Light Dragons 02 - The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

him before, and your suggestion about having dragons around, and discounting things like stress and unhappiness with the weyr being collective asses, I decided the difference must be you.”
    “Why me?” she asked, looking startled at the idea.
    “You have a tie to the First Dragon.”
    “Yes, but so do you.”
    “Exactly. We both have a relationship with the First Dragon, and perhaps your presence is needed in order to make a connection with him. Are you willing to give it a try?”
    “Right now?”
    “If you have the time, yes.”
    She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “All right, but we should probably be as fast as possible. Your wyvern isn’t the most . . . er . . . conversational of all the dragons I’ve met.”
    “That’s the understatement of the year,” I said, standing up and shaking out my hands while mentally clearing my mind.
    “What should I do?”
    “Just stand near me, as you were during the sárkány ,” I said, my eyes closed as I concentrated. “Maybe have a mental image of the First Dragon.”
    “Ready,” she said.
    I took a deep breath, pulling hard on Baltic’s fire as I spoke the words. “Light exists within me, darkness I left behind, on my left hand sits that which was made, on my right sits that which has passed. Bring forth your grace that we might—by the rood! That was quick. Er . . . hello.”
    Before the last of my invocation had been spoken, the air in front of us began to collect itself in a shimmery sort of swirl that quickly solidified into the form of a man who despite his human appearance was quite obviously not human.
    “Daughter of light,” he said, a slightly puzzled look in his fathomless eyes. He glanced at May, who stared at him with delight beaming from her face. “Daughter of shadows,” he said, acknowledging her. “Why have you summoned me?”
    May slid a look toward me.
    “I’m the one who summoned you.” I squirmed a little under the regard of his eyes, his gaze seeming to strip me to the deepest parts of my soul. “I had some questions about what you said to me the last time we . . . er . . . met.”
    He waited, saying nothing, just looking at me with those uncanny eyes. “You said I had let you down before, and to not do it again. I’m sorry if I’m unusually dense, but I don’t understand what it is you want me to do. If you could just tell me, I’d be really grateful.”
    His eyes closed and he turned as if he was leaving, but the world seemed to slip away at that moment, the walls and furniture and the house itself seemingly melting into a white nothingness.
    A cold white nothingness.
    “May?” I asked, rubbing my arms as a blast of arctic wind knocked me back a few feet.
    “Right here. It’s another vision, isn’t it? Like the one you had at the sárkány ?”
    “Yes. I think . . . yes, up there. That’s me.”
    “Isn’t this when the First Dragon resurrected you?” May asked, shivering next to me as we watched the past version of myself trundling down a hill suddenly stop and turn to look upward.
    “I think so. I certainly don’t look terribly with it, do I?”
    “Well, I imagine being resurrected would take a lot out of you,” she pointed out.
    “What is it you wish of me?” the past me asked, and May and I turned to look in the direction she was calling.
    The whirl of wind and snow lessened for a few seconds, revealing the figures of two men.
    “Death of the innocent has stripped honor from my youngest son,” one of the men said. “You must return it to him.”
    The past Ysolde stared at him dully for a few seconds before simply turning and continuing on her way down the snowy slope. May and I gaped at the First Dragon and the man beside him until a blast of wind and icy snow had us reeling backward.
    I covered my face against the sting of it, wiping away tears triggered by the cold. When I looked up, May and I were standing in her library. I was somewhat heartened to see she had an expression of incredulity on her face, since I knew I was beyond flabbergasted.
    “That was . . . that was Constantine, wasn’t it?” she finally asked me.
    I nodded. “I did hear the First Dragon right, didn’t I? He said his youngest son?”
    “Yes.” She blinked a couple of times and shook her head as if to clear away mental fog. “Constantine Norka was the First Dragon’s youngest son? I didn’t know he had real children, since he calls other dragons by the names son and daughter.” She looked up at me with