The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

long enough to grab Baamin’s sleeves in eager anticipation. He didn’t dare think about Brevelan.
    “Better than that, Your Grace. They are here, and Jaylor has his magic back, with a few complications.” Baamin nodded and grinned as Darville slapped his back in eager camaraderie.
    Moments later they were in the master’s suite at the end of the long hallway. Heavily carved furniture and thickly padded upholstery lent the room an air of decadent luxury, a legacy of the last inhabitant, not of Brevelan’s simpler tastes. Rich tapestries kept out the drafts and damp of thick stone walls, while bright rugs cushioned Darville’s step.
    Brevelan knelt by the cheerful green fire crackling in the fireplace. Darville remembered the song of blending that touched her lips as she stirred a concoction on the hearth. Through a half opened doorway, he glimpsed a rumpled bed.
    The entire scene was too reminiscent of the last time Darville had shared a room with Jaylor and Brevelan. It had been in the guest hall of the remote monastery, a day’s journey from Castle Krej.
    Brevelan’s poignant song of love that had brought Jaylor back from the dead still rang in Darville’s ears. She would never sing like that for him. But she might sing as beautiful a song of magic that would restore the true Rossemikka to him forever.
    “Darville!” Brevelan jumped up from her place by the fire. She ran the few steps to the doorway and flung her arms about him in joyous reunion. “I daren’t call you ‘Puppy’ anymore. You are much too well groomed to ever be mistaken for my pet wolf.” She reached to ruffle his hair behind his ears, as she was wont to when he was truly a wolf.
    “If only you knew how many people want to consign that role to me permanently,” he groaned and laughed in the same breath. He reached out to hold her tight, stroke her hair, indulge in the sensuous scent of herbs that clung to her. But she didn’t fit against his body as snugly as she had when they had parted last spring. A quivering movement in her belly reminded him that she carried another man’s child.
    “You look well,” he said matter-of-factly, holding her at arm’s length. Her eyes clouded in puzzlement.
    “Merow!” Mica chirped from his shoulder. The cat scrambled to launch herself across the gap to Brevelan’s arms, claws digging into Darville’s shoulder through the padding.
    “Mica, my sweet,” Brevelan cooed as she caught the cat in mid-leap. “Oh, how I have missed you.”
    “Mi-i-oow.” Mica had missed Brevelan as well.
    “Where is Jaylor?” Darville took a step back from the loving caresses shared by the two women he loved.
    “In the library, with books piled eight-deep all around him.” Brevelan raised pain-filled eyes to him. “He is greatly troubled.” Like the last night Jaylor had spent in a library of magic and learned that in order to free Shayla he would have to risk his life and his soul.
    “Is he devising a new plan to save Coronnan?” Darville started toward the wide windows that overlooked a courtyard. The library was across the way, four stories high with more books on more subjects than any known library in the world. Some of those books were rumored to have been left by the Stargods. If the answer to Jaylor’s problem lay in a book, that book was in the University library.
    Darville decided to hasten over there to greet his oldest friend. Perhaps if he put some distance between himself and Brevelan, he’d feel less uncomfortable. Somehow he felt guilty for having betrayed his love for Brevelan by sleeping with Mikka last night. At the same time, he knew remorse for betraying Mikka by still being in love with Brevelan.
    “Jaylor acted as a staff for Krej during a major spell.” Baamin spoke in awed tones. “His magic is strong, but it splits into two faces, good and evil.”
    “With Krej!” Darville whirled to face Baamin, accusations and denunciations halfway to his lips before he saw Brevelan’s pain-filled face.
    “ ’Twas the only way to save my life, Darville,” she reprimanded. “My bond with Shayla was never totally broken, just hidden. The night her babies were born I went into premature labor. My father was the only person who could sever the bond.”
    “Couldn’t Jaylor, or that apprentice boy, what’s his name?” Darville asked, still not willing to accept Krej as Brevelan’s savior.
    “Jaylor tried, and his heart failed. Yaakke has no royal blood to connect him to Shayla.