The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

continuous line of energy.
    Only a few troops remained east of the wall inside Coronnan. Other men moved to go around the wall and found their passage blocked.
    Panicked by the separation, the soldiers in front turned and beat on the barrier, screaming for an opening to return them to the safety of their comrades.
    Up and out the barrier grew. It linked and looped across the tops of hills, blocking other passages.
    Myri drew more power from the draining well. The boiling lava of Hanassa’s living volcano fed the ley lines, draining out of the mountain, collapsing the caves of the pit and the dragongate. The ley lines that snaked across the land ceased flowing outward, reversed and drained back into the well. Scorched channels became burned-out husks in the wake of the reversed flow. And still she pulled power into the spell.
    At the border, soldiers hopped and danced to avoid the scorching Kardia beneath their feet.
    And still the wall grew.
    Myri grew with it.
    The wall was nearly complete.
    She was nearly transformed into her true dragon-self.
    A moment more and she would fly free of the bounds of gravity. Free and empty of love.
     
    Nimbulan watched with horror as his beautiful Myri stretched and expanded, draconic features becoming more and more pronounced. He had to stop her.
    How?
    This was the person she was born to be.
    He loved the woman she had chosen to be.
    They couldn’t separate now.
    The spell demanded his attention. He had to break away from the magic long enough to force Myrilandel back into her own form. The wall was nearly complete. They didn’t need so much power now. She could let go. If she would.
    “You can’t leave the circle,” Scarface hissed in his ear. “If any one of us breaks contact, the entire thing will collapse. We’ll be right back where we started from and too exhausted to start again.”
    “I know.” His talent was necessary to the completion of the defense of Coronnan.
    His talent.
    Once before, he had separated from his talent, left it in an inanimate object. He wasn’t sure if the glass table was totally inanimate, not the way the magic swirled through the eddies and waves of minerals.
    The hand upon his own clutched him with talons that grew by the minute. Myri’s bulk increased, threatening to crush his hand.
    If you break contact with the table, you’ll lose your talent forever.
    “I have to take that chance.” Quickly, he located the burning blue beacon behind his heart and pushed it into the table. Blue light joined the glittering black and gray. It melded with the combined talents of all the men sitting in the circle.
    Nimbulan slid his chair back a little, allowing Scarface to slide his hand from his shoulder onto Lyman’s. The circle remained complete, his talent remained in the combined mass of magic. Scarface’s mind took over the completion of the wall.
    Keeping his right hand on the table, Nimbulan grasped Myri’s still human face with his left. “Beloved. I need you. Our daughter needs you. Return to us, please.
    She wrenched herself away from him, tears flowing freely. “I must be a dragon to survive the power I give to this spell and Coronnan.”
    “The spell is nearly complete. Give back the power you drain from the Kardia.”
    She shook her head and stepped away from him. Only her talons remained in contact with the table and his talent embedded in it. The power continued to flow through her into the spell.
    Then she looked up to the skies where Shayla and the other dragons flew. A heavy film dropped over her eyes, protecting her from the brightness of the sun in the upper atmosphere.
    “You forsook dragonkind twenty years ago. Come back to the body and the life you chose. Please. I love you, Myrilandel. My life is incomplete without you.” Moisture gathered at the corners of his eyes. His heart threatened to wrench out of his body as she took another step backward.
    “I can never give you the sense of completeness and belonging you find in this Commune of magic. You belong here. I belong to the skies.”
    “No.” The words wrenched out of him. His throat nearly closed with unshed tears. “Myrilandel, I love you more than I love my magic.” Deliberately he lifted his hand from the table, leaving his talent forever embedded in the rare and perfect black glass.
     
    Myri’s concentration shattered with the touch of Nimbulan’s hand. Kardia, Air, Fire, and Water fractured and separated within her body and her mind. She shrank in size