The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons ld-2

by Katie MacAlister

  By the time I made us each a burger, Jim had acclimatized itself to wearing clothing and sat docilely enough at the kitchen table.

  “Baltic said that Fiat and some of his followers had been named ouroboros recently,” I said, sitting down to my very belated dinner. “I know those dragons are considered outlaws now, but what about the others?”

  “What others?” it asked around a mouthful of hamburger.

  “Surely there are other dragons who have been kicked out of their septs at one time or another? Or are the blue dragons it?”

  Jim shrugged, dribbling a bit of blue cheese as it chewed. “I don’t know of any personally, but there were some at Kostya’s aerie, or so Gabriel said, and I don’t know why he’d lie about that unless it was ex–silver dragons holding Kostya prisoner, and I think he’d know if it was.”

  “Kostya,” I said slowly, considering Baltic’s former friend. “I’d forgotten that he was holed up in an aerie for so long. Who held him prisoner?”

  “Dunno. Drake still hasn’t figured it out, and although he talks about going back to the aerie to look for clues, he’s too busy fawning over Aisling and the spawn to go to Nepal again.”

  “What does Drake have to do with it?”

  “He went to rescue Kostya and got nabbed himself. Ash and I rounded up a posse and went to rescue them. I lost a couple of toes in the process, but got them back again with my fabulous new form.” Jim looked down at itself with morose dissatisfaction. “My former fabulous new form. When are you going to change me back?”

  “I don’t know how to, or even that I could if I did know. So Drake was at the aerie, too? That means he must have seen the ouroboros dragons as well. Hmm. I think I’m going to have to talk to Kostya, since Drake is probably quite angry and not likely to tell me what I want to know.”

  Jim cocked an eyebrow and licked a bit of mustard off its upper lip. “And you think Kostya will tell you?”

  “Yes,” I said after a moment’s thought. “His animosity toward Baltic aside, yes, I think I can get him to open up. If the dragons who imprisoned Kostya did so before Fiat and his followers were removed from their sept, then that means there must be two separate tribes out there. But who are the second group? And why would they want Kostya imprisoned? Why would they want to steal things from the L’au-dela?”

  “You got me. You going to eat that half?” Jim asked, nodding toward the remains of my hamburger.

  “Go ahead, but don’t come running to me if you’ve got an upset stomach in the morning.” I shoved the plate across the table to it and rose. “I’m going to get a few hours’ sleep. Can you keep an eye on Thala until I get up?”

  “Aw, man! Why do I get guard duty?”

  “Because you’re the only one here other than me, and you’re a demon who doesn’t technically need sleep, whereas I’m human. Er . . . kind of. And I do need sleep.”

  “Shows what you know. Demons need sleep just like any other sentient being,” Jim grumbled.

  “It’ll just be for a few hours.” I cleaned up the table quickly and started for the back stairs.

  “Can I at least have a gun or a Taser like Cyrene had?”

  I paused at the foot of the stairs, glancing back at the demon. There was a genuine look of distaste on its face. Insight struck me. “You truly do not want to be near Thala, do you?”

  It shook its head.

  “Why not?”

  “She’s not nice,” it said with a grimace.

  “Not nice as in she’s mean to demons? Abuses dogs?” I asked, curious to know why a demon of its power and connections would be so uncomfortable around Thala.

  “She’s got a lot of power,” Jim said after a few moments’ pause. “She’s half dragon, you know.”

  “I know, but I also know she’s a necromancer, and that has no influence on demons, so there’s no reason for you to be worried about being around her.”

  Jim said nothing, but it was clear there was more it could say. I thought for a moment of invoking a demon lord’s privilege to make it speak, but decided that it wasn’t that important. “Take a knife if you’re worried, but don’t hurt her unless you have no other choice.”

  “What do I do if she’s gotta pee?” it asked in a plaintive tone as I started up the stairs.

  “Undo her handcuffs and let her use the bathroom, silly.”

  “But she’ll whomp me!”

  I bit back the urge to tell him to whomp her back. “Since she’s hostile toward me, I don’t want her to leave the house until Baltic gets back and can talk to her, so just do your best for a few hours, OK? Wake me at six, and I’ll take over watchdog duty.”

  Jim’s grumbles followed me up the stairs. While I got undressed, I eyed the big bed that normally dominated the room. At least it did when Baltic was around, but now it just looked cold and lonely.

  I miss you, I texted to him before climbing into the empty bed. I hope everything is going OK at Dauva. Call me when you can. Oh, and I am head over heels in love with you, and wish you were here right now so I could touch you in all sorts of wicked ways.

  Smiling to myself that the text should get a response out of him sooner rather than later, I settled down to get a little sleep, not that I expected to get much since I didn’t sleep well when Baltic wasn’t there to keep me warm. Exhaustion claimed me, however, and I slipped into insensibility clutching my phone.

  Chapter Seven

  “ Then we are agreed, are we not?”

  I rolled over to see who was talking in my bedroom, only to find I wasn’t in a bedroom.

  “Another vision,” I sighed as the fog of sleep dissipated, leaving me standing next to a long, highly polished table around which five people sat. “I don’t suppose anyone can hear or see me?”

  “Unless Drake Vireo has anything to add,” a female voice said with sultry smoothness. No one paid the slightest iota of attention to me, so I gathered I was seeing another vision of an event at which I wasn’t present.

  “I know that voice.” I turned to consider Chuan Ren and a man at her side who I assumed was her mate. Going by her dress and elegant coiffure, I judged that this event took place around the turn of the twentieth century.

  “Drake has, I believe, spoken on the subject, but perhaps he has something else he wishes to say?” The original speaker, a blond man with a lilting Italian accent, asked the question with a polite little nod down the table.

  “I do not have anything more to say about the black dragons than I’ve already said.” Drake’s voice was just as urbane as it was now. I looked across the table to where he sat, his two guards behind him. “The sept is destroyed. No black dragons have been seen for almost a hundred years. Constantine Norka conducted the extermination most thoroughly.”

  “We had every right to take action against those who would have destroyed us,” a man across the table snapped back. I looked at him, noting he was most definitely not Constantine. This man was dark-skinned, with close-cropped black hair and dark eyes, a tribal tattoo evident on his neck despite the high starched collar and black suit typical of an Edwardian gentleman. To my surprise, behind him stood someone else I knew: Gabriel, also clad in a black suit, but with an embroidered silver vest that almost matched his eyes. The dreadlocks were gone, and he was clean-shaven, but the look of wary caution in his eyes was all too familiar. “Which the green wyvern well knows, since he was at the sárkány that decreed we had the right to pursue our subjugators.”

  Drake bowed his head in acknowledgment, but I noticed his jaw was tight. I smiled a little smile at that, wondering how much it had cost him to keep from lashing out at the silver wyvern. Then again, perhaps he knew that Kostya was at that moment alive and well, living in the hidden aerie. I’d have to ask Aisling if she knew.

  “As the requisite amount of time has passed since a member of the black sept has been seen, the weyr officially declares the sept to be extinct and, as such, stricken off the rolls.”

  The silver wyvern watched Drake close
ly, but although his eyes glittered with an emerald light, Drake’s face was impassive, as were those of István and Pál, his guards whom I had briefly met some months before.

  “The second order of business is the recognition of Sial Fa’amasino as official rather than acting wyvern of the silver sept.” The Italian gave a pointed look at the silver dragons. “Do you have proof of the death of the wyvern Constantine Norka?”

  “No. His body has not been discovered, despite our searches for it.” Sial’s voice was steady, but his dark eyes were watchful, as if he half expected trouble.

  The Italian dragon hesitated for a moment before saying, “It is not for the weyr to interfere in sept business, but there is tradition to be considered. I don’t think there is precedence for a wyvern simply disappearing with no claim of his death. Is it your contention that Constantine Norka is not dead?”

  “It is not,” Sial said firmly. “Were he alive, he would be here before you. We have sought him for a century, but we have come to the much-regretted conclusion that he met with harm, either from another sept or from an accident that was beyond our knowing.”

  Silence filled the room for the count of seven. “As I said, it is not for the weyr to interfere; thus so long as you have the consent of your sept to be named as wyvern, we will so recognize you. How say you, wyverns?”

  The other wyverns murmured their assent.

  “Then Sial Fa’amasino is so named as wyvern of the silver sept. Our last business concerns the silver dragons as well, specifically the attacks made upon members of the sept by ouroboros dragons.”

  “I thought they must be black dragons, but they are not,” the new silver wyvern told the others. “I sent one of my guards to track them after the last attack, and he said their former sept was not discernible without closer contact.”

  “The weyr would recognize Gabriel Tauhou and question him about this,” the blue dragon said politely, obviously giving Sial the opportunity to grant his permission.

  “I didn’t think you guys could be more formal than you are now, but I see I was wrong,” I told them as Sial graciously allowed Gabriel to speak before the weyr.

  “Where did the attacks originate?” the blue wyvern asked him.

  “Cape Town, in the Transvaal. With my father’s help.” Gabriel nodded toward the small collection of people who sat along one wall. One of the men, I noticed, was dark-skinned and similar in appearance to Gabriel. He sat with two other men, all of whom watched the proceedings with grim expressions. “We tracked them northward, to Vereeniging, but lost their trail.” Gabriel slid an unreadable glance toward Chuan Ren. “That’s where we found two red dragons, obviously following a similar track.”

  Chuan Ren pursed her lips for a moment before answering with a languid wave of her hand, “The red dragons have also been attacked by these ouroboros ones, but we do not go running to the weyr to solve our problems.”

  Sial stiffened, but said nothing, although ire flashed for a moment in his eyes.

  “And did you find where the ouroboros were based?” the blue wyvern asked.

  One shoulder lifted in a delicate shrug. “No. My men lost them in the bush as well. It matters not. We have taken steps to protect ourselves from attacks by any sept.”

  Drake’s gaze flashed to her. She smiled at him, a cat-with-a-giant-bowl-of-cream sort of smile. What on earth did that mean? I added that to my mental notes to ask Aisling.

  “If you are implying that we welcome a war with the red dragons, I will assure you yet again that such an assumption is false,” Drake said.

  “Bah! You do everything you can to instigate a war with us!” The smile faded from Chuan Ren’s face. “We are not stupid, nor are we blind to your machinations!”

  “What machinations?” Drake demanded. “State just one thing that the green dragons have done to harm your sept!”

  “Oh, lord, this is going to take forever,” I muttered to myself, and turned to look for a chair since this vision was evidently going to take a bit.

  Kaawa sat behind me, separated from Gabriel’s father, dressed in a flowing robe and matching turban, her hands clasped in her lap as she watched the sárkány. Another woman sat on her far side, similarly dressed, and just as obviously a member of the silver sept. Next to them was a little girl of about four who sat in a stiff blue dress with a ruffled white pinafore, her black hair twisted into two stubby little braids, her bright silver eyes marking her as another silver dragon.

  “I hope you don’t mind if I sit next to you,” I told Kaawa, taking the chair on her free side.

  “No, of course not,” she murmured, causing me to freeze for a moment before looking at her in astonishment.

  “What’s that?” the other woman asked her, leaning toward us, speaking in a soft voice so as not to disturb the sárkány.

  “You can hear me?” I asked Kaawa. “You can see me?”

  “What was what?” Kaawa asked her friend in a whisper.

  “You said ‘Of course not.’ ”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I say that?”

  My spirits fell. She couldn’t hear me after all. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Or was it? I leaned close to her, my mouth just a few inches from her ear. “Gabriel looks much better with his goatee.”

  “I told him not to shave it off. It gives him such character, but—” Kaawa froze, blinking wildly as she slowly looked around. I waved, but her gaze went right through me.

  “What’s wrong?” her friend asked, poking her on the arm.

  “I don’t quite know,” Kaawa answered.

  The little girl slid off her seat and said something in a language I didn’t understand, tugging on the arm of the woman I assumed was her mother.

  “Hush, Maata. Kaawa is not feeling well.”

  “Maata?” I grinned at the little girl as she, looking incredibly bored, climbed back onto her seat and, with a defiant look at her mother, stuck her thumb in her mouth. I laughed, thinking that even then Gabriel’s guard showed signs of doing just as she pleased.

  Kaawa shot a look to the side nearest me even as she assured her friend in whispers that she was fine.

  I turned back to the dragons, momentarily distracted when Chuan Ren leaped to her feet, yelling something about Drake trying to take things that were not his. Drake, looking bored, crossed his arms and let her rant.

  “Boy, that gets old fast,” I said.

  “Who are you?” Kaawa’s voice was so soft, I almost didn’t hear it.

  I waved a hand in front of her face, but she obviously didn’t see it, and I suspected she heard me only now and again. “It must have something to do with you being a shaman,” I told her. “I’m Ysolde.”

  She heard that all right. She sat up very straight, her eyes wide and staring at nothing in particular. Her friend was busy trying to get Maata to remove her thumb from her mouth, and didn’t hear when Kaawa, speaking without moving her lips, said, “You are a shade?”

  “I’m not dead, no. Well, I was, but then I was resurrected. It’s a long story.”

  Her expression didn’t change, her gaze not moving one whit. Thinking she must not have heard that explanation, I leaned in close and added, “I know you, Kaawa. You’re my friend.”

  “I will befriend no shade. That way lies madness,” she said simply, and turned to her friend, clearly dismissing me.

  I felt bereft for a moment, separated by time and space from everything going on around me, from the noise and furor of Chuan Ren in full hissy fit as she stormed around the sárkány table, trying to get a rise out of Drake, to the blue wyvern trying to restore order, to Sial as he chimed in when some slurs were evidently cast his way.

  Gabriel turned to share a smile with his mother, immediately looking concerned when she didn’t respond.

  I was alone, separated from the dragons around me by centuries of time and understanding. I shivered, suddenly cold and filled with sadness. I knew I couldn’t change any of the events that would unfold, but that knowle
dge did little to comfort me. I covered my face with my hands, wishing the vision would end, wishing the noise would stop, needing Baltic to restore order to the world.

  “Why do you weep?” a disembodied voice asked me.

  “All those blue dragons who will die . . . if only I could warn them. If only I could make Kaawa understand me. She could stop it. She could stop it all.”

  “Who is Kaawa?”

  The words were whipped away on the wind almost before I could hear them. I turned toward the voice, the sting of spray making me squint. I was on a ship, strands of hair flying around me, partially obscuring my view as we plowed through the waves. “What?”

  “I asked you whom you spoke of, and why you are weeping.”

  Baltic’s large body blocked some of the wind and spray, allowing me to wipe my wet face with the edge of my damp cloak. “I wasn’t weeping. I was thinking about retching, but thankfully that seems to have passed.”

  His arms surrounded me, pulling me into the safe haven of his chest. “Our babe is giving you grief again?”

  “Not so much anymore. I thought I would have been horribly sick because of this awful sea, but it seems to make the illness better.”

  “Good. I dislike you feeling unwell and blaming the babe. And me, for putting him in your belly.” His voice was a rumble that started deep in his chest. I turned my face into the soft linen of his tunic, smiling into his collarbone.

  “I didn’t really mean what I said, you know. I’m not sorry that you ever came to my father’s castle, or that I didn’t set you on fire while you were sleeping after the first time you bedded me.”

  Laughter was rich in his voice as he kissed the top of my head and pulled me tighter. “Or geld me with a blunt knife?”

  “Especially not the gelding. In fact”—I wiggled against him, the scent and feel of him doing much to stir my passion—“just the opposite. I don’t suppose you have time for a little dalliance?”

  He pulled back to give me a wicked look. “Are you attempting to seduce me, chérie?”