The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

Her eyes narrowed malevolently, but she said nothing.
    “You are accused of the crime of witchcraft. We have witnessed evidence of your attempts to manipulate my betrothed.” Darville lifted his voice so that all could hear while he kept a proprietary arm around Mikka’s waist. “How do you plead against this accusation?”
    Silence. Janataea returned his unblinking stare.
    “Can’t you offer any defense, Mistress Janataea?” KevinRosse tried to intervene on her behalf.
    Silence. The accused stood rigid and controlled behind magic walls.
    “By our laws, you will be treated with witchbane until a formal trial can be summoned,” Darville pronounced. He turned his back on the woman. He had more important things to arrange tonight.
    “Nooooo!” Janataea wailed. “You can’t poison me without trial. I’ll die if you force witchbane on me.”
     
    These stupid mundanes don’t know that my rival has already found and used an antidote. I’ll have it from him within minutes of their puny little dosage. Then they will know the full wrath of the coven.

Chapter 25
     
    J aylor pushed aside his lingering fatigue with a moderate replenishing spell, his fourth in as many hours. He couldn’t keep this up for much longer. But he was needed in more than one place tonight. As husband, magician, teacher, adviser, and friend.
    Very soon he must check on Baamin and Yaakke in another suite in the master’s wing. Two hours ago the old magician had been weak, but stable. The heart attack that felled him was so massive it should have killed the old magician. Miraculously, he still breathed. A grief-stricken Yaakke refused to leave his side.
    Good. Jaylor didn’t need to worry about the boy’s unpredictable activities if he were loose and roaming the palace and University tonight.
    News of Jaylor’s designation as Baamin’s heir to both University and Commune had spread throughout the capital already. So far, Jaylor had kept the courtiers, servants, and sycophants at bay.
    Darville needed Jaylor to stand at his side for the wedding ceremony within the hour. Pride and joy filled Jaylor at the prospect of seeing his friend married to a woman he loved as deeply as Jaylor loved Brevelan.
    He took a moment to focus his priorities on the tiny scrap of humanity Erda had just placed into his arms. So small, so very small. Barely the length of his forearm. His heart ran the full spectrum of emotions.
    Jaylor desperately wanted to love the tiny, tiny baby. But jealousy kept surfacing.
    Was this truly his son?
    Bathed and bundled into a warm blanket, the baby was quiet for the first time since his untimely entry into the world, almost an hour ago. By all accounts he shouldn’t be able to live after a mere seven moons of pregnancy. But Erda had proclaimed his son to be whole and healthy, just small and in need of extra care to bring him up to size.
    His son. By law, at least, this unbelievably small person was his. But by blood?
    Jaylor’s younger sisters were blonde. So this baby could have inherited the common bloodline for that hair color. But his eyes!
    The baby blinked and stared up at him with unfocused curiosity. At the moment, his eyes were the fuzzy blue so common to newborns, giving few hints as to their eventual color. In a few weeks they would begin to turn. Would they be deep-bay blue like Brevelan’s, or dark reddish-brown like Jaylor’s? Or possibly the smooth golden-brown of Prince Darville?
    Jaylor blinked back a curious probe, not quite daring to search the baby for signs of magic, or for knowledge of his birthright.
    “I think we need to find a name for our son,” Brevelan whispered wearily. The furrows in her brow were pinched white with strain. Yet her eyes glowed with overwhelming love and accomplishment. She was tucked into the massive bed in their suite, so small and pale as to be barely visible beneath the mound of covers.
    “What do you suggest?” Jaylor hedged. By tradition a first son should be named for his paternal grandfather, or at least a favored paternal uncle. But who was this child’s grandsire?
    “The magic is strong in him,” Erda pronounced from the shadowy corners of the room. “Unusual for magic to be strong, in one so young. He deserves an unusual name, a name of power.”
    “For a child to inherit magic like this, it must come to him from both parents,” Brevelan reassured Jaylor.
    He wasn’t overly comforted. Darville’s family was notoriously mundane. But there must be