The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

some potential for magic linked to their metaphysical bond with the dragon nimbus. Through Krej, Brevelan carried more magic than most master magicians.
    The baby didn’t need Jaylor’s magic to add to his inheritance.
    “Comes from his Mama throwing magic, willy-nilly. The child awakened early. Developed early. Needed to be born early.” Erda shuffled over to stand beside Jaylor. One gnarled finger reached down to touch the baby on the forehead just above the bridge of his petit nose. “Curious is he. Needed to see what the magic was and who threw it. Wants to be a part of it even now.”
    The baby opened his tiny mouth and let out a pitiful wail. Jaylor jerked in surprise. “What did I do to frighten him? Am I holding him wrong?”
    “Never, love.” Brevelan chuckled as she reached thin arms for her child. “He’s hungry. He needs to eat often, just like another magician I know.” She winked at Jaylor.
    As Jaylor released the infant to Brevelan, a trace of the baby’s scent and weight lingered in the warmth on his arms. He knew a sudden emptiness. “Why don’t we ask him what his name is?” he offered.
    Both Brevelan and Erda looked a little startled at that.
    “Well, why not? You ask animals what they wish to be called, all the time. Why not grant the same privilege to your son. Surely he’s more intelligent than a rabbit or a greenbird?”
    “Yes, why not,” Brevelan mused, as she settled the infant to her breast. Her eyes lost focus a moment. “I can’t penetrate beyond the need for food. I’m too tired. You ask him, Jaylor.”
    Jaylor wasn’t sure if she really needed him to do the asking, or if it was just her way of strengthening his bond to the child, who might or might not be his.
    With a deep breath, Jaylor marshaled his strength and dove headlong into the mind of the suckling child. He felt the warmth of a mothering body, the satisfaction of filling a tummy. A glow of comfort and protection surrounded him.
    When he had absorbed the surface emotions, Jaylor allowed his inner eye to take over. Images assaulted him, devoid of color, but clearly defined. The clearing dominated them all. The clearing with Brevelan’s distinctive protection enclosing the whole.
    “Glendon.” Jaylor removed himself from the engulfing imagery. “The fortress in the glen.” Where he was conceived. Where he would be raised.
     
    “Put me down, Jaylor. I can walk,” Brevelan protested halfheartedly. She enjoyed being cradled against her husband’s chest as he carried her and Glendon down the long corridor to the Audience Chamber.
    “No, you can’t walk. You shouldn’t be coming to this wedding at all,” he growled.
    Brevelan snuggled her cheek next to her husband’s. “But I must be present. I cared for Darville and Mica for many moons without knowing who or what they really were. I need to see for myself that they belong together.”
    “Always the mother.” Jaylor rubbed his face across the top of her head until he could kiss her hair. The movement shifted the careful illusion he had woven around his borrowed robes. The real fabric of Baamin’s court regalia barely reached his knees. The illusion draped grandly to the floor. Magician blue robe over a rich tunic and fine cambric shirt, trimmed with delicate lace at wrist and throat. Only the Senior Magician could afford these clothes. Too bad they didn’t fit the new Senior Magician.
    Brevelan’s heart swelled with love and happiness.
    Moments later she was settled into a chair in the corner of the grand Audience Chamber. Most of the gathering crowd ignored her. She felt their uncertainty and understood they chose to overlook her presence, rather than commit a political breach of etiquette.
    Brevelan chuckled deep within herself. In ignoring her, they were also ignoring the quiet glow of magic Jaylor wove around her and the baby. The mass of emotions emitted by this crowd would have sent her into empathic shock, otherwise. She really was too tired to be here.
    She focused on Jaylor at the center of the knot of magicians. Even through her protection, she felt the concern radiating from the members of the Commune. Not all of those emotions were aimed at Baamin’s serious heart condition. Many of the magicians were very wary of Jaylor, himself.
    He was too young, too untried to be named Baamin’s heir. This one-time inept might be their superior in a matter of hours.
    Then, too, there was Jaylor’s connection to Lord Krej. Concern colored