“Be patient, mortal child. This is new to me, as well. I have never seen the library in this state; had you asked me, my theory would have posited an entirely different outcome. What your eyes see is not what my eyes see—and perhaps situations such as these are the reason two very physically different sets of eyes exist at all.”
Kaylin turned back to the portal.
It had now expanded, its shape uneven and splotchy—like a very badly blown piece of glass.
“Be ready!” Sedarias shouted.
“Corporal,” Emmerian said, “stand back.”
“Don’t!” Kaylin shouted. “It’s not safe! You’ll be too tall as a Dragon!”
“I understand that,” Emmerian said without looking back.
Kavallac roared, her red eyes very much centered on Starrante. Kaylin didn’t understand native Dragon, but she knew ashut the hell up and get movingwhen she heard it.
They were almost out of time. Starrante had not yet finished. He was pushing his body—and spitting up even pinker webbing—as fast as he safely could, where safety in this case relied on having a healer attached like a barnacle to his hairy, heaving sides.
Kaylin turned, once again, to look at the blobby, misshapen portal. Bellusdeo was standing directly beneath a growing outcrop, and at her back, his hands deformed into the longer claws of his people, stood Emmerian. To Kaylin’s eye, it looked as if he had attempted to transform, and had been stuck at a midpoint; it wasn’t comfortable. His skin was a gray-blue shade, his claws the blue of his Dragon form.
The misshapen portal didn’t shatter. It melted. Bellusdeo moved—quickly—to avoid the possible splash, but there was no splash; it dripped its way to the floor, and as it did, Candallar finally emerged.
He was robed in light and shadow; his eyes at this distance were black, and seemed too large for his otherwise regular features. His hair was a nimbus of moving color.
Bellusdeo’s breath struck him full in the chest as he placed his feet firmly on the ground that Starrante had cobbled together. He took a step back at the force of the flame, but it might have been hot air for all the effect it had otherwise; his cape seemed to undulate in a way that put the flames out, reached around either side of his rib cage to do so.
In his left hand, he carried the rod; across his chest, a medallion shone harshly white. He also now carried a sword, as if he meant to close with his enemies. Kaylin shouted a single word as Bellusdeo tensed to leap; it was Emmerian who pulled her back.
The sword struck the path that Starrante had built, and as it did, the path cracked. The crack traveled slowly toward the Arbiter. There was nothing that any of the three—Sedarias, Emmerian, Bellusdeo—could do to stop it. Nothing Kaylin herself could do, either.
But Annarion became visible. He stood astride the path, watching as the singular crack approached them all; he knelt. Kaylin couldn’t see his eyes, but she was certain they weren’t his normal eyes. He carried something in his hands—a dark strand, something that did not look at all like rope.
It was the magic that Candallar had used to attempt to break through Starrante’s webbed pane, but Annarion held it in both hands. It moved as if it were a snake. Annarion drove it into the ground, into the crack that had started to form.
To either side of Candallar, in the lee of his cape, stepped two men: Illanen and Baltrin. Illanen carried the book in his left hand; his right was free. Baltrin continued to hold his staff. In the odd light cast by Candallar’s magic, both men looked different to her eye.
She was watching them as they lifted their right arms; watching as those arms fell. In Baltrin’s case, that was a literal description. His right arm fell away from just above his elbow as something cut or pierced it. She thought it was because of the cracks and breaks that Candallar had reintroduced to the library by his arrival.
No.
Mandoran had arrived. She saw him flicker in place; saw the glint of his sword; saw him disperse. He had not spoken a word, and his expression was...not an expression that normally adorned his face.
Baltrin cried out, the spell that he intended to cast forgotten; Candallar turned toward Mandoran, and purple fire exploded in exactly the place he’d dispersed from. But this wasn’t simple invisibility. Had it been, Mandoran would likely be dead.
He reappeared behind Annarion, and Kaylin saw that he’d lost hair. The black drape of Barrani locks was now a jagged, diagonal line that started somewhere below his shoulder and reached to his waist.
Annarion said nothing; Mandoran, sword readied, back to Kaylin, stood his ground. Sedarias’s sword cut the wave of purple flame meant to keep them all at bay, and it traveled to either side of her—and to either side of Annarion.
Androsse stepped out of thin air, placed a palm on Annarion’s bent head, and whispered a series of words that tickled Kaylin’s hearing. The syllables were faint; she couldn’t resolve them into language—but they set up a buzzing on the inside of her ears that she could feel travel along her spine.
She pushed the healing, surprised at how much damage Starrante’s body was sustaining. All she could see was the webbing, and the speed at which he arranged it—and nothing in that was obviously damaging.
Starrante pulled the webs tight, a sudden motion that strained every muscle in his body. She was half-afraid his limbs would break or snap; the webbing was heavy, and it resisted. “Androsse!”
Kavallac snapped into place. Kaylin could feel it because Starrante could feel it; the weight of the webs abated, and the Dragon Arbiter dwindled into her human form. “About time,” she said, her words and voice clear. She was in front of Starrante, but they now existed in the same slice of library space. “Androsse!”
“I am somewhat occupied,” the Arbiter replied.
“The occupation would be unnecessary if you could join us.”