Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [102]
Gabriel stiffened and rose slowly. Maata made a checked movement, as if she was holding herself back.
Drake sighed and shook his head.
“You speak of our honor?” Gabriel asked, his lovely voice hard and brittle.
“I do.” Kostya lifted his chin. “I was in Paris, and thus I must be responsible. That is the way of your thinking, is it not?”
“Do you deny you were in Paris at the time?”
“No.”
The room was silent for a moment as everyone digested that.
“If you were not involved in Fiat’s destruction of the blue dragons, what were you doing there?”
A muscle in Kostya’s jaw tightened. “You have no right to ask me that. I am not obligated by any law in the weyr to make you privy to my movements, or the reasons behind any action I take.”
The silence grew thick with suspicion and animosity.
“Kostya—” Drake started to say wearily, but his brother cut him off with a gesture.
“Regardless, I will explain my presence in Paris, because I wish to further goodwill between the black and silver septs.”
Maata snorted. I had to admit I didn’t quite buy his altruism.
“My men had been watching a house in Paris that we believed Baltic was using. I was alerted that there had been unusual activity, and went to see for myself if it was anything while on my way back from Riga.”
Gabriel waited, his posture relaxed, but I knew better. I could feel the tension thrumming through him.
“There was activity, as my man had reported, but it was Fiat, not Baltic. I had no idea of what Fiat was up to, or I would have stopped him.” His gaze moved to touch on everyone in the room. “I returned to England shortly after verifying that Baltic was not present. I did not hear about the massacres until later.”
I watched Gabriel, feeling the depth of emotion in him, but not sure what he was thinking. Would he believe Kostya? I did. Truth rang out in his voice. He might not be forthcoming with everything, but I did not believe he had participated in the wholesale murder of all those innocent people.
Kostya must have felt Gabriel’s unwillingness to accept his explanation, because he made a quick, frustrated gesture and added in a voice rife with irritation, “For Christ’s sake, Gabriel—have I harmed anyone since I was released from the aerie? Have I attacked any of the silver dragons? Have I harmed your sept in any way? Whatever else you may think of me, I’ve never given you grounds to claim I’m a psychopath!”
Gabriel was still silent, obviously weighing Kostya’s words.
“Gabriel?” Chuan Ren prodded him with an impatient word. “How say you about the black sept?”
All eyes were on us.
“I accept your explanation,” Gabriel said finally. “And I retract my statement of your guilt in that matter.”
Kostya inclined his head in acknowledgment of the apology. Cyrene beamed at us and hugged his arm.
“Our history with the black dragons is known to all here,” Gabriel said slowly, his voice once again rich and smooth. “It cannot be denied that we have long sought autonomy from them, and yet, they were once our friends, our family. They were a part of us. And while we do not pursue either justice or revenge against them for acts done in the past, we are not so quick to lay our ghosts.”
Kostya stiffened in his chair, his brows lowering.
“Too many lives have been lost to the black dragons.” Gabriel was silent for a moment, anguish deep within him. “Too many families were destroyed for us to simply forget those who sacrificed, or were sacrificed. We honor their memories now as we always will.”
I held my breath. I knew that under normal circumstances Gabriel was too honorable to go back on his word to Kostya. But what if he felt he was justified? What would the weyr do if the black and the silver dragons were once again battling with each other? There had been war recently in the weyr, one that had been forced to an end, much to