Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

I didn't jump in surprise. Of course, Gabrielle, being the magical person she was, would have sensed the egg's aura, even though she hadn't so much as glanced at the bag. Maybe she'd decided to be discreet and wouldn't ask me point-blank in front of the team, but I never knew with Gabrielle.

"Not a word," I said.

Gabrielle gave me a mock pout. "As if I'd say anything."

I sent her a warning glance, slung the bag over my shoulder, and marched across the restaurant. I heard Gabrielle chuckling behind me.

Gina Tsosie regarded me with her wise, dark eyes as I sat down across from her. Gina was a large woman, about my dad's age, with a sensible outlook on life.

Pete, next to her, rested his arms on the table, his shoulders relaxed, his face holding no tension. My dad was usually uncomfortable in a restaurant—anywhere in public, really—but now he reposed here as though eating in front of people was no big deal. Gina had truly unwound him, and for that I was grateful.

"You have been given a mission," Gina stated to me.

Gods, did everyone on the planet know Drake had entrusted this dragon egg to me? I slid the bag further under my chair with my foot.

"Why do you say that?" I asked in an innocent tone.

"You bear the weight of a burden," Gina said. "I will not ask you what the burden is. But if you need help carrying it, you only need to come to us."

Dad nodded in complete agreement. He wouldn't ask me pesky questions either.

I was struck by how fortunate I was to have these two as my family, and my eyes grew moist.

"Thank you," I said, my voice clogged. "I'll handle it. Don't worry."

They both knew I'd struggle with this but said no more about it.

"I haven't had a chance to ask you about your Hawaii trip," I said to change the subject. "Did you surf?"

Dad and Gina had gone to Hawaii for their honeymoon, and Gina had vowed to take surfing lessons while there. Gina had truly changed my father, because she'd convinced him to actually board an airplane.

"I did." Gina's mouth quirked. "The instructor was a very fit young man, and he had his doubts about me. But he taught these old bones to jump up on the board. After that, it was easy. I have very good balance."

"She does," Dad put in. "Graceful."

The two shared a look only those who have been intimate together can. Weird when it was my own father, but on the other hand, Dad deserved this happiness. He'd been burned by my true mother and then berated by his mom and sisters all his life for his one night of indiscretion. Gina was giving him some peace from all that.

Not that Grandmother would ever stop berating. She enjoyed it too much.

"It was a very nice vacation," Gina concluded. "The island of Maui is a fine one. They have had many troubles, but they are strong. Like us."

Gina was proving to be one of the strongest women I knew. She had a tiny bit of magic in her, nothing compared to what I, Gabrielle, and Grandmother had, but she had a comfortableness with herself and her abilities that my sister and I still sought.

"We're going, Janet," Gabrielle called across the restaurant to me. "Hágoóneé'. Did I say that right?" she asked her team. She had been raised Apache and was trying to learn some of the Diné language.

"Close enough," my cousin Shirley said. "Hágoóneé', Janet," the rest of the team chorused to me.

I waved back, giving them my farewells. Gina added hers and her congratulations. My father smiled in silence.

I decided I couldn't ask for a better day than this.

Gina and Dad accompanied me home. I followed Dad's old pickup along the highway, as he drove sedately to our turnoff. I observed Dad's and Gina's heads, visible through the rear window, one on each side of the bench seat, with lots of space between them. Gina turned often to say something to Dad, but Dad stared rigidly forward, as always when he drove .

I used to be the one in the passenger seat, though I never spoke much as Gina did now. Dad and I would ride in silence for hours, the two of us enjoying the land and sky, and the solace of being away from our sometimes-confining house.

After I'd left home, I'd been sad thinking of my dad driving around by himself in his truck. Now he didn't have to be alone.

It was a wistful feeling, though. I'd left more behind than I'd thought, and now I'd never truly have it back.

On the other hand, I'd never seen Dad so happy. I decided I was nostalgic for the past, but happy for the present.

We reached home to find Nitis sitting at our dining room table, a mug of coffee between his strong hands. He gazed out the wide window to the multihued desert beyond, eyes still. My grandmother was in the kitchen, cooking.

Grandmother cooked whenever she was unhappy. She also did it when she was happy, but the way she went about it told the difference. Right now, she was chopping onions with vigor before slamming them into a pan. Hot oil spattered and popped. She did not look up when I peeped into the kitchen, but she knew we were back.

My father, wise to Grandmother's moods, suggested he and Gina go for a walk.

"Not yet." Grandmother banged out of the kitchen, large metal spoon in hand. "First, the old crow needs to tell Janet something."

"Probably nothing Gina and Dad need to worry about," I suggested quickly.

"I will not keep them in the dark," Grandmother snapped. "They might need to know, eventually. "

This made a change from Grandmother being enigmatic about everything my whole life, but I suppose she'd realized that keeping silent about danger didn't help.

Gina solved the argument by seating herself on the comfortable sofa. Pete readily sat next to her. They were very close, unlike in the truck, but not quite touching. I saw protectiveness on Gina's impassive face. If she didn't like what Grandmother said, her expression conveyed, she'd haul my dad out of there.

Grandmother glanced at the spoon in her hand, ducked into the kitchen, and clattered it to the counter. She emerged again, wiping her fingers on a colorful towel. I hoped she'd turned the heat down on the onions, or they'd be little charred bits stuck to the bottom of her favorite frying pan. Guess who'd have to clean that out.

"Janet, please show us the egg."

I hesitated, suddenly uncomfortable with all eyes on me. I'd grown as protective of the little dragon as Gina had become with my dad.

However, no one here was a dragon—Nitis's aura wasn't anything like one—or an evil mage. Nitis's aura absolved him of that too.

Grandmother was not going to rest until I obeyed. Suppressing a sigh, I lifted the bowling bag onto the table and unzipped it. I sent a watchful glance out the window but saw nothing there except the earth stretching to mountains. Even the hawks and other crows were absent.

I lifted out the egg, bringing its foam-rubber nest with it. All attention went from me to the egg as soon as I set it gently on the table. Even Dad leaned forward with Gina to see better.

The egg appeared greener in the sunlight, its jade color deepening. The gold wire crisscrossing it shimmered, the emeralds winking with intensity.

"How beautiful," Gina murmured. She was the only one to speak.

I laid a hand on top of the egg, and the dragon inside bounced against the shell. I wondered how close he was to hatching—he certainly moved around a lot. Would he know when it was time to break his way out? And then what?

Nitis set down his coffee and rested his hands flat on the table. "There is a legend, ancient and forgotten, about a dragon without sire or dam." His voice was rich and mellow, reminding me of my father's flute.

By contrast, I was hoarse as I asked, "What legend?"

"I do not believe it," Grandmother stated. Her lined face told me differently. She was worried. "I summoned you home because this old crow told me the dragon egg that the Firewalker gave you has a legend attached to it. I brought both of you here so he can explain."

Nitis sent an acknowledging look at Grandmother. She must have wanted to argue with him about it beforehand, which was why she sent me to lunch with Gabrielle.

Nitis continued. "It is said that a dragon born without sire and dam will have immense power. It will rise to become one of the strongest of its kind, and it will slay a dragon lord."

I listened in puzzlement. "That can't refer to Junior, here." I let my fingers glide across the egg's smooth surface. "He had a mother. Cesnia. She was killed. His father is still alive—we just don't know which dragon it is. Could be Drake, could be Titus. Could be one we don't know. Apparently, Cesnia had many boyfriends."

Grandmother scowled at me. "Unless you discover who sired him, then the legend will stand. The words say born without parents. When that egg hatches, he won't have any, unless the Firewalkers decide between them beforehand which one is its father."

So much for Grandmother not believing the legend.

"Who is the dragon lord?" Gina's quiet question cut through the glare Grandmother and I shared.

I switched my gaze out the window, to the east. Santa Fe lay that way, with the dragon compound on its outskirts.

"Farrell is the head of the dragon council," I said. "At least, for now. Bancroft thinks he is, and Drake warned me that Bancroft would try to raise the dragon himself if he didn't destroy the egg entirely." I stroked it again, my fingers catching on the sharp facets of an emerald. "Bancroft is pretty powerful, but Mick and I can keep him at bay, I think. Same with Farrell."

Grandmother said nothing. She studied me in sharp disapproval, as though disappointed in my reasoning.

Nitis, who'd stared at his hands as he spoke, lifted his head. He pinned me with crow-black eyes that held the depths of age.

My caress stilled as a memory swooped at me. Colby, standing in the middle of Death Valley, facing down the dragon council and laughing at them. Mick trying to shut him up. Colby triumphantly proclaiming that the council couldn't sentence Mick to death for his crime of not killing me.

Why couldn't they? Because Mick had long ago won a battle that had saved the lives of many dragons.

Mick was decorated for valor and given the highest status a dragon can achieve , Colby had stated. Lord and general .

The vision of Colby, Mick, and the dragons standing in the dry lakebed, stark mountains rising around us, vanished with a slap. I was back in my small living room, with Grandmother, Nitis, Dad, and Gina, watching me reason it out.

I went cold with dismay, and my heart beat in quivering jerks.

"Oh, shit," I whispered.