Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

more to clear my vision than to disagree. The white mist in front of my eyes slowly evaporated, the vague figures resolving themselves into familiar people.
    “That was an interesting experience,” Aisling said somewhat bemusedly as she leaned into Drake. “Is that what all your visions are like, Ysolde?”
    “No.” I turned to Baltic, needing to feel his fire, needing his love. I clutched his silk shirt, shaking it in a demand for reassurance. “Do not fail me again ? I failed the First Dragon before? When? What did I do? I don’t even know him! How could I fail him, if I don’t even know him? Is that why I was killed? Because I failed him somehow? Why didn’t anyone tell me I was supposed to do something for him? Glory of god, man, why aren’t you answering me?”
    He gently pried my hands off his shirt, his thumbs stroking over my fingers, squinting at me with an odd look on his face as he did so. “I will answer you if you stop talking long enough to let me do so. What is on your forehead?”
    “Who cares about my forehead!” I wailed, feeling as if the earth had suddenly dropped out from under me. “The First Dragon is pissed at me! I failed him! Dear god, Baltic, he expects much of me. What much? What am I going to do?”
    “It’s the sept emblem,” he said, still staring at my forehead, suddenly looking very pleased. “It is a sun. The First Dragon has marked you.”
    “Is that good?” Aisling asked Drake.
    “Yes,” May said before he could answer, smiling a secretive sort of smile. “To hold his regard is an honor.”
    “Which is interesting, considering that he knew your name,” Drake said to Baltic, looking extremely thoughtful.
    I was still having problems with the idea that I’d somehow failed the First Dragon in the past. “What did he mean, much was expected of me? What sort of things are expected?”
    “I don’t know,” Cyrene said, looking confused. “Should I know?”
    “Yes, how is it the First Dragon knows your name?” Kostya asked Baltic, one eye swollen shut, his nose bleeding, and his lower lip cut.
    Baltic evidently fared better than Kostya had—there was a red lump on his jaw, and a jagged- looking cut over one eye, but his nose didn’t appear to be broken again despite his growls during the fight. He didn’t respond to Kostya, instead watching me, looking very much like a cat who’d gotten into a bowl of cream.
    “This changes things,” May told Gabriel.
    He frowned. “How so?”
    “She can summon the First Dragon. Don’t you see? She’s tied to him. And so, assumedly since the First Dragon recognized him, is Baltic. You can’t war with a sept that has ties to the First Dragon.”
    “Absolutely not,” Aisling agreed. “I don’t know as much about him as May does, since she dealt with him when she re- formed the dragon heart, but what I’ve heard makes me think that summoning him is almost an impossible act.”
    “We’ve just witnessed such an act, so it cannot be impossible,” Dr. Kostich commented from where he was sitting, drinking Baltic’s expensive champagne.
    “No, but Aisling’s right—I talked to Kaawa after I re-formed the heart, and she told me that the only way to summon the First Dragon was to re-form it—and that has only happened a couple of times. Ysolde did it three hundred years ago. I did it two months ago.” May’s gaze shifted to Baltic. “Kaawa didn’t mention other times it has been re-formed.”
    “The dragon heart has only been re-formed four times,” Baltic said, his gaze on my forehead again. I tsk ed to myself and rubbed it, not feeling anything different. “Attempts have been made several times, but it is not an act that is easily accomplished.”
    “There, you see?” Aisling said, prodding her husband. “You have to cancel the war now.”
    Slowly, he shook his head. “This changes nothing.”
    “Agreed. Baltic refuses to acknowledge the weyr’s decision; therefore, he is at war with us,” Kostya said, his eyes as black as deep night.
    “Gabriel?” Drake asked.
    Gabriel and May had been exchanging a glance filled with meaning. “Agreed,” Gabriel said slowly, turning to me. “I’m sorry, Ysolde.”
    “Not as sorry as I am,” I said, my throat tightening with tears.
    “Bastian? Jian?” Drake asked the two silent wyverns.
    “All I seek is retribution for the deaths of my sept members,” Bastian said reluctantly. His gaze examined Baltic for a moment, the hostility which had been banked