Chapter Eight
I puzzled over Cyrene’s bizarre suggestion for
some time, until the sky started to flush with rosy light. Cyrene
didn’t reassure me that Gabriel would love me as much when the
shard was gone as he did now, but I realized I valued her honest
reply more than any platitudes. I rubbed the small scar on my chest
where the shard had entered my body, and stared out at the streaks
of red and gold as they lit the horizon, wondering what Gabriel was
doing, content, at least, to know he missed me as much as I missed
him.
I went downstairs a few hours later, tired from
lack of sleep and too much introspection. I thought I was seeing
things when Jim ambled toward me from the dining room.
“Heya, Mayling. You look like you were pulled
through Abaddon backwards on a porcupine.”
“Jim . . . didn’t you lose part of your fur?” I
touched the side of its head that had been singed, then slid my
fingers lower, to its chest, rubbing a large white spot. “And where
did this come from? Is it paint? Dye?”
“Naw, I had Ash send me to Abaddon for a couple of
minutes so I could get a new form, one with all the fur on it. You
like?” The demon twisted around to examine itself. “The tail’s not
quite as fluffy, but this form has the white spot, which everyone
knows is a babe magnet. Oh, and look! Three white toes! Kinda racy,
huh?”
“Very handsome,” I agreed. “I’m . . . er . . .
sorry. I didn’t realize the lack of fur was bothering you so much.
I hope you didn’t pester Aisling.”
“Jealous?” it asked with a waggle of its
eyebrows.
“Certainly not.”
“Uh-huh. I can tell you’re peeved I didn’t have you
send me to Abaddon, but you can rest easy, sweet cheeks—I had
Aisling do it because she was up and trying to avoid the crazy
lady, and besides, I wasn’t sure you knew how to do it.”
“Crazy lady? Oh, Drake’s mother?”
Jim gave a shudder and looked over its shoulder.
“She’s in there now with Aisling. Drake is refereeing. I’m off for
walkies with Suzanne. You wanna come? I’m prairie doggin’ a bit,
but I promise not to pinch a loaf right in front of you, if you do
want to come.”
“How very considerate. I think I’ll pass just now,
if you don’t mind.”
Suzanne, István’s girlfriend, who acted as cook to
Aisling and Drake’s household, emerged from a back room with a
leash and a handful of plastic bags.
“Walkings time,” she said in a heavily accented
voice. “You will come with us, May?”
“Not this morning, thanks. Jim, I’m sure Aisling
already told you this, but in case she didn’t—behave.”
Jim rolled its eyes as it marched to the front
door, Suzanne in tow. “Why does everyone think they have to tell me
that? It’s not like I ever misbehave. . . .”
Thankfully the door shut on the demon’s
complaining, although it opened again about two seconds
later.
I took one look at the woman walking in, and felt a
strange sense of relief. “Kaawa!”
“Wintiki!” Gabriel’s mother, a tall, elegant figure
in silver and black linen tunic and pants, rushed forward to hug
me. She had skin the color of rich milk chocolate, shoulder-length
hair that was pulled back into a bun, and a smile that warmed me to
my toes. I felt enveloped in comfort, wrapped in a cocoon that
whispered to me of the wind and the sky and the creatures that
danced in and out of the Dreaming. Kaawa was a shaman, of the
earth, but transcending mere mortality to become something more,
something wholly unique.
“I’m so happy to see you,” I said, hugging her for
all I was worth, grateful that Gabriel had such a wonderful
mother.
“You are well, little night bird?” she asked,
holding me at arm’s length, her gaze stripping away layers of my
being to peer straight into my soul. “My Gabriel is making you
happy?”
“Deliriously so,” I said, pushing down the worry
that seemed to be ever present.
She said nothing for a moment, simply cupping the
side of my face with one hand while she continued to pierce through
to my very core. “You are happy, yes, but there is a shadow on your
heart. All is not well?”
“All is fine,” I reassured her. “I’m just a bit
stressed about the dragon shard.”
She nodded, letting her hand drop. “It distresses
you. Gabriel said you were worried it was taking over. We will see
that it does not.”
“Thank you. Have you met Aisling?”
Her eyes lit with interest as we turned toward the
sitting room, her arm around my waist. “No, but I have heard much
about her from Gabriel. At one time I thought . . . but that is
unimportant.”
I gritted my teeth for a moment at her train of
thought, then laughed out loud. She paused to cast me a questioning
look.
“Jealousy is never pretty, but it can be funny
sometimes,” I said, then continued when she raised her eyebrows. “I
know that at one time Gabriel thought seriously about challenging
Drake for Aisling. I’m OK with that. Well, not OK, but I understand
it.”
“Because you know he would never have been happy
with her?” she asked, her head tipped to the side as she watched
me.
My smile grew. “More because I know Drake would
never have let Gabriel have Aisling. And she would have made his
life a living hell if Drake slipped up and let her go.”
She laughed, squeezing my waist as I opened the
door. “You are a wise wintiki.”
If I had worried what the volatile Catalina would
make of Gabriel’s much more down-to-earth mother, I didn’t after
seeing the two women together. Catalina might treat Aisling with
rudeness, more or less ignoring her, but she settled down
comfortably enough with Kaawa to discuss common dragon
acquaintances.
“Nora had a little issue she had to deal
with—something about a kobold outbreak in Islington. But as soon as
she’s done cleaning that up, we’ll put our heads together about
your problem,” Aisling said.
“I don’t want to put you to any trouble,” I said,
glancing at her large stomach. “You probably don’t feel like moving
around much. Is there any word on when the baby might come?”
She sighed and patted her belly. “Bean—my
midwife—said she could try inducing labor, but she didn’t recommend
it. Evidently, it’s not unheard of for a baby of mixed parents to
take a bit longer than normal. So I’m going to tough it out a few
days more before we decide if it’s time to force the latest green
dragon to hatch.”
“Hatch?” I looked at her in horror. “You don’t
mean—”
“No, no, no eggs!” she said, laughing. “Dragons are
born in human form. And stop worrying about asking for help; I
don’t mind doing it at all. In fact—” She cast a swift glance
across the room to where Kaawa and Catalina sat deep in
conversation. “In fact, I’d be grateful for an excuse to do things
other than listen to my mother-in-law tell me how inadequate I am,
so your problem will be a welcome distraction.”
“What problem is that?” Drake asked as he strolled
over to hand his wife a bottle of water.
I sat silent, feeling guilty about involving
Aisling when she must be focused on the approaching birth.
Drake looked from me to Aisling, his emerald eyes
narrowing. “What problem?” he repeated, a bit more forcefully this
time.
“It’s nothing, sweetie, just a little . . . issue .
. . May has run into. Nothing to get your knickers in a twist
over.”
Drake’s gaze went wary. “You are not doing anything
even remotely dangerous, kincsem.”
“I wouldn’t consider any such thing,” she replied,
smiling up at him. “Not so close to baby time, anyway. May simply
has a little point regarding demon lords she’d like cleared up, and
I know if Nora and I put our heads together, we can give her an
answer.”
The wary gaze slid to me, assessing me for
potential hazards to his mate. I smiled at him, as well. “I just
want a little information, and won’t require Aisling to do anything
at all other than think.”
“See that you don’t.” He rejoined his mother and
Kaawa after giving us both a warning look.
“Bossy,” Aisling muttered fondly as he left. “Oh,
good, there’s Nora now. We have a little issue for you to work on,”
she told the woman who entered the sitting room, Jim following her.
Nora was, I knew, technically Aisling’s mentor, but I suspected
their relationship was more on par with partners than a teacher and
student. Nora was in her early forties, black, with warm, dancing
eyes behind red-rimmed glasses.
“What sort of an issue? Good morning, May. I
understand you’ve come to visit Aisling for a bit.”
“Just a few days until we can find a new house.
Ours was demolished by a very angry dragon.”
Jim snorted. “Understatement of the year,
babe.”
“Don’t you have something to do?” I asked the
demon.
“Did it, and I won’t go into specifics because
Ash’ll tell me I’m disgusting,” Jim said with a little Muttley
snicker.
“You’ve been watching cartoons again, haven’t you?”
Aisling asked it.
It did the wheezing snicker again.
I gave Nora a brief recap of the events of the last
few days, including my visit to Bael.
Her eyes grew wider and wider as I explained.
“He gave you Magoth’s powers?” she asked in
disbelief.
I nodded. “I don’t want them, so the question is,
what can I do to get him to take them back?”
She looked at Aisling. Aisling gave me a half
smile. “You know Bael as well as I do, May. Probably better.
Can you imagine making him do anything, much less
take back something he forced on you against your will?”
“No.” My shoulders slumped. “You’re right, of
course, but I was hoping one of you might have some sort of trick
up your sleeve that I could use. I can’t keep them. Not with the
dragon shard—it’s just too dangerous.”
“Absolutely,” Nora agreed.
“The only thing I can think of is to pass them on
to someone else, someone you trust not to use them,” Aisling
said.
“The people I trust I wouldn’t burden with the
powers, and the ones I don’t trust I’d never consider, so I’m kind
of at a loss—”
The door slammed open, startling everyone in the
room.
“Thought you could hide from me, eh?” Magoth
shouted, hauling a green dragon in behind him.“Thought you could
simply leave me to sizzle away in the basement while you . . .
while you . . .” He came to a stop, and not because the dragon who
answered the door to him finally managed to halt him. He stared at
me. He squinted. He stood, hands on hips, his mouth hanging
slightly open as he examined me as if he hadn’t seen me
before.
“I’m sorry,” the green dragon apologized, casting a
nervous glance at Drake. “He got past me before I could tell him
that I’d ask the silver mate if she would see him.”
“You’ve got dark powers,” Magoth said finally, just
a split second before realization struck him.
“Oh, god, no,” I murmured, wanting to slip into the
shadow world. I contented myself with slumping over and dropping my
forehead to my hands.
“Hoo, boy, now it’s gonna hit the fan,” Jim said,
sauntering over to me. “Man, Ash, I said ‘it,’ not the other word.
Stop looking at me like that!”
“You have my powers!” Magoth bellowed, his
fingers flexing as he stalked stiff-legged toward me. The dragon
shard, riled up already, tried to push me toward him. “You
treacherous little bitch! You thieving, conniving, despicable
little two-timing backstabber.” The words evidently struck him, for
he paused for a moment before suddenly throwing himself at my feet,
prying one of my hands off my head and clutching it in order to
press chilled, wet kisses to it. “Fire and brimstone! You are the
most perfect woman I’ve ever met!”
“Oh, god,” I said again, head still in my remaining
hand, squelching down hard on the shard. I would not give in to it.
I had fought it and won, and I would continue to fight it.
Jim smirked. “Oh yeah. Nothing turns on a demon
lord more than a touch of maleficence. Nicely done, May.”
“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” I moaned into my
hand.
“I knew one day you would admit that you wanted
me,” Magoth said, still pressing slobbery kisses onto my knuckles.
“You’ve made me the happiest demon lord on earth. Take me, my
adorably evil one. Take me like a two-bit gigolo! Ride me like a
rented mule! Bitch slap me as you’ve never bitch slapped before!
Only with your tail, because you know how much I love that.”
“I believe that will be enough,” Drake said, taking
charge of the situation.
Magoth glared over his shoulder at the wyvern. “Who
are you?”
“Drake Vireo, wyvern of the green dragons, and the
owner of this house. I am also a friend to Gabriel, and I can
assure you he would not appreciate you wiping your lips all over
his mate’s hands.”
Magoth got to his feet, still holding my hand,
tossing his head and leveling Drake a look that had intimidated
many a minion over the centuries. “She is my consort. I have
the right to put my lips wherever I like on her, dragon.”
“No, you don’t,” I said, finally managing to get my
hand free from his grip. I shoved him none too gently aside. “You
divorced me several weeks ago.”
He donned a sultry pout. “I didn’t mean it. I was
angry. Besides, it takes more to divorce a consort than simply
saying you want to divorce her.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“Death,” Nora said.
Aisling nodded. “Banishment works, too, although
that’s trickier to pull off, since technically the banishee is
still alive.”
“There is also a repudiation ceremony,” Nora
continued as she eyed Magoth. He gave her a quick leer, then
snatched up my hand again, rubbing my knuckles in a way that made
my teeth grind. “But as that requires the sacrifices of fifteen
virgin souls, it’s not often done.”
“Aisling did it with chickens one time,” Jim piped
up.
I stared at her in surprise.
“Bael didn’t specify who the souls had to belong
to,” Aisling said with a nonchalant gesture. “I thought roast
chickens were ideal because they were an answer to his demands, and
dinner, all in one.”
“It’s a dessert topping! It’s a floor wax!” Jim
said. “It’s the answer to all your demon lord problems!”
“No more Saturday Night Live reruns for
you,” Aisling told it firmly.
“So what you’re saying is that I’m stuck with him?”
I asked Nora.
“What is going on over here? Who is this dark and
compelling man who wears the tight breeches?” Catalina demanded to
know as she and Kaawa came over to join the fun. She eyed Magoth as
if he were a piece of candy being offered to her.
He didn’t so much as throw a glance her way.
“This is Magoth, my . . . er . . . for lack of a
better word, boss,” I said, introducing her. “Magoth, this lady is
Drake’s mother, doña Catalina de Elférez.”
“I have no interest in other women now that you
have shown your true colors to me, my dark and deadly one,” Magoth
murmured as he sucked my knuckles.
I tried to wrench my hand free. He just dug his
fingers in harder, sending me a smoldering look.
“He smells like the demons,” Catalina said,
strolling around behind him to get a look at the rear view. “He has
magnificent buttocks, though.”
Magoth stopped sucking my knuckle to turn and look
at her.
She ogled his pants for a moment. “Very
tight breeches. I like tight breeches.”
“Mother,” Drake said, with a look on his face that
spoke volumes.
“Do not mind him,” Catalina said, her eyes
half-shut as she gave Magoth a come-hither look. “He does not like
to think of his mama having lovers. But I am different. You remind
me a bit of my husband. Drake, does he not look like your accursed
father?”
“No,” Drake said adamantly at the same time Magoth
pounced on a word I knew he would enjoy.
“Accursed?” he asked, giving Catalina a return
ogle. “You have the unmistakable aura of one who truly understands
the needs and desires that all demon lords feel. Tell me, my
Spanish beauty, how do you feel about restraints with regards to
lovemaking?”
“They are most necessary,” she said with a little
shrug. “How would you be able to torment your partner if he could
stop you?”
Magoth dropped my hand and all but shimmied over to
her, pressing his lips to her palm. “I like how you think, my
exotic little olive. And nipple clamps? Your opinion on
them?”
“Again, necessary,” Catalina said. “Although I
prefer piercings to clamps. Much more reliable when used for
leashing purposes.”
A little shudder of ecstasy shook Magoth as his
tongue swept out over her palm. “You are a woman who knows her
pleasures.”
“Stop licking my mother!” Drake demanded, and
looked like he was going to use bodily force to stop Magoth.
“Words I never thought I’d hear,” Jim
snickered.
“On the other hand, whips are overrated,” Catalina
volunteered. “A cat, however . . .”
Magoth trembled, his eyes closing for a moment.
“One with hundreds of tiny little barbs?”
“Excellent for ensuring that you have your
partner’s full attention,” she agreed.
“Dear heaven, what hath we wrought?”Aisling asked,
gesturing to Drake, who assisted her to her feet. “Potty break. Be
back in a minute. Or maybe longer if they’re going to go into any
more specifics. Jim, heel.”
“What? Hey! I wanna watch and see if Magoth is
gonna pork Drake’s mom—”
The door closed on the demon’s objections.
Kaawa, who had been standing watching the scene
with a slight smile, met my gaze. “Perhaps now would be a good time
for us to discuss what you will need to do to re-form the dragon
heart.”
“Absolutely,” I said, with heartfelt appreciation
at the suggestion. Anything that got me out of Magoth’s way was
going to have my full approval. “Drake, I hate to disturb you when
you’re busy scowling at Magoth, but is there a room we can
use?”
“Mother!” Drake said a bit more forcefully, his
green eyes glittering at Magoth, who, I’m sure it need not be said,
totally ignored him. “You will remember your agreement—you may stay
here so long as you do not upset Aisling.”
“She’s not even in the room,” Catalina cooed,
biting Magoth’s ear.
“You know what I mean.”
I tugged on Drake’s sleeve until I had his
attention, saying softly, “He can’t hurt your mother, can he? I
mean that since she’s a wyvern’s mate, she’s immortal,
correct?”
“Immortal, yes. Possessing good taste?” He turned
back to glare at Magoth. “Clearly she’s failed in this
regard.”
“Then if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you
let them . . . er . . . for lack of a more circumspect phrase, go
at it.”
Drake looked at me in surprise. Kaawa hid a little
chirrup of laughter behind her hand as she pretended to
cough.
“It will keep him off my back while I learn what I
need to do with the shards,” I explained.
He didn’t like it, but in the end, Aisling helped
me persuade him that they couldn’t do any harm to each other.
“Things are starting to get a bit tight around the
seams, but I think we can squeeze you in,” Aisling said to Kaawa as
we slowly made our way upstairs. “There’s one last room free,
although it’s not normally one I’d put a guest in, especially such
a distinguished guest as Gabriel’s mom.”
“Psht,” Kaawa said, waving away the apology.
“I spend most of my days out in the bush, so a soft bed and a roof
over my head will be a luxury.”
“There’s the problem of Magoth, though,” Aisling
said, her forehead wrinkling.“I’m afraid we’re fresh out of rooms.
I suppose he could sleep on the sofa or something.”
“He will not sleep here,” Drake said decisively
from behind her, giving her a little boost to make it up the last
few steps. “I will not have a demon lord in the same house as you
while you are in such a delicate state.”
She spun around so quickly she whomped him with her
belly. “I’m hardly delicate, Drake. I’m as big as a leviathan, and
twice as ungainly.”
“Three times, actually,” Jim said, eyeing her. “You
know, it’s actually a wonder you can fit through a door with that
thing. I wonder if you’ll just keep growing until one day you
explode.”
“May I?” I asked Aisling as she stopped in front of
a door.
“Please do.”
“Do what?” Jim asked, its eyes suspicious. “Ow! Ow,
ow, ow! Someone call the demon-abuse hotline! I’m being abducted by
a sadistic doppelganger!”
I grabbed Jim by one fuzzy black ear and hauled it
upstairs with me to my room. There I lectured it again about
inappropriate comments to Aisling.
“No one around here can take a joke anymore,” it
grumbled when I was done. “I didn’t mean she was really going to
explode.”
“Perhaps not, but she’s more worried than she lets
on about the baby taking its time, so you just lighten up with the
explosive comments,” I said, patting it on the head. Jim was fond
of Aisling, I knew, and wouldn’t really want to hurt her, but
obviously had not been as observant as it might have been. “Go
watch some movies or something, but watch the cracks to Aisling
about the baby.”
“Aw, do I have to? I want to hear how to re-form
the dragon heart,” it said as I ushered Kaawa into a small upstairs
sitting room that Drake had told us we could use. It was dark and
slightly musty-smelling, as if it hadn’t been occupied much.
“Why on earth would you want to do that?” I asked,
opening the curtains.
Jim shrugged. “You never know when something like
that might come in handy.”
I glanced at Kaawa.
“I don’t mind if the demon stays,” she said,
watching Jim closely. “It appears to be one of the rare sixth-class
demons, and thus should not pose a hazard to you.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” I said, wondering
what sorts of powers a demon in possession of the dragon heart
would be able to wield. The thought left me a bit sick to my
stomach, so I moved on.
The following two hours were spent learning the
steps of the ceremony to decant the shard, most of which was rote
memorization of a couple of incantations. The language the
incantations were spoken in was Zilant, a Slavic language that all
dragons learned early on, and that, until recent centuries, had
been the common language between the septs. I’ve never been much of
a linguist, and it took me several tries, aided by copious notes,
before I felt comfortable conducting the invocation that would
separate the shard from my body, and allow it to re-form the dragon
heart.
“Where did you learn all this?” I asked as I closed
the notebook in which I’d been making notes. “Gabriel said you were
very learned in dragon lore, but I’m surprised you know so much
about something so outside of your normal interests.”
She smiled, and continued to rub Jim’s belly as she
had been doing for the last half hour. The demon was on its back,
legs kicking gently in the air, soft little half moans, half snores
of pleasure coming from its furry black lips as it slept. “You know
of Ysolde de Bouchier.”
I nodded. “You’ve mentioned her before. She left
some notebooks behind about her experiences with the shard after
she became a phylactery, right?”
“That is correct.”
“That’s reassuring. If the invocation worked for
Ysolde, it’s a sure thing to work for me. Despite the interesting
experience of turning into a dragon, there’s nothing I want more
than to get rid of the shard.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “I did not mean to imply
that the invocation was foolproof, wintiki. There is still a very
large element of the unknown to the process of re-forming the
heart. Much of what I’ve told you is speculation.”
“But you had Ysolde’s notebooks,” I said, suddenly
worried. I had assumed all along that I would be able to get rid of
the shard. But what if I couldn’t? What if I was stuck with it?
Forever?
My stomach dropped at the thought.
“Yes, but they did not provide a detailed
step-by-step guide to ridding oneself of a dragon shard. They
merely gave information about what Ysolde herself did, and what
sorts of things could happen should one try to re-form the heart,
or use the shards by themselves.”
My heart sank to join my stomach. “So you don’t
have any idea if the ceremony is going to work?”
She shook her head, sympathy rich in her eyes and
face. “I wish there was a foolproof method, but we are talking
about the dragon heart. It is not controlled, never controlled. If
it wishes you to, it will allow you to use it, but never against
its wishes.”
“You speak of it as if it’s alive,” I said, gently
touching the mark on my chest where the shard had entered my
body.
She smiled. “It has powers, little night bird. It
may not be alive in the sense that you are alive, but it is
sentient. It will not allow you to use it if it does not approve of
you, or the use to which you wish to put it.”
“Well, great. Here I am trying to get rid of this
shard, and it’ll probably go tell the rest of them what a horrible
person I am, and they’ll all refuse to re-form.”
She laughed and patted my hand as she stood up,
much to Jim’s unhappiness. “It is not that you have to worry
about.”
“Oh really?” I caught something in her tone that
made me uneasy. “Is there something else I should be worrying
about?”
She hesitated a second before saying no.
“Kaawa,” I said, rising as she reached for the
door.
She stopped, her shoulders slumping for a moment
before she turned back to face me with a perfectly innocent
expression. “Yes, wintiki?”
“I appreciate you trying to protect me, but I
assure you I can take care of myself. Gabriel knows that. That’s
why he’s not fussing around while I take care of this. So if
there’s a danger involved—other than the obvious one of being
vulnerable while the decanting and re-forming processes are going
on—I’d really appreciate you telling me what it is, so I can be
ready for it.”
Her hesitation and concern were almost palpable,
making me worry anew.
“I would not for the world insult you, May, and I
would never hide something that you could use to protect
yourself.”
“But?” I asked, waiting for her to finish.
“But you possess many qualities of humans, and not
so many of dragons.” She looked away, obviously not wanting to meet
my gaze.
I went over everything she had told me about the
shards, everything that Ysolde de Bouchier had done . . . and
enlightenment dawned.
“Kaawa?”
She held on to the door as if she wanted to escape.
“Yes, child?”
“Did Ysolde disappear immediately after she
re-formed the dragon heart, or did she vanish when Baltic
died?”
Her dark eyes, rich as mahogany, and filled now
with sadness, studied mine. “We don’t know. It’s . . . it was a
confusing time, you must understand. Three things apparently
happened at the same time: the black dragon heir killed his wyvern,
Ysolde re-formed the heart and sharded it into their phylacteries,
and the silver dragon wyvern disappeared.”
A few seconds of digging around in my memory pulled
up a name. “Constantine Norka? Wasn’t he also supposed to be mated
to Ysolde?”
She was silent a few moments, her fingers absently
rubbing on the edge of the door. “No one knows for certain what
happened. Until now, it was thought all were dead, but with Baltic
having returned, perhaps he could clear it up and tell us what
exactly did transpire.”
I almost snorted at the thought of Baltic doing
anything but spouting mysterious, ambiguous comments. “I’m not
going to hold my breath waiting for him to explain. So basically,
the theory is that she was either Baltic’s mate or Constantine’s,
and when they died, she died, too? Or was it the dragon heart that
did her in?”
“We don’t know,” she said, looking even sadder.
“Her diaries don’t say.”
I swallowed back my fear. “You’re a shaman, Kaawa.
You see things that most people can’t even imagine exist. You can
look into the shadows, look past time and space. What do you
think happened?”
Her fingers tightened on the door. “That is not a
wise question to ask, wintiki.”
“Unwise because you don’t wish to answer it, or
because I won’t like what you have to say?”
“Perhaps both.”
I looked at my hands for a moment, absorbing what
she hadn’t said. “You think the dragon heart killed Ysolde.”
“No.”
I glanced up.
“I think it used her up,” she said. “I think—I have
no proof, mind you; this is all simply speculation—but I think that
Constantine Norka tried to save her, and was destroyed along with
her.”
“Would the dragon heart do that to dragons?” I
asked, sick at the thought of risking Gabriel. I knew without the
slightest doubt in my soul that he would sacrifice himself to save
me.
“It has the power to destroy the entire weyr,” she
said wearily. “Perhaps even the mortal world.”
“Agathos daimon,” I swore under my breath. I
had always assumed that the dragon heart was a benign thing, a
relic of the first dragon that represented everything dragonkin
were and would be, something that encompassed the best parts of all
the dragons. But what if it was a harbinger of the power dragons
tapped into rather than a celebration of their abilities? What if
it was, in fact, a curse, not a boon?
Now I understood why Kaawa had warned me repeatedly
of its power.
“Do not look so grim, child. Ysolde de Bouchier’s
path is not yours,” Kaawa said quietly.
“I don’t know what’s going to stop me from ending
up like her,” I said, giving in to a moment of despair.
She came back into the room and kissed the top of
my head before returning to the door. “Ysolde did not have what you
have.”
“You?” I asked, grateful for her wisdom and
insight, even if it did give me moments of terror.
“My son.” Her eyes glittered with humor for a
moment. “His father trained him to be a warrior, a strong wyvern
and protector of all silver dragons, but he learned much from me,
too. Gabriel will not allow anything to happen to his
miracle.”
I smiled at the word, a warm, comfortable feeling
washing over me at her words. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps
Gabriel and I together could get the better of the dragon heart.
Ysolde had been alone, torn between two warring wyverns, but I had
Gabriel’s strength to see me through anything.
I was about to say just that when Kaawa suddenly
held up her hand, her expression abstracted. “Listen. Do you hear
it?”
I stilled for a moment, then sighed. “It’s my twin.
But I have no idea why she’s yelling, unless . . . oh, merciful
spirits, tell me he didn’t show up, too.”