Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

is,” Cyrene said, not even looking at the two combatants.
    “Well?” I asked Gabriel, who appeared very uncomfortable.
    “She’s got a point, you know,” Aisling said. “You were working with Fiat then.”
    “I was trying to stop him from doing worse than he did!”
    “My point is merely that it’s possible that Baltic could have helped Fiat obtain one goal, but wasn’t wholly in accord with his plans. Which is what he did.”
    “It comes down to proof,” Drake said slowly. “You have none that he is innocent of the crimes, and we have witnesses that say he was with Fiat in France during the time of the killings.”
    I looked at them all sitting around the table, so frustrated with everything that I could scream. How could they not see that Baltic was innocent? How could they believe he could ruthlessly kill so many dragons? “Let me ask you this, Drake: have you ever known Baltic to kill dragons in cold blood?”
    “He has killed many dragons, of all septs,” Drake said, avoiding the question.
    “This is a waste of time,” I said, disgusted. I knew then that we would never get the wyverns to understand that Baltic was innocent.
    “I am afraid continued arguments would be fruitless, yes,” Drake said.
    I looked down at my hands for a few moments, my fingers clasped so tightly together that they were white. “Baltic will not allow himself to be martyred, nor will I.”
    “You leave us no options,” Gabriel warned.
    “You must understand that if Baltic refuses to answer for the charges laid against him, there will exist between us a state of war,” Drake said.
    “No,” Aisling said, her face pinched. “Not another war?”
    War. The word reverberated in my heart, tearing off little pieces of it. War again. With war came death and destruction, and suffering that would know no end.
    “Not again,” I whispered.
    “What war?” Cyrene asked, looking confused.
    I wanted to explode into a million pieces and drift away on the wind. I wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. I wanted to hide in Baltic’s lovely house that made my soul sing, and never leave it.
    I wanted Baltic.
    “The war between Baltic’s sept and the weyr,” May said sadly.
    “They’ve declared war?”
    “You’ve declared it on us,” I answered.
    “You do not have to tread this path,” Drake said, his eyes dark.
    “You won’t allow us to do otherwise.”
    “A war is not to be undertaken lightly,” he said, taking Aisling’s hand. “It affects everyone in the sept. Those who are at war are considered viable targets for attack.”
    A cold chill swept over me, piercing me with fear greater than any I had ever known. “Brom,” I whispered, a horrible vision in my head of him being used as a hostage. Or worse.
    “We do not attack children,” Drake said stiffly, ire flashing in his eyes. “Mates, however, are a different matter.”
    “Nothing has changed,” I said softly, despair filling me at the knowledge of what lay ahead. “There was a war then, just as there will be now. There was death and pride and the refusal to admit a lost cause then, and it’s all being repeated. I know how it will end, and I will not allow that, not again.”
    “There has to be something we can do,” Aisling said to Drake.
    He shook his head.
    I looked up, tears bright in my eyes as I stepped first on the chair, then onto the center of the table. “I won’t have it!” I shouted, opening my arms up wide. “If you won’t end this now, then I will!”
    “What’s she doing?” Cyrene asked as Drake leaped to his feet, grabbing Aisling and pulling her back away from the table.
    I closed my eyes, allowing Baltic’s fire to swell within me, growing in intensity, building the familiar sensation of pressure as I summoned the words that would send them all far away from me.
    “Kostya?” Cyrene said worriedly as she started to back away from the table.
    “Run, little bird,” Gabriel told May as he hauled her to her feet, giving her a shove toward the house.
    “What’s going on?” Aisling asked as Drake, having difficulty in making her follow him, bent down and scooped her up. “Drake! What do you think you’re doing?”
    The air around me rippled, gathering in a circle with me at its center, the power swelling inside me as I shaped it, visualizing the only possibility left to me. “Taken with sorrow,” I cried, allowing the fire to consume every iota of my being as I used it to cast my spell.
    “I thought she was under