The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1 (23 page)

CHAPTER 34

“S
TARGODS, I NEED A DRINK.” King Darville sank onto the lounge beside the queen, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Da does the same thing when troubled,
Glenndon thought.

“I have broken every rule that reason and experience have taught me!” the king’s words drifted toward Glenndon as if from a great distance. They echoed inside his mind as if someone else said the same thing at precisely the same moment and he heard them both. He shook his head to clear it of the echo, to bring him firmly back to this room, this present.

Stargods!
he was tired. And hungry. Should he eat first or sleep before banishing his hunger with solid food?

“’Twas necessary, my love,” the queen said firmly. She might have been reclining on her couch, suggesting a casual interest, but somehow she made the position and the comfortable furniture a commanding throne, her presence requiring the attention of all within her sphere.

“Never before, not since the creation of the Council of Provinces united beside a king, has Coronnan been without . . .” King Darville buried his face in his hands. “More than three hundred years of stable and peaceful government destroyed in one fit of temper.” He looked up at the nearly empty room. “Where’s my cup and the beta arrack?”

“Not now,” the queen said firmly, as if speaking to a toddler about to throw a temper tantrum.

“The Council was formed with the advice and consent of the master magicians,” Glenndon reminded him. His legs were like damp bread from weakness and his hand ached all the way to his shoulder blades and over the top of his head, but a huge constriction seemed to have dissolved from his chest and throat.
How had Linda managed that?

The king and queen looked at him in surprise. Linda just smiled and nodded in acknowledgment. Something amazing had happened during that intense healing spell. Beyond the binding of their blood through their common parent, their minds and souls had linked for one brief blinding moment.

He could speak.

“Coronnan has been without a fully functioning government since the Leaving, limping along, only pretending to do the work of leading the country. You, Father, merely completed the process,” Glenndon continued without effort. The words were just there, ready to spit out whenever he wanted. He wondered, briefly, if his link to Linda meant she provided him with the words upon command, or if she had merely unblocked something in his mind.

“Stargods preserve us,” Old Maisy gasped, throwing her hands in the air. “Your Da will never believe this. A miracle. And all it took . . . well, I don’t know what it took, but took it did and now we have a prince in the family.”

“Not a word of this to anyone, Maisy!” Queen Rossemikka commanded. “Glenndon will inform Jaylor himself, when the time is right.”

“I think the time is now. I need Jaylor here at my side, now more than ever,” the king said. He fixed his gaze upon Glenndon.

Glenndon did not back down. “Is it safe?” he asked instead of the myriad things he wanted to know.

“Probably
S’murghin’
not,” Darville said wryly.

Linda smothered a giggle. She didn’t hear her father curse very often. Glenndon knew that without thinking or surmising or watching her posture.

“If ever there is a time for foul words, it’s now.” Mikka stroked her husband’s back. “We are all family here at the moment.” Her gaze swept the room, including Lady Anya and Old Maisy in the grouping. “We need to make some decisions, quickly, before the lords recover from their shock and come up with some of their own.”

“Without the Council, they could decide to break into factions and begin warring against each other . . . or us,” Darville said. He bounced to his feet and began pacing, hands behind his back, head and shoulders thrust forward. His blond hair, with a few traces of silver at his temples, flew behind him in the wind created by his forceful passage around the room. His queue had dispersed some time ago.

“Father, did you know that the aura of a golden wolf follows you?” Glenndon asked, surprised at his boldness.

“Yes, I do. And you’d best learn to curb your tongue now that you’ve found it. The less the mind-blind nobles know of that the better.” The king did not slow his pacing as he issued his reprimand.

The words cut at Glenndon. He chose not to speak of the stories passed around the hearth on dark and dreary winter evenings. Stories told by his mother and his father of how they met, how they saved a golden wolf from the prison of enscorcellment, how a princess and a cat had exchanged bodies, and then both inhabited the human body. A little brindled cat with fur in many iridescent shades of brown, red, and gold—the colors of autumn, like the queen’s hair, and her daughter’s.

“We have to make plans,” the queen said. She dropped her feet to the floor and sat tall, seemingly recovered from the exhaustion of guiding the spell. “We have to be ready when the Council come to their senses.”

“Glenndon, can you summon Jaylor?” Darville asked. “Linda, while he is doing that, I will need you to write many letters for me. Maisy, I trust no one else to listen in on the lords’ discussions. They will not notice you.”

“Yes, Your Grace. I’ll just take myself off to the servants’ quarters. Best I use the back ways, the bleak and narrow ways that no respectable man knows about but us servants use all the time . . . Now where did I put my pins and that bit of trim Princess Josie wants mended for her hair ribbon? Oh, I’ll find it soon enough. Soon enough.” She wandered into the queen’s bedroom, appearing absentminded, simpleminded, and unremarkable because she was always underfoot.

“I will need a candle flame and a scrying bowl,” Glenndon said through chattering teeth. A chill invaded his bones, he knew not from where. His hands shook as he hugged himself to ward off the sudden ailment.

Linda mimicked him.

“Shock,” Mikka said. She looked sharply at Linda. “Lady Anya, blankets and hot broth for both of them.”

“They should be in bed,” Darville added, suddenly stopping his restless prowl. He stood over Glenndon, placing a firm but comforting hand on his shoulder.

“No.” Glenndon forced himself not to stutter. “I can manage. I just need the flame and the bowl.”

“They both threw a tremendous spell to remove the magic from Glenndon’s wound. They had to join mind and body,” Mikka said. “They need food more than anything. And rest. But I trust no one outside of this room. I’ll not risk them going off to their own rooms alone.”

“Agreed,” Darville said.

“P’pa, M’ma, could we sit on your couch with our feet up on the table?” Linda asked through her own chattering teeth. She reached her uninjured left hand for Glenndon’s. The moment they touched, his shoulders eased and a tiny bit of warmth crept up his arm. This must be what the twins felt like when they had been separated for a while and joined back up again. Neither one complete without the other.

“Stargods, I need a drink.” Jaylor said, standing in the middle of the big room of the family home. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have broken every rule that reason and experience have taught me!” His hands trembled as he scrubbed his face with them. More like burying his face in them so he didn’t have to face Brevelan.

Valeria and Lillian cringed behind him. Lukan had taken himself off up the mountain rather than deal with the aftermath of what he had witnessed. So like Lukan. When he knew that Glenndon would be on the receiving end of anyone’s temper, the younger brother watched gleefully. When he became involved, he disappeared, like a dragon in sunlight, there but not visible.

“A circle that does not involve trust is as broken as . . . as you have unmade it,” Brevelan said quietly. She actually put down the bit of sewing that had occupied her when they all burst into the room. Three yampion pies baked in their covered iron pots beneath coals in the hearth. Jule and Sharl sat at her feet, suddenly quiet, all eyes and ears. Jule’s thumb crept into his mouth as he clung to his mother’s leg.

“Since the time of Nimbulan, the University has always had a Circle of Masters working together for the good of the kingdom,” Jaylor said flatly. The enormity of his actions sent chills coursing through his entire body, making his knees shake as badly as his hands. “Now I have broken the circle.”

“Samlan broke the circle when he allowed his jealousy to come between him and his trust of you. Over the centuries many magicians have removed themselves from the University. Declare him rogue, exile him from Coronnan, and continue without him.” Brevelan resumed her rocking and her sewing, lifting the shirt she mended enough so that Jule could climb into her lap. She continued sewing around him.

“A smaller circle is better than no circle at all. But I’m no longer certain who I can trust.” Jaylor sat on the dirt floor in the place just vacated by Jule. Sharl climbed into his lap. He smoothed her dark auburn curls that nearly matched his own in color and thickness.

The twins sat beside him, nearly joined at the shoulder, and Valeria placed her hand on his knee. The empathic reassurance from his three daughters brought the pressure in his head down to normal levels and pushed his blood through his whole body, warming him and giving him better control of his shudders as well as his thoughts.

He wondered briefly if both or only one of them was a strong empath with healing talents.

“We know who you can trust,” Lillian whispered.

“We watched, as you told us to,” Valeria continued.

“We saw whose auras joined with yours.”

“Who strayed away from you.”

“Who wavered.”

“And who came back to your side of the circle . . .”

“Only after you broke with Samlan.”

Jaylor watched them carefully, concentrating on their eyes, as if he needed to see the truth within them. “I knew I set you two to watch for more reasons than I thought at the time.” He smiled and draped his free hand around both of them. His family. The best part of his life; as essential to him as his magic.

“Lukan, you can join us now,” Mama called.

He poked his head out from the opening into the sleeping loft. So, he hadn’t sought refuge with the dragons after all.

Jaylor wondered if the entire family thought of the lair high up on the mountain face, nearly at the timberline, as the best place to find sanctuary.

“We have decisions to make,” Jaylor said when Lukan perched on a stool, back to the hearth. “I need your observations on each of the masters. We’ll start with Marcus, he stood immediately to my left.”

A thrum of noise, like a cat’s purr but louder and more demanding pulsed within Jaylor’s robes.

“Stargods, who would dare summon me now?” He patted his pockets until he found and withdrew a small circle of glass.

Valeria’s eyes grew large as the image of a candle flame burst into life within the depths of the precious object. “Soon, Val, soon you and Lillian will be advanced enough to be found worthy of a sliver of glass for summoning spells,” he reassured the twins.

“Lillian, Valeria, a bowl of water and a candle. Now,” Mama ordered.

They obeyed without hesitation. The girls had watched him speak to other magicians, journeymen on journey for the most part. Rarely did they get to see someone summon him.

“Glenndon? What’s wrong?” Jaylor demanded as he floated the glass in the water and touched it briefly with the candle. He still held the taper of beeswax rather than setting it across the bowl of water so that the flame reflected in the glass.

Lillian placed her open palm on the side of the bowl. Valeria did the same. Their fingertips touched. Bound together and to the bowl, they should hear Glenndon’s words even if his image was only a blurry outline within the depths of the bowl.

“My father has dismissed the Council of Provinces and closed the court,” Glenndon said. He sounded tired, slurring his words.

Jaylor’s own actions echoed in his memories. He and Darville had always been close. Friends since their early teens. Bound together by magic as well as love. Their lives had taken parallel paths.

Now this?

“Why?” Jaylor demanded. Summoning spells took a lot of energy. Glenndon already looked exhausted, face drawn and pale, dark circles around his eyes, hair in disarray. No time for idle chatter.

He’s speaking!
Valeria told them all.

Real words, not just mind speech,
Lillian added.

Something wonderful!
Brevelan nearly cried with joy.

Something dreadful as well,
Jaylor finished for them.

“Our enemy tried to poison the king in the Council Chamber. Hallowed ground. He imbued a small amount of weak and hasty magic in the cup to cast suspicion on the magicians.” Glenndon breathed heavily.

“And? Why are you so weak? Your spell fades.”

“Acid laced with magic splashed my hand. The queen and her daughter helped remove it.”

“Nasty,” Jaylor spat the word that rested on all of their tongues. The pressure began to rebuild in his head. He had to do something. Now.

What could he do from a distance of eight hundred miles?

“You must come home now, Glenndon. Coronnan City, court, it’s too dangerous,” he said, knowing it was not enough. He had to protect more than just his boy, his family.