Cast in Flame

## **Blurb**

Any day that starts with dragon arguments is going to be bad

Kaylin returned from the West March in one piece. Now that piece is fraying. She's not at home in the Imperial Palace—and she never intends to be. All she wants is normal garden-variety criminals and a place of her own. Of course, normal in her new life involves a dragon as a roommate, but she can handle that.

She can't as easily handle the new residents to the city she polices, because one of them is Nightshade's younger brother. On a night when she should be talking to landlords in perfectly normal buildings, she's called to the fief—by Teela. A small family disagreement has become a large, complicated problem: Castle Nightshade's latent magic is waking.

And it's not the only thing.

## **Plot**

Back in Elantra, Bellusdeo continues to argue with the Emperor in deafening dragonese, and Kaylin is pulled off beat duty until she can find an apartment for the two of them. They are accompanied by Lord Emmerian, whose ideas of suitable housing guarentee they won't find any. While walking Elani St with the freed member of the Barrani Cohort Mandoran, they visit Evanton's Garden; Mandoran's presence alone causes the water elemental to create a tremendous storm thinking the garden is in mortal peril. It requires Kaylin's powers as Chosen and Evanton's as Keeper to calm it.

To avoid going "home" to the Imperial Palace, Kaylin tags along with Teela and Severn to investigate a disturbance in Nightshade; a heated argument with his own brother Annarion (also a just-freed member of the Cohort), cause the two Barrani Ancestors in the basement of Castle Nightshade to awaken, and the Water Elemental also responds as if attacked. She tells Kaylin that Annarion and Mandoran are no longer Barrani, but are part of a new 11-bodied being that offends nature; however, with the help of tiny dragon Hope, Kaylin talks it into letting them leave peacefully.

Nightshade regains some tentative control of the tower's avatar, but the Ancestors remain a threat. After consulting with Evanton, he recommends a place for them to try living. They run it by Tara and Tiamaris, who warn them that the recommended building is as old, and as unusal, as Tara is. Kaylin, Annarion, Mandoran, Teela, Bellusdeo, and Severn go to Ashwood St, where the gate opens and an old man staggers out the front door to die on the front step. Instead of further investigating, Kaylin insists that they bury him first. The avatar of the house, Helen, explains how a Barrani ancestor, the "vampire" guardians deep in Nightshade, first made her and left her full of powerful magics, etc. Barrani Lords and Arcanists came to her through the years to pillage, but it was a mortal cleaning-woman who was the first to love her as a place, put up curtains, and make a home. She's inclined to like Kaylin as the only person who ever showed the compassion to bury a previous tenant, but just as they are writing an extremely unusual landlord's rental agreement based on their mutual definition of "home", the two Ancestors escape Nightshade.

One attacks the palace from the Barrani High Halls which he surrounds in a magic shield; Bellusdeo flies to help them. The other attacks Helen with a small pack of ferals. While the others hold him off, Kaylin enters Helen's heart and repairs the six True Name runes she effaced to escape his control long ago; the first five are personality traits, but the sixth is complex like a World Rune, and when Kaylin places it Helen's consciousness vanishes. Calling out across the link to Ynpharion, he acts as a relay to the Consort, who reveals she knows the True Name of every Barrani child: calling it exactly once is how they "come to life" after the Test of Names. Kaylin uses this method to awaken Helen, who casts the Ancestor into another dimension.

Kaylin has Hope become full-sized and fly her and Severn to the High Halls, destroy the shield, and enter battle against the remaining Ancestor. The titanic struggles melts and craters most of the palace district, but with the Arkon and the Consort unspeaking his name in the real world and Kaylin rescuing Andarrion then unspeaking his name in the Outlands, he eventually is weakened enough Bellusdeo can fall on him from the sky. The Emperor's pride does not appreciate the newest dragon and only non-court member delivering the coup de grace to protect his Hoard (the City of Elantra itself). Bellusdeo is not just offended at this lack of gratitude but considers sleeping for centuries rather than live in this time.

As private citizen, Dariandaros the emperor comes to visit. Kaylin advises him to come back for a dinner as a private citizen where he and Bellusdeo can talk as two ordinary dragons, rather than Emperor and future Mother of the Race.

## List of Characters

1. Hope
2. Kaylin
3. Diarmat
4. Bellusdeo
5. Dariandaros
6. Lannagaros
7. Clint
8. Caitlin
9. Marcus
10. Sanabalis
11. Mandoran
12. Teela
13. Margot
14. Grethan
15. Evanton
16. Tanner
17. Emmerian
18. Marten Anders
19. Severn
20. Nightshade
21. Annarion
22. Durandel
23. Tara
24. Tiamaris
25. Maggaron
26. Morse
27. Helen
28. Hasielle
29. Ynpharion
30. Evarrim
31. Consort
32. High Lord
33. Tain
34. Grammayre