Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

unreasonable given the circumstances. What say the other wyverns?”
    “I agree wholeheartedly,” Gabriel said quickly. “Ysolde must have proof. She must be easy in her mind that she is who we know her to be. It would be a gross misinterpretation of the weyr laws to condemn her without her acknowledging her dragon self.”
    “I agree,” Bastian said, a bit to my surprise since it was his sept members who had been killed. I thought if anyone would have wanted to see me condemned, it would be him. But he actually looked relieved, and turned to Kostya. “What do the black dragons say?”
    Kostya pursed his lips as he looked at me.
    “I think she needs to be smacked upside the head,” Cyrene muttered. Kostya shot her a glare, then said, “I am influenced by the memories of what Baltic did to the black dragons because of Ysolde. Long have I sought to see her pay for the pain and suffering she caused us for her treachery with Constantine Norka—”
    “She was a silver dragon,” Gabriel said abruptly. “She agreed to be his mate. That can hardly be said to be treachery!”
    Kostya leaped to his feet, his face red with anger. “Baltic wanted her for his mate!”
    “Then he should never have handed her over to Constantine, saying he didn’t want her!” Gabriel shot back, jumping up as well.
    “Oh, that makes me feel good,” I said softly.
    “That discussion is not pertinent at this time,” Bastian said, pounding on the table with his fist until the two dragons retook their seats. “Kostya, how say you?”
    He sat down with a huff, his arms crossed, his expression black. “I will agree to a temporary stay so long as it’s for a reasonable amount of time.”
    I was taken aback by his agreement. That left one wyvern.
    “Chuan Ren?” Bastian asked her.
    “The red dragons don’t care what happens to the woman,” she answered. “Kill her, or do not kill her, it is of no concern to us. We are only interested in the whereabouts of Baltic.”
    “Why do you care where he is?” May asked.
    Chuan Ren just smiled again. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.
    “We are agreed, then, that Ysolde should have time to . . . what?” Bastian asked, looking puzzled. “How does one find oneself?”
    “My mother says the dragon inside her is waiting to be woken,” Gabriel said. “That is what must be done.”
    “But how do you go about doing that?” Bastian shook his head. “I’ve never before met a dragon who didn’t know he was a dragon, who wasn’t able to be a dragon.”
    “I think I may know of a way to do that,” May said thoughtfully. She sat up a little straighter when she realized all eyes were on her. “There is a house in the country that belongs to Baltic.”
    “It is mine now,” Kostya interrupted. “I have claimed it on behalf of the black dragons.”
    “That’s right, we have,” Cyrene said. “It’s a bit too big as houses go, and needs a lot of redecorating, but it has a nice pond. Kostie says we can dig up the garden to enlarge the pond into a small lake.”
    Kostya gave his mate a thin- lipped look that she ignored.
    “When I bore the dragon shard, it caused me to react quite strongly to the house.” May’s gaze turned to me. “It actually had me feeling things that I believe you felt while you bore the shard.”
    “I bore a shard?” I asked, refusing to cope with one more bizarre thing. “A shard of what?”
    “A dragon shard, one of the five pieces of the dragon heart.”
    I closed my eyes for a minute. “Is the dragon heart something that’s going to make me completely lose the tiny shred of sanity I’m holding on to? Because I have to tell you, if it is, I think I’d rather just not know about it.”
    May laughed. “It’s not that bad, honest.”
    “The dragon heart is made up of five shards. Each of the wyverns here possesses a shard,” Gabriel told me. “For a while, May bore the same shard that you bore. Just as she did, you successfully re- formed the dragon heart—imbued with the power of the First Dragon—and allowed it to reshatter into five pieces.”
    “That sounds very clever of May and me, and I’m thrilled to bits to hear it despite the fact that I don’t have the slightest idea of the significance of any of that, but so long as it has no bearing on whether or not there is a dragon curled up inside me, I’m willing to move on.”
    “Brava,” Aisling said, applauding until her husband scowled at her.
    “I take it you think that if I were to go