Page 92 of First Light

“I wasn’t there, was I?”

“People talk, and you have ears.”

Bonnie turned. “They noticed, but they were talking about Lord Lachlan more. He seemed upset. Queen Elanor was trying to speak to him, but he looked a bit stormy until he spoke to his brother.”

“Right.” Duncan butting in again. Carys sighed. “Can you pull some comfortable clothes out for me if you have the time? I’m absolutely freezing, and my head is swimming.”

“Too much wine.” Bonnie’s voice was brusque. “I’ll set out some day clothes for you. What are your plans for today?”

Find Lachlan and apologize for doubting his innocence.

Talk to Aisling and look for Seren’s journals.

Find out what Dafydd thought the future had looked like for Lachlan and Seren.

“Just wandering around.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Dafydd met her on the hill where the dragons rested during the lightest part of the day. On one side of the ridge was Sgàin Castle, the village, and the Borderlands beyond, dark even in the pale light of the Shadowlands midday. Beyond that forest was a dim suggestion of rolling hills and green fields dappled by forests and multiple rivers and streams.

On the other side of Tower Ridge, the land sloped down to the silver-blue loch and the unicorn’s forest, more wilderness than settled land. Beyond the forest was a sea of green, rolling hills, and higher peaks in the distance, covered with snow.

The whole of the Shadowlands was washed in blues and greens, more suggestions of color than a punch of it. It made her soul yearn for light.

Dafydd was the first one to speak. “I feel questions churning inside you like too much wine on an empty stomach.”

“That’s a vivid mental picture.”

Dafydd chuckled a little. “Ask anything you wish. I’ll do my best to answer.”

“I was just thinking that I miss the sun.” She stared at thewatercolor land in front of her, as beautiful as it was distant. “The light touches this place, but I can’t see the source. It’s like…”

“Living in a shadow?”

She turned to him. “I guess that’s the point, isn’t it?”

His smile was wry. “Your sun is a powerful thing. It burns the skin, but it makes flowers bloom with such vibrance it made me want to weep.” Dafydd stood next to Carys, turning his head to look at the four dragons who rested at the top of the ridge in their natural form. “I wish Mared could bathe her scales in its heat, but it’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, the questions begin.” Dafydd began to walk along the ridge. “Dragons can travel to the Brightlands, but they cannot take their natural form there. They must remain human. But they crave heat. It’s one of the reasons they tend to hide their young near volcanos and other rips in the earth.”

Mared opened one golden eye and peered at Dafydd.

“I’m not revealing secrets, Mared. She’s nêrys ddraig. If she’d been raised here, she would already know these things.” He smiled at Carys. “All dragons are secretive, but the females most of all since they lay the eggs. Though the males brood them, so maybe it’s just Mared.”

“Have you seen a baby dragon before?” Carys glanced at Cadell.

He has not,the dragon whispered in her head.Stop poking, Nêrys.

Dafydd shook his head. “No one sees them until they’re roughly the size of a small elephant.”

“You’ve seen anelephant?”

Dafydd grinned. “I actually saw my first elephant when I went to your realm. Being on an airplane was a new experience. Mared hated it with a passion.”

“I’m surprised she went with you.”

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