Katie MacAlister: The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

“I haven’t had time, what with moving every couple of weeks. Speaking of which, I hope you don’t find anything wrong with the security of this house, because I don’t plan on moving again for a long time.”

“You are changing the subject,” he said, his sleek ebony eyebrows pulling together. “You swore to me that you would practice taming your fire. You have not done so.”

“I’ve been busy, as I just said.” I pinched his arm, just to let him know I didn’t appreciate either the frown or the arrogant, bossy tone of his voice. “Besides, we have your fire. That’s enough for me.”

“The fact remains that you promised me you would do something, but have not.”

I glanced up at him, suddenly curious about an unfamiliar note in his voice. “Why are you making such a big deal about this?”

His face was hard and closed, but there was a devilish light of enjoyment in his eyes that he couldn’t disguise, much though he tried. “You must be punished, mate.”

“Punished! Are you out of your ever-livin’ . . . wa-a-a-ait a minute. What sort of punished? Punished as in you’re going to go all Drake on me and tell me what to do all the time, which will only serve to piss me off, or punished as in something naughty we used to do three hundred years ago, but which I’ve forgotten?”

One corner of his mouth twitched, his eyes downright wicked now. “Perhaps a little of both.”

I squirmed against him, the unspoken intent in his eyes making me shiver with anticipation. “Well . . . Brom is going to be gone for three days. I suppose I could put up with a little dominance in order to explore our past relationship. Who knows? It might help me find the dragon inside me. Hmm?”

“There’s going to be a dragon inside you—that I promise,” he answered, flames licking up my body as he leaned forward, about to kiss me again.

A voice interrupted us. “Phone for you, Ysolde.”

I sighed into Baltic’s mouth and turned to accept the phone that Pavel, Baltic’s guard and oldest friend, held out to me. His face was unreadable, but amusement danced in his dark eyes. “I wouldn’t have interrupted you, but it is the silver shaman. She says it is important.”

“Kaawa?” I asked, taking the phone. “I wonder what she wants. Hello, Kaawa? How are you? Is everything all right?”

“Mate!” Baltic demanded.

“One moment please. Baltic has to vent his spleen, and I’ve found if I don’t let him do it, he gets more unreasonable than usual,” I told her before she could answer my questions.

“I am not unreasonable. I am never unreasonable, as can be seen by the fact that I am allowing my son to leave my protection. Must I remind you that you agreed, when you begged me to permit Brom’s visit, that you would have no other interaction with the silver sept?” Baltic asked, frowning fiercely.

“Yes, but this is just Kaawa. She’s not really a dragon.”

“She is the mother to the silver wyvern. What I do not understand is why you would be happy to have Brom visit Gabriel, when it was he, along with the other wyverns, who accused me of killing blue dragons and named you ouroboros.”

A little pang spiked into my heart. Even though I didn’t remember anything about my past as a dragon other than what the visions had shown me, the moment when both Gabriel and Kostya formally severed my ties with their respective septs was painfully strong in my memory.

“I’m going to talk to her, Baltic. She’s a nice woman, she’s learned in dragon lore, and she wants to help me resolve the issue with my inner dragon. And before you say it, I know you’re learned in dragon lore, too, but you haven’t been able to help me deal with this whole ‘I used to be a dragon’ thing, and Kaawa has. Kind of. Oh, and speaking of that, I have something I want to ask you about the past, but that can wait until I’m done with this call.”

He looked for a minute like he was going to argue the point, but a quick glance at my forehead had him muttering under his breath instead as he turned and stomped off, Pavel following in his wake.

“I’m so sorry about that, Kaawa. You know how Baltic is.”

She chuckled in my ear, her voice, thick with an Australian accent, warming me even though we were continents apart. “Not really, but from what Gabriel has told me, you have your hands full. How are you, child?”

“We’re fine. Brom is about to visit Gabriel and May for the weekend, as a matter of fact. It’s very kind of them to invite him for a stay, considering the war and all.”

“Pfft. That is more of a formality than anything, don’t you think?”

“Well, that’s what Aisling and May say, but Baltic takes it very seriously. He’s busy with plans to free his friend Thala from wherever it is Drake has her stashed. I probably shouldn’t have told you that, but I figured not only would you not carry tales to Gabriel, but the wyverns probably already know that Baltic wants Thala back.”

She was silent for a moment. “I would not carry tales, no, but I will tell Gabriel anything that I feel endangers him or his wintiki.”

“I would expect that. I can assure you that despite the animosities all around, I wouldn’t condone a plan to harm any dragon, let alone people I like.”

The smile came back into her voice. “You did not tell me how you were feeling.”

I thought about the strange vision. “I’m fine as well.”

“One of my dreamings spoke of you. You have a great confusion inside you, child, and it is growing if it can reach to my dreaming.”

“It’s growing?” A little shiver skittered down my back. “I don’t know what to say to that other than it makes me feel more than a little freaked out. What confusion? The dragon, you mean?”

“That is part of it, yes.” Her voice, normally so warm and soothing, went a little rough. “I do not know. . . . I am not sure, but I believe that something has changed. What would that be?”

If anyone else had been so nosy, I would have had a thing or two to say to them, but Kaawa had tried for the last few months to help me discover why the dragon I used to be was buried so deep inside me that it manifested itself only with visions of my past.

“As a matter of fact, something did happen a short while ago. I had another vision.”

“That is significant, but not such that it should affect my dreaming,” she said slowly.

“This wasn’t a vision of things that happened in the past, Kaawa. Or rather, it probably was, but it didn’t concern me. It happened before I was even born.”

“Tell me,” she urged, and I sat back down on the stone bench made warm by the sun and leaned against the side of the house, the drone of bees as they bustled about a nearby hydrangea bush providing a lazy, sonorous background as I described what I had witnessed.

“I don’t know why my inner dragon would want me to see that—what does it care about Constantine before he had anything to do with me?—but I assume the significance must have something to do with the First Dragon having Baltic kicked out of the sept. Or do you think it was Antonia? She used to be his girlfriend, you know. Or maybe it was Constantine himself? It’s so confusing! It’s enough to drive me insane.”

“You’re not insane,” she said slowly, obviously thinking it over. “But I do not think it was the dragon within you who gave you that vision, child. The events that happened were beyond its scope.”

“No? What did, then?”

“You are marked by the First Dragon. He is the only one who could have the ability to allow you to see things beyond your knowledge, and I can well believe that such an act would disturb my dreaming.”

I rubbed the spot on my forehead where the First Dragon, the father of all dragonkin who ever were, or ever would be, had touched me. It had left a mark that was identical to the sept emblem that Baltic and I bore, that of an etched sun, but over the last few months, the mark on my forehead had faded until it disappeared entirely. “I’m sorry to be so ignorant about this, but I thought your dreaming was a representation of your faith, tied in to the land and animals. How could the First Dragon have an impact on that?”