Cast in Conflict

## **Blurb**

**KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE, AND YOUR ENEMIES CLOSER**

A Dragon and ten Barrani wouldn’t be anyone’s ideal roommates if a person wants peace and tranquility at home. The residue of three Draco-Barrani wars can make things pretty awkward—on a good day. Kaylin Neya has run out of good days.
In the upheaval surrounding the Academia, the Tower in the fief of Candallar is now without its lord. The Towers were created to protect Elantra against Shadow. Dragon Bellusdeo wants to captain the Tower and continue a war she’ll never be able to abandon. But Sedarias, leader of the Barrani cohort, wants the Tower for the cohort. And Barrani and Dragons don’t negotiate, even when they’re living under the same roof.

If there were ever a time for Shadow to strike, it’s now, when alliances are fractured and the Tower is vulnerable for the first time in centuries. More than ever, Kaylin needs her friends to work together if they’re going to be able to stop the threat to Elantra.

## **Plot**

Bellusdeo has been vanishing; Kaylin is ordered to figure out where by new Arkon Senabalis. She learns from Emmerian (who is keeping watch from across the street) she is visiting the fiefs, and has in fact been asked by Chancellor (Arkon no more) Lannagaros to find hidden entrances from them to the Academia. Serralyn and Valliant matriculate there, where Robin is delightedly taking classes and eager to bring friends from the East Warrens to join as well.

Kaylin is awakened early the next morning when Bellusdeo and the Cohort argue over who gets Candallar, and it escalates to where Teela draws her dragon-slaying sword and Emmerian enters in dragon form, flaming down Helen's dining room. In the aftermath, it is explained that Sedarias was in a bad mood after she had to kill assassins at the High Halls; Bellusdeo from being spied on; but it was Terrano forced the issue. After everyone calms down, Kaylin and Severn go to fief Durant with Bellusdeo, who decides to walk with them to the Academia; they are joined by Nightshade and the Arbiters, and all talk to Lannagaros who offers the Academia as a neutral place for the fieflords to discuss the increasing activity in Ravellon.

They call on Liatt, who introduces her daughter and a wevaran mount Riaknon, and all return to Academia to meet with the Chancellor as well, while also sizing up Bellusdeo. They decide it is time to approach the uncaptained tower that was Candallar's, and are joined by Emmerian in flight.

The tower has reverted to a stone cliff. Kaylin touches the frozen surface of the cliff-like structure and it allows them to enter; Emmerian is needed to pass the next ward, and then Bellusdeo suffers some sort of mental attack. In her guilt over the death of her world, she nearly brings down the tower, injuring Mandoran and Emmerian before she can be brought back under control by fear of injurying Kaylin. The tower's avatar, Karriamis, is unimpressed by this, but highly impressed by Bellusdeo's friends.

They return to Helen to find Sedarias raging to the point of creating a symbolic magical space that pulls in Kaylin and Severn. Dragonback on Hope, they fly over a mountain-top battlefield with the broken banners of the cohort's houses, down into a desert where a single river flows, and into the heart of a storm where she argues with the others. She dives from the dragon into the storm; while Hope takes Severn to safety, Kaylin risks unknown consequences by grabbing mad-eyed Sedarias barehanded, and talking through her fear of abandonment, now the Cohort doesn't fear her anymore and is beginning to mvoe out.

They talk to Karriamis again, who asks Bellusdeo what her purpose is beyond a vengance war, and asks her to return when she has an answer. While she ponders, Emmerian enters Candallar and gets himself frozen in ice. Kaylin frees him then talks to him about the loss of his two best friends to hoard madness, and his love for Bellusdeo; he's trying to claim the tower to prove himself worthy of her. Bellusdeo and Mandoran "pick the lock" on the tower and begin a deafening argument when Teela warns everyone the Black Dragon Outcaste and a flight of shadow-possessed aerians are taking advantage of their in-fighting to attack the fief. Emmerian joins the fight immediately, but Bellusdeo and Kaylin are teleported to the top of the tower. Kiamarris says he intends to hold her there until she recognizes something about herself; Kaylin escapes and rides Hope to grab injured Mandoran from midair. He has been struck by shadowspear, and her attempts to free him from the possession pulls them both into yet another pocket dimension, which includes an infinite library whose wevaran librarian Bakkon informs her is nothing like that in Academia; for one thing it's inside Ravellon.

A long discussion of the nature of shadow and shadowlands and Chosen magic ends when earthquakes rock the structure. Bakkon gathers all the unique books and pushes them into a private dimension, as the shadows invade; they flee across Ravellon, pursued by shadows, hit a wall across from Candellar, and use True Names and wevaran portals to push through. Bellusdeo and Makuron fight to a standstill, until he is finally brought down by lightning from Teela and Nightshade's dragon-slaying swords.

Emerian is injured beyond Kaylin's skill to heal; Bellusdeo agrees to be Kiamarris' captain to save him. The Outcaste retreats, and Kiamarris admits he wouldn't have tested her this way if he realized what a serious threat he posed. Back at Helen, the Cohort makes peace, and Bellusdeo illegally becomes a dragon to fly Kaylin to her new home in Kiamarris for a few days of vacation.

## List of Characters

1. Kaylin
2. Sanabalis
3. Hope
4. Severn
5. Helen
6. Fallessian
7. Mandoran
8. Torrisant
9. Terrano
10. Serralyn
11. Sedarias
12. Emmerian
13. Marcus
14. Grammayre
15. Valliant
16. Tiamaris
17. Tara
18. Robin
19. Lannagaros
20. Killianas
21. Kavallac
22. Androsse
23. Starrante
24. Maggaron
25. Bellusdeo
26. Larrantin
27. Teela
28. Annarion
29. Karian
30. Serian
31. Nightshade
32. Marshalle
33. Durant
34. Liatt
35. Liannor
36. Riaknon
37. Karriamis
38. Ynpharion
39. Makuron
40. Bakkon