The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

on her straw pallet at the foot of the bed but didn’t awaken. She slept with her arms pressed tightly against her breasts. The front of her shift was wet and smelled of sour milk.
    Myri’s empathic talent shared the aching pressure of too much milk with no child to suckle. She hugged her own baby tightly, cherishing Amaranth’s life. Maia had only memories of the children she had lost.
    Myri left the bedchamber rather than think about Maia’s loss. The door to Yaassima’s room remained firmly closed.
    Singing softly to Amaranth, Myri wove her way around the heavy furniture Yaassima favored to the window in the common room. Dull light glowed behind the ceiling panels, never totally extinguished. Tonight, they didn’t seem to give off as much of a glow as usual.
    As she did so many nights, Myri stared out at the dark sky above the bowl of the crater, longing to fly to freedom. If she transformed into her dragon form, would the necklace choke her to death before it destroyed her brain, or would she break free of Yaassima’s bondage?
    She blinked back the moisture that filled her eyes. For the sake of the baby in her arms, she didn’t dare transform. But she had to put her half-formed escape plans into action tonight. Kalen had fallen prey to the vices of lies and deceit so prevalent in the city. The girl had to be taken away from here now or she’d be lost forever. Powwell, too, was in terrible peril in the pit. Yaassima’s demands for the baby chilled Myri to the bone.
    How to subdue Yaassima long enough to steal the trigger for her necklace? The questions spun around and around her brain, a lot like the dancing harlots in the streets below.
    No one in the city seemed to sleep tonight. Crowds of people gathered around pubs and wineshops, or danced serpentine patterns around the city, shouting and singing with a kind of desperation Myri couldn’t understand. She’d heard Nastfa and Golin say that this kind of revelry only happened the night before large companies of mercenaries left the city on campaign. Tomorrow Hanassa would be nearly deserted. Fewer crowds for her to hide among.
    Myri had caught an emotion of regret from Nastfa. He needed to leave the city, but not with the mercenaries. His roots and his heart belonged elsewhere. His need to be gone was reaching the point of desperation.
    Would Moncriith leave with the soldiers? Now that he knew Myri resided in Hanassa, he might elect to stay and seek a way to destroy her. He’d hounded her for as long as she could remember, driving her from village to village. His preferred method of execution of witches was burning.
    Why did villagers always believe his sermons against the demons only he could see and not the healing and helping she gave them?
    Only the nameless fishing village near her clearing had resisted Moncriith. She missed her friends there. She missed her home nearly as much as Nastfa did.
    “I want to go home,” she sobbed.
    First she had to get herself and her children out of the palace. Then out of Hanassa without Moncriith or Yaassima seeing her.
    A disguise for herself and the children as mercenaries perhaps. Could they walk out with the armies?
    Suddenly the silver cord of magic that connected her to Nimbulan glowed brighter with a more rapid pulse. She looked from the cord tugging at her heart out the window to the closest knot of men, near the gate.
    One figure stood out among them. He stood tall and proud, a long twisted staff in his left hand, a faint blue aura gave him an air of command. She didn’t need to follow the cord to know her husband.
    I come, beloved, he called to her with his mind.
    Your daughter and I await you! she nearly shouted back to her husband in triumph. Be very careful, Lan. Yaassima binds me with magic and mundane traps.
    Nothing will separate us once I reach you. Not even the terrible Kaalipha of Hanassa, Nimbulan replied.
    She breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction. She had known he would come for her eventually. The silver cord wouldn’t let them remain separated too long. She was so relieved at his appearance she couldn’t resent his delay.
    He’d need help getting them out of the palace. She thought she could trust Nastfa and Golin. How far would they go in their revenge against Yaassima? Or would their own fears restore their grudging loyalty to her?
    Her mind refused to think beyond holding Nimbulan in her arms again. She drank in the sight of him. The men around him began to take on individual