“You have to admit, there’s something—oh, good one, Baltic!—strangely attractive about men fighting each other in this manner. Hey! I said no ganging up on Baltic! I see that, Drake and Kostya! If you boys can’t fight fairly, you can just sit in the hallway!”
Aisling giggled. “You’re probably the only person in the world who can get away with saying that, Ysolde. Well, ladies, it looks like the menfolk are busy with their show of masculinity. Shall we move to an atmosphere that’s a little less testosterone filled?”
I cast an assessing glance at the battle. Baltic’s left eye was swelling shut, and blood dripped out of his nose, but he looked in fine fettle nonetheless. The other three wyverns all seemed to fare similarly, and to my surprise, they all seemed to realize that there were limits to their fighting, and no one attempted to use weapons, makeshift or otherwise, but confined themselves to their fists.
“I don’t see why not. I suppose when they get tired of beating each other up, they’ll come to find us and have their injuries tended. Let us go to the solar.”
I led the way up the stairs to a room that sat above the library, designed so that it, too, caught the afternoon sunlight. It was furnished now in an atrocious manner, but I did my best to ignore the hideous bloated tea roses that adorned all the furniture, imagining how beautiful the room could be given the chance.
We chatted for a few minutes about commonplace things, May explaining to Aisling what had happened to her twin.
“Oh, man. Cyrene’s given him the brush-off?” Aisling shook her head. “He’s going to be hell to live with.”
“I’d like to say that it’s just a phase, but . . . well, you know Cy. She’s always been fickle when it comes to matters of the heart,” May answered.
“The question is . . .” Aisling paused in thought. “What impact is that going to have on the weyr?”
“What do you mean? Why would there be an impact?” I asked.
“This was before you were awake, Ysolde—or rather, before you went into your fugue—but Kostya named Cyrene as his mate in front of the weyr.”
“That’s what he said. I don’t see what the problem is. Can’t he just unname her?”
“I don’t think so, no. Dragons mate for life, you see. All but reeve dragons, but those are few and far between.” She must have seen my look of confusion because she continued. “Reeves are special dragons. They have an unusually pure bloodline, and they are the only ones who can mate more than once. That is, if they have a mate and she or he dies, the dragon continues to live and can take another mate. Drake’s grandmother was a reeve. She had two mates, one a black dragon and one a green dragon. That’s why Drake is a green dragon, and Kostya is black. But we were talking about Cyrene.”
“There must be some sort of policy for the unnaming of a mate,” May said.
“I don’t think so. Drake has never mentioned anything of the sort, and I think he would have when Kostya named Cyrene as one.” She sat in a horribly overstuffed chair while May and I took an adjacent love seat. “I don’t think the situation has ever come up before, which means there may be some trouble at the weyr when all the mates are present.”
“Why would that be? Mates don’t do much, do they?” I asked, thinking back to the sárkány I’d witnessed a few months before. “Aren’t you just there as support?”
“Yes, but it’s vital support. Mates are excused from weyr functions for only very limited reasons—childbirth being one of them, and illness or physical inability to attend another. Mates can also attend a sárkány in place of the wyvern.”
May’s eyes widened.
“Exactly,” Aisling said, nodding. “Can you imagine what would happen if something kept Kostya away from a sárkány, and Cyrene had the right to take his place?”
“Agathos daimon,” May muttered, running a hand over her eyes. “I don’t even want to—”
She was cut off as the door was flung open. Baltic stood in the doorway, blood dripping from his nose and eyebrow.
“Mate! You left me!”
“Of course we left,” I said calmly, quickly eyeing him for signs of injuries. He seemed to be favoring his left side, in addition to his other hurts. “You were all acting like idiots. You didn’t honestly expect us to stand there and watch you beat each other up, did you?”
“A proper mate knows that her place is at her wyvern’s side,” Drake said, pushing past Baltic into the room. He limped slightly, and appeared to be missing a tooth.
Aisling tsked and hurried over to him, wiping at the blood on his mouth.
May raised her eyebrows as Gabriel, also limping, followed Drake, a little groan escaping him when he sat in the spot I vacated. “ ‘Physician, heal thyself’ has a particularly fitting ring to it right now, but I suppose you don’t want to hear that, do you?”
“No,” he said, wincing as he flexed the fingers of one hand.
Kostya staggered in last, striking a pose at the door that lasted for three seconds before he crumpled and collapsed.
I looked at Baltic again. “I imagine you’re proud of yourself.”
“I have nothing to be ashamed of, if that is what you are implying.” He nodded to where both Aisling and May (who had evidently given in to Gabriel’s pathetic appearance) were murmuring softly as they tended their men. “Aren’t you going to cosset me as the other mates are doing?”
“I don’t think you deserve any cosseting, since it was you who started the whole thing by jumping Kostya.”
A groan came from the direction of the floor. “It was completely his fault. He’s wholly to blame for everything. Oh, god, I think I’m going to puke.”
Baltic looked at me out of his one good eye, the sadness in it sufficient that I pulled out a tissue and dabbed gently at the blood from his nose. “Sit down,” I said, pushing him into the overstuffed chair Aisling had been sitting in.
“Careful,” he warned, easing himself into the seat. “A couple of my ribs are broken.”
“They are?” I whirled around, suddenly furious. “All right, which one of you broke Baltic’s ribs?”
Drake and Gabriel pointed to the floor.
“He dislocated my shoulder and broke my collarbone, if that makes you feel any better,” Kostya said in a pained voice.
“Tough noogies. You and I are going to have a little talk later on, Konstantin Fekete,” I said, glaring at him.
“If I survive, you’re welcome to try,” he said in between groans.
It took us a few minutes to get everyone patched up and relatively hale, although all four men had to be provided with dragon’s blood, an extremely potent spicy sort of wine that only dragons and their mates could drink, before their regenerative powers kicked in and healed the worst of their hurts.
“Now perhaps we can get down to business and talk about this ridiculous war,” I said after everyone was comfortably situated. “I want to discuss the death of all those blue dragons, and what actual proof you have against Baltic regarding them.”
Drake’s phone buzzed. With a cross between an oath and a groan, he got to his feet and moved stiffly to the far end of the room to take the call.
“The proof was laid before you at the last sárkány,” Gabriel said wearily, sipping carefully from his glass. “Baltic was in the area at the time of the murders. He was seen by one of the survivors. He is known to have been working with Fiat, who we know also had a hand in the murders.”
“Really? Then why haven’t you put a death sentence on his head the way you did mine?” I asked, more than a little riled at the thought of the way the entire weyr had jumped to erroneous conclusions.
“Fiat is . . .” Gabriel glanced across the room at Drake.
“Nutso.” Aisling finished the sentence. “Mad as a hatter, or so Drake and Bastian say. Jim would say he’s cracked, and for once, I agree with it. Drake tried to talk to Fiat last month, but he went off about a woman plotting his downfall, and how she’s arranged to have him killed after using him for her own purposes.”