Cast in Deception

## **Blurb**

**WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?**

Private Kaylin Neya thought her home couldn’t possibly get more crowded. But when one of her housemates, Annarion, decides to undertake the Barrani Test of Name, his friends refuse to let him face his task alone—and Kaylin’s sentient home, Helen, is the only structure capable of shielding the rest of Elantra from the magnitude of their power.

Annarion and Mandoran almost caused the destruction of the High Halls once already. Add nine of their closest friends, and the danger is astronomically higher—especially since these guests are at the heart of a political firestorm. Imprisoned almost a millennium ago, their recent freedom threatens the rulership of several prominent Barrani families, and the machinations of those Lords make it almost impossible to tell friend from foe.

As political tensions ramp up, the shadows beneath the High Halls are seeking a freedom that has never been possible before. Kaylin must find a way to keep those shadows from escaping, or that freedom will destroy her city, the empire and everything she holds dear.

## **Plot**

The Cohort collectively decides to take the Barrani Test of Names; if successful they will displace many powerful family heads, and the news triggers a clever assassination attempt on Teela by two of her fellow hawks. Kaylin and Bellusdeo walk the would-be assassins' beat, and discover invisible fieflord Candallar expecting to meet them.

That evening the cohort abruptly loses telepathic contact with Teela. Kaylin and Teela go to the High Halls, and invite the Consort to dinner (where she can talk more openly), then she and Bellusdeo finesse Diarmat by agreeing to have the Arkon present at the dinner. They go to talk to the Water Elemental to see if it has any idea where the Cohort has gone; instead, it grabs them, forces them through a portal where Sedarias' voice guides them across the Outlands to an exit hundreds of miles away in Hallionne Orbaranne with the Lord of the West March.

They conclude the cohort voted to travel by portal rather than overland, and vanished after entering through the portal in Hallionne Alsanis. They walk overland from Orbaranne to Alsanis, offer blood to enter, and spend much of the book trying to figure out what is going on before becoming lost in outland mist themselves.

In the mist they again encounter Terrano, who attempts to help them but his immaturity, loose grasp of morality, and instability in our reality generate their own problems. However, he does catch a shadow-spy disguised to look like a butterfly which Kaylin frees from Shadow to become a helpful glowing spiked ball she names Spike. The frenemies get them into position to see (but not hear) the rest of the cohort, and eventually to the heart of Alsanis where two Barrani arcanists are trying to push a sword through the stone containing the runes comprising his True Name. Kaylin cuts herself on the spinning runes, and her blood helps the Cohort enter the same portal Outland reality as the heroes, defeating the arcanists.

A Barrani warband, misunderstanding reports of a dragon in Orbaranne, has been dispatched to attack Bellusdeo, but Kaylin's telepathy via Ynpharion with the Consort diffuses that situation. She guides the Cohort through the Outlands to the portal opening into Hallione Kariastos, but suddenly realizes the Consort is already there, lying in wait to arrest the Cohort as politically dangerous. They flee through the Outlands toward Ravellon instead. In panic, the Consort offers free passage, but rather than trust this change of heart, Bellusdeo recognizes beacons in Ravellon and uses them to find the portal into Tara/Tiamaris instead. All the Cohort cross town safely to shelter in Helen. Kaylin fumes at the Consort's betrayal, and Teela brings Terrano back to some semblance of normalcy.

## List of Characters

1. Hope
2. Kaylin
3. Mandoran
4. Annarion
5. Tain
6. Helen
7. Teela
8. Bellusdeo
9. Clint
10. Tanner
11. Caitlin
12. Marcus
13. Hanson
14. Severn
15. Candallar
16. Nightshade
17. Grammayre
18. Moran
19. Canatel
20. Grethan
21. Evanton
22. Maggaron
23. Ynpharion
24. Andellen
25. High Lord
26. Consort
27. Diarmat
28. Lannagaros
29. Sanabalis
30. Ybelline Rabon'alani
31. Orbaranne
32. Lirienne
33. Sedarias
34. Terrano
35. Barian
36. Alsanis
37. Spike
38. Avonelle
39. Allaron
40. Fallessian
41. Serralyn
42. Torrisant
43. Valliant
44. Tara
45. Tiamaris