Up in Smoke - Katie MacAlister [73]
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