Up In Smoke (23 page)

“You may speak in front of them. They will not carry tales,” his mother said, pulling him toward the fire.

He took my hand and pulled me with him. One of the rangers, the oldest, a man with gray hair and wise brown eyes, waved his hand toward a camp stool.

“Thank you, I'm fine,” I murmured, and carefully perched myself on a beat-up plastic cooler that was evidently also used as a seat.

“I think you'd better tell me about it,” Kaawa said, and offered us both coffee.

Gabriel quickly recounted the events of the last day. I shifted uncomfortably when her gaze slipped to me as he told how I had misheard him, resulting in the phylactery being broken, and I had to resort to sitting on my hands when my fingers repeatedly ignited.

“That is all very interesting,” she said slowly, her gaze searching his face. “But you have not yet mentioned the most interesting part of all.”

Gabriel's lips thinned. His knees burst into flame.

“Sorry,” I said, and focused hard on damping down the fire. It fizzled out to nothing.

“May is feeling the effects of the dragon shard,” he said as an explanation. “Hence the mating marks. As you can see, she is still learning to control the fire.”

“Yes, yes, I understand that—it was such with Ysolde, when she became the Avignon Phylactery—but that is not what I mean, and you know it. Tell me about this dragon who could walk in the Dreaming.”

Gabriel was silent for a moment. “I believe it is as you think. I do not understand how he could survive, and yet the proof is before us.”

“Bah,” she said, making a dismissive gesture as she poured herself a cup of thick black coffee and took one of the canvas chairs. “Resurrection is not difficult. It can be done. But for a dragon to walk in the Dreaming, to be able to interact in there . . .” She shook her head. “That is truly a feat I had not thought possible. You are certain he started to take the phylactery from you, wintiki?”

I nodded.

“Then Baltic must have been resurrected by someone very special indeed,” she said thoughtfully, her gaze on the fire.

“But that's unlikely, isn't it?” I asked.

Gabriel's nod was slow in coming. “The signs point to it, and yet it seems to me impossible.”

“I agree it fits with everything that's happened lately,” I said, pausing to pick my way through my conflicting thoughts. “Or does it? I could swear that the man who was in the shadow world with me was genuinely surprised to see the phylactery, and he tried to take it from me. If you suppose it was Baltic back from the dead, as I assume you must from everything that's happened, why would he have given Kostya the phylactery if he wanted it for himself?”

“I don't know,” Gabriel admitted. “It doesn't seem to make sense, and yet, I have felt for the last few decades that something was not right in the weyr. There was a disturbance, a faint ripple of something that should not have been there.”

“He gets that from me,” Kaawa told me with obvious pride. “His good looks come from his father—have you met him? Horrible personality, but such a good lover, it made you forget about the former for a while. But it gives me great pleasure to know that Gabriel's finer points come from me.”

“I can see that they do,” I agreed politely.

“You don't yet, but you will,” she said complacently before returning to the subject at hand. “I know that you wish to consult me about May becoming the phylactery—what are you going to call yourself, child?”

I was a bit surprised. “What am I going to
call
myself?”

“Yes. All of the phylactery are named. That is to identify the shards within. You must bear an official name since you are now the vessel.”

“I don't know,” I said, looking in openmouthed surprise at Gabriel. “I have to change my name?”

“Not change your name, but it is tradition to name each phylactery.” He thought for a moment. “You could use your surname, unless you think your twin would object.”

“I don't see why she would. So now I'm May Northcott, doppelganger, wyvern's mate, consort to Magoth, and also the Northcott Phylactery?” I blew out a breath. “Why am I suddenly feeling overwhelmed?”

Gabriel's dimples flashed. “The wyvern's mate is the most important part, and you handle that extremely well.”

The look in his eyes brought the fire within me to roaring life, sudden pinpricks of pain causing me to leap to my feet as I pulled my hands out from where I had them tucked under my thighs to keep the flames from sprouting.

My fingers were back to being silver scaled, and scarlet tipped.

“Fascinating, simply fascinating,” Kaawa said, taking one of my hands to examine it closely. “I've read of Ysolde de Bouchier, of course. She detailed her experiences in becoming the Avignon Phylactery quite well, but it's not the same thing as seeing it in person. My dear, I hate to be a nagging mother, but would you put out the fire in my tent? It's the only one I have, and I don't have plans to go back to town for another fortnight.”

Two of the rangers had risen at the same time I twirled around to see one of the tents on fire. I closed my eyes, instinctively shadowing as I concentrated on putting out the fire. By the time it was out and I had deshadowed, the two younger rangers were backing away from the camp. Pari, the older man, simply examined me with interested eyes.

“You have made a good choice,” Kaawa told Gabriel, giving him a smile. “She will keep you from being bored.”

He laughed. “Boredom was never an issue, but I disagree that May is a good choice—she is the
only
choice.”

A little stab of pain pierced my heart. He was right—I was the only one who could be his mate, whether or not he wanted me to be so.

“Stop that, little bird. You know I did not mean it in that way,” he said.

“Stop reading my mind,” I parried.

“I was reading your charming face, if you must know,” he said, brushing his thumb across my chin. “You don't hide your thoughts very well.”

I let my gaze drop, not wanting to discuss the issue in front of others.

Kaawa gazed from Gabriel to me with a startled expression. “You can read her mind? Then truly you must be fated to be together. It is very rare for dragons to do that. You must be special indeed, wintiki.”

“She is, which is why I do not wish to spend the rest of our lives fighting off challengers,” Gabriel said. “I am prepared to deal with anyone who thinks he can take my mate away, but now that she bears the fifth shard, she will be prey to anyone who wishes to use her. I do not want to subject her to that.”

“No, of course not,” Kaawa agreed.

“Is it possible to get rid of the shard?” I asked her. “In some way that it won't be harmed, that is?”

“And will not harm May,” Gabriel added.

“Hmm.” Kaawa studied the fire again, clearly lost in thought. “The dragon heart is the essence of dragonkin, that which formed with the first dragon. It was he who recognized that its power would be too much for any one dragon to wield, and so he separated it into five pieces, the shards you know now. One was given to the green wyvern, one each to red and black, and two to the blue dragons.”

“Two? Why two?”

“The first dragon formed the blue sept. He kept a shard for himself, and one for his sept, given to the wyvern he chose.”

“Is he still around? The first dragon, I mean?” I asked, wondering if there was some connection between him and the mysterious Baltic, who may or may not be pulling the strings for everything going on.

“No,” Gabriel said. “No one is certain he ever truly existed. He is more myth than reality.”

“He existed. He still exists, in all dragonkin,” Kaawa said with calm assurance.

“So the shards were divided up. How did this Ysolde person end up having one?” I asked.

“Ysolde was mated to the black dragon Baltic but was claimed by Constantine Norka as his mate. There is some confusion as to which wyvern she accepted— her diaries for that time are missing. But we do know that she was torn up by the Endless War, and determined to bring about its end before more dragons died at the hands of the two men who fought over her. She somehow acquired the shard of the first dragon, and used it along with the shards of Baltic and Constantine in an attempt to bind together the other shards. It didn't work, of course—the dragon heart has a mind of its own, and it did not wish to be used in such a manner—and in the process, the phylactery which held the first dragon's shard was destroyed, and it claimed her as its vessel.”

“What happened to Ysolde?” I asked. “I've heard her name mentioned before. Is she still alive?”

Kaawa was silent for a moment, absently stirring the fire with a long stick. “She disappeared when Baltic was killed by his heir. Some said that was proof she was truly his mate, but there is some evidence that she survived his death, remaining hidden. Nothing was heard from her after Constantine Norka was killed by an avalanche, however, so it could be that she was really his mate. It's likely we'll never know.”

“And was the shard destroyed with her?”

“No. She successfully decanted it into another vessel.” She raised her eyebrows as she looked over at Gabriel. “You will have to find the other shards, child.”

He nodded. “I know where they are.”

“Why do we have to find the other shards?” I asked, confused.

“The shard that resides within each vessel cannot be separated from it unless the vessel itself is destroyed.”

“Urgh,” I said, not liking the sound of that.

“Exactly,” she said, nodding. “It can be formed into the dragon heart, however, and then resharded into appropriate vessels. That is how Ysolde eventually decanted her shard—she brought together the shards, re-formed the heart, then separated the pieces again into their current phylacteries. Current with the obvious exception of you.”

“I thought you said that when she tried to bring the pieces together the heart objected and the phylactery was destroyed,” I said, more confused than ever.

“That was the first time, when she tried to use the heart for her own purposes. The dragon heart is immensely powerful,” she answered, her dark eyes serious as she considered me. “It has the ability to destroy entire septs, child, possibly the entire weyr itself. The shards themselves contain much power, but they are nothing compared to the sum total. To wield such a thing is beyond most beings, dragon or otherwise. Ysolde meant well, but she did not have the ability to control the heart, and it recognized that fact, causing the first failure. But when she sought to re-form it for the purpose of ensuring the safety of all the shards—for by that time, the weyr was in disarray, with many septs close to complete annihilation—it allowed her to do so.”

“So you're saying we need to repeat that? To bring together all the shards, re-form the dragon heart, then break it back up again into the individual shards and put them in nonhuman vessels?”

“It is the only way to separate the shard from your being,” she said, nodding.

I glanced at Gabriel, filled with hopeless dismay. “How am I supposed to do that? Ysolde was a dragon, wasn't she? Is this dragon heart going to allow me to re-form it when I'm only your mate?”

“We have to try, Mayling,” he answered, his jaw tightening.

I nodded but said nothing. There was nothing else to say—either we succeeded in re-forming the dragon heart and separating it back into shards, or I'd be stuck being a vessel for the remainder of my days. There was Magoth to think about—he hadn't been able to access any of my abilities thus far, but who knew whether the dragon shard would be accessible by him? I couldn't risk giving him any more power than he had.

Given Magoth and the number of dragons out there who would literally kill to gain power over others, there was simply no other option.

Chapter Thirteen

“
G
abriel is nervous,” Maata said out of the blue the following day.

I stopped pacing back and forth across the small room to which we'd been shown. Outside the room, thousands of people passed through the Auckland airport, but inside it, noise was muffled to the point of being almost inaudible, as was the conversation I could see Gabriel holding with a couple of customs officials, one of whom had reservations about my (admittedly hastily forged) passport.

“I don't blame him. I wish he'd just let me shadow to get through customs. There's going to be hell to pay if they discover the passport isn't genuine.”

She smiled. Maata didn't often smile, and it made me wonder how she came about being one of Gabriel's elite guards. She was a pretty woman, her appearance reflecting more Polynesian influence than Aboriginal, and that stirred up even more curiosity about the woman who would literally give her life for her wyvern. “You think he's worried about mortals? He's dealt with much worse, I can tell you. He's worried you won't like his home.”

I gave her a puzzled look. “Why on earth would he think I wouldn't like it?”

“He's worried you'll compare it to Drake's homes and find it lacking . . . find him lacking.”

“Oh, for the love of the twelve gods. I've told him before I don't care about that. I know he doesn't have a lot of money like Drake. I am completely fine with living a modest lifestyle. My flat in London is really nothing but a room with a sink. I'm totally fine with staying within a budget, although I wish now I hadn't let him buy me all those expensive clothes.”

“Gabriel isn't one to hold on to money for long,” she said matter-of-factly. “He has never accrued wealth, as most dragons do. He has a lair, but it is filled with things that are precious to him and wouldn't necessarily be viewed by others as overly valuable.”