The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

healing touch.
    “Yes, Your Grace, I’m listening.” She had to remember now to address him as her prince and not her friend or her puppy.
    “These men,” he pointed to the richly dressed one who carried Mica and his equally resplendent companion, “have offered an alliance. They want me to marry their princess.”
    Her heart felt stabbed. Darville marry? It would be the end of their companionship, the end of the love that had sustained them through so many weeks of hardship. She clutched Jaylor’s cold hand along with Darville’s, reforging the bond.
    “I told them I cannot. My heart is already committed to you.”
    She sagged with relief. Still she clung to them both, as she had since Jaylor had invaded her clearing.
    “The Council is divided. To reunite them I think it wise for me to marry Lord Krej’s oldest daughter.” He didn’t give her time to feel pain over that. “Though born out of wedlock, you are Krej’s daughter. Royal blood runs strong through you. You have spoken with dragons, that is proof of your birth.”
    Jaylor’s hand twitched in hers. His eyes opened and he stared directly into her soul. Mica hissed and leaped from the ambassador’s arms and into her lap. Her purr spoke volumes.
    Brevelan’s decision was made. “I could never be your princess, Darville.” A tremendous ache surround her heart. Though she loved him, they could not be together. “I can never live in a city, can never preside over a table filled with meat. The numbers of people your princess would need to see everyday would cripple me with their uncontrolled emotions.”
    She sought his eyes for understanding. He, too, was filled with the pain of the separation that must come. “I love you dearly, but Jaylor needs me, and I love him, too. You need someone stronger, better educated, lovelier than I.”
    “But it is you I love. You are more than just my princess, Brevelan. I need you, as much or more now than I did when you rescued a wounded wolf from a killer storm. Coronnan needs your sensitivity and compassion. Only you can guide me as I rule them,” Darville argued.
    “You need a woman bred to politics, educated and sophisticated, who can share your life in the capital. I cannot. Now if Master Baamin will order a litter, I will return to the monastery with Jaylor. He needs me.” But I love you. I love you both.
    “Jaylor, did you give the dragon the vial of medicine before she was enchanted?” Baamin asked urgently from directly behind Darville. There was no answer, only a few labored breaths.
    Almost reverently the old magician removed his own blue cloak with white stars on the collar and spread it over Jaylor.
    Brevelan continued to hold Darville’s gaze with the love they no longer had the right to express.
    “Master, is everything gonna be all right now that the dragons’re gone?” A filthy boy tugged at Baamin’s robes in anxious query.
    Brevelan watched the urchin rather than be tempted by Darville’s pleas.
    “Yes, Yaakke. We will work to make everything right. We know our enemy; we can find a way to defeat him.”
    “What about him?” He pointed a grubby hand toward Jaylor. “Will he be all right, master?”
    Brevelan longed to take the child and dunk him into the nearest bathing pool. But she didn’t have the time or energy to spare. Jaylor continued to breathe by force of her will alone.
    “The best healers in Coronnan will be summoned to make sure Jaylor gets well,” Baamin reassured the boy. “But he has wielded a great deal of power this night at tremendous cost to himself. He needs time to rest and solitude to meditate.”
    “No other healers will be necessary, Master Baamin.” Brevelan stood to face the senior magician and the gathered assembly. “As soon as we are both rested, I will take Jaylor back to the clearing. The clearing Nimbulan created to protect Myrilandel and their children and generations of dragon guardians who followed them. Jaylor and I must be there when the dragons come home.”

Epilogue
     
    T hey think they have defeated me. I still have a few surprises up my sleeve. They shall not deprive me of my treasures or of the power. The Tambootie has made me one with Simurgh. We will not be denied.
    It will take a little time and much planning, but the fools will learn. Somewhere there is an antidote to witchbane. Perhaps I shall take a little retreat and find the answer in an ancient book dedicated to Simurgh. A book whose pages are pressed from the