Seraphina(95)

“No.”

He had withdrawn his arm from his sleeve entirely; his hand emerged from the neck hole of his houppelande and scratched his jowly chin. I stared, astonished by this maneuver. He said, “Love requires extreme correction. It’s the emotional state we teach our students to guard against most carefully. It presents an actual danger to a saar because, you see, our scholars who fall in love don’t want to come back. They don’t want to be dragons anymore.”

“Like my mother,” I said, crossing my arms tightly.

“Exactly!” he cried, insensible of the fact that I might take offense at his tone. “My government has clamped down on all hyperemotionality, but especially love, and it is right that we have done so. But being here, being this, I find myself curious to feel everything, once. They’ll mop up my mind when I get home—I won’t lose myself to it—but I want to measure this danger, stare right into the fearsome jaws of love, survive its deadly blast, and find better ways to treat others who suffer this malady.”

I almost laughed. As much heartache as I’d already endured over Kiggs, I could not disagree with the words fearsome or malady, but I couldn’t let him think I approved of his plan, either. “If you ever do experience love, I hope it generates some sympathy for the heartbreaking, impossible choices my mother had to make alone, between her people and the man she loved, between her child and her very life!”

Comonot bugged his eyes at me. “She chose wrongly on both counts.”

He was making me angry. Unfortunately, I had come here for a specific purpose I had not yet achieved. “General, about the cabal—”

“Your obsession?” He replaced his arm in his sleeve and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Yes, while we’re contemplating counterfactuals, let us consider this. If you learned of some cabal from a maternal memory, then the information is nearly twenty years old. How do you know they haven’t been caught and disbanded?”

I folded my hands tightly, trying to contain my irritation. “You could tell me easily enough.”

He tugged an earring. “How do you know they didn’t disband themselves when Imlann was banished?”

“Imlann still appears to be pursuing their purpose, as if he believes they still exist,” I said. “They had the knights banished; he’s checking up on whether the dracomachia is sufficiently dead. If it is, they find a way to gain power. Having you assassinated would do, or perhaps they’re leading a coup in the Tanamoot right now.”

Comonot waved me off; the rings on his thick fingers glinted. “I’d have heard word of a coup. Imlann could be working alone; he is delusional enough to believe others are with him. And if a cabal wished me dead, could they not kill me more easily while I was in the Tanamoot?”

“That would only gain them a civil war; they want Goredd dragged into it,” I said.

“This is far too speculative,” he said. “Even if a few disgruntled generals were plotting against me, my loyal generals—to say nothing of the younger generation, who have benefited most directly from the peace—would quickly subdue any uprising.”

“There was just an attempt on your life!” I cried.

“Which we foiled. It’s over.” He removed one of his rings and replaced it absently, thinking. “Prince Lucian said the man was one of the Sons of St. Ogdo. I cannot imagine the Sons collaborating with a dragon cabal, can you? What kind of dragon would think it a viable option to make use of them?”

A fiendishly clever dragon, I suddenly realized. If the Sons started assassinating people, the Queen would be forced to crack down on them. Imlann would have his dirty work done for him by anti-dragon zealots, and then have his anti-dragon zealot problem quashed by the Crown—all while he watched and waited like the reptile he was.

“Ardmagar,” I said, rising. “I must bid you good evening.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I haven’t convinced you you’re wrong, and you’re too stubborn to give this up. What do you intend?”

“To talk to someone who will listen,” I said, “and who, when faced with something previously thought to be counterfactual, adapts his philosophies to reality and not the other way around.”

I walked out. He made no attempt to stop me.

Kiggs waited in the corridor, leaning against the opposite wall, a little book in his hand. He snapped it shut at the sight of me and tucked it away in his scarlet doublet.

“Am I that predictable?” I said.

“Only when you do exactly what I would have done.”

“Thank you for telling the guards to let me pass. It saved a lot of embarrassment on both sides.”


He bowed, a more exaggerated courtesy than I deserved. “Selda thinks I ought to ask you, one more time, what the pair of you could possibly have to discuss. I promised I would, though I expect—”

“I was just coming to find you both. There are things I should have told you that I … I haven’t,” I said. “I’m sorry for it. But let’s find your cousin first; she needs to hear this too.”

He looked as if he weren’t certain whether to trust my sudden willingness to talk. I’d earned this skepticism; even now, I had no intention of telling the truth about myself. I sighed, but tried to smile at him. He escorted me toward the Blue Salon.