouted.

“Grethan can’t stay here; he’s half-drowned!”

“Can you land? Can he crawl up on your back?” She was already doing exactly that—but the ground here did not look promising; much of it was mud, and Dragons weighed enough she’d sink. Bellusdeo did, but she’d landed on her hind-legs and let them bear her weight while she set Grethan down.

Teela reached out and yanked Grethan out of the mud he’d barely had time to settle into. He was a bedraggled mess, but then again, so was Kaylin; Dragons and Barrani were exempt. Teela seated the apprentice in front of her.

“Grethan—where is Evanton? Can you reach him?”

Grethan swallowed air; his eyes were wide enough the whites seemed to have taken over half the space. “He’s not answering!”

“Fine—but can you tell Bellusdeo where he is?” Teela had that calm-down-or-I’ll-slap-you tone.

“He’s—he’s by the pond.” Pause. “He’s...in the pond.”

“What pond?” Bellusdeo roared.

“Turn right!” Kaylin shouted. “Turn right and head toward the ground. Avoid the fire.”

* * *

Right was a sheet of falling rain. Down was a sheet of falling rain. Kaylin was fairly certain there was no space in the Keeper’s Garden that wasn’t at the moment. “Teela—is Mandoran with Evanton? Teela?”

“Yes. And no.”

“Which one is it?”

“...No.”

Leontine and water didn’t mix well. Kaylin tried anyway. She gave up and gave Bellusdeo directions, because she could see the pond. She could see it as the heart of the monstrous form water now wore: it was deep, dark, clear; it was no longer still.