The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

also out of place.
    “I said, release the princess, foreigner.” The last word became an insult as the prince reached for the dagger at his hip.
    “Foreigner!”
    “Stranger?”
    The crowd’s whisperings surged louder, angrier, yet still they held back, as if barricaded from the focus of the action.
    “Do not interfere!” the old woman warned as she tried to elbow Darville aside. “By her own wish, the girl belongs to me!”
    Rosie continued to search the eyes of the old woman for help. The punishments Janataea meted out were nothing compared to the fate she knew awaited her at Darville’s hands. Drowning in the river! Almost any fate was preferable to that.
    “Do you know who I am?” Darville glared at the individuals in the crowd who dared defy him.
    “Doesn’t make much difference, unless you’re a priest,” the barkeep with his cudgel remarked. “The girl’s pledged to a convent. Said so herself. That means no man takes her away from this island. She goes alone, or she goes with a priest.” He slapped the end of his club into his upraised palm in a menacing rhythm, as if testing its weight.
    “She is betrothed to me unless she has managed to find a priest and make other vows since sunrise.” Darville looked as if he hated making explanations.
    “I never agreed to the betrothal,” Rosie spoke to the barkeep. He seemed to be the only one truly listening to her. “My uncle signed all the papers without even asking me. Darville, here, insists. . . .”
    “Darville!” The crowd gasped, inching forward to see their prince closer, or tear him limb from limb. Rosie couldn’t be sure which.
    “And I will take her back to Rossemeyer.” Square-beard, suddenly sober, reasserted his grip on Rosie’s arm. She tried to yank it back, ignoring the increased pressure on her muscles and bones. “I have been sent by the royal government to retrieve the princess.”
    “Not unless you aim to get to Rossemeyer by way of King Simeon’s court in SeLenicca.” A dark-eyed youth stood behind the drunk. He held a long staff across the alley retreat.
    More protests from the crowd.
    “Enough!” Darville shouted over the noise. “The princess will return to Palace Isle with me. We will sort out this mess there.”
    “No. I’d rather face King Simeon’s magicians than marry you.” Rosie knew the crowd was on her side. She tried to squeeze closer to the barkeep for protection. But the small woman with the basket stood in her way.
    “Just be quiet, Princess Rossemikka. For once in your life, keep your likes and dislikes to yourself, or, so help me, I will drown you in the river myself!” Darville glared at her.
    Rosie had no doubt he meant every word of it.
     
    Outside the mental armor Brevelan had thrown around herself and Mica, the emotions of the market crowd pressed with increasing urgency. Mica paced the edge of the wide barrier yowling her displeasure.
    I must protect her. He must not contaminate her, Mica told Brevelan. The cat’s anxious pacing also spoke of her need to break through and claw at the eyes of the man who held Princess Rossemikka with such volatile possessiveness.
    Brevelan edged closer to Darville in case she had to extend her armor to protect him. She didn’t know how she would help the girl while keeping Mica away from square-beard.
    A wall of impenetrable magic stopped her in her tracks. Eyes wide with alarm, she searched the crowd with every sense available to her for the source of the spell.
    No one. Nowhere could she smell magic. Again and again she searched for this new threat. Then she counted the people around her with her own special empathy.
    The Rover woman was missing. Was she truly missing, or just so heavily armored that no one could see her?
    Brevelan searched again with that knowledge. There was a hole in the crowd that her senses slid around or over, but never through. She refocused her eyes. The hole began to shimmer with shifting light and undulating magic. Mica stalked from Brevelan’s side into that other armor, and back again.
    The Rover woman must be there. But why would her armor admit Mica, a cat with potentially dangerous emotions running rampant?
    Garlic, tons of it, comprised the main ingredient in the magic of armor.
    Brevelan edged around the wall of magic and found herself on the other side of Darville. Stargods! The Rover was throwing her armor around Rosie and the knot of verbal combatants, as well as herself.
    “Meww?” Mica questioned