The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

escape Hanassa are for naught. Only I can protect you. Only I can become the family you so long for.” She stroked Myri’s hair with possessive hands.
    Never! Myri vowed to herself. She would have her family back. Her true family of Kalen and Powwell, the baby, and Nimbulan.
    But never again would she be able to include Amaranth in that tight circle of love and kinship.
    The threat of Moncriith seemed trivial against the loss of Amaranth and the danger to Nimbulan. She had to escape, now.
    She needed to fly free, to breathe the sparking clear air of the mountains. The heat haze and dust of Hanassa was all she’d been allowed since Televarn had kidnapped her and brought her to this cursed place.
    If only she could fly!
    The baby’s whimpers kept her firmly anchored to her wingless human body.
    “Come, Myrilandel. We mustn’t keep my people waiting much longer,” Yaassima ordered. Persuasion fled her voice, replaced with deadly impatience.
    Myri knew she couldn’t ignore the Kaalipha. Yaassima executed those who defied her. She’d executed her consort. Rumor also claimed she’d killed her daughter who had disappeared right after the unlucky consort had lost his head to Yaassima’s sharp sword.
    Myri caressed the sleeping baby on her shoulder, needing contact with her life to counteract the death that assailed her senses at every turn.
    “I have no blood kin, Kaalipha Yaassima. Only my daughter,” Myri replied. “I can’t claim King Quinnault as kin anymore. He exiled me.” Nimbulan had agreed with the edict.
    Why had she risked Amaranth to warn Nimbulan? Amaranth!
    “You should hate your husband for what he did to you. Yet you cling to his memory as if you expect him to defy his king and join you,” Yaassima sneered.
    “I love him.” He was the missing piece to make her family complete—once she escaped.
    “You and your daughter carry the blood of the dragons in your veins,” Yaassima reminded her. “That is a heritage that must be perpetuated. Not your paltry emotions toward a treacherous husband and those two grubby children.”
    “Show me that Powwell and Kalen are safe, and I will not question your wisdom in separating me from my children.” Myri kept her eyes locked on the blue desert sky above the crater. Clean and clear, untainted by Yaassima’s need for blood and destruction. The Kaalipha perverted her dragon hunting instincts, just as her ancient ancestor Hanassa had when he went rogue and deserted the dragon nimbus.
    Yaassima twined her fingers in Myri’s fine hair. The sexuality behind the gesture made Myri shiver with revulsion. The baby fretted. Myri cooed at her daughter and turned toward her bedchamber, on the inside wall away from the window, without looking at the Kaalipha.
    “I rescued you from Televarn’s ungentle clutches for the sake of our kinship,” Yaassima snarled. “His jealousy knows no bounds. He would have killed your daughter as soon as she was born, rather than admit that the child isn’t his. If he let you live, Moncriith would have found a way to destroy you. You owe me your life, Myrilandel, as does everyone who seeks refuge in Hanassa.”
    “I did not seek refuge. Televarn kidnapped me and brought me here against my will.”
    “Forget the magician who forced marriage upon you. Forget the children not of your body. Only I am your kin. I will protect you as Nimbulan and your brother, King Quinnault, refused to do.” Yaassima’s voice swelled with pride. As absolute ruler of Hanassa, none of the thousands of criminals who lived in the city questioned her authority.
    Myri had been forced to witness three executions in as many weeks. Each time she feared the offender would be fifteen-year-old Powwell or eleven-year-old Kalen, adults responsible for their actions in this vicious society.
    After each beheading, Yaassima dipped her hands, with their preternaturally long fingers, into the blood of the dead man or woman. The symbolic gesture, that the death was her responsibility, paled in comparison to the look of nearly sexual glee that dominated Yaassima’s eyes for an hour afterward.
    Myri sensed Yaassima’s hand dropping away from yet another caressing stroke of her hair.
    “Let the child sleep, Myrilandel. Put her back in the cradle and come to the Justice Hall,” Yaassima ordered.
    “She’s wet. By the time I change her, she will be hungry, too.”
    “It is time we found a wet nurse for her. Women of quality do not feed their own children. One