“The outer bailey has been breached,” I said sadly, watching as a stream of snow-covered men swarmed through the gate. The dragons headed straight for the inner bailey. I looked up to see the faint image of the walls, but there was no one left to defend Dauva now that its master was lying dead deep in the earth beneath the castle.
“I can’t watch it,” I said, my heart filled with so much sadness for what happened.
“Then don’t.” Thala emerged from a path leading to the north, giving me not more than the slightest glance. She nodded abruptly at the line of dragons as they rode into the inner bailey, right past where we stood. “You should go back to town if it is too distressing for you to see this.”
Once again, she surprised me. “You can see them? The people from the past?”
“Of course.” She bent over a smooth bit of glass laid out on a blue velvet cloth. “They do not matter. Nothing of the past matters. It is the present that should concern you.”
I didn’t agree with that, but I knew arguing the point with her would serve no purpose. “Baltic is off reliving his own memories, I assume?”
“So I gather.” She didn’t look up from her glass.
I hesitated, not wanting to destroy her good mood but needing to get something off my chest. “I know that you have quite a long history with Baltic, longer than I had with him, and that you view me as some sort of interloper in the relationship, but I assure you that I’m not trying to steal his affection. He’s told me himself that he owes you a lot for resurrecting him, and although I know you’re in love with him—”
Her head snapped up, a look of incredulity so stark in her eyes, I couldn’t doubt its veracity. “Love? Is that the only thing you can think of?”
I gawked for a few seconds. “You’re not in love with him?”
“No!” She gave me a scornful look before returning to her scrying glass.
“Then why have you been so jealous of me?”
“I am not jealous. Jealousy is a pathetic emotion borne by lesser beings.”
“Well, you were sure something. You refused to even let me be a part of your rescue.”
She made an annoyed gesture of dismissal. “I had been in a very trying situation for months. I was out of temper.”
I conceded that being held captive would make me a bit testy as well, so I didn’t belabor that point. “I’m sorry if I assumed you were jealous of my relationship with Baltic, but you must admit, you have been more than a little hostile during the last week.”
“We were very close to seeing our plans to fruition. Baltic’s attention to those plans wavered once you returned to his notice. I was rightfully annoyed that he would push aside efforts that have taken years to lay into place.”
“Plans to retake Dauva?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.
“And reclaim my mother’s sword,” she answered without looking up from her glass.
I wondered if that was really true. Her expression seemed benign, but I couldn’t help but feel that her explanation lacked the ring of truth. I shrugged to myself, and told her I was going into Ziema for a little bit while she worked on unmaking the magic. She murmured something noncommittal in response.
It took all of five minutes to drive to the small suburb of Ziema, which I had been told was the Latvian word for winter. I spent the time worrying about meeting a woman who could well be the head of a fell group of dragons.
“If she is, she’s got to be too smart to mess with me,” I told myself as I waited on the train platform for Maura. “She has to know I won’t let her get away with harming Baltic in any way.”
Seven minutes after our appointment time, a commuter train pulled in, disgorging a handful of shoppers from Riga proper. I discounted the few men who marched past with backpacks or briefcases and eyed the women with interest. Most of them carried shopping bags, and some had small children in tow. A few lanky teens giggled at each other as they hunkered over their cell phones, texting like crazy. The last person off the train was a buxom woman a few inches taller than me, with porcelain skin and dark brown hair to her waist, streaked with warm amber lights that shone in the sun as she paused on the platform, glancing around curiously.
I stood up. “Maura?”
She turned to me with a half smile. “Yes. You must be Ysolde. It’s an honor to meet you.”
She didn’t offer her hand, but I knew that many people in the Otherworld preferred not to be touched, given their sensitivity to things like reading thoughts.
“I don’t know how much of an honor meeting me can give, but I appreciate the sentiment.” I studied her for a moment while she studied me. Her eyes were a light brown flecked with gold and black, and odd little red lights that hinted of her dragon father. She was very fair-skinned, but had a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She looked to be in her early thirties, was on the plump side, and appeared just about as far from my idea of someone who raised spirits as I could imagine.
She laughed, and for a moment I thought she’d read my mind. “I don’t look anything like you imagined, do I?”
“I’m sorry.” My cheeks heated. “Was I gawking? I didn’t mean to be rude, but somehow I imagined someone who raised spirits to look . . . well . . .”
“More Goth?” she said, still laughing. “Dark and scary and mysterious? Not like Suzy Homemaker, right? It’s the curse of my maternal genes. My mother’s skipped me and I got my grandmother’s, instead. Nanna was from Scandinavia and was as round as she was short. I assure you that despite my appearance, I’m fully trained as a Summoner. And speaking of that, I don’t mean to rush you, but we’d better get started if we want to have a good chance of locating Constantine Norka before nightfall. Do you have a car?”
“Yes, I do. It’s not far to the remains of Dauva.”
“Oh, good. Can I drop off my bags at the hotel first?”
“Of course.”
It took us another half hour to swing by the hotel and leave off her things, let her change into clothing more suited to poking around in the forest, and gather up the items she needed to draw a summoning circle. I watched the clock warily, worrying that Thala would finish opening up the lair, which would mean Baltic would come looking for me.
“So are you out here by yourself?” Maura asked when we were finally on our way to the forest, her backpack of summoning tools sitting between our seats. “Or is your mate here?”
“No,” I lied, uncomfortable about doing so, but unwilling to expose Baltic to possible sources of danger. I decided to hedge my bets. “But I’m not alone. His lieutenant is here with me.”
“Ah. I don’t suppose he has any idea where to look for Constantine’s spirit?”
“She’s female, and no, I don’t believe she does, but that really doesn’t matter, because I think I’ve found the spot where he was slain.”
“Great. That ought to make things much easier,” she said with confidence that I found reassuring.
I pulled off the road at the entry point to the forest, deciding the time had come to do a little gentle probing on the issue of the ouroboros dragons. “So . . . how long have you been doing this?”
She followed me into the forest, pursing her lips as she thought. “About eighty years. Summoners are born, not made, so I really didn’t have much of a choice, if you know what I mean. Mom discovered that was where my talents lay, and sent me off to be trained properly.”
“Ah. You’re not involved with your father’s family at all?”
“No.” She slid me a curious glance. “As I said, he was killed by the wyvern after she kicked him out of the sept, so I don’t feel like I have to make overly nice to the red dragons.”
A telling statement, and yet one with which I could sympathize.
“You’re technically ouroboros, then. So are we. I don’t particularly like being separated from the weyr. It makes me feel . . . disjointed.”
“But Baltic has a new sept, doesn’t he?” she asked as we skirted a minute, murky black pond.