The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

couldn’t let go. If she released her grasp, even a little, they would steal her baby. Myri knew that they had kidnapped her, betrayed her, exiled her, separated her from Nimbulan and her other children. They wouldn’t stop until she was utterly bereft and destroyed.
    They took form in her mind. Moncriith’s face dominated the form, surrounded by the flames he claimed would cleanse her and Coronnan of demonic control.
    Vaguely, she knew the drugs clouded her mind.
    “Myrilandel, let me in, please. Let me stay with you.” Kalen pleaded from the other side of the door. Last spring, the girl had said the same words to Myri. Kalen’s father had disowned the girl when all magicians who could not, or would not, gather dragon magic were exiled from Coronnan.
    Kalen’s mother had cried out at the girl’s expulsion, but would not defy her husband or abandon her other children to stay with the girl.
    “Myri, if you don’t let me in, I’ll have to go back to Televarn. He . . . he’s made slaves of Powwell and me. He forces us to . . . he forces . . .” She broke off in a sob.
    Kalen was adept at lying and wearing the emotions people wanted to see in her. But Myri had never known her to cry.
    “Give me a moment. I’ll let you in, but not the thieving Rover woman.” Myri began dismantling the barricade. She cursed and muttered under her breath, knowing Yaassima had found a way to force her into the action.
    Several minutes later, Myri focused her gaze on Kalen. The little girl stood in the doorway, wringing her hands and looking over her shoulder toward the center room of the suite. The girl’s auburn-tinged braids swished with her movements. Concerned gray eyes met Myri’s above a small nose with a wide spread of freckles strewn across the bridge.
    “Kalen.” Myri drew her adopted daughter into a tight hug. Kalen was safe. The baby was safe. Where was Powwell?
    “Yes, Myri, I’m here to take care of you. Can you tell me what happened?” The girl urged her toward the padded rocking chair near the hearth. She slammed the door behind her, putting a barrier between them and the Kaalipha.
    “You’ve grown in the last few weeks. But you still can’t keep your hair bound up properly.” Myri smoothed a stray strand of hair from the girl’s face.
    The musky smell of Kalen’s familiar was absent. Myri didn’t like the weasel like creature that had adopted Kalen soon after they settled in the clearing. “Did your ferret follow you from the clearing?”
    “I . . . um . . . my familiar isn’t in Hanassa.” Kalen buried her face against Myri, clinging to her tightly. “Will you brush my hair later? Do you remember the hours you spent brushing it when we lived in the clearing? What made you shove all this stuff in front of the door? Is the baby all right?”
    “Her name is Amaranth. My baby must be Amaranth.” Myri gently disengaged Kalen’s fierce hug and settled into the padded chair, the baby feeding greedily.
    Kalen froze. “You’d only allow that if Amaranth had died.”
    “I felt him die. I almost died with him. The pain. Oh, Kalen, the pain was terrible . . .” Tears gathered in her eyes at last. “We have to find Powwell and get out of here, Kalen,” Myri whispered so that Yaassima, safely in the other room, couldn’t hear. “We have to keep Amaranth away from the Kaalipha and away from Televarn’s people. We have to warn Nimbulan. Amaranth didn’t have time to tell him that Televarn plans to kill him as well as my brother.”
    “Maybe we should let him. What did Nimbulan do for you after he’d seduced you, left you pregnant, and then exiled you?”
     
    Powwell slipped from the shadow of the cave mouth into the slightly lighter blackness of the open street. The Rover guards dozed before their fire within the cave, seemingly unaware that one of their slaves was escaping. Where could he go? There was only one known exit from Hanassa—a gate controlled by the Kaalipha’s magic.
    He wasn’t certain enough of the way Televarn had brought the captives into Hanassa to be sure there was a true exit beneath the palace.
    If he had to resort to drawing blood to find enough magic to open the regular gate tonight, Powwell would—after he found Kalen and Myri.
    You have to get me out of here! Kalen had called to him telepathically shortly after the Kaalipha’s elite guards had removed her from Televarn’s slave pens.
    I’ll get you all out, Powwell had sent back to her.
    Myri’s too ill.