The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

weasel into the void.
    This landing was more graceful. Practice, she told herself. Great magic took practice.
    “Step through the split boulder, don’t go around it as the path seems to indicate.”
    She lifted her skirts free of the dirt and moss that brushed against her and stepped through to a new path. Eight more steps and the path ended at a creek.
    Bewildered, Rejiia searched the area with all of her senses. The boy had said to wait for Brevelan, but she didn’t have time. She needed to find her way into the clearing on her own, without alarming the inhabitants.
    Power tingled at the tips of her fingers, not quite entering her body. She reached out to find the source of energy. An invisible wall pushed her hand away. Finger-length by finger-length she followed the wall around, back to her starting place by the creek. Lives pulsed beyond the wall. The lives of her enemies.
    She had found the Commune. And Darville. Her rival’s presence taunted her, renewing her thirst for possession of the Coraurlia. “If he dies today with only a witch child as an heir, then I can put forth my claim to the throne without opposition.” She giggled as she clenched her fist and pounded against the barrier, seeking access to the king who had stolen her crown.
    Her hand and arm plunged through a hole in the barrier.
     
    Ten dragonets landed in an awkward flurry of wings and dragging pot bellies. High-pitched squeals of distress pierced Jaylor’s ears as the young dragons all tried to rush to their mother for protection and reassurance.
    The clearing just wasn’t big enough to contain them all without a talon or tail piercing the already damaged wall of the barrier.
    A sparkle of black-and-purple lights announced the arrival of a magician by transport. “How dare you snatch me from my morning meal!” Zolltarn, king of the Rovers, bellowed before his body was fully formed. The tall man with silver streaks within his blacker-than-black hair raised a clenched fist and shook it at a vanishing shadow in the air.
    “I summoned you the day before yesterday,” Jaylor informed his colleague.
    “And I was preparing to come. But a dragon snatched me from the privacy of my tent while I was still eating!”
    (You will be needed today, not next week when you would have arrived if left to your own schedule,) a dragon voice announced.
    There were so many dragon bodies in the clearing Jaylor couldn’t tell which one had spoken. But the voice sounded familiar. Maybe Seannin, the green-tip he’d ridden once.
    The reek of Tambootie smoke dragged Jaylor’s attention away from Zolltarn, the frightened young woman, and the crush of dragon bodies. Green flames licked the edges of the small hole Glendon had made in the barrier. Jaylor’s armor snapped into place without conscious thought. This was the stench of evil he had been reared to guard against. This was the signal that all of Coronnan faced danger from rogue magicians.
    Zolltarn crouched defensively, his knife at the ready, as well as a spell in his open palm.
    The hole burned bigger; oily smoke poured through it.
    “Brevelan, summon the rest of the Commune. Darville, where is your sword?” As he asked, Jaylor remembered the sight of Darville’s long battle sword in its plain leather scabbard propped upright beside the cottage door. He transported it to the king’s hand. Fred and Margit had spent last night in the dormitory, an hour away. Not much help unless he wasted energy on a transport.
    “Boys, into the cottage!” Brevelan commanded. No one, especially not small boys, disobeyed that tone of voice.
    (I must flee. I cannot stand against her.) Shayla gathered her remaining energies.
    “Her?” Darville and Jaylor asked at the same time.
    (Rejiia. Daughter of Krej, mistress of Simeon, witch of Hanassa.)
    “And mother of the next king of Coronnan!” The figure of a tall, slender woman, dressed in elegant black appeared in the flaming arch. Every sleek dark hair in place. She exuded calm confidence.
    Overconfident, Jaylor reminded himself. Her father and her aunt had been defeated by their lack of wariness.
    “Her!” Zolltarn spat. “She has been stripping SeLenicca of gold and power, and men of talent.”
    A shimmering sparkle of light rolled and gathered beside Rejiia. The tin weasel that was Lord Krej materialized at her feet. The statue’s mouth opened a fraction and drooled venom.
    “My father must watch the final destruction of his enemies,” she announced.