I slumped against the wall, battered, exhausted, and sick at heart. “But he would take with him a compensation for services rendered on behalf of Abaddon. In other words, Magoth would be unleashed on the mortal world with the full extent of his knowledge, abilities . . . and powers.”

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Fiat called a weyr meeting for that evening. This was a much smaller event than the previous sárkány, held in a private room at a dragon-owned restaurant. Aisling and Drake were present (the latter looking none too happy about his mate’s presence), as were Bastian, Fiat, and to my surprise, Kostya and Cyrene.

“Mayling!” the last had called as Gabriel and I entered the room, about to run to hug me, but pausing with an odd look of incomprehension on her face. “May?”

“Hello, Cy. What are you and Kostya doing here?” I asked, pain twisting in my gut as my twin reacted to my now more-dragon-than-doppelganger self.

“Kostya is on probation. Or something like that. He has applied for formal recognition, and evidently one of the rules says he can’t cause any trouble with any of the septs, so he’s here to show there’s no hard feelings between us and you.”

The “you” stung. Cyrene had always spoken of the silver dragons as separate from me, but now I was clearly one of them.

I nodded, miserable, and followed Gabriel as he took his place at a long table. The sárkány was short, just long enough for Fiat to claim he had challenged and beaten the red wyvern, and he was now leader of that sept.

“Oh, yeah, I just bet it went that way,” Jim said, leaning against Aisling’s leg.

Fiat smiled. He was still blue-eyed, which made me wonder about wyverns and their respective eye colors. I made a mental note to ask Gabriel about it later.

“You cannot rid the weyr of us,” Fiat told everyone present.

I said nothing. Gabriel had told Drake he wanted to have a talk with him and Aisling later, so I assumed we would use that time to explain what had really happened in Fiat’s house.

“If there is no other business, we will consider this sárkány ended,” Gabriel said after Fiat made his formal statement.

“I have a question,” Cyrene said, raising her hand.

“You are not a mate, nor a recognized member of a sept,” Fiat told her haughtily, blithely ignoring the fact that he had been willing to recognize Kostya earlier. “You do not have a right to speak at a sárkány.”

“I am too a mate. Well, possibly am a mate. I just haven’t been named such because Kostya isn’t formally recognized. And he’s on the list for that, so we get to be here and ask questions. Don’t we?”

She asked the last bit of Gabriel.