The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

nurse, then return to help me preside over the Dispensation of Favors.”
    “Maia’s babe has been dead two days. Her milk has probably dried up,” Myri said, thinking furiously for a way to prevent separation from her child. She had never met Maia, only knew her from Nimbulan’s memory of her and a few rumors the servants had related.
    “Maia is a Rover. Everyone knows that Rover women make the best wet nurses.”
    “Rover women hire out as wet nurses so they can steal the babies and raise them as their own. Will you risk this child to Rover theft?”
    “No one steals from the Kaalipha of Hanassa.” Yaassima gestured to Myri to withdraw. Then she sat back in a high thronelike chair with a deep sigh.
    Myri knew the Kaalipha would wait patiently for her return. You will have a long wait, Yaassima, she thought.
    Back in the privacy of her own bedchamber, she slammed the door that separated her from the common room. Yaassima’s chamber was adjacent to Myri’s. A thick wall of stone separated them, but Myri had no doubt Yaassima had spy holes and listening spells to observe Myri.
    No one awaited her in the suite. Maia must not have come yet.
    “You may watch, but you won’t enter this room easily,” Myri whispered to the absent Rover. The door had no lock, so she pushed a heavy blanket chest in front of it. The dark wood scraped aside the colorful rugs scattered across the stone floor. The screeching sound reminded Myri, painfully, of Amaranth’s cries of distress just before he died.
    She blocked the sound from her mind as she stacked two chairs on top of the chest. Then she stood a clothes chest on end in front of the pile. Not satisfied, she shoved the bed against that.
    “I will rest undisturbed until my milk comes back,” she said to the blocked doorway.
    She needed liquid to replenish her milk while she rested. Greedily she drank from the pitcher that always sat on the stand beside her bed. As the water slid down her throat, she tasted copper and salt, different from the usual sulfur tang that permeated everything in Hanassa. Drugs.
    The same drugs Erda had given her during the baby’s birth. Yaassima must have ordered them, needing Myri docile and obedient.
    Myri almost sobbed. She couldn’t plan her escape while drugged. This was the last dose she’d take. From now on, she’d test all her food and drink. For now she must rest, must fight the grief that threatened to overwhelm her.
    She threw herself across the bed, cuddling her baby close. The infant whimpered, still hungry.
    “Soon, Baby. I’ll feed you soon,” she promised her hungry child.
    She pressed both hands into the delicate flesh above her heart. The magical dart had penetrated Amaranth in the same place. Tenderness beneath her fingertips told her a bruise formed there, whether from her own hands or in sympathy with Amaranth’s wound, she didn’t know.
    Tears of loneliness slipped down her cheeks.
    Time lost meaning. The baby cried herself to sleep.
    Voices in the outer room of the suite startled Myri awake from heavy dreams of crashing to the Kardia from a great height.
    “When Televarn returns from his mission, I must send you back to his slave pens,” Yaassima said sternly from the other side of the door.
    Had Maia finally arrived? Myri wouldn’t stir until she knew whom the Kaalipha addressed.
    Her breasts ached, too full of milk. Her arms were damp from where her milk had soaked through her shift and gown. It still smelled sweet. How long had she slept? Beside her, the baby cried again. Silently, she reached for the infant, determined to feed her herself. Maia would have no tasks awaiting her.
    “For now you may tend to Myrilandel. I fear for her health. Do what you must to get her to open the door and see that the child stops crying.” A note of desperation entered the Kaalipha’s voice.
    “Yes, ma’am.” A different voice. One Myri hadn’t heard in a long time. Kalen. Her adopted daughter was safe. She would have to open the door to see her. Would Yaassima use that moment to take the baby from her?
    She clutched the baby, urging her to feed more quickly. All her latent desire to transform into a dragon and fly away faded as she nurtured her young. Purple dragons had no gender. As a dragon she couldn’t care for a baby. This was a task only she could perform. Maia—and through her, Televarn—would never get her hands on this baby.
    A loud squalling sound told her she held the baby too tightly. Still, she