The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

wasted body, keeping a thin cushion of energy between his hand and her skin. The heat of her fever, the disintegration and bleeding within her lungs, the irregular rhythm of her heart pulsed at his sensitized hand.
    He felt the rupturing of blood vessels deep within her body. His mind saw her internal organs collapsing.
    No part of her body was free of the disease.
    “Oh, M’ma,” he wailed. “I can’t help you.” If he’d come earlier. If he could tap a ley line to give him the magical energy to repair some of her vital organs . . . But he could not do it. He would not bring rogue magic back into Coronnan—even to help his mother.

Chapter 5
     
    Early spring, the road below Myrilandel’s clearing that runs across the pass from Coronnan into Rossemeyer, southeastern corner of Coronnan
     
    Y aala clutched Powwell’s hand in eager anticipation. His palm was as hot and moist as her own.
    The long winter of waiting for the pass to clear had ended. Spring had burst forth in this remote mountain pass a few days ago. The time had come to take the next long step in reclaiming her heritage.
    At last she was going home to Hanassa, the only place she belonged. She daydreamed of clearing the city of mercenaries, outlaws, thieves, and murderers, making it a haven for the innocent refugees of war and poverty rather than a lawless haven for those who caused war and poverty. With the help of the machines hidden deep within the lava tube tunnels of the old volcano crater, she could turn Hanassa into a prosperous industrial city with honest work for all. She’d make the people of Hanassa her family.
    Quinnault and Katie had taught her that such ideals could exist. It was more than her mother, the late and unlamented Kaalipha of Hanassa, had taught her in her entire life.
    “Wait for it,” Powwell hissed. “Feel the hot wind? It’s opening. I found a new portal for the dragongate!”
    “Amazing,” Yaala replied. She stared unblinking, mouth slightly agape, at the shimmer of distortion within an arch-shaped shadow.
    “We can get into Hanassa now. All these moons of searching are over.” Powwell breathed on a deep sigh. “Kalen won’t have to wait for rescue any longer.”
    He hugged Yaala hard. His eagerness to risk his life to rescue his half sister irritated Yaala. She’d never loved or been loved by anyone with such intensity.
    “I can restart my machines and take control of Hanassa,” she said, thinking of the only things that mattered to her—other than her friendship with Powwell. “We’ve had to wait so long, I didn’t think this moment would ever come.” She refused to believe Powwell’s tale of the terrible dragon dream Shayla had given him last autumn. Yaala’s machines used volcanic heat to create steam rather than burning fossil fuels. Her machines did not provide the pollution the disease spores fed upon. She was the engineer. She should know.
    Why should she trust a dragon anyway? Shayla and Hanassa the Renegade had been born into the same nimbus, might very well have been part of the same litter. The nimbus had exiled Hanassa—the only dragon in their long history to require such punishment. The once purple dragon had taken human form and founded a city for other renegades. Depredations perpetrated by Hanassa and his followers had plagued the rest of Kardia Hodos for centuries.
    She would end their tyranny of terror once and for all.
    Yaala pulled her spine away from the outcropping of rock. The jagged stones fit her bizarre spinal structure as if carved for her. In all of her twenty-one years she’d never been able to rest her back against any surface. Her spinal bumps, residual traits of her dragon heritage, had defined her erect posture and set her apart from other humans. Her mother, Yaassima, had treated the minor deformity as a badge of honor. But then, the late Kaalipha of Hanassa had wanted to be more dragon than human.
    In the end, both dragons and humans had rejected her.
    Yaala didn’t want to die like her mother, lost and alone, reviled by one and all. She clung to Powwell’s arm as they watched the magical portal take form.
    “After the kardiaquakes and partial openings I found these past five moons, I was afraid we’d never be able to use the dragongate to get back into Hanassa.” Powwell turned his rare grin on her. His entire face lit with joy. All those hours spent with maps and pins and calculations finally come to fruit.”
    Yaala returned the smile. “I’m