Cast in Flame. Michelle Sagara

       CHAPTER ONE

      On the second day after her return to Elantra, the city she policed as a groundhawk, Private Kaylin Neya fell out of bed, daggers in hands, knees bent. After one confused moment, she sheathed her daggers, took a brief look around the otherwise empty royal guest chambers that served as her temporary home, and let loose a volley of Leontine curses.

      The small, translucent winged lizard that habitually slept above her head squawked in protest; she’d swept him out of the way without a second thought. He hovered in front of her face as she cursed; she didn’t, at the moment, have anything left over for groveling apologies.

      Leontine wasn’t the usual language heard in the halls of the Imperial Palace. Nor was it generally heard in the function rooms, and when it was, it wasn’t the particular phrasing she now indulged in. On the other hand, the thunderous sounds that had driven her from sleep pretty much guaranteed that no one who’d care could possibly hear her words. Kaylin could scream until she was blue in the face, with the same results. Anyone in the palace halls could, at the moment.

      Dragons were having a discussion.

      When she’d first heard Dragons converse in their native tongue, she’d thought of earthquakes or tidal waves. Distinguishing individual voices had been less important than covering both her ears in the vague hope she’d preserve some of her hearing. A couple of weeks in the palace with Bellusdeo for a companion had changed that. She could pick out three loud—painfully loud—voices in the crash of distant thunder: Diarmat’s, Bellusdeo’s and...the Emperor’s. While she generally enjoyed the arguments between Bellusdeo and Diarmat, she had zero desire to ever interrupt—or witness—any argument which also contained the Emperor. Even mention of the Emperor was probably career-limiting.

      It was dark, but the storm of sound in progress didn’t seem like it would die down any time soon, and sleep was pretty much impossible—at least for Kaylin. The rest of the Dragon Court was probably in hiding, but Immortals didn’t need anything as petty as sleep.

      The minute—the second—she had the time to find a new place, she was so out of here.

      The small dragon landed on her shoulders. She’d named him Hope, but felt self-conscious actually calling him that, and she hadn’t had time to come up with a name that suited him better. He yawned, folded himself across her shoulders like a badly formed shawl, and closed his eyes. Clearly, Dragon shouting didn’t bother him in the slightest.

      Then again, he probably understood what they were saying.

      * * *

      The palace was never dark. Individual rooms had lighting that responded to the needs of the guests who occupied them, but the halls—the grand, wide, towering halls—were always fully lit. The Imperial Palace Guard also adorned those halls, standing like statues in a stiff, grim silence that suited their pretension.

      They didn’t stop Kaylin as she walked past them, heading to one of the only places that she was certain was somewhat soundproof. They knew her on sight, and if they’d had no issues treating her as one step up from a convicted felon in the past, she was now roommate to the Empire’s only female Dragon. The Emperor didn’t want anyone to piss Bellusdeo off.

      Anyone, Kaylin thought glumly, but the Emperor himself. Dragons had never been famously good at sharing.

      * * *

      When she reached the tall and forbidding doors of the Imperial Library, she had second thoughts. It wasn’t that the Imperial Library was home in all but name to the Arkon, the oldest member of the Dragon Court. It wasn’t that the doors were closed; they were almost always closed. It wasn’t even his extreme dislike of being interrupted.

      It was the door ward that straddled them.

      She’d woken to the sounds of angry Dragon, which pretty much defined Bad Day. Having to place her palm against this particular ward took Bad Day and made it worse. At the best of times, Kaylin’s allergy to magic made door wards uncomfortable—but this ward could raise so much noise it might just interrupt the Dragons. One of whom was the Emperor.

      There was no other way to open them. Kaylin briefly considered knocking. With her head. Before she could—and it was late enough, or early enough, that she might have—the doors surprised her by gliding open. No one stood between them.

      At this hour, the library desk—the publicly accessible library desk—was unmanned. The display cases and the rows upon rows of standing files were shadowed. The robed clerks who kept the library spotless were conspicuous by their absence—but that was no surprise. No one sane visited the library at this hour.

      As the doors rolled closed at her back, the sound of Dragon anger diminished.

      The Arkon made his way toward her from the back of the large room, which surprised Kaylin; she’d expected to find him holed up in one of the many, many rooms that comprised his personal collection—none of which the public was invited to peruse.

      “Thank you for opening the doors,” she told him.

      “I felt it best to avoid interrupting the ongoing discussion. No one involved in it is likely to be amused by the sudden need to attend to intruders.”

      “I live here, at the moment.”

      “Indeed.