Up in Smoke - Katie MacAlister [45]
“Grace of the naiads,” she swore, drawing a symbol representative of water elementals over her heart.
I took a deep breath, relieved that we’d come to an understanding. Cyrene may not be the wisest or most savvy person on the earth, but I knew her heart was good, and if she swore by the grace of her kind not to tell, then she wouldn’t. “You remember the red dragon named Jian?”
“The good-looking one?” She nodded. “Kostya said he was the son of the previous wyvern.”
“That’s him. Well, he came to see us yesterday, asking for our help.”
“To overthrow that witchy wyvern? I don’t blame him one bit. I didn’t like her at all. But what do the silver dragons have to do with the red ones? I thought all of the septs were fairly insular.”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that. It concerns me being the phylactery for the dragon shard.”
“Oh! Speaking of that, where is it?”
The road was particularly twisty as it followed the ragged coastline, but I chanced taking my eyes off the road for a moment to shoot a surprised look her way. “Where is the shard?”
“Yes. Is it inside you, like a tumor or something? Can you feel it? Does it hurt?”
“I believe it’s inside me, yes. There’s a small mark below my rib cage that wasn’t there before the Lindorm Phylactery exploded. But it doesn’t hurt.”
“So you don’t even know it’s there?” She blew out a relieved breath. “That’s good.”
I didn’t correct her. The fact that I was slowly losing myself to the dragon-heart shard would become apparent in time; until then, I wouldn’t mention it.
“What do Jian and his mother have to do with the shard inside you?”
“A few months ago Aisling banished his mother, Chuan Ren, to Abaddon.”
She nodded. “I heard that. That’s some kind of awesome, huh?”
“Impressive, yes. Jian wants us to get her back. Specifically, he wants me to get her back.”
“You?” Her forehead wrinkled. “But you didn’t cast Chuan Ren into Abaddon, Aisling did. Why isn’t he asking Aisling to bring her back?”
“That’s where the complicated part comes in. I guess he tried, and Drake wouldn’t consider the request. It’s understandable given how delicate Aisling is right now.”
“I suppose, although she doesn’t strike me as particularly delicate.”
I grinned at her. “To be honest, I agree, but I do understand Drake not wanting her to get involved. Chuan Ren must be absolutely furious with her.”
“So that’s where you come in? Gabriel is doing this as a favor to Drake?”
I hesitated for a moment, using a tricky turn as cover for my silence. “Jian asked me if I could use my connection to Abaddon to locate and free his mother. In exchange, he offered us the use of the dragon-heart shard that the red wyvern holds.”
“Why do you need that?” she asked, still wearing a puzzled expression.
I explained briefly about the dragon heart.
“So, the red dragons will hand over their piece, and that will give you two of the five?”
“Temporarily hand over, yes. It’ll be returned to them.”
“Two isn’t going to do you much good,” she pointed out. “Not if you need all five shards.”
“Gabriel has that worked out. Drake will loan us his piece in exchange for helping Jian.”
“Why would he want to help Jian . . . ? Oh. To end the war?”
“Yes. That’ll be part of the deal Chuan Ren is going to have to agree to in order to be freed. Assuming I can free her, that is.”
“You’re going to need Magoth for that, I bet,” Cyrene said with surprising prescience. “Do you know where he is now?”
“Oddly enough, he’s been keeping a low profile. Gabriel has had people watching for him, but as far as we know, Magoth and Sally are holed up in his house in Paris.”
“Hmm. I’d have thought Magoth would have been raising hell by now. Ha. Hell.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m sure he would if he could, but I think he’s finding out just how limited he is without any powers.”
“Is he going to be able to help you with Jian, then?” Cy asked.
“He should be able to,