Light Dragons 02 - The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

in touch with dragons. “Yes, he does, but we’re not part of the weyr.”
    “Well, it’s all the same thing, really, isn’t it?” She made a little gesture of dismissal. “You can’t pick your family, but you can your friends—that’s how I look at it. So I just make sure I pick good friends.”
    “Other dragons, you mean?”
    She slid me another curious look. “I’m ouroboros, as you just pointed out. Red dragons won’t have anything to do with me.”
    “But other ouroboros dragons would,” I said with a complacence that I was far from feeling.
    She stopped, eyeing me with a slight tinge of hostility. “I get the feeling you’re skating around a subject that you don’t want to come right out and say. What exactly is that, Ysolde?”
    “I understand what it is to feel ostracized, and lost to everyone you love.” I chose my words with care. “I know how easy it is to be overwhelmed with the isolation, and how much it means when at last you find someone or a group of people to whom you feel you belong. I also know what it’s like to be in over your head, drowning with no sign of a life preserver in sight. I just want you to know that you’re not alone, Maura.”
    She stood unmoving, her gaze searching mine, and then she suddenly made an exclamation of irritation. “It’s Emile, isn’t it?”
    “Emile?”
    “My grandfather.” She made another abrupt gesture, before hoisting her backpack higher on her shoulder and stepping out with a firm set to her jaw. “He’s been pestering me for the last decade to settle down, as he calls it, and now he’s obviously gotten you involved somehow. I can’t believe he’d do this! Why can’t he understand that I’m not going to live the life he wants me to live? I’m my own person, not an extension of him!”
    I hurried to keep up with her, simultaneously alarmed and relieved that I didn’t have to couch my questions in obscurity any longer. “I’m sorry if you feel it’s overly invasive, but your mother and grandfather are very worried about you.”
    “Is that why you brought me out here?” she asked, whirling around to face me, a scowl darkening her countenance. “You tricked me to come here just so you could try to talk me into going back home?”
    “No, not at all.” I avoided the unpleasant thought that I had, in fact, done something very much like that. “I really do want Constantine’s spirit raised. I need to talk to him about something of great importance.”
    She examined my face for a moment, then nodded abruptly. “All right. But the subject of my personal life is no longer open for discussion.”
    I watched for a moment as she strode off into the woods, musing that I wasn’t so naïve as to be fooled by an obvious attempt at distraction, but feeling it would be best to let matters lie until after she’d raised Constantine’s spirit.
    As we wended our way along the serpentine paths, I glanced at my watch, praying that Baltic would need the full two hours to get into the lair. “How long will the summoning take?”
    “Depends on the spirit. Some are right there, ready to be summoned; others take a bit of coaxing. Let’s say an hour, to be generous.”
    “Ah.” I pulled out my cell phone. “I’ll be just a second—I need to let . . . er . . . Thala know I’ll be a little late.”
    Maura said nothing, just continued in the direction I indicated, making her way around the large ferns and dripping trees that isolated us from the game trail we’d followed. I walked slowly after her, allowing a bit of distance to grow between us.
    “Yes?” Baltic’s voice was clipped as he answered my call.
    “Hi, it’s me. How’s the opening of the lair going?”
    “I assume it’s well. I am currently watching Kostya’s men be cut down by silver dragons.”
    I stopped and frowned at an innocent baby linden tree. “That’s a little gruesome, don’t you think?”
    “Not at all. I wish to see what it is that Constantine did to bring down Dauva, so I am remaining here, where the silver dragons are fighting Kostya’s force. Thala will alert me when the lair is opened. Where are you? You said you wished to see what remains of Dauva and the lair.”
    “I know I did, and I do want to see it, but there’s a little bit of business that I have to take care of first,” I said softly. Maura showed no signs of listening to my side of the conversation, but I knew dragons had exceptionally good hearing.
    “What business? That