The Pages of the Mind

by Jeffe Kennedy

  He didn’t move for a moment, looking like one of his statues. Then he lifted a hand and caressed my hair, running his fingers through it. He smiled sorrowfully, and my heart clutched. Maybe there would be too many pieces to pick up.

  “You are not wise in this, it is true,” he said. “You do not see the truth before you, unless it’s in one of your books.”

  Tears pricked my eyes. “I know,” I whispered. “Perhaps I could stay and we could . . . begin again. Start afresh. Let me try to do better by you.”

  “The world does not work this way. What has gone before is always there.”

  Like the bones of Castle Columba, forever buried beneath Ordnung. I sighed for the truth of it. For my aching heart and how I’d bungled everything. “I withdraw the claim to my kama, then.”

  “Yes. That is for the best.”

  I stood, my legs like waterlogged sand, and started to step away. He stopped me, putting his hands on my hips.

  “Dafne,” he said in patient tones. “You are mlai. This means I am always yours. You do not have to ask for me. Here I am.”

  The tears welled up, blurring my vision. “But you said to take back my kama.”

  “Yes.” He spread his knees and drew me between them, using his thumbs to wipe away the teardrops. “So you can use it for something else. What do you want to do to me, my dragon queen?”

  31

  Much later, we lay in the dark of night before moonrise, skin to skin. Though it had been my kama to claim, Nakoa had been the one to plunder me, taking me over and over with a thorough ferocity that left me in no doubt of how he felt.

  “I love you, Nakoa mlai.” I whispered it, in case he slept.

  “What does this mean?” he asked, stroking a hand down my back, and I realized I’d said it in Common Tongue.

  “I answered the question in my heart.”

  “I know.” He laughed softly when I thumped his chest, capturing my hand and lacing my fingers with his. “I heard it all along. You were the one who did not hear.”

  “Oh, hush.” I kissed him, drinking him in as I had the life-giving rain. He returned it, holding me tenderly, as if I were precious to him. I supposed I was. He’d told me as much.

  But, for the first time, I truly knew it. It felt good, to lie there with him in our bed, as if I’d come home at last. I would learn the place as I’d learned his body and his moods.

  “What is that chirping sound—the high one, there. Birds?”

  “No, mlai. Like mo’o, only small, bright as jewels. As a boy, I would capture them and keep them to sing in my rooms.”

  Frogs? How interesting. “Will you show me?”

  He kissed my hair, smoothing it. “Of course, Dafne mlai. You have only to ask.”

  “Then I have one more thing to ask.”

  He waited silently.

  “I must get up and write some letters to go with the ship in the morning, but I don’t wish to disturb your sleep. Still . . .”

  Growling low, he wrapped a hand in my hair and tugged my head back for a long and thorough kiss. “Write your words, over there, where I can see you if I wake. Otherwise I shall sleep, knowing you are here, with me.”

  “Always, Nakoa mlai.”

  The morning dawned bright, Glorianna’s sun shining on the harbor as we bade Ursula and Harlan farewell. Nakoa had seemed amused when I asked about sending Akamai with them, saying that he was already my responsibility. I did not mention my plan to extend my network of information with others. With Nakoa it worked best to give him information in small doses.

  I blinked my eyes against the grittiness of the long night. It had taken hours to complete my letters—the most difficult explaining to Ami about a possible dragon under Windroven and what might be done about it. When I returned to bed, Nakoa had pulled me sleepily into his arms and . . . well, there had been no sleeping for me after that.

  “I have a gift for you, Akamai.” I took out the bit of silk and handed it to him.

  His eyes widened in astonishment. “For me? I am overwhelmed.”

  “You might need them. When you meet Jepp, ask her to teach you how to use them.”

  He unwrapped one of the silver daggers and held it with reverence, studying the script etched on.

  “In my language, it says, ‘This is why it’s perilous to ignore a librarian, ’ ” I told him. “Use them well.”

  “I will, Queen Dafne Nakoa KauPo.” He bowed several times, then hastened onto the ship with a last wave, leaving the four of us there.

  “I still have the others, and this one, of course,” I told Ursula, putting my hand on the ruby-hilted dagger.

  “Good.” She nodded, then gave Nakoa a flinty look and said in Dasnarian, “Use it on my heart-brother, if he doesn’t treat you well.”

  I choked on my laugh, shocked both that she knew the words and that she said them to Nakoa. He gave her a thunderous frown, then released it, his smile breaking through like the sun through clouds.

  “If I do not treat my queen well,” he replied in careful Dasnarian, “I deserve the knife, Heart-Sister.”

  “I’m glad we understand each other.” She handed me a scroll with a wry smile. “All in writing, so you can put it in your library, as I know you like to.”

  By mutual accord, we did not linger at the harbor. Instead Nakoa and I walked back to the palace and ascended the tower where we’d watched the Hákyrling sail away an age ago. When Ursula’s ship passed through the great dragons guarding the harbor, Nakoa lifted my chin to survey my face.

  “No weeping this time?”

  I wrapped my hand around his, holding it while I placed a kiss on the inside of his wrist, one of few places he did not have tattoos. “No. I am happy. I am where I want to be. You are precious to me, Nakoa mlai. My home.”

  He smiled, close-lipped, but radiantly enough to banish all the stern lines. Almost as carefree as in sleep. “You are my treasure, also, Dafne mlai.”

  The word he used and the way he colored it. Treasure. Not at all the same as the Dasnarians used it. The pieces shifted in my head. Moving into new patterns.

  The wisdom of dragons.

  The women talk to us, relay our wisdom.

  It’s a tremendous treasure, unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

  That scroll I’d seen back in Annfwn, with its vivid illustrations—and the unlikely one of the dragon and human, heads bent together over a scroll.

  “The library,” I breathed. “That’s the dragon’s treasure. Knowledge.”

  “This sounds true—this is yours to know.”

  “Kiraka can teach me to read N’andanan. She was a scribe. She holds the key to translating all of those books!”

  He mock scowled at me. “Now I shall never pry you out of the library.”

  “Yes, you will.” I stood on the low wall, to be eye to eye with him, giving him a long, heartfelt kiss. “You’ll just have to make it worth my while.”

  Epilogue

  I hike d up the volcano, a bag of texts on my back. My feet had toughened from all the abuse and it felt strangely natural to go barefoot. As long as I was careful to avoid hot spots.

  Kiraka waited for me at our usual spot, ruby eyes lighting with interest at what I brought. It wasn’t the simplest solution, for me to go to her, but her presence elicited too much attention at the palace for us to get any work done. N’andanan was complex, indeed, but I was beginning to get a feel for it. The more I learned, the more I thought it might be a perfect language. The language of the ancients. Full of magic and power.

  Greetings, Daughter.

  “Hello, Kiraka. How are you today?”

  I am well. The sun is bright and I am feeling fat, sleek, and satisfied.

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  You are looking sleek and satisfied, also. Though not fat. Yet. Her mental tone held smug amusement.

  My heart fluttered, a new beat in it I’d hardly dared give credence to. “Don’t tease me, Kiraka. What are you saying?”

 
The babe you’ll bear, Daughter. The beginnings of your family for me to help raise and train up properly. I’ll begin with respect for ancient dragon ancestresses.

  I brushed past that, full of hope. “I’m too old to conceive.”

  No, Daughter. She sounded more kind. This is what I bring to you. Your body is healthier for proximity to me. Younger, even. You will heal quickly and live a very long time, if you stay out of volcanoes. You may have many babies.

  Stunned, I wrapped my mind around it. If a girl, I’d name her for Bethany. If a boy, Gailand Fayne, for my brothers. A bit of life for them again. I couldn’t wait to tell Nakoa.

  Though, by the way he’d kissed my stomach, just over my womb, before I left the palace that morning, he might already know. Incorrigible man. I would have to extract a kama from him, if he’d known and hadn’t told me.

  Enough mooning, Daughter. Time for your lesson.

  In agreement, I sat down and focused on my work.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

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  Copyright © 2016 by Jeffe Kennedy

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0424-5

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-0424-X

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-0424-5

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: June 2016