Thrall - Christie Golden [8]
A frown marred the perfection of her brow for a moment, and her musical voice sharpened. “While I appreciate your bluntness, it is just as well that my whole flight does not think the way my consort does.”
“You have the kindest heart in Azeroth. But sometimes a kind heart blinds one—”
“You think I do not see clearly? I? I led my flight against a fellow Aspect, in order to save beings whose lives are but a blink of an eye to us. You enjoy milling among the mortals, Korialstrasz, but do not think that means you are the only one who can see clearly.”
He opened his mouth to retort, then closed it again. “I speak only out of concern.”
At once, his mate softened. “I know,” she said. “But perhaps your … concern about the blues will not be well received at this meeting.”
“It never has been,” he acknowledged with a small grin. “And thus we circle back to our starting point.” He lifted both her slender hands and pressed kisses into each of the soft palms. “Go without me, then, my heart. You are the Aspect. Yours is the voice they will listen to. I will only be as a small pebble wedged between the scales—an irritant and little more.”
She nodded her flame-colored head. “For this first gathering, tensions will be high. Later, when we begin speaking of plans, your insight will be welcome. Today, I think, is simply about reconnecting and healing.”
Alexstrasza leaned forward. Their lips met, soft and sweet. One of the great pleasures of the elf-like forms they both felt so comfortable assuming was that skin was more sensitive to receiving a loving touch than scales. They drew back, smiling, the argument—if indeed it could even be called such—forgotten.
“I will return shortly with, I hope, good news.” She stepped backward. Her smiling face shifted, a proud muzzle, gleaming crimson, jutting forward as the brilliant gold eyes enlarged. Almost faster than the eye could follow, her form changed from elven maiden to glorious, glittering red dragon.
Korialstrasz, too, changed. He enjoyed both forms, but his natural one was this—reptilian, massive, and powerful. A heartbeat later, two red dragons, now instantly recognizable for what—and who—they were, stood together in the Ruby Sanctum.
Alexstrasza tossed her horns, then nuzzled against her mate with a gentleness that other races might be surprised to see in a creature so massive. Then, with a grace belying her size, she leaped upward, and with a few beats of her mighty wings she was gone.
Korialstrasz’s gaze followed her affectionately, then he turned to the eggs that were scattered about. He permitted himself to feel pride and love as he regarded his unhatched offspring. Humor made the corners of the great eyes crinkle for a moment as he said, remembering human customs of which he was so fond, “How about a bedtime story, hmm?”
Alexstrasza flew through the sanctum, concentrating on releasing her apprehension and instead letting her heart be filled with the restorative beauty of the place. Dragon eggs were nestled everywhere—in little hollows, beneath the red trees, in special nests near towering boulders. Keeping watch over the entrance to the sanctum, on both sides of the portal, were the wardens of the chamber: extremely powerful drakonid whose job was to protect the innocent whelps drowsing still in their shells. The future was here, and guarded lovingly, and her heart was glad. Because it was the future that was about to be built, beginning in this moment, with the meeting of four of the dragonflights.
The black flight, once so solid and stable and true, like the good earth it was to protect and be part of, had followed its mad patriarch, Deathwing, and permitted evil to enter its members’ hearts. Black dragons no longer feigned interest in the other flights; not even the slyly smiling Nalice remained at the temple. Alexstrasza doubted that she would ever again behold a gathering of her kind and see red, blue, green, bronze, and black. The thought saddened her,