Someone else was going to have to explain insults to the Arkon, who in this case was obviously not clear on the concept.

Sanabalis was stroking his beard, something he did when deep in thought. Or annoyed. In this case, it was probably both. "Yes," he finally said. "She is a Lord of the High Court, and she clearly has some influence with the Consort."

"Had," was the bitter, mumbled reply. Kaylin had not returned to Court since the disastrous argument with said Consort; she wasn't sure how welcome she'd be, and being thrown out of Barrani digs wasn't high on her list of personal ambitions.

"Regardless, Arkon, yes."

The Arkon frowned; the silence was sulfurous. But the frown failed to produce either rage or fire, and after another long pause, his expression suddenly sharpened. "Tell me, Private-the Barrani who achieved this supposed splitting of the whole of a name-was it someone intimately acquainted with the choosing of names?"

"I'm trying hard not to answer the questions that will get me executed for treason," she replied tartly.

"Failure to answer this question at this time will probably have the same result; you merely have a choice of whom you commit treason against. It is never wise to owe allegiance to two Lords."

"I owe allegiance to one," she said. Severn prodded her very gently, and she bit down on the rest of the words that wanted to follow. "Yes."

"In this case, you are saying that the whole of the word existed in potential, but the part of it that was not...delivered...remained in the waters of life?"

"Yes."

"As you can see, the situations are gravely different."

Yes. It was clear as mud. "Let me get this straight. You think that what happened in the one case I've cited happened because the Mother of the Race handled the name. You're implying that somehow, she split it, and it survived in its sundered state solely because of her."

"That is a superficial rendering of what I believe, but yes."

"Could Bellusdeo have somehow done the same? Do the Dragons even have a mother of their race?"

More silence. "I am not comfortable continuing this discussion in the presence of the mortals," the Arkon finally said. "That includes the Ascendant."

But Tiamaris, not the Arkon, was Lord here. "No, Kaylin, we do not."

"It is not strictly necessary that she know of this," the Arkon told Tiamaris. Clearly, the designation of Lord didn't matter as much to ancient Dragons as it did to Sanabalis.

"Kaylin," Tiamaris said, moving slightly away from the Arkon, "when we entered the Tower for the first time, do you remember what waited at the height of the cliffs?"

She nodded. "An Aerie."

"Yes. With words in the ceiling and twisting, dark tunnels that tapered somewhat."

It had been one of the few pleasantly surprising things the Tower had chosen to reveal. "You said it reminded you of the Aerie of your childhood."

He nodded. "We are not born in our mortal forms; nor are we-as you-born singly."

"So...the Dragon form is the form of your birth?"

"It is."

"But-" She suddenly didn't want to ask any questions while the Arkon was glaring at her. It was Maggaron, surprisingly, who answered.

"The three Lords here were born as Dragons, in form. They lived, flew, and breathed fire before they attained their true names."

Kaylin waited for someone to deny this; no one did. The Barrani babies didn't apparently wake without a name; clearly, Dragon babies didn't suffer the same problem. Which brought up the question of why Dragons needed a True Name at all. "Those tunnels-a lot of them were people-size."

Tiamaris nodded.

Maggaron continued, as if blithely unaware of the effect his statements were having. Given Maggaron, he probably was. "When young Dragons are judged fit by their Elders, they must earn their name. They must find it."

"What, on their own?"

"We are not Barrani," the Arkon said with some heat, and some very real fire for emphasis.

"What if they don't happen to find a name?"

"They will die," Maggaron replied.

She didn't ask how. Instead, she turned to the three Dragon Lords, "When you get your names, you gain your human form?"

After a long pause, it was once again Maggaron who answered. "They do. They must then learn to walk, to speak, and to interact in the smaller body. It is, by all accounts, onerous."

"Why bother, then?"

"Because without that form, they are little more than beasts, according to Bellusdeo."

"Then she gave up the form of her birth?"

"Ah, no. Bellusdeo said female Dragons were different. They are born-they are hatched-in their human forms. They will learn to walk or crawl as mortals. Their thoughts are quicker, but they are different. In order to attain their own completion, they must survive their childhood. This is more difficult.

"But when they find their name-for they are set the same task as their clutchmates-they attain their Dragon form."

No b.l.o.o.d.y wonder there were so few Dragons. Kaylin looked to Sanabalis. "Is this true?"

"...It is a simplification."

"But it's not wrong."

"It is not entirely wrong, no."

"What happens if the females never find their names?"

"They are not judged dangerous by the standard of the Dragons," he replied. "And they are allowed to live."

"As mortals?"

"Very much as mortals-but they are immortal, Kaylin."

"How is that even possible if they don't have a name?"

"They are, even in the weaker form, Dragons. It is not because of the name that we are immortal." The Ancients clearly had a very poor sense of design.

"There is also always the hope that they will find what they lack. As you have often pointed out, they are few."

"If I ask where they're supposed to find those names-"

"Don't."

She shut up and thought for a minute about the wisdom of directing a question-any question-at the Arkon. But she had to ask. "Arkon, you recognized the name Bellusdeo. You probably recognized the human form, if I think about it."

He was silent. He didn't deny it.

"Did you travel a lot between worlds in your youth?"

"I did not. The pa.s.sage between worlds was considered largely theoretical, even in my youth."

"But Bellusdeo-"

"During one storm-again in my youth-Bellusdeo and a number of the women went missing. Some of the men, as well; they were the guardians of the young. Bellusdeo had not, at that point, found her name; she was to search for it within the year. Shadowstorms. .h.i.t the Aerie, and many of my kin were...transformed by them. There was much battle and much death. It was a.s.sumed by the Elders that she had been destroyed in those battles, but there was some lingering question; no sign of the guardians was found in the aftermath."

"You think this is the same Bellusdeo?"

"I fail to see how it can be; it defies explanation. But yes, Private, that is my belief."

Kaylin drew a longer breath. "Then why, exactly, did you expect us to find nine bodies?"

"Tiamaris, this Tower is secure?"

Tiamaris glanced at Tara, but nodded.

"Very well. I will answer your question because it is relevant. Lord Sanabalis said that the female children were allowed to live if they failed to find their name. He speaks truthfully, but not entirely accurately. They were not hunted down; they were not considered a danger to us. Mortals distrusted them; the Barrani would kill them. But they were not of us."

At this very moment, Kaylin hated Dragons. She knew it would pa.s.s.

"Bellusdeo and her clutch were different. In a clutch there may be no females; that is most often the case. Clearly, for a clutch to be born at all it requires both parents to possess the life force and will inherent in their names. There is a reason that there are so few clutches, and it is not entirely because of the rarity of female births.

"The Barrani killed the mothers; it was the reason our wars were so bitter. We would have destroyed their breeding grounds had we been able to find them. Before you point out that they exist in the heart of the City, I must caution you; they do not. They are perceived as existing in such a place by those who have the ability to manipulate what the waters contain. Most Barrani could not even find the Lake.

"However, on the day of Bellusdeo's birth, nine were born human. Nine in one clutch. It was seen as a great, great blessing to our kind. Most of the hatchlings are not guarded, and they are not protected. But in the case of these nine, exceptions were made."

"Why?"

"Because of the significance of their number."

"All right. I understand that nine girls was very unusual. But you expected to find nine bodies-nine identical bodies. Why?"

"Because, Kaylin, in some fashion, the nine were linked. The Elders did not understand it."

"None of the nine had found their names by the time they vanished?"

"No; they were of an age, almost to the minute. They were all to seek names before they disappeared."

She was silent for a bit, mulling over the information she'd received. It was difficult to process it all because some of it still made no sense to her. "What exactly do you mean when you say they were linked?"

"What I said." His frown was glacial, but it melted slightly. Probably because of the fire. "If one of the nine was hurt, the other eight were instantly aware of it. If one of the nine was injured, the other eight could take some part of those injuries onto their own bodies. They could speak without speaking, but only among each other; the males born to the clutch weren't likewise affected."

"But they weren't identical in appearance, were they?"

His eyes were very orange. "Not at birth, no."

"Then-"

"But as they grew, they were capable of altering their appearance. They did it for fun," he added, his frown deepening. "It alarmed the Elders, and annoyed a small handful of them, as well. They had names that they were known by, and those names were unique to them-but they often changed names as they learned to alter appearance. It is not an ability that the males of the same clutch had."

"Was there ever a clutch of males that were linked in the same way?"

"Yes. But it happened very, very rarely. It was not well-doc.u.mented until the girls were born and grew into their powers."

"By powers, you mean the link?"

"That, as well."

Kaylin stifled the urge to growl or snarl. "What other powers did they have?"

"They were capable of speaking to the mirrors of the Ancients. They also did this for fun."

"Is it unusual to be able to speak to those mirrors?" Kaylin had done it herself on more than one occasion. She glanced at her exposed arms.

The Arkon did likewise, but merely raised a brow before he answered her question. "In the fashion they did, yes. They could speak to the rest of our kin with the voice of the mirrors, Private. It was discomfiting. They were also explorers. They liked to sneak out of the Aerie-often at some danger to themselves-to meet mortals. Or Barrani. They weren't particular at that time." He hesitated for a long, long moment, and then once again asked Tiamaris if the Tower was secure. He received the same answer as he had the previous time he'd asked and fell silent.

"It is my suspicion that they could travel."

"Pardon?"

"You've met the Norannir who guided his people here. You've seen what is preserved in the mirror at the heart of the Palace. You understand what travel, in this case, means."

She did. "But if Bellusdeo disappeared in the wake of a Shadowstorm-"

"Conjecture. But so, too, is my suspicion."

"So you think that the seven-eight-bodies are all part of that clutch?"

He glanced at the corpse that was laid out on the bed, and after a moment, nodded. To Kaylin's eye, she looked exactly the same as the other seven, although this dress was very dusty.

"It looks like at least one of them found their name."

"It does. But the finding and the taking of the name-as one might expect-was obviously untraditional."

"And you think there's a ninth body waiting for us some where?"

"I have hope-even if slender-that you will find the ninth alive. The eighth was alive when she arrived here."