Free Dragonlove by Marc Secchia Page B

shorter?”
    “No. You’re … back.”
    “Back?” she echoed, not understanding. “Back how? From where?”
    Slowly, as if voicing an understanding only just percolating into his mind, Ja’al said, “Your soul has journeyed afar. You’ve only just returned. I thought it grief, Hualiama, a natural reaction to discovering who your father was and taking back the Onyx Throne at his expense, and then Grandion’s departure … you shocked the living pith out of me, you know.” His finger wagged before her eyes, but Lia was so captivated by his words, she did not even blink. “Fine. I confess, I was jealous. You were so obsessed with that dratted reptile, so cutesy-sweet with him–”
    Hualiama asked, “Ja’al, have I neglected you?”
    “Nay. But–I do feel as though I have stepped back six years in time. Amaryllion did something to you. And now you’ve remembered everything, correct?”
    Wordless, Hualiama nodded. She had forgotten the power of his insight. As he peered at her, cocking his head slightly this way and that, Lia mentally traced a fingertip along the stubble of his firm jawline–Islands’ sakes! Had she no self-control around this man?
    Ja’al’s thoughts were on another Island. He cried, “The spark is back! The flame! And, I do declare, your eyes have changed. Less smoky green. More, as Flicker would’ve said, a handsome blue like mine.” Lia chuckled quietly even in the depths of her amazement, but Ja’al rushed on, “I see Dragon fire! I see power and the Nuyallith forms swarming in your head and I know you’ve decided to go find Grandion and oh, Lia! I just can’t find words … I’m fizzing with excitement. You’re back!”
    “No over-excited kisses from you, Mister Monk,” she deadpanned.
    “Lia! Of course not.” Had a dragonet bitten her normally stoic friend, she wondered? Normally she was the effusive one. “Maybe a windroc’s peck.” Dropping her chin, he gripped her fingers instead and placed a feather-light kiss on her left cheek. “Impish Princess, do you not see? This is the trigger. The prophecy must come to fruition and you–I sense it so clearly–are about to turn our Island-World on its head once more.”
    “Riding Dragonback was not enough?” she protested.
    “Not half the nuisance I know you’re capable of perpetrating,” said he, with a broad smile to take the sting off his provocation. “Now, snip snap, quick wings. Before Hualiama thinks about travelling anywhere in this Island-World, we must hasten to Ya’arriol Island to consult with my mother.”
    “Big tough Master Ja’ally needs his mommy?”
    She could have sold Ja’al’s expression for half of the jewels in her kingdom. He huffed, “How such a Dragon’s tonnage of vexation ever came to be distilled in such a tiny frame, Lia, I cannot fathom!”
    She dipped into a Fra’aniorian courtly bow, complete with the obligatory hand-twirls. “I humbly obey your commands, Master Ja’al.”
    “This way to your Dragonship, your royal tininess,” he retorted, seeming rather steamed beneath the collar–not that monks seemed to regard clothing as much more than a frivolous affectation. “And you’ll tell me what happened?”
    Hualiama nodded, the rush of reckless abandon giving way to trepidation. The habits of six years would not be easy to slough off. “I will,” she agreed. “But can we use the travel-time to Ya’arriol for you to transfer knowledge of all of the remaining Nuyallith forms to me? I suspect I’ll have need of them.”
    Ja’al’s brows arched toward the crown of his shaven, tattooed head. “All ninety?”
    “All of them,” Lia said firmly. That was an invitation to an Island-thumping migraine, and they both knew it.
    She helped Ja’al drag her solo Dragonship out from under the cover of a grove of massive giant fig trees. At over one hundred and fifty feet tall, they easily sheltered her small Dragonship. Hallon and Rallon came to lend a hand.
    Once Ja’al had