The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

relaxed, accepting Shayla as his guide and mentor during this journey.
    (What do you seek?)
    I search for my sister who is lost to me, Powwell replied to the directionless voice that filled the void as well as his mind—perhaps his mind and the void were the same thing. His thoughts threatened to drift into idle speculation. The void invited him to explore each new tangent. Thorny prodded him with a mental jab—like a spine pricking his skin. Powwell yanked himself back to his quest.
    (Is she truly lost, or do you not know where to look?) A typically cryptic dragon observation.
    Kalen was thrown into the lava core of Hanassa as the dragongate opened, but before it was fully formed. Her companion went into the void. The dragons spat that one out again. I must presume my sister drifts alone in the void as well.
    Powwell sensed alarm and wariness in the crystal life force the moment he mentioned Hanassa, the city of outlaws, and the dragongate, the magical portal that could take a traveler away from Hanassa to any number of locations.
    (If the one you seek entered the void from Hanassa, then if she finds her way out again without assistance, she must return to Hanassa. Give up your search. She will not welcome being found.)
    I have to find her. I am not complete without her. She is my only kin.
    (She may be your kin no longer. Seek others to fulfill you. Seek in your heart for the source of the emptiness you feel.)
    I can’t. I have to find Kalen. I promised her.
    (Look within yourself before you venture into the realm of the renegade dragon.)
    Powwell fell back into his body with a stomach-wrenching jolt.
    A red haze with black sparkles lingered in his vision as Bessel and Yaala solidified before him.
    Powwell shook his head to clear his eyes. Deep within the heart of the haze, a shrouded drop of orange and brown lingered and then turned deep purple that darkened into black. A heartbeat later it shrank to nothing. The haze retracted from the others, forming a mist around himself and Thorny, like an aura.
    Thorny hummed a welcome and relaxed his hunched spines.
    “Wake up, Powwell. Come back, Powwell!” Bessel slapped his face to rouse him. “Leave the void behind you, Powwell.”
    “Is my magical signature red with black sparkles?” Powwell asked. The words came out slurred. He felt almost drunk with fatigue and light-headedness. He reached out his hand toward Yaala, needing her touch to anchor him.
    “You saw your own colors?” Bessel replied. His mouth gaped open in awe.
    “Yes, at the last moment as I came back to my body. Yours are a red-and-blue braid.”
    “I’ve been told as much,” Bessel agreed. “I wish I could see them.”
    “I saw all of our colors, but I couldn’t find Kalen in the void. As I returned, I saw her orange-and-brown life force greatly diminished and shrouded in purple. A purple so dark it was almost black.”
    “Hanassa,” Yaala breathed the word in a frightened hiss.
    “Shayla told me I had to beware the renegade dragon. I have to go to Hanassa to find my sister. Did she mean I have to go to the city or to the only dragon exiled from the nimbus?”
    “Both,” Yaala said. “But first you have to find a way into the city. Land access was destroyed in the kardiaquake as we left the city. The dragongate has either shifted its portals or is broken.”
    “Scarface has had round-the-clock watches at all the known portals in Coronnan,” Bessel reminded him. “None of them have opened in over a year. If the dragongate still exists, you’ll have to find a new opening to get into the city.”
    “I’ll find one. Somehow. I hope Rollett is still there to help.”
    “You’d better hope Rollett is still alive. Hanassa kills outsiders,” Yaala reminded him.
    “The renegade dragon or the city?”
    “Both.”

Chapter 4
     
    Dawn, after Saawheen, University of Magicians residential wing, Coronnan City
     
    P owwell crept out of his cell in the journeyman’s section of the University. Fortunately, only one other cell was occupied at this end. Five cells remained empty until more apprentices earned journeyman status. Bessel snored softly in the last room on the corridor, next to the staircase leading up to the masters’ suites and down to the kitchen and refectory. Behind Powwell, the fifteen apprentice cells were much more crowded, sometimes four or five young men bunking in a single cell smaller than Powwell’s room. He didn’t like leaving Bessel alone, the only