The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

the help, but concerned that gardening was Jaylor’s only exercise, mental or physical. Perhaps if he started throwing a few small spells, his heart would completely heal and his magic would return in full.
    He had been such a big and vital man last spring. Now he seemed almost shrunken, weak of will as well as of body. There was a time when she had feared him, and wished him reduced in size and dominance. Watching his feeble attempts to regain his health tore at her heart.
    She wasn’t sure he was quite as helpless as he seemed. Daily, his aura increased in vitality and size. Perhaps he had heard his child’s silent questing for her last night and reached out with his mind and his magic to soothe the baby.
    A warm spot in her heart began to glow. If Jaylor was reaching out to the baby, then his path to healing had just become easier. More than that, she wanted the bond between father and son to be strong, even before birth.
    “Coming, love.” She closed her eyes and shifted the clearing around her so she emerged from the wooded boundary right beside her husband. “Now what is it you need so desperately?” She smiled at him with new contentment.
    Jaylor looked startled to see her so close. He hid his face as he bent to apply his shovel to a good-sized tuber plant.
    “Should I dig all of these roots now and place them in storage, or just enough for today?”
    “Don’t hide from my magic, Jaylor.” Brevelan reached a hand to lift his chin. He jerked away, as if afraid to look in her eyes. “ ’Twas you who taught me not to fear magic. ’Twas you who gave me the freedom of mind to use my magic as it was intended to be used. To protect me and mine.”
    “I can’t . . . you wouldn’t understand.” Lately, most of their conversations ended this way.
    “You forget what I am, Jaylor. Your pain is my pain, your loss is mine. I know what you feel as no one else can. And so does our son.”
    Finally he raised his head to look at her. “You’ve given me more than any man had a right to ask of you. Without you I’d be dead now. Sometimes I almost wish you had let me die. I’m not fully a man without my magic.”
    “You are my husband, the father of my child. Isn’t that enough?”
    “I haven’t been much of a husband since the wedding—for which I was barely conscious, if I remember it at all. And don’t forget the possibility that I am not the child’s father. There were three of us in that bed when I awoke from the Tambootie overdose.”
    “It matters not whose seed started this baby. You will be his father. You will shape his life and teach him to be a man.”
    “How, when I’m not truly a man?”
    “Aren’t you?” A glint of mischief sparkled through Brevelan. “Yaakke has gone to the village. He won’t be back for hours. We are alone, as we haven’t been alone since you . . . since you took ill.” She reached for his hand and kissed his palm. The child within her didn’t stir in recognition of the contact.
    She pressed the shaking hand next to her cheek. Something tight within her unfolded. Just this brief touch flooded her being with light and joy. She stepped closer to feel the warmth of his body. He smelled of sunshine, of rich loam, and clean sweat from hard, honest work.
    Jaylor didn’t draw away. “There was a time I could read your thoughts without trying,” he said wistfully.
    “You are reading them now.” His hand had turned to cup her face with tenderness. Her tongue darted out to touch his palm intimately. “Come back to the hut.”
    “No. I’ve spent too much time in that bed these last five moons. I want you out here in the fresh air, with the scent of newly turned soil and everblue sap on the breeze, with the warmth of the sun on our bare backs.”
    “There’s a lovely bed of moss and a shelter of calubra ferns down by the bathing pool.”
    He dropped the shovel and followed her.
     
    A weapon. I have a weapon to keep my rival in his proper place within the eight-pointed star. The meek little princess brings a dowry of ten thousand troops. They won’t allow my rival any temporal power. He will resist and drain himself of magic in the process.
    Maman’s death was premature. We had no time to plan for her passing. She named no successor.
    Didn’t she know we would fight to move into her place? Yes, she knew. She made certain we would fight. Only the strongest will succeed. That is what she intended, for the strongest to become the focus.
    I am the strongest.