your book get out of the library?”
“Ah. That is a perplexing question.”
“Do you still feel like killing us?”
“At the moment? No. I feel remarkably clearheaded, given the terrible confusion and disorder of recent days.” His head tilted, but it was hard to tell by features other than the placement of neck whether or not it was upside down. “The young these days are impatient and foolish; they do not understand that rituals came into being for a reason. I apologize; I was perhaps annoyed at the state of my captivity, and the door was locked.
“Are you well?” he added, his head leaving the vicinity of Kaylin’s face and turning toward Bellusdeo.
“I am uninjured,” Bellusdeo replied. “You are not.”
“Ah, no. But the injuries were largely self-sustained, and I believe the Chosen is repairing them as we speak.”
Kaylin winced. If healing was what she was doing, it was almost accidental. The shape of Starrante’s body was surprisingly normal, if one didn’t consider the configuration—it certainly felt more natural than a Dragon’s duality and the threads that bound both forms into a single whole.
The legs were legs, the arms—which looked a lot like legs except for the odd digits at the end—were arms. There was muscle beneath what had appeared chitinous, and that muscle was connected to a circular spine within which the major organs were housed and protected. The neck that had been so disturbing was very similar to the legs, but the head could actually retract into the body almost entirely.
She couldn’t see anything broken, but she could see the damage done to muscles, the slow decay of some element of the spine itself. Age? She wasn’t certain. Barrani and Dragons didn’t age into weakness the way mortals did. They didn’t really age at all beyond a certain point. If this creature were as old as they were—or older—it was likely that it, too, was immortal.
But injured, as immortals could be.
“Yes, but the injuries were self-inflicted, I’m afraid. It is what happens when we are at war with our own impulses. Killianas is not pleased.” He said this with what she assumed was a smile, given the shift in tone. “I have attempted to converse with him, but the conversation was not productive.”
“Not productive or impossible?”
“Beyond the initial displacement, unproductive. I thought perhaps my inability to fully control myself was causing interference—but the compulsion seems to have lifted somewhat. Ah, that one is an older injury, and I feel it would be counterproductive to waste power attempting to correct it.”
She froze.
“You can feel what I’m doing?”
“Yes?”
“No, I mean—you can feel exactly what I’m doing?”
“Yes? Is this uncommon?”
“I’ve never healed someone like you before.”
Starrante stilled. He had not attempted to move away from Kaylin’s hands for the duration of their conversation—but even the movement of breath paused. He might have been made of warm stone.
It has happened, then, he said. She knew it was Starrante she heard, but his voice was free of the verbal tics that made listening to it difficult. You have not seen my...kind...before?
She didn’t answer. He was able to hear her thoughts because the healing magic was a bridge. It was why the Barrani refused healing when given the option. A brief image of Shadows, of shadow, of creatures very like Starrante, flipped open in the filing cabinet of her mind.
We were not a numerous people, he said. Ravellon was our home. I had some interest in the world beyond our nesting grounds, beyond our duties, and after some study, I came here.
She didn’t ask him how—or why—he’d become an Arbiter. She asked nothing. Not with words.
I have, or had, kin in the heart of Ravellon. I do not know if they now exist as they once were—but we were useful; we could spin webs that existed in many states simultaneously, as you yourself are doing.
“I’m not.”
Perhaps you are unaware of it. It matters little. I can feel someone familiar, but I cannot yet see him. I believe I can hear Kavallac. She is...hmmm. Furious? I would suggest you avoid the library for the time being.
“We’d like to get back to the library, if it’s all the same to you. Do you think you can move?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think you have enough control of your actions that you won’t try to kill us?”
“Yes. Yes,” he rumbled as he began to move the bulk of his body through the hole he’d created by destroying the door. “My return to the Academia was...imperfect. But I heard you, Chosen, and I am