“Bah. He is of no concern. I am more worried about why Thala has abandoned us.”
“He may not be of concern to you,” I said, my shoulders slumping as I made myself comfortable on my rock, “but you don’t go dissing the First Dragon’s son without some sort of repercussions, and I don’t want to think about what those might be. He’s angry enough with me already.”
Baltic, who had been looking out into the distance, turned to pin me back with a look. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Saying what? That the First Dragon is pissed enough at me, especially after he had to resurrect me a second time?”
“No, before that.”
I thought a moment. “That we shouldn’t go dissing Constantine? I know he irritates you, Baltic, but he’s dead, and is no threat to us anymore, so really, calling him petty names—”
“You said the First Dragon’s son. You think Constantine is his son?”
I looked into those fathomless eyes. “Yes. He is, isn’t he?”
“No.”
“But—” I shook my head. “He’s got to be.”
“He’s not.” Baltic continued to search the surrounding area for only he knew what.
“I think you’re wrong. I saw the First Dragon with him myself.”
“Constantine is not the First Dragon’s son,” he repeated.
“And just why are you so sure of that?” I asked, exasperated by his flat statements of denial.
“Because I know who my brothers were.”
“Goody for—” I stopped, my skin crawling as realization dawned in the dusty recesses of my brain. “Your brothers?”
“Yes.” He leaped down off his rock and held out a hand for me. “Come. I see no signs she left, which means she must be in the tunnels. We will follow her trail.”
“Your brothers?” He pulled me to my feet, but I stopped him before he could help me down into the lair. “Baltic, are you trying to say . . . ? You can’t be. You can’t mean . . .”
“The First Dragon is my father, yes, mate.” He shook his head as he wrapped an arm around me and hefted me down into a dank opening into the earth. “My old Ysolde knew that. I don’t know how it is you have forgotten that fact, but you used to deal with it much better than you are now.”
“Your father,” I said, breathing heavily through my nose, ignoring the rich odor of the soil as Baltic switched on a powerful flashlight, “is the ancestor of all dragons? The most powerful being in all dragontime? On par with a god?”
“My old Ysolde used to call him an interfering arse,” he said, doubling over and leading me down a tunnel clogged with roots, debris, and dirt. “She was not intimidated by him. She once told him to mind his own business and let us get on with ours.”
“By the rood,” I said, suddenly dizzy with realization. “No wonder he was disappointed in me. I used to lip off to a god!”
“It was good for him. He left us alone after that,” Baltic said with satisfaction, pausing at an intersection to consider the ground. “You may do so again, if it will ease your distress.”
“Sainted Mary,” I gasped, my eyes glazed and unseeing as Baltic led onward, into the remainder of the tunnels that once lay beneath Dauva. “That means—that means it’s you I’m supposed to help. It’s your honor I’m supposed to reclaim. It’s you who caused the death of innocents!”
“You shouldn’t believe everything the First Dragon tells you,” he answered, flicking his light around. The tracks he was following seemed to end in a pile of smashed wood and stone.
“That’s why you don’t like him! That’s why he knew your name! It wasn’t because of you being kicked out of your sept. It was because you were his son! His youngest son!” I put my hands to my head, wanting to scream and shout and shake Baltic, all at the same time. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you would eventually remember,” he said with a shrug. “The old Ysolde—”
“Was a twit, evidently!” I interrupted. “For the love of the saints, Baltic! You could have told me! You knew I was trying to do what the First Dragon—oh, dear god, he’s my father-in-law!—what he wanted me to do.”
“You told me you had to do something with Constantine, not with one of his sons.”
I ground my teeth. He had a point, dammit. “Are there any other family members I should know about? Your mother? Brothers?”
“They are all dead,” he said, examining the wood carefully. “Look at this—it is recent. Thala must have shut down this tunnel behind her as she escaped. The lair!”
He whirled and ran back the way he had come. I followed, my mind still reeling with all that I had just found out. “What exactly happened to get you kicked out of the sept?”
Baltic swore as he touched the silver-bound door that marked his lair. It swung open with a teeth-grating noise that left me clutching the wall. He plunged into the room; I followed more slowly, trying desperately to get my brain to function. The air inside was close and dusty, as if it had been closed for centuries, which until recently it had. His light flickered around the lair, catching first a broken iron trunk, then a heap of wood that had once been a chest. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dirt and dust, disuse and abandonment just as thick in the air.
A few cracked jars remained stacked in the corner, but the rest of the lair was picked clean, no doubt by Kostya. Baltic didn’t spare much of a glance for any of the remains, however; he went straight for the back corner of the room, kicking aside an elaborately carved chair that had been broken by a falling beam. He bent, pulling up a trapdoor, and jumping into the hole without a word.
“What’s that? Another lair?” As blackness surrounded me in a claustrophobic grip, I hurried forward, kneeling at the edge of what seemed to be a chasm to oblivion. The air seeping out of the hole was even more dusty and mildewed, making my nose wrinkle.
The light bobbled, then returned as Baltic heaved himself up, out of the sub-lair. “It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?” I brushed spiderwebs and dirt from his hair as he sat on the edge, his legs dangling into the hole. “What was in there?”
“My things.” His eyes caught and held mine. “Our things. Our private things. Not even Kostya knew about this vault. It’s where you put your love token before Dauva was destroyed.”
I touched the chain that hung around my neck, the oval silver pendant that Baltic had carved for me some four hundred years before nestled safely between my breasts. “What’s missing?”
“My talisman.”
“Is that something I gave to you?”
“No.” His expression was one of worry. I didn’t often see Baltic look worried, so I took heed, and followed him as he exited the lair.
“It’s important, this talisman?” I asked a few minutes later as we climbed out of the lair.
“Very.”
I grabbed at his belt as he started to stride off, making him turn around and raise an eyebrow.
“I know you don’t like to answer questions, but I’m going to keep at you until you tell me, so why don’t you save us both some verbal dancing and just spill now?”
He sighed heavily.
“And if you dare say the old Ysolde would never have pestered you this way, I’ll deck you,” I threatened.
He laughed and took the fist I was waving at him in his hand, pulling me forward to kiss me. “The old Ysolde would have done just as you are doing now, questioning me endlessly until she got what she wanted. The talisman was a gift from the First Dragon. It marks me as his child. My brothers and sister all had one when they formed their septs.”
“You have a sister, too?” I couldn’t help but ask, pausing long enough to grab the Larry rock before allowing him to escort me down the game trail, through the still-smoking scorched area, and out to where I had left the car.
“Had. She was killed a few years after she founded the black sept.”
“That must have been a long time ago.” I did some mental calculating. “Over a thousand years?”