Light Dragons 02 - The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

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?”
    “I have two dreamings—the wintiki, or night bird, and light. It is the latter that was disturbed. I have long suspected that the First Dragon’s songline was located in Australia, although I have yet to prove it.”
    “A songline is . . . ?”
    She laughed. “I did not call to give you a lecture in Aboriginal history, Ysolde. It would take much time to explain it all, but for now I will simply say that a songline is the dreaming and trail created by spirit