“At that point, it won’t be my problem.” Bellusdeo smiled; it was an almost Leontine smile.
Kaylin, however, wilted, because it would beherproblem. The Emperor would completely lose it. And it didn’t matter. Bellusdeo was going. Moran was going. Kaylin privately thought they’d be stuck with Clint as well—but if Moran rejected him, he’d probably stay put.
Moran, however, said, “It is not necessary for the private to accompany us.”
And that touched off an entirely different argument—one over which Kaylin had some control.
Chapter 25
Kaylin was given permission to go to the Aerie—probably because she intended to go anyway. Bellusdeo pointed out that Evarrim had arranged the meeting betweenLord Kaylinand the Arcanist; Kaylin was, in the Dragon’s opinion, essential.
Moran believed that her position aspraevolo—a position she had ignored and all but denied for the entirety of her life—made Kaylin’s inclusion unnecessary, but the Hawklord surprised Kaylin by agreeing with the Dragon. Clint did not demand to be included at all, which surprised Kaylin.
She was vastly less surprised when they made their way to the carriage courtyard and Bellusdeo transformed. Moran was not riding the Dragon to the Aerie—an Aerie she had not visited since she’d been injured. It was apparently beneath her dignity. Kaylin was, and if Kaylin was, Severn was, as well. Teela and Tain came along—but Bellusdeo could carry the four of them without any apparent effort. She aimed a grimace over Kaylin’s shoulder and Kaylin turned to see what had earned it.
Clint was there. He was not alone. He wasn’t wearing the Hawks’ tabard, either—but none of the dozen or so Aerians who were standing beside and behind him were. His expression was forbidding.
Moran said, curtly, “I don’t need an escort.”
Clint said nothing just as curtly, which was a neat trick. Clint, however, had always been of the strong-and-silent variety. The oldest of the Aerians present stepped forward and lifted his wings in a kind of salute. “It is not an escort,” he said. “It is an honor guard.”
“Ireallydon’t need an honor guard. You’re all Hawks. You’re all on duty.”
“We are on leave,” he replied. “And we will provide the escort you are due. We have not been what we should have been in all the years you have worked in the Halls of Law. That is our shame. We have failed you.
“We are done with failure,praevolo. We will be the honor guard your position demands. And it is not, perhaps, merely as an honor guard that we will be necessary. You have faced assassination several times. You will not face it alone again.”
Moran’s expression was pure sergeant: unfriendly, forbidding and ill pleased.
Teela, however, said to her, “The Hawklord did not demand you remain. You threatened to stand down, if I recall. They are not different, in that regard. They are not on active duty at the moment; they have taken a leave to do what they feel needs to be done. They are acknowledging previous failures in the only good way they can: by refusing to continue to fail.
“I am not, of course,praevolo. I am not Aerian. But were I, I would accept what they offer.”
“And if another attempt—or worse—is planned?”
“I do not think the Arcanist has any inkling that you will attend that meeting in person,” Teela replied.
Moran’s wings flicked as she surrendered. She did it gracelessly, in Kaylin’s opinion; she certainly didn’t actively improve the morale. But it was clear she didn’t have to. What the Aerian Hawks wanted from her they now had: permission todo better. Permission to offer her the honor that had been conspicuously—Kaylin had not realized how conspicuously until very recently—absent.
There was a lightness to their eyes, an odd majesty to the line of their wings, a clarity to their expressions, that she’d rarely seen. And it came to her, watching them, that the last occasion had been during the defense of the High Halls, in which Aerians had died.
She understood Moran’s reluctance then. And she understood that the reluctance was wrong. Moran had claimed the robes, the bracelet and theflightof thepraevolo, and maybe there were responsibilities that came with the claim, one of which was to accept that men and women would be willing to fight and die for her—and that some of them probably would. Die.
People didn’t flock to the Chosen the way they flocked to thepraevolo. Kaylin had, in her childhood, daydreamed of receiving the kind of attention Moran was now receiving—and she was reminded, again, that she’d been an idiot. Daydreams weren’t reality. Daydreams could never be reality.
Only when she was a child had she believed that the two could become one. She clambered up on the Dragon’s back with Severn’s aid, frowning.
“Bellusdeo?”
“Yes?” The Dragon’s voice shook the ground.
“Have you gotten bigger?”
“I am not sure that is ever a politic question,” Teela pointed out.
“Why?”
“Never mind, kitling.”