The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

hadn’t miscarried yet. But she would, and with enough damage to her internal organs she might never conceive again.
    Plans appeared, full and complete, in her head. “I shall demand that Lord Krej’s line be proclaimed heirs to Darville when I return to Coronnan in high summer. Why waste time with Simeon’s pitiful efforts to rule through the coven when I can have it all myself?” She knew her child was male. As soon as he was born, she would arrange his betrothal to Princess Jaranda. That would put both Coronnan and SeLenicca firmly into her control.
    Within the week she expected to hear of Rossemeyer’s king being assassinated by poison. Poison on a letter from the young king’s own sister, the queen of Coronnan. War would follow immediately upon the heels of that news.
    Simeon had already proclaimed his right to Rossemeyer as the son of Rossemikka’s father by his first and rightful queen. When the other Rossemeyer brat died of his long and lingering illness, the ruling party could turn only to Simeon to take the crown.
    Rejiia had to make Simeon acknowledge her son as his heir to Rossemeyer. Once she returned to Coronnan as Darville’s heir, she could afford to eliminate her lover. Her son would have Coronnan and Rossemeyer. Simeon’s daughter would have SeLenicca. All three kingdoms lay within her grasp. She didn’t need Simeon much longer.
    The king had become so obsessed with finding one sniveling little lacemaker, he neglected all of his other duties to coven and country.
    Her father would know how to manipulate the increasingly unstable king of SeLenicca. The two men had been raised together as foster brothers. P’pa knew Simeon’s motives better than the king knew himself. Theirs was an intimacy Rejiia could never know as merely Simeon’s mistress.
    Simeon’s mother, exiled Princess Jaylene of Rossemeyer, had died shortly after giving birth to him. Before she died, she had entrusted the care and education of her child to her best friend and the only person in attendance at the birth, Janessa. A few years later Janessa had married the brother of the king of Coronnan, taking Simeon and another foster child, Janataea, with her.
    Some said Jaylene had died of a broken heart when she couldn’t return to Rossemeyer. Others claimed she’d been poisoned by her midwife, Janessa.
    Lord Krej knew Simeon as a brother. He would understand why the king was obsessed with one ugly little lacemaker when he had a city full of nubile virgins willing to dance upon his altar in return for prestige and safety for their families. Rejiia’s father would know how the little lacemaker had escaped them at the birthday parade and where she hid. Or, he would know how to get that information.
    Ask who protects her and why .
    Rejiia looked closely at the tin weasel sitting on the table beside her candle and glass. Had her father managed to penetrate her mind with his thoughts?
    Rejiia returned her InnerSight to the flame. This time she positioned the weasel statue on the other side of the candle. Krej’s red-and-green aura writhed within a tight case of alien magic. She couldn’t see any breaches in the spell that trapped her father. Where had the thought come from?
    Once more she repeated the words of the spell, seeking the secret of the tin prison.
    “Where are we, Spy?” Jack surveyed the break between two rounded peaks. A dry polar wind whipped down that trackless pass, chilling his bones and burning his eyes. Above it, Corby soared, feeding him images of more wind-swept waste ahead.
    “I have a name,” the spy reminded Jack, shivering beneath the blanket he clutched around his shoulders. His lips were chapped to bleeding and ice rimed his new growth of natural blond beard.
    Something in the silent misery of the man touched a sad memory in Jack. He, too, had wrestled with the ignominy of being a nameless drudge. He’d had to earn the respect of others before they consented to refer to him as anything other than “Boy.”
    The spy had earned Jack’s respect in his stalwart plodding through the mountains, a heavy pack of supplies on his back, in all kinds of punishing weather. Their weeks of trekking toward the dragon lair had left all three of them, Jack, Fraank, and the spy, hungry, lean, cold, and dependent upon each other for survival. Only Corby seemed to thrive in this treeless landscape. He taunted them now with his freedom to fly.
    “Where are we, Officer Lanciar?” Jack repeated the