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One
Hekon had said he wasn’t going to clue the Wyrm Seat into the entirefigure out the Gateside of things, but I figured roping Dekka and Mahon into the loop was good manners, if not a good idea. Call it my exceptionally good self-preservation instincts.
Because if Dekka found out with the rest of the Wyrm Seat, she would go Old Testament.Nobodywas dumb enough to cross Dekka. Not even errant little Chaos dragons who had been manufactured at a cosmic fulfillment plant.
After we met with Hekon—and I offered congratulations to Hekon and A’ka—A’ka made off with Auryn for the clinic, and Akoni went to deal with the machine. The rest of us topside types headed down to the lower level, everyone chattering about Hekon and A’ka (since they’d made it public) instead of combing through the old records from Atlantis.
They’d be talking about that in private. The energy and magic hung thick in the air, and the strangewaitingsensation as the cosmos seemed to watch.
“Are you staying in West?” I asked Cyra.
“I’d like to retire,” she said when we got to the street level.
My side ached. I tugged my dress up a bit higher since it’d been dislodged when I’d shifted for everyone’s amusement.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“I try not to think about it.” We didn’t know how much time we had before the Wyrm Seat figured out what to say to Homeworld. It could be five days. It could be five weeks, could be five months.
Actually: it wouldn’t be five months.
Dragons didn’t have a sense of time, and since being in that one dragon’s head, I understood how terrifying a sensationtimewas for dragons. Once they felt it, and felturgency, and things slipping away from them, they got frightened. It wasn’t like humans who felt time pressure or tight deadlines. For dragons, it felt like everything was crumbling and collapsing around them.
“But you didn’t answer my question,” I said. “You going home or staying around?”
“Staying for a while. Adray’s scales are leaking and if I go home, he will just get me pregnant, and I do not want to be pregnant right now.”
Wow. This conversation had turned personal and gross. A’ka and Hekon were a bad influence. “There hasgotto be a better way to phrase it when a male dragon gets baby rabies."
“Probably, but I like to see you flinch when I sayleaking. I wonder if all of your consorts will be affected at the same time, or if it will turn into... chaos.” She smirked at me.
“My life is not some carnival sideshow for you to watch while you sip a beverage.”
“What did I tell you about humanity? The entire civilization is a carnival.”
“Well, we are a long way off from babies.”
“That’s not up to you anymore.”
Ack. “I have to run along home now.”
“See you.” She gave a wave and headed off to where she was temporarily staying.
Dekka was on her floor of the roost, although I didn’t sense Mahon was at home. I bypassed her room on the spiral staircase leading up to my floor. I’d talk to her after I gathered my thoughts.
“Helena.”
...or not.
I stuck my head in the open archway that led into her and Mahon’s rooms. “Yes?”
She beckoned me with a finger when I didn’t actually cross the threshold.
Her floor with Mahon was warm and welcoming. There were assorted plants and indoor trees, but instead of the couch and chairs we had upstairs, they had cushions and rugs and a large, low square table that dominated their living space. No paintings like Hekon, or trinkets like Akoni had collected from sunken ships, but exquisite living wood sculpture where Mahon had coaxed trees to grow along the wall like the tangled branches of a thick jungle canopy. Hidden in the leaves were carved wooden birds and wildlife, so detailed and beautiful you’d never notice or care about their lack of paint or enamel.
Dekka’s desk was similar to Hekon’s, but smaller and far lesscommand center.
“Did you tell Hekon?” she asked, setting down her tablets and leveling me with her usual stare.
