“I take it that Kostya is being unreasonable?”
“Yes.” He took my hand, his fingers twining through mine. I cherished the gesture, knowing full well he wasn’t happy about having me along. “He insists that the phylactery is a sign that the time is nigh for him to return to the weyr. Kincsem, I fear for my brother’s sanity. It has not been easy for him to remain hidden for the last few centuries. But now…”
I held his hand in both of mine and leaned into him, offering what comfort I could. “Kostya is so prickly about things, I haven’t had a chance to ask him about himself. Were you guys close growing up?”
“Close?” Drake looked somewhat pensive. “Not in the sense I believe you mean. I was sent to live with my grandmother when I was young. My mother objected—you know what she is like—but my grandmother was a formidable woman herself. Kostya stayed with the black dragons, and for a while, Mother stayed with him. He was born a wyvern just as I was. Baltic trained him from the very beginning to take his place when his time was over. It nearly destroyed Kostya when he realized the truth about Baltic, and that the only way to save the sept was to eliminate the wyvern…but he was too late. By the time we found Baltic, the damage had been done, and most of the sept had been destroyed.”
“You were there with him when he…er…did the cleaving?”
“Yes.” Drake’s gaze shifted to me for a moment. I expected it to be stark with emotion, but it was just the opposite—a curiously flat look that boded ill for everyone. “My distant cousin Fodor was still wyvern of the green dragons when Baltic tried to rally the septs in a move that would eliminate the silver dragons, but there was little help to be found. Chuan Ren was still recovering from the Endless War she’d brought about against Baltic. The blue dragons were suffering from infighting, and the sept was in disarray. The green dragons and black had a long history of peace, but Fodor refused to aid Baltic, preferring instead to cast his vote for formal recognition of the silver dragons.”
“So you went to help your brother, but not as a representative of the sept?”
“I was one of a number of green dragons who ignored Fodor’s decision. We risked going ouroboros, but we honored the agreements we had long held with the black dragons. Fodor was not pleased, regardless.” Drake looked back out the window at the lights as they flashed by. “I was fighting at the time to be recognized as his heir, and he threatened to have me removed from the rolls if I lent aid to Kostya. The point was moot—by the time we arrived to help Kostya, the silver dragons had almost destroyed what remained of the sept. I watched sword in hand as my brother slew his wyvern, and was almost killed himself by the man for whom he was named.”
I searched my memory of dragon history but came up blank. “Who was that?”
“Constantine Norka. He was the first silver wyvern. It was he whom Baltic cursed.”
“Wow.” I mulled over the weighty history that Drake had told me, my sympathies divided between Gabriel’s people and the hell Kostya must have gone through watching his leader destroy the sept trying to regain what would never be theirs. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think Kostya is crazy. I think he’s probably just frustrated as hell, and he’s jumping at any excuse to get back into action.”
“Possibly.”
I would have pumped him for more information—I wasn’t about to let his unusually verbose mood slip away unheeded—but István slammed his foot on the brakes in front of a large, exclusive London hotel. Jim and I scrambled to follow after Drake as the two men bolted out of the car, István pausing long enough to toss the keys at a valet with instructions to keep the car handy. We got a few strange looks from the scattering of people in the lobby at the early hour, but no one stopped us as we ran to the bank of elevators.
Pál emerged from the stairwell and joined us.
“Is Gabriel all right?” I asked him.
“I do not know. Kostya would not let me in. You talked to him?” he asked Drake as we got into the elevator.
“Yes. He says he has not done anything yet, that he wants witnesses from all four septs before he takes action.”
“Witnesses?” I asked, scandalized. “Why would he want witnesses to his planned genocide?”
“The witnesses are to ensure he receives votes to allow his sept back into the weyr. He does not wish to exterminate the silver dragons, mate; he wishes to annex them, to bring them back where he believes they belong.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’d say the fact that the silver dragons wiped out the black ones pretty much says what they think of that whole annexing deal.”
“I agree, but that is not what concerns me now.”
“What does concern you? Oh, that phylactery thing? What exactly is that? I know you said it’s old, and some sort of amulet, but does it have super dragon powers or something?”
“It is hard to explain. It holds great significance to dragonkin, although there are no powers directly derived from possessing it. Its value is based more on what it represents: a symbol of the primal forces coming together to create the first dragon. It is widely thought that to hold it is to be at one with those forces. Chuan Ren held it for many centuries, at the height of the red dragons’ supremacy, but it was lost sometime around the first millennium. Baltic had it during the Endless War—some say that was why the black dragons came out of that war relatively unscathed. I would dearly like to know just how and when it came into Fiat’s possession.”
“Yeah, makes you wonder about that mysterious little apartment and who was living there. I wonder—”
A drunken party girl and her equally drunken escort got onto the elevator at that moment. The girl spotted Drake and lurched toward him, an inviting smile on her face as she thrust her barely concealed breasts at him. “Hello, handsome. Would you hold me against you if I told you it was beautiful?”
I pushed myself between her and Drake. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he? And very taken.”
“Fat bitch,” she snapped, sulking for a moment until she spotted Pál. Her companion slouched against the wall of the elevator, too far gone to care, I guess.
The door opened at our floor and we exited, leaving the drunken woman to pout as Pál avoided her grasp. I stopped just outside the door, pulled on Drake’s fire, and set alight a ring at her feet. She shrieked and flapped her arms wildly as the doors started to close. I drew a quick ward on them, and before the outer doors blocked my way, mentally stamped out the fire. I turned to find Drake watching me with crossed arms and a cocked eyebrow.
“What?” I asked, trying unsuccessfully to bat my eyelashes at him.
“You locked them in there with fire?”
“There was a fire extinguisher,” I said. “Of course, she’s probably too drunk to notice it or know how to use it, but that’s hardly my problem.”
Drake continued to give me the Eyebrow of Much Displeasure.
“There were sprinklers as well. They’re sure to go off at some point…oh, for heaven’s sake, Drake! What sort of person do you take me for? I put out the fire just before the doors closed, OK? I just wanted to scare her a little. I may be a demon lord, but I’m not a demon lord! I wouldn’t barbecue a person just because she called me fat.”
“Hey, Ash, you know that you’re getting fa—”
“You are not a person,” I told Jim. “If you don’t want me to singe off a few whiskers, you’ll pipe down.”
“Yeesh!” it answered, trailing behind us as we hurried down the corridor to Gabriel’s suite.
Part of me, the fanciful part, the part that loved nothing more than a good epic historical novel filled with battles, valiant and incredibly sexy knights, and equally valiant but still retaining a core sense of femininity (not to mention confident and professional) damsels who fight at their side, expected to see some sort of gigantic battle raging within the confines of Gabriel’s suite. I imagined blood, and possibly a little gore, with the harsh sound of swords clanging together above the manly rumble of male voices calling abuse to each
other.
What I didn’t expect to see was Gabriel bound to a chair, Maata and Tipene on the floor beside him, facedown, their arms bound behind their backs. Bastian and Kostya stood next to a window, arguing in hushed voices. Sitting on a couch all by his lonesome was Li, Chuan Ren’s mate.
He stood up when we entered the room, smiling and bowing politely. Kostya hurried over as we pulled up short at the sight of the red dragon.
“Where is Chuan Ren?” Drake asked, his eyes flashing.
“She is not here. Her mate is acting as her envoy. You will, naturally, respect the laws governing envoys in times of war and not attack him.”
Drake gave his brother a look that made the latter flush slightly. “I have yet to attack any of the red dragons without due cause. The green dragons will defend themselves, but they have not, to date, initiated any hostile moves against the red sept.”
“Just so,” Kostya said.
“Li Jiaxin,” Drake said, bowing in a formal manner to Li. The red dragon bowed first to Drake, then to me.
“Bastian, I’m ashamed of you letting Kostya tie Gabriel up like this,” I said, giving him my very best frown.
Bastian held up his hands. “I just arrived a few moments before you. He was like that when I came in. I was trying to reason with Kostya when you arrived.”
“Uh-huh. Hello, Li. It’s a pleasure to see you again,” I said politely, then turned to Gabriel. “I’m so sorry about this, Gabriel. We had no idea he’d go off the deep end and do this to you guys. We’ll just untie you so we can talk things over in a civilized manner.”
“Thank you,” Gabriel said, his voice polite, but the anger in his silver-gray eyes enough to set steel alight.
“Do not touch him, Aisling!” Kostya said in what I was coming to think of as his trademarked bossy voice. “We will hold this conclave with the silver dragons bound.”
I ignored him and went around the back of Gabriel’s chair to see how best to undo the ropes that held him there. Kostya leaped toward me, grabbing my arm and jerking me backwards. Before I could do so much as gasp, Drake had Kostya pinned against the wall, his face a scant inch away from his brother’s.
“Do not touch her again,” he snarled.
Kostya’s eyes narrowed as he shoved Drake, sending him staggering backwards a foot or so. “I told you on the phone to think long before you opposed me, brother. Once our ties are severed, they will not be mended.”
“Talk about being a drama queen,” Jim muttered softly.
I agreed completely, wanting to tell Kostya to knock off the dramatics, but I was now familiar enough with the dragons to know how they did things, so I kept my thoughts to myself. Besides which, I felt he had a certain cause to be upset. If I’d been through what he’d been through the last few hundred years, I’d probably have a lot of issues to work out, too.
Drake, however, was made of sterner stuff and had no love for the posturing that meant so much to people like Chuan Ren and Fiat. “Don’t be any more of a fool than you have al ready been, Kostya. István, untie Gabriel. Mate, come here.”
He waved an imperious hand for me, but I was whole heartedly behind his efforts to control the situation. I smiled at Gabriel and took my place at Drake’s side.
“Now we will discuss the situation,” Drake said, but just as István cut the bonds that held Gabriel, the silver dragon was on Kostya, knocking him down, pounding his head against the carpeted floor.
“You’d get a better brain bashing if you pulled back the carpet and did that on the bare floor,” Jim offered.
“Oh, for god’s sake! Stop it! All of you!” I yelled as Drake and Pál pulled Gabriel off Kostya.
Bastian helped Kostya up, tsking at the bloody nose Gabriel had given him. “What you need is a Taser. Those things pack a hell of a kick.”
“Hey! No taking sides,” I told him, making squinty eyes that had him clearing his throat and sidling away. Drake shoved Gabriel in a chair and told him to sit there, before turning a glare on his brother that would have struck down anyone mortal.
“I will have Aisling ward the next person who moves from his chair,” Drake threatened, spreading his glare around the room. Pál had cut the ropes on Tipene and Maata, both of whom looked perfectly willing to jump into the fray.
Gabriel, with self-possession that I wanted to laud, told them to sit down.
“This is my conclave,” Kostya announced, stomping over to the middle of the room. “I will stand.”
Drake ignored him, turning to Gabriel. “What happened?”
Gabriel’s dimples were nowhere in evidence, his face unusually somber. “Need you ask? He forced his way in, babbling something about having the means to bring us back to the black sept. I told him what I told you yesterday—the silver dragons will discuss the issue only in the forum of a weyr synod. He struck before we could defend ourselves.”
“What’s a weyr synod?” I whispered to Pál, who was standing near me.
“It’s a formal meeting of the leaders of all the septs. Sort of an elite council.”
“Oh. But the black dragons aren’t recognized as a sept anymore, are they?”
“No.”
“You would hide behind the weyr rather than facing me?” Kostya asked, his voice filled with disdain.
“We are not going to rejoin your sept,” Gabriel said, slowly getting to his feet. Instantly Maata and Tipene were at his side, presenting a united front. “There is nothing you can do, nothing you can offer us that will induce us to dissolve our sept and rejoin that which we left so many centuries ago. Too much blood has been spilled over this issue, and although we do not want war with you, we will fight to the death any attempt that is made against our sept.”
“Do not mistake me for Baltic,” Kostya said, a slight smile on his lips as he withdrew from his inner jacket pocket the small lumpy gold figurine, tossing it in the air. Gabriel’s eyes widened as he saw what it was that Kostya held. “I will not be so foolish as he was, to effect a war upon you. I have seen the outcome of such ignorance. I will, however, petition the weyr to restore to the black dragons what was illegally taken from them. Your beloved Constantine was many things, but a man learned in the laws of the weyr was not one of them.”
I scooted over to Drake, bumping his hand to get his notice. “Is he saying what I think he’s saying?”
“I believe so.” Drake frowned at his brother. “What is it you are hinting at, Kostya?”
“I hint at nothing, brother. Once formally recognized by the weyr, I will, however, present the evidence that Baltic had ignored for so many centuries—proof that the silver dragons were never formally admitted into the weyr, and thus their sept is not a separate entity in its own right.”
Gabriel laughed. “We do not fear you, Kostya Fekete. Your threats are as hollow as your brain.”
“Ouch,” Jim said softly.
“That was a definite seven-pointer,” I said. “Gabriel is well ahead on style points.”
“Yeah, but I bet the swimsuit competition is going to be a close call.”
I bit my lip to keep from giggling. Jim tipped its head as it looked up at me. “Since when did you become such a staunch Gabriel supporter?”
“Since he helped us get to Drake, got us all back to civilization, and didn’t toss Kostya off the side of the mountain on the way down, as he no doubt wanted. And I’m beginning to see why.”
Drake overheard the last of our muted comments, giving me a glance that shut up both Jim and me. “Threats and insults are useless. You may present your case to the weyr at the proper time and place, Kostya—neither of which is now.”
“Assuming he gets recognition,” Gabriel said, his voice as smooth as ever, but there was an undertone in it that had me giving him a second look.
“All I need is a majority vote. Bastian as the new wyvern of the blue dragons has already committed his vote to me.”
“And Chuan Ren? Do you think she will be so easily swayed to your side?” Gabriel asked.
>
Kostya smiled and tossed the phylactery in the air again. Beside me, Drake’s body tensed as though he was about to pounce. I took his hand, giving him a little smile as he glanced toward me. I had no desire to see him warring with his brother, and that, I suspected, would be the outcome if Drake retrieved the phylactery.
“She will see the wisdom of recognizing me and my sept if I make it clear to her that I will reward such support with a treasure beyond measure.”
Pál gasped at the implication. I watched Drake worriedly, concerned that he might give in to his brother’s arrogance. To my relief, he squeezed my fingers, reassuring me that he wasn’t going to do anything stupid.
“That is only two of the three votes needed to allow you readmittance,” Drake said slowly.
Kostya drew back, much as a cobra pulls back before striking. “You swore to stand beside me. Do you dishonor that vow?”
“I said I would support your readmittance to the weyr if you did not commit acts of aggression against the silver dragons. Your actions tonight make it clear that our agreement is void.”
Fire lit Kostya’s eyes as he faced his brother—and it wasn’t a friendly little fire. “You will not stand by my side as you did once before?” he asked, his voice harsh with strain.
The room was so silent, I could hear Jim’s stomach rumbling.
“We shall see,” was all Drake said before nodding at Gabriel. István and Pál opened the door, and without another word being spoken, we left the suite.
“You’re the king of exit lines, I’ll give you that,” I said as we waited at the elevator. “But I hope Kostya doesn’t interpret that specimen of exit line superiority as a declaration of war.”
He said nothing, but his beautiful eyes were veiled.
I had a bad feeling that things were not going to be so easily settled. A very bad feeling indeed.
I’m not going to say anything. But I’m going to think it!
26
“…at which point, we left. It was a hell of a line to leave on, but I just don’t know. As much as it pains me to say something negative about a member of Drake’s family who isn’t his mother, I just don’t know what to think of Kostya. Is he going to be content to try to do things on the political level, or is he going to bring about a new war? Is he just an arrogant dragon, or is he bonkers? Will he respect the bounds of brotherhood, or will he try to bring Drake down if the green dragons don’t support him? It’s very worrisome.”