ability shut out the rest of the Aerie, frustrated us.”
Kaylin snorted, and Bellusdeo opened her eyes. “It wasn’t the rest of the Aerie—it was you. His ability to ignore you frustrated you.”
“Well, yes—but in fairness, we were children. But...we liked his odd stories. We liked his bits and pieces of history. We liked especially asking questions he could not answer yet. His frustration drove him inward and away—but...” She shrugged. “It also drove him to the place where he was most...himself.
“I would not have thought he would rise to the task of warrior.”
“He was on the battlefield when the High Halls almost fell,” Kaylin pointed out.
“As was much of Dragonkind. He watched, even then. He watched, he observed. I thought he was...not the Dragon Emmerian has described. And Kaylin, that’s what he’s been in my time in your Elantra, your empire. But older and far more patient.”
“More patient.”
“Far more patient.”
Emmerian was waiting, and Kaylin realized that they’d both interrupted him. She turned toward him and saw that he was watching Bellusdeo. Wondered if that was all he’d been doing since the gold Dragon had interrupted him. But...it made sense. Bellusdeo had been smiling, was still smiling. Her smile had no edge in it. Because Kaylin looked at Bellusdeo fairly often, she’d learned most of the Dragon’s expressions, the things that indicated her emotions.
“He was admired by all, but few of us had seen him in your youth; I will not say his youth, because most of us could never witness that.”
“Even as a child, I was told by the fathers that Lannagaros was born old.”
At that, Emmerian smiled. “I was born male; my father’s advice was not...that kind of advice. We are not considered fragile, in our youth.”
“Ah, no. My sisters and I were—but oddly, not by Lannagaros. Perhaps that is why we liked him so.”
Silence and eddies of different memories, none of which Kaylin shared. In it, unsaid words. Worry. Kaylin exhaled loudly, for a human.
Emmerian was first to respond, to pick up the thread of his story. It was, Kaylin perceived, the reason he’d escorted them, and the reason Helen wished him to stay. “He felt the loss of knowledge keenly. He felt the loss of teachers, of people he was willing to learn from. Ah, no. Of people he felt had more information than he, and the ability to pass that information on.
“He told me of this once, in the palace, when the wars were over and peace—such as it was—a fragile, new thing. He went to the fiefs, did you know?”
Kaylin nodded. “So did the outcaste, who wasn’t outcaste then.”
“Yes.”
“Tiamaris said the Arkon wasn’t interested in the arcane. It was Tiamaris, of the Court, who spent the most time exploring the fiefs.”
“Yes. Do you not find that odd?”
Did she? She hadn’t, at the time. The Arkon’s hoard was his library, and Tiamaris liked to get out of the palace. If the palace were Kaylin’s home, she’d’ve been happy to leave it. For any reason.
It was Bellusdeo who said, “It’s not the library that’s his hoard.”
“It is, though—Sanabalis said...”
“It’s what it contains. What it represents. Leave it to Lannagaros to declare and build such a hoard, a thing of ephemera, a thing that is not solid and does not have form or shape. At least Tiamaris was sensible.” She was thoughtful; the thought was almost loud. “The public portion of the library always struck me as odd.”
“That and the fact that it is open to the public, and the librarians the Arkon himself interviews and hires are mortal,” Emmerian agreed.
The two Dragons exchanged another long look.
“You could not know,” Emmerian told Bellusdeo.
Bellusdeo rose.
“Where are you going?” Kaylin asked, because Bellusdeo was raring to go; she had focus, and she had that particular look that said work had to be done and she was getting on with doing it.
“Back to the palace.”
“But—”
“Now that he knows that something remains, something exists, something of what he best loved and desired in his long-ago youth, now that he knows it can somehow be found, nothing will keep him in the library he has built. Do you understand? He will go to the fiefs. I do not intend to let him go alone.”
“Wait.”
“You’ve had no sleep. You’re almost falling over now.”
“I have the book,” Kaylin replied.
“It is not a book to either of us.”
“No, it’s not. But... I think it could be, in the end. You think he’ll run off immediately?”
“I think it likely, yes. You?” Bellusdeo turned to Emmerian.
“I think you