The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 (4 page)

He wanted her to concentrate on him for a change. But he wouldn’t stoop to childish tricks to gain her attention.

“Lukan?” She squeezed his shoulder from behind.

“It’s not you, Mama. It’s him. I’ll never be as talented as the golden dragon child, Glenndon—even though he’s only just now learned to speak. I’ll never be frail like Val, requiring coddling and special foods. I’ll never be as lovely as Lily, or cute as Sharl and Jule. I’m nothing.”

“You are our son.”

“The second son, born eleven moons after Glenndon because Jaylor the greatest magician of all time had to prove he could sire a child on you just like the king did.”

A resounding crack startled him before he knew that Mama had slapped him. Hard. His scarred cheek burned. She jolted him into silence.

“I have never struck you before. I have no intention of ever doing so again. Unless . . . unless . . .”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” he whispered through clenched teeth. He didn’t know if his lip had split when it came into sudden contact with his teeth. He didn’t want to chance shedding more blood in her presence. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“But you did mean to insult your father. Your Da. The man who loves you above all things.”

“No, he doesn’t. He loves Glenndon. He loves the girls. He loves you—though lately he’s never around to show you his feelings.”

“He doesn’t have to be here. I know how much he loves me, and I him. He is my life, and I his.” She sighed wistfully. “Though I wish he’d linger longer when he does come home. But he will always come home.”

“He’d just as soon forget me,” Lukan grumbled. “I’ll never have a great talent. I’m only an adequate magician, which is why he handed me off to Master Marcus for training. He’d rather forget me than admit he sired a son who is less than Glenndon.”

“Lukan, you will swallow those words and escort me to the University courtyard. You will then travel with your father and me to the capital to wish your sisters good journey.”

“And who’s going to look after the little ones while you’re gone? Or does Da wish to forget them too?”

“Sharl and Jule are with Mistress Maigret and Princess Rosselinda . . .”

“That’s Apprentice Linda. We agreed to forget her title and treat her like any other student.”

Suddenly Mama stilled. She frowned and wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “Lukan, why are you so angry with the world?”

He shrugged. The source of his problems with the world was obvious to him. It should be to her too.

“Seventeen. You are seventeen and your body is maturing faster than your emotions. Nothing fits, not your clothes or your skin. That’s your problem. I wish you’d hurry and grow past this.” She heaved a sigh, shouldered her pack, and set off on the trail to the University.

Lukan stared after her. “It’s more than that!” he shouted.

“Is it? Well, if you won’t come with us, you can start in on fixing the leak in the roof above the girls’ loft. And make sure you dig enough yampions to keep you fed for two days.” Then she stalked off, leaving him to deal with the curdle in his stomach and his bleeding fist and lip by himself.

Always by himself. No one cared about him. They were always too busy taking care of everyone else.

“Y
OU KNEW THIS
day would come, Mama,” Valeria whispered to her mother as she hugged her tightly.

“Just not so soon. You have both just reached your sixteenth birthday.” Mama didn’t bother wiping away her tears. She clung to Val fiercely, her fingers digging into her back. “You’ve never been strong. I worry about you being gone so long, on your own.”

Val shared a desperate moment of loneliness with her mother. But there was something else deep within her. Val linked her mind to Lillian on the other side of the old University courtyard. Lily had an empathic talent most magicians did not recognize as real magic. But healers treasured the ability to feel and understand what their patients endured, and thus know what to remedy.

Do we need to worry more than we already do? Should we insist on staying home until she’s well
? Val asked her sister.

She’s hiding something. Hiding it deep. Something to do with the new babe
, Lily replied.
She won’t let us stay even if she needs us
.

Even from across the wide-open space filled with steeds and sledges and litters for the ladies, Val knew how her twin scrunched up her eyes and bit the tip of her tongue in concentration. Before she formed another thought, Lily ducked beneath the bobbing head of a gray steed, around three overly curious goats, and elbowed through the milling crowds of guards, handlers, cooks, and laundresses; all the people necessary on a long journey. Twice as many people, actually, since there were two caravans forming up: Val’s with Lady Ariiell and Lily’s with Lady Graciella. They’d follow the same road for about a week, then separate.

Mama and Da stood on the University steps, as if presiding over the whole noisy, anxious, disordered affair. Prince Glenndon stood behind Da’s right shoulder holding his odd staff quite possessively. He was part of the family and needed to say his farewells too, even if he was now part of the king’s household and nominal heir to the Dragon Crown. His fancy new clothes fit him now. He’d grown into his princely status. Mostly.

Val didn’t like to think about him being only a half brother, sired by the king, then
Prince
Darville, before Mama married Da. He was still her brother and champion, still the one she looked to for support beyond what her twin could give her.

“Mama,” Lily said, somewhat breathless after her scramble through the crowd. She reached to hug their mother and Val at the same time. “Isn’t this exciting? A real journey to new places, meeting new people, seeing new things.”

Through their bond of blood and magic, Val shared her twin’s probe to the source of Mama’s anxiety. More than just worry about her daughters. More than loneliness. More than concern about the new life growing in her belly, her seventh child. A special number, to be a seventh child. Mama should be content and basking in the glory of this pregnancy, as she had the previous two. She’d been desperately ill when Val and her twin sister were born. After that she’d taken ten years to restore her health before conceiving again. Jule and Sharl had given her no trouble.

This time Mama hid a fear. Something was wrong with the child.

Maybe you need to stay and take care of Mama,
Val sent on a tight line to Lillian. So tight that Da couldn’t eavesdrop.

Lily passed a negative feeling back. Nothing she could do yet. But she did push a little strength, reassurance, and well-being into Mama. A temporary patch to lessen the fear.

Does Da know
? Val asked.

Lillian shrugged.

Val shifted to include her father in the hug. She needed physical contact to wiggle through Da’s formidable barriers around his thoughts. She sensed little worry about Mama, just gratitude that she’d left their home in the mountains long enough to see her daughters off on their journeys and congratulate them both on their promotions from apprentice magician to journeyman.

A sharp bellow from a curved ram’s horn at the head of Val’s caravan signaled the caravan master’s readiness to depart. Val broke free of her parents and reached to hug Glenndon. “Take care of them,” she whispered with a jerk of her head toward Mama and Da.

Take care of yourself, little one
,
he sent to her on a tight band that couldn’t be overheard, even by their fath . . . the Senior Magician.
Don’t overstretch yourself. You are stronger, but your stamina is still lacking
.
He returned both her hug and her thoughts.
You know how to find me, any time of day or night
.

I will watch my strength. Lady Ariiell doesn’t need much magic to take care of her, little more than what I share with Lily all the time
.

He kissed her cheek and gave her a little shove toward the litter where her companion awaited her. Lady Ariiell hadn’t shown her face in public, except when heavily veiled, since boarding her conveyance yesterday outside her tower. She’d stopped at the port only long enough to load a few boxes, things her father required, into the compartment beneath the litter, masked by a lattice of narrow slats. Lady Graciella had a similar baggage compartment beneath her conveyance. When the steeds were removed from their traces, fore and aft, the litter would rest on those compartments, about two feet above the ground.

At last Valeria turned to Lillian. Her constant companion since birth. Her friend. More than just a sister. Her twin. The other half of her soul.

I don’t know how to say goodbye
,
she almost wept. A huge vacancy opened in her middle while her heart seemed crushed under the pressure of tears.

“Then don’t say it. We will always be only a thought apart. And we won’t truly separate for another week.” Already Lily’s attention wavered toward the litter where Lord Jemmarc helped his wife, Lady Graciella, settle into the steed-drawn litter. The man with graying hair assisted his much younger wife with rare gentleness. His aura reached toward her, needing to envelope her in warmth and care . . . and love.

Graciella withdrew from him, severing contact with his hands and his life’s energy. She kept her aura so tightly bound to her body that Val couldn’t tell how she felt about anything. Only that she turned her face away from her husband when he tried to kiss her.

General Marcelle half emerged from the shadowy doorway behind Mama and Da. “A word?” he asked tentatively, nodding to Da and Glenndon in the same gesture of respect.

“Of course,” Da replied, easing away from where Val and Lily still hugged Mama.

“I need your daughters to hear this, my lord,” the general said firmly, his gaze searching the crowd warily. “We’ve had reports of Krakatrice eggs passing through the port in disguised crates.”

Val shuddered. They’d helped battle the huge black snakes. A millennia or more ago, they’d mutated away from the benign dragons. They shouldn’t have thrived. Yet they had. And become evil and bloodthirsty beings bent on changing the landscape into desert and destroying humanity along the way. They’d corrupted the mind of Lucjemm and pushed him to a final rebellious battle right here in the courtyard last spring.

“I’d appreciate the girls keeping an eye out for any sign of the beasts,” the general said. “His Grace the king needs to know who sends and who receives any unusual crates. Report back as soon as possible.” He retreated into the shadows once more with a parting nod.

Val felt Lily sidling behind her. Any report she made would have to go through Val and then to either Glenndon or Da. She couldn’t shoulder that responsibility.

Go to your lady. We’ll figure this out later
.

“I doubt anyone cunning enough to import the eggs would try to hide them in a caravan’s luggage,” Lily said.

“What better place to hide something so dangerous, and illegal?” Glenndon muttered back to them.
Keep your eyes open and sniff regularly for the presence of rotten magic.

Lily bounded over to Lady Graciella’s litter and climbed in. She relaxed against the piled pillows so that she faced her new companion. Lord Jemmarc reluctantly backed away, eyes fixed upon his wife until he bumped into a stranger carrying a harp case and satchel. Only then did the lord turn around and look where he was walking.

“Lady Ariiell has no one to love her,” Mama said to Val, resigned to her daughters’ leaving. “Do what you can for her, Val, even if you have to eat meat to gain enough strength for the task.”

Val tried not to roll her eyes. She’d been eating meat, along with Da, Glenndon, and Lukan for years. Lily shared Mama’s empathy with the animals that gave their lives to feed humans. Val and others in her family didn’t. They needed the protein to help fuel their magic.

“Ariiell’s life has been hard and painful. No wonder she retreated into insanity rather than remember what she has done, and what has been done to her,” Mama continued, unaware, or ignoring, Val’s digressing thoughts.

Val’s stomach suddenly felt empty. She longed for the stash of jerked meat in her pack within Lady Ariiell’s litter.

“You can help the lady, Val,” Da added. “You may be the only one who can.”

Then they both stepped back and away, leaving her to her journey, and maybe her destiny.

“I have a feeling we are missing something,” Glenndon said quietly to his parents—Jaylor and Brevelan. Almost three months in the capital and he still couldn’t bring himself to admit that the king was his father. All evidence aside, King Darville had three beautiful daughters and a lovely and gracious queen. They’d been a loving family long before Glenndon came into their household. He felt like an intruder even if he was the acknowledged heir to the Dragon Crown. He’d been a part of Jaylor and Brevelan’s family since birth. The departing twins were more his sisters than the royal princesses; though Rosselinda, the oldest, and he shared a unique bond that went beyond half-blood, well into the realm of magical unity.

How fare you, Linda?
He sent a quick mental probe to her at the Forest University, near Mama’s home. The huge stone building behind him was the old University, abandoned near eighteen years ago, and re-inhabited by magicians only recently. Da was still sorting out which master magicians taught and resided at which edifice.

Maigret makes her potions way too complicated. I’m sure there’s an easier way. . . .
Linda’s thoughts drifted away from him.

Satisfied that she thrived in her temporary exile, Glenndon turned back to his parents. “What are we missing, Da?”

“Besides your brother Lukan? We’re always missing something. There is always a lord, or a merchant, or a foreign ambassador, or a rogue magician with a grudge against us. We can’t anticipate all of them,” Da said, avidly watching as the two caravans began winding their way out the gates—newly repaired after a short-lived rebellion of lords and an invasion by Krakatrice.

Glenndon didn’t want to dwell on the monstrous black snakes that tried very hard to turn lush Coronnan into a desert. Maybe that was what bothered him. This place, the scene of the final battle just a few months ago.
Stargods! I thought we killed them all. Who would be so stupid as to import more. No one can control them
,
he sent to his father, knowing he’d pick up the tight line of communication.

I don’t know. But there has to be a magician involved at some point in the plot. The dragons are keeping an eye out for any stray and hatchling snakes. They haven’t called me out to help fight any since we capped the Well with clay so that it can breathe. The Well of Life does more to control invaders than individual lords with their armies, or a dragon, or a single magician
.

Glenndon couldn’t help examining the entire courtyard with all of his senses, physical and magical. And then there was the Well of Life—the source of all magical energy in Coronnan—intricately linked to ley lines, Dragons, and the Tambootie trees, all three necessary to each other. Magic permeated the courtyard, because of the Well and the leftovers from centuries of magicians, journeymen, and apprentices training and practicing here. How could he tell if anything new and dangerous crept up on him? Even his bodyguard Frank—waiting by the pedestrian gate, giving him privacy with his family—would be hard put to sense what was wrong and out of place.

Glenndon needed to be elsewhere, now that Lillian’s caravan followed Valeria’s onto the main road heading south. They’d separate in five or seven days, Val heading west toward Aporia and the mountains with Lady Ariiell, Lillian continuing south before angling east to Saria.

As if sensing his restlessness, Jaylor looked over Mama’s head to him. “I need to take your mother home. Will you visit for a few days?”

“I wish I could. King Darville—uh—Father has given me the responsibility to receive new ambassadors. There’s one just come from Amazonia, the first representative we’ve had from them for generations. They do like their privacy and isolation. He has an appointment to present his credentials before we sit down at the negotiation table. I have obligations.” Glenndon let his head drop in disappointment. He’d really rather immerse himself in chopping wood and playing with Jule and Sharl.