Me and My Shadow (19 page)

“Psht,”
Kaawa said, waving away the apology. “I spend most of my days out in the bush, so a soft bed and a roof over my head will be a luxury.”

“There's the problem of Magoth, though,” Aisling said, her forehead wrinkling.“I'm afraid we're fresh out of rooms. I suppose he could sleep on the sofa or something.”

“He will not sleep here,” Drake said decisively from behind her, giving her a little boost to make it up the last few steps. “I will not have a demon lord in the same house as you while you are in such a delicate state.”

She spun around so quickly she whomped him with her belly. “I'm hardly delicate, Drake. I'm as big as a leviathan, and twice as ungainly.”

“Three times, actually,” Jim said, eyeing her. “You know, it's actually a wonder you can fit through a door with that thing. I wonder if you'll just keep growing until one day you explode.”

“May I?” I asked Aisling as she stopped in front of a door.

“Please do.”

“Do what?” Jim asked, its eyes suspicious. “Ow! Ow, ow, ow! Someone call the demon-abuse hotline! I'm being abducted by a sadistic doppelganger!”

I grabbed Jim by one fuzzy black ear and hauled it upstairs with me to my room. There I lectured it again about inappropriate comments to Aisling.

“No one around here can take a joke anymore,” it grumbled when I was done. “I didn't mean she was really going to explode.”

“Perhaps not, but she's more worried than she lets on about the baby taking its time, so you just lighten up with the explosive comments,” I said, patting it on the head. Jim was fond of Aisling, I knew, and wouldn't really want to hurt her, but obviously had not been as observant as it might have been. “Go watch some movies or something, but watch the cracks to Aisling about the baby.”

“Aw, do I have to? I want to hear how to re-form the dragon heart,” it said as I ushered Kaawa into a small upstairs sitting room that Drake had told us we could use. It was dark and slightly musty-smelling, as if it hadn't been occupied much.

“Why on earth would you want to do that?” I asked, opening the curtains.

Jim shrugged. “You never know when something like that might come in handy.”

I glanced at Kaawa.

“I don't mind if the demon stays,” she said, watching Jim closely. “It appears to be one of the rare sixth-class demons, and thus should not pose a hazard to you.”

“It's not me I'm worried about,” I said, wondering what sorts of powers a demon in possession of the dragon heart would be able to wield. The thought left me a bit sick to my stomach, so I moved on.

The following two hours were spent learning the steps of the ceremony to decant the shard, most of which was rote memorization of a couple of incantations. The language the incantations were spoken in was Zilant, a Slavic language that all dragons learned early on, and that, until recent centuries, had been the common language between the septs. I've never been much of a linguist, and it took me several tries, aided by copious notes, before I felt comfortable conducting the invocation that would separate the shard from my body, and allow it to re-form the dragon heart.

“Where did you learn all this?” I asked as I closed the notebook in which I'd been making notes. “Gabriel said you were very learned in dragon lore, but I'm surprised you know so much about something so outside of your normal interests.”

She smiled, and continued to rub Jim's belly as she had been doing for the last half hour. The demon was on its back, legs kicking gently in the air, soft little half moans, half snores of pleasure coming from its furry black lips as it slept. “You know of Ysolde de Bouchier.”

I nodded. “You've mentioned her before. She left some notebooks behind about her experiences with the shard after she became a phylactery, right?”

“That is correct.”

“That's reassuring. If the invocation worked for Ysolde, it's a sure thing to work for me. Despite the interesting experience of turning into a dragon, there's nothing I want more than to get rid of the shard.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “I did not mean to imply that the invocation was foolproof, wintiki. There is still a very large element of the unknown to the process of re-forming the heart. Much of what I've told you is speculation.”

“But you had Ysolde's notebooks,” I said, suddenly worried. I had assumed all along that I would be able to get rid of the shard. But what if I couldn't? What if I was stuck with it? Forever?

My stomach dropped at the thought.

“Yes, but they did not provide a detailed step-by-step guide to ridding oneself of a dragon shard. They merely gave information about what Ysolde herself did, and what sorts of things could happen should one try to re-form the heart, or use the shards by themselves.”

My heart sank to join my stomach. “So you don't have any idea if the ceremony is going to work?”

She shook her head, sympathy rich in her eyes and face. “I wish there was a foolproof method, but we are talking about the dragon heart. It is not controlled, never controlled. If it wishes you to, it will allow you to use it, but never against its wishes.”

“You speak of it as if it's alive,” I said, gently touching the mark on my chest where the shard had entered my body.

She smiled. “It has powers, little night bird. It may not be alive in the sense that you are alive, but it is sentient. It will not allow you to use it if it does not approve of you, or the use to which you wish to put it.”

“Well, great. Here I am trying to get rid of this shard, and it'll probably go tell the rest of them what a horrible person I am, and they'll all refuse to re-form.”

She laughed and patted my hand as she stood up, much to Jim's unhappiness. “It is not
that
you have to worry about.”

“Oh really?” I caught something in her tone that made me uneasy. “Is there something else I should be worrying about?”

She hesitated a second before saying no.

“Kaawa,” I said, rising as she reached for the door.

She stopped, her shoulders slumping for a moment before she turned back to face me with a perfectly innocent expression. “Yes, wintiki?”

“I appreciate you trying to protect me, but I assure you I can take care of myself. Gabriel knows that. That's why he's not fussing around while I take care of this. So if there's a danger involved—other than the obvious one of being vulnerable while the decanting and re-forming processes are going on—I'd really appreciate you telling me what it is, so I can be ready for it.”

Her hesitation and concern were almost palpable, making me worry anew.

“I would not for the world insult you, May, and I would never hide something that you could use to protect yourself.”

“But?” I asked, waiting for her to finish.

“But you possess many qualities of humans, and not so many of dragons.” She looked away, obviously not wanting to meet my gaze.

I went over everything she had told me about the shards, everything that Ysolde de Bouchier had done . . . and enlightenment dawned.

“Kaawa?”

She held on to the door as if she wanted to escape. “Yes, child?”

“Did Ysolde disappear immediately after she re-formed the dragon heart, or did she vanish when Baltic died?”

Her dark eyes, rich as mahogany, and filled now with sadness, studied mine. “We don't know. It's . . . it was a confusing time, you must understand. Three things apparently happened at the same time: the black dragon heir killed his wyvern, Ysolde re-formed the heart and sharded it into their phylacteries, and the silver dragon wyvern disappeared.”

A few seconds of digging around in my memory pulled up a name. “Constantine Norka? Wasn't he also supposed to be mated to Ysolde?”

She was silent a few moments, her fingers absently rubbing on the edge of the door. “No one knows for certain what happened. Until now, it was thought all were dead, but with Baltic having returned, perhaps he could clear it up and tell us what exactly did transpire.”

I almost snorted at the thought of Baltic doing anything but spouting mysterious, ambiguous comments. “I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for him to explain. So basically, the theory is that she was either Baltic's mate or Constantine's, and when they died, she died, too? Or was it the dragon heart that did her in?”

“We don't know,” she said, looking even sadder. “Her diaries don't say.”

I swallowed back my fear. “You're a shaman, Kaawa. You see things that most people can't even imagine exist. You can look into the shadows, look past time and space. What do
you
think happened?”

Her fingers tightened on the door. “That is not a wise question to ask, wintiki.”

“Unwise because you don't wish to answer it, or because I won't like what you have to say?”

“Perhaps both.”

I looked at my hands for a moment, absorbing what she hadn't said. “You think the dragon heart killed Ysolde.”

“No.”

I glanced up.

“I think it used her up,” she said. “I think—I have no proof, mind you; this is all simply speculation—but I think that Constantine Norka tried to save her, and was destroyed along with her.”

“Would the dragon heart do that to dragons?” I asked, sick at the thought of risking Gabriel. I knew without the slightest doubt in my soul that he would sacrifice himself to save me.

“It has the power to destroy the entire weyr,” she said wearily. “Perhaps even the mortal world.”

“Agathos daimon,”
I swore under my breath. I had always assumed that the dragon heart was a benign thing, a relic of the first dragon that represented everything dragonkin were and would be, something that encompassed the best parts of all the dragons. But what if it was a harbinger of the power dragons tapped into rather than a celebration of their abilities? What if it was, in fact, a curse, not a boon?

Now I understood why Kaawa had warned me repeatedly of its power.

“Do not look so grim, child. Ysolde de Bouchier's path is not yours,” Kaawa said quietly.

“I don't know what's going to stop me from ending up like her,” I said, giving in to a moment of despair.

She came back into the room and kissed the top of my head before returning to the door. “Ysolde did not have what you have.”

“You?” I asked, grateful for her wisdom and insight, even if it did give me moments of terror.

“My son.” Her eyes glittered with humor for a moment. “His father trained him to be a warrior, a strong wyvern and protector of all silver dragons, but he learned much from me, too. Gabriel will not allow anything to happen to his miracle.”

I smiled at the word, a warm, comfortable feeling washing over me at her words. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps Gabriel and I together could get the better of the dragon heart. Ysolde had been alone, torn between two warring wyverns, but I had Gabriel's strength to see me through anything.

I was about to say just that when Kaawa suddenly held up her hand, her expression abstracted. “Listen. Do you hear it?”

I stilled for a moment, then sighed. “It's my twin. But I have no idea why she's yelling, unless . . . oh, merciful spirits, tell me he didn't show up, too.”

Chapter Nine

Kaawa stepped aside with nimble awareness as I dashed past her and down the stairs. I stopped just short of plowing into Kostya as he stood, legs braced apart, arms crossed over his chest, his face tight with anger as Cyrene harangued him.

“. . . and I don't care if he is your brother—I was here first, and that means you have to find somewhere else to stay.”

I stepped aside to admire her form for a moment. Her eyes were lit with fury, her hands waving wildly as she threw accusations at Kostya.

“You followed me here! Admit it—you followed me here so you could be with me without apologizing.”

Kostya's voice came out a growl. “I didn't follow you here. I came to my brother's house—my
brother's
house—because I had no choice, you insane naiad, not because I was following you!”

“Well, you can just think twice about that, Konstantin Fekete,” Cyrene said, clearly on a roll and not about to stop for anything like a breath or conversational give-and-take, “because I said I was through with you, and so I am! It's over, got that? Over!”

“I'm not here because I want to see you again!” Kostya's grip on his temper, never very strong, snapped. He leaned forward and bellowed into Cyrene's face, “In fact, if I never saw you again, I'd die a happy dragon!”

“You can't die, you odious, fire-breathing beast,” Cyrene yelled back. “More's the pity! If I had my way, I'd drown you in a—”

“I think that's about enough, Cy,” I interrupted, taking her arm and pulling her back a few feet. “Whatever your relationship issues are, Kostya is right in that this is Drake's house.”

“But—but—” she sputtered.

“And Drake has very kindly allowed us all to stay here, a fact I'd appreciate you to remember.”

She sputtered a bit more, but contented herself with looking daggers at Kostya when I asked, “What did you mean you didn't have a choice? I thought you had a house in London?”

“He does,” Cyrene said, looking down her nose at him. “It's not very nice, though.”

“Cy,” I said, giving her a warning look.

She sniffed and feigned interest in a picture on the wall.

“My house, my
perfectly nice house
with an expensive security system that was installed after my lair was repeatedly burgled—” Kostya shot me a meaningful look, pausing with dramatic grace for a few seconds. “My charming and well-furnished house was destroyed sometime during the night. When I returned to it from the airport, I found nothing but the scorched remains of what was once a desirable residence, miles of crime-scene tape, and several extremely thorough arson investigators who interviewed me extensively for the last five hours. That, my annoying little water sprite, is why I am here rather than where I would much rather be.”