The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

with Janataea and Krej.”
    Jaylor knew that. Margit had reported the Council’s complaints that the queen’s miscarriages and subsequent illness shouldn’t keep Darville from attending banquets and other festivities.
    “There’s something else you should know, sir.” Marcus looked about the clearing as if seeking information.
    “Did you find a trace of Yaakke?” He asked the same question every time either Marcus or Robb returned with reports.
    “Not him. But sort of like him. Robb and I have noticed some of the outlying villages disappear.”
    “What?” Jaylor roared. His sons slipped behind him to avoid his wrath. He reached out and hugged them both, drawing calm from their innocence.
    “Sometimes when we pass by at a distance we see houses and people, fields and flocks. And then as soon as someone spots us, we can’t see them anymore. If we weren’t stretching our senses looking for magic, I doubt we’d see these places at all. It’s like this clearing. If Brevelan doesn’t want the path open, ain’t no way in Simurgh’s hell anyone, magician or mundane, is going to find our refuge.”
     
    Darville walked the streets of Sambol on the old border between Coronnan and SeLenicca. The stillness in the air that foretold dawn enhanced the scents of spice and cut lumber, of salted fish and too many people crowded within the walls of the merchant city. All was silent, as if Kardia Hodos held its breath in anticipation of the new day, the Vernal Equinox.
    False dawn glimmered on the eastern horizon. The near-constant wind funneling down the mountain pass to the west returned.
    The troubled king turned his back on the wind and the last bite of winter in the mountains. At the far end of the pass, his army would be preparing for the first battle of the season. A first battle that would carry the war out of the pass and into SeLenicca, hopefully crushing the next invasion before it began. He’d kept King Simeon’s army out of Coronnan for three long years. Now, at last, he was in a position to end the conflict.
    He didn’t think he’d have been allowed to achieve that advantage if Lord Jonnias and Lord Marnak still sat on the Council of Provinces. Heavy fines for their attack on the monastery and banishment from the Council until those fines were paid had ended their dissension. For the first time in too many years the Council worked with their king as a team and the war progressed, however slightly. A defensive war only. Until now.
    Both Coronnan and SeLenicca were exhausted and running low on resources.
    Dark shadows still lay between the steep walls of the pass. Night would linger longer there, hiding ambushes and stalling messages. ’Twas one message in particular that had brought King Darville to the city on the edge of the battlefront. His spies in the enemy army had sent a coded letter by a long and circuitous route. The generals of King Simeon of SeLenicca were willing to discuss an armed truce, with or without Simeon’s approval.
    Frost clung to the trees and paths this cloudy equinox morning. But yesterday had been balmy. Any disarmament had to take place soon, so that soldiers could go home in time for spring planting.
    Darville heaved a lonely sigh as he continued his ritual walk. Fred, his trusty bodyguard and confidant, now that Jaylor remained in hiding, was somewhere behind him, hovering protectively. Dawn was almost here and Darville had yet to make the decision that drove him to walk the streets at dawn.
    “Jaylor knew before I did that I think better on my feet,” he mused. Then he looked up to the sky and addressed the wind as if it were Jaylor. “I miss you, old friend.”
    He lengthened his stride, almost hoping to lose Fred and his loneliness in the tangle of alleys and warehouses. No questions arose in his mind about the tentative offer of peace. That he would grab.
    But what would he do about the Council’s request that he put aside his beloved wife in favor of a woman who could bear him a son and heir?
    More than three years had passed since his coronation, and Mikka had miscarried seven times. He feared her current pregnancy would also end in disaster. For her own health, she shouldn’t have conceived again so soon. She had enough magic talent in her to prevent it.
    But Mikka was a princess born and bred. She knew how much Coronnan needed an heir to provide a clear line of succession. The country wouldn’t survive a dynastic war compounded by the exhausted reserves