The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

motioning for him to place his foot into her hands.
    “You’ve been here longer than most everyone else. Why haven’t you lost your intelligence?”
    “Because I haven’t given in to my fears and panic. Because I love the machines. I’d rather live here with them than aboveground with Yaassima.”
    “Then why don’t you go into that conduit? You know these machines—you love these machines as if they were your familiars.”
    “You will go, Powwell, because I’m training you to know and love these machines as if they were more than your familiars. They are family. The day will come when you will need them. They will need you. I need another engineer to keep things going.”
    “Yaala!” a man’s voice echoed down the corridor from the upper levels of the pit. “Yaala, they need the engineer to fix something above.”
    Powwell jumped at the words. “Above!”
    “Coming,” Yaala called back. “You’d better come, too. You need to know how Yaassima’s toys work.” She strode toward the passage out of this small cavern. A very deep cavern. “Oh, and as soon as we get beyond the gate, I’m no longer Yaala. I’m the Engineer. Yaassima doesn’t bother with names as long as the job gets done. She thinks I’m dead. I want her to continue thinking that until . . . until I’m ready.”
    “We’re getting out of here? Yaala, if I get out of this place, I won’t come back.” Powwell could only think of clean sweet air and natural light.
    “Yes, you will come back. There isn’t anyplace else to go, and I’m not yet ready to kill Yaassima. I have to know everything about these machines before I’ll have the power to murder my mother and take her place as Kaalipha.”
     
    “I see that the dragon bitch gave you one of the better pieces of jewelry,” Maia sneered as she sorted laundry in Myri’s bedroom. “Televarn won’t like it.”
    “I don’t care what Televarn likes and doesn’t like,” Myri replied. She sat rocking in the nursing chair. Amaranth suckled greedily. Her tug against Myri’s breast sent a deep wave of satisfaction through her entire being. The faint milky scent of the baby and the smell of fresh sunshine in the laundry almost made her content. Almost.
    The weight of the necklace and her own lack of freedom preyed on her mind. How was she to escape if the necklace killed her as she left the palace? Nastfa and Golin had already shown their sympathy with her by escorting her politely around the palace rather than molesting her as Yaassima promised. They hadn’t said anything the dragon pendant couldn’t relay to Yaassima. But Myri sensed their emotions. Nastfa in particular. He didn’t belong here and wanted out as badly as she.
    Every time she was with the proud member of the assassins guild, she had more questions about him than before. All she knew for sure was that he’d help her escape if she could break the necklace. If . . . how?
    She sent the chair rocking faster to absorb her emotions before the baby sensed her disquiet and became fretful. The old wood of the chair creaked in time to her movement.
    She and Maia moved around each other in cautious, un-touching circles, sharing the room, the rocker, the laundry—but never the baby. Maia didn’t push the issue of nursing Amaranth unless Yaassima was present. Since the Kaalipha had given the necklace to Myri, she left the two younger women alone a lot.
    Neither Myri nor Maia seemed to want to openly antagonize the other. Equally, they were unwilling to offer friendship.
    “Well, you’d better start thinking about what Televarn wants. He won’t leave you here for long. He never gives up something he claims as his own,” Maia said bitterly. She snapped the diaper she was folding so hard the air crackled around it.
    “Including you and Kestra?” Myri asked. He’d surrendered both women to Yaassima’s brothel as part of his “rent” here in Hanassa.
    “We are only on loan until he’s ready to reclaim us,” Maia said weakly. She dipped her head, suddenly very busy folding a mountain of diapers.
    “You don’t say that as if you believe it.”
    “I say what I am told to say.”
    “Told by Televarn. I know something of the way he controls your actions and your mind. You don’t have to put up with him.”
    “You don’t know anything.” Maia closed her mouth with a snap and turned her rigid back on Myri.
    “I know that Televarn has to control everything he touches—including the minds and thoughts of his