Playing With Fire
Chapter Nineteen

"Baltic is dead. Kostya cleaved him in two long ago." Drake's voice, pleasant enough although not even close to being as delicious as Gabriel's, seemed to hang in the thick silence that followed Jim's statement.
"That would seem to me to be pretty final," I agreed. "I haven't known anyone who could survive it."
"That doesn't explain the fact that someone is manipulating events to his wishes," Gabriel said.
"I don't claim it does, but it doesn't necessarily imply that the person behind the recent movements of the phylactery is Baltic," Drake answered.
"There is someone out there leading a group of dragons with no known sept or affiliation. You know that yourself, since you and Kostya were held prisoner by them," Gabriel said.
I looked with wonder at Drake and Kostya. "Someone held you both prisoner?"
Drake made an impatient gesture. "That was an isolated incident."
"They were up a mountain without a paddle," Jim said with blithe disregard. "Aisling had to save their butts."
"It's my job," Aisling said with a humble smile. "I'm a professional."
"You do it well," Cyrene said. "I wonder if I could have your autograph later?"
Aisling looked pleased.
"So who are these dragons, then?" I asked the room at large.
Silence weighed heavy before Gabriel spoke. "No one knows. I thought they were ouroboros-outcasts, septless dragons who banded together for strength- but now I am not so sure. The way they took over Kostya's aerie, the manner in which they dealt with Drake, and now this matter of the phylactery... it would take more than a small group of lawless dragons to coordinate those activities. There must be someone guiding the group, Drake, someone with a wyvern's experience at leadership. It has to be Baltic-it can be no one else."
"That does seem to make sense, sweetie," Aisling said, leaning into Drake.
He shook his head a third time. "Baltic is dead. Kostya killed him."
I looked at Kostya with no little amount of speculation. "You've been awfully quiet the last few minutes, which I have to say is wholly unlike the ranting and raving manner you normally seem to adopt."
"I have not said anything because there is nothing to say that Drake has not already mentioned," Kostya said dismissively.
"So... you don't have anything to say about killing Baltic?"
"Such as?" Kostya's face continued to remain an expressionless mask.
"Such as did you really kill him? Or are you just saying you did?" I thought for a moment. "It strikes me that perhaps there's another explanation for this. What if Kostya didn't actually kill his wyvern? What if he made it seem like he did in order to put some grand plan into effect?"
"A grand plan whereby I am first exiled, then imprisoned for a few hundred years, abused, tortured, and starved for my own amusement?" he snapped back.
"Perhaps," I said slowly, considering the matter. "If it cemented the idea that you had killed off your wyvern, it's within the realm of possibility that you would allow yourself to suffer, knowing that an end to all that would come soon enough. Fanatics have suffered much worse for their beliefs."
Kostya snorted and turned his back on me, but I noticed he didn't dispute my comment.
I turned to Gabriel, who was watching Kostya with an equally speculative look in his eyes. "I don't believe I've ever heard the story of what happened between you and Baltic firsthand," he said evenly. "Why don't you tell us about it now."
Kostya whipped around and leveled a glare at him. "I do not recognize your right to question me, Tauhou."
"Perhaps not," Aisling said with a misleading sweetness. "But I'm interested in hearing about this as well. So if you don't want to end up with several different extremely nasty wards slapped on you, you'll dish with the details."
"Mate," Drake said with a frown, pulling Aisling back as she struggled to get out of the couch. "I have told you that Baltic is dead. Threatening Kostya will do no good."
"I want to hear about it nonetheless. And what's that business Jim said about a black dragon stealing a silver's mate? No one has ever mentioned that before."
"It is old history and not important at this time," he said stubbornly.
"I'd like to hear it. I find all this dragon history fascinating," Cyrene chirped. "It's kind of romantic."
Aisling directed an inelegant snort to her husband. "Cyrene is right, not to mention the fact that dragons stealing each other's mates is always an important topic. And don't give me that 'not pertinent' crap. You said you were there when all of this was going down... Did you see Baltic's body?"
Drake was silent.
"I thought so." Aisling turned back to Kostya. "You know you're going to have to go over it-we outnumber you. So why don't you just tell us and save me the trouble of prying it out of you."
Kostya didn't explode as I thought he would. He looked for a moment like he wanted to, but a glance at his brother had him marching back to the window, his hands clasped behind him as he glared out at the world at large. "I will tell you not because you threaten me with your pathetic Guardian powers-"
Jim started toward the dragon until Aisling ordered it back.
"I will tell you so that you know, once and for all, the truth of the matter. You must understand that I have always upheld what Baltic stood for-" His head turned enough so that his eyes flashed ebony at Gabriel. "He wanted the sept whole, complete again."
Beside me, Gabriel tensed, although his voice was mild in the extreme. "That will never happen, Kostya. My sept is content as it is."
The muscles in Kostya's jaw worked a couple of times before he continued. "Although Baltic's motives in fighting to regain what was once ours were correct, I began to doubt his method of ensuring success. When it became apparent that his goals had shifted to include domination over all the septs, I realized he was inflamed by the idea of power into conducting acts of war that were decimating the black dragon population. By the start of the eighteenth century, I knew Baltic must change his tactics or risk the total annihilation of the black dragons."
Bitterness filled his voice. I leaned against Gabriel, taking comfort from his warmth and strength.
"I gathered my guard together, and called up aid from allies. Drake came, along with a small group of green dragons who disobeyed an order from their wyvern. The blue dragons also sent members, although they were fewer. We met to reason with Baltic, but he..." Kostya paused, his voice suddenly hoarse. "He was mad. It was evident to all there that he would rather destroy the sept than give up his grandiose plan of domination of the weyr. I had no choice but to kill him. But it was too late-the silver dragons had chosen that same moment to strike, slaughtering all but a handful of black dragons."
"We did not attack unprovoked," Gabriel said through gritted teeth.
I put a hand on his arm, giving it a squeeze to remind him now was not the time to start another argument.
A look of sadness tinged Kostya's dark eyes for a moment before dissipating into his normally hostile, arrogant expression. "For my attempt to save my own sept, I was almost destroyed by the man for whom I was named, a traitor who set himself above the rule of the wyvern."
"Constantine Norka was a savior, not a traitor," Gabriel yelled, leaping to his feet. I leaped with him, pushing myself between him and Kostya. "He begged Baltic to end the foolish plan of dominating the weyr, but for his trouble Baltic named him ouroboros and cast him from the sept, claiming Ysolde as his."
"Ysolde?" Aisling asked Drake in a low voice.
"Constantine Norka's mate."
I looked up at Gabriel's face, touching his cheek. His eyes, burning with fury, bore into my own. "You can steal another dragon's mate?" I asked.
"It's possible, although not done frequently." His gaze shifted to Aisling for a moment. "It never used to be, that is."
"Ysolde was intended to be Baltic's mate. He had chosen her and she indicated she would accept him. But before she could, Norka stole her and made her his own mate, an underhanded trick I am not surprised you wish to keep from Mei Ling," Kostya answered with a sneer as he turned away.
"Baltic abused Ysolde!" Gabriel shouted. "She hated her life with him, and begged Constantine to take her away-"
"So you say. But we all know how much truth can be found in the words of a traitor," Kostya answered, a distinct baiting note in his voice.
"Before you boys get into another fight, why doesn't everyone sit down?" Aisling suggested.
"Sound advice," I said, nudging Gabriel back toward our couch. He gave way reluctantly. I was about to retake the seat beside him but thought better of it, plopping myself down on his lap instead. "To keep you from doing anything imprudent," I said with a kiss to his chin.
"Sweetie, I'm a little confused. Did you see the whole thing with Kostya and Baltic yourself, or just hear about it?" Aisling asked Drake.
Drake shot a look toward his brother. "I didn't actually see Kostya kill him, no."
"But the body-there must have been a body?"
Kostya turned his back on everyone and resumed his post at the window, as if dismissing us from his thoughts.
"When Baltic realized Kostya's intent, he used the castle bolt-hole to try to escape. The silver dragons had sieged Baltic's stronghold and were about to break down the last of the keep's defenses. Kostya caught Baltic in the caverns below and slew him. But in the turmoil of the onslaught from the silver dragons, his body was not recovered immediately thereafter. Rather than risk Baltic's body and stronghold becoming a martyr's shrine, Constantine Norka had it destroyed altogether," Drake said.
"So no one but Kostya saw what happened in those final moments," I said, thoughtful as I watched Kostya.
"I returned with his sword," Kostya said roughly, his shoulders twitching with irritation. "I cleaved him in two with it. He did not survive."
I put my hand on Gabriel's chest, where his heart was. "Did you help sack Baltic's castle?"
"Me?" Gabriel looked surprised for a moment before his dimples made a brief showing. "How old do you think I am?"
"Well... I don't know. Five hundred years?" His dimples deepened.
"Six?"
"I was born in 1702," he answered. "My father was with Constantine when he made the final blow against Baltic, though. It was a victory, but one which was met with saddened and grieving hearts. The dragons who died were our family once."
"Which brings us back to the point of who it is who's doing all this," Aisling said quickly, interrupting Kostya's obvious rebuttal. "If it's not Baltic, then who is it?"
"I don't see why it matters who's doing it so long as the phylactery has been returned," Cyrene interjected.
We all looked at her.
"Well, honestly, does it matter if it was this Baltic person, or another dragon, or a benevolent fairy who's pulling the strings? All that matters is getting back Gabriel's guards, not who took them."
"The question of Baltic's possible survival is of the greatest importance to the silver dragons, I assure you," Gabriel told her.
"Why?" she asked, her nose scrunched in confusion.
"Why?" Gabriel asked, aghast.
"I think I know what she means," I said. "Assuming Baltic is alive, he is no longer the wyvern of the black dragons. You said the sept was destroyed, yes?" I asked Drake.
He nodded, his gaze flickering to his brother. "It was, although Kostya intends to gather what members remain and apply for recognition of the weyr."
"Even if he did get that, though, it wouldn't mean Baltic would immediately step into wyvernhood, would it?"
"Baltic will never again lead the black dragons," Kostya said, his voice pitched low with warning. "The sept will be reborn, but I will lead it."
I bit back a retort about the wisdom of that little plan. "I begin to see Cyrene's point. Assuming Baltic is alive, he's been neutered by the loss of his sept, so why does it matter if he was the one who returned the phylactery?"
"It matters because of what Baltic is," Gabriel answered.
"A lunatic, you mean?" I asked.
Kostya shot me a nasty look and would have said something, but Aisling cleared her throat in a meaningful way.
"Not just that-Baltic wielded great power," Gabriel said with hesitation. "More power than was natural even for a wyvern. It was said he had learned the arcane arts."
"Arcane? He was a mage?" Cyrene asked.
Kostya said nothing, which pretty much confirmed that guess.
"I didn't think dragons could be mages," I said.
Gabriel and Drake exchanged glances. "None have ever been able to master the arcane skills a mage must control."
"Except Baltic?" I asked.
"That is what we believe."
"Which means if he really is alive, he's going to be one badass dragon," Jim said.
"All of this is moot. I killed Baltic three hundred years ago. What matters is the phylactery-and I want it returned immediately," Kostya said.
"How do you explain the theft of the phylactery in the first place if Baltic really was dead?" I asked.
He glowered. "You stole it from me."
"How do you explain it assuming I didn't steal it?"
"I would make no such assumption. You admitted you took it the night I caught you in my lair."
"Oh, this is useless," I said, getting off of Gabriel's lap. "We're just going round and round. Whether or not Baltic is alive, the important thing is to retrieve the phylactery, and find Maata and Tipene."
"I thought you said you had the phylactery," Aisling said.
"I did have it-and then I was arrested, and my possessions taken from me, the phylactery included. So far as I know, it's with my other things in the L'au-dela vault in Paris."
I was moving toward the door when Kostya shouldered me aside.
"Where are you going, brother?" Drake asked him.
"To reclaim what is mine," he said with a dark look at Gabriel.
"Like hell you are," I said, dashing after him. "That phylactery belongs to Gabriel!"
The room emptied out after us. For a moment, everyone stood looking at one another in the large entryway, then Kostya muttered something that had Gabriel lunging at him, Drake's two men grabbed Gabriel, and Aisling started ordering her demon to stop her brother-in-law. But Kostya was gone before Jim could whip into action.
"Agathos daimon," I swore under my breath.
"Should I follow him?" Pal asked Drake.
The latter hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. "No. He would just shake you."
"May can follow him," Cyrene said. "She's very good at following people. I had a boyfriend once who I thought was two-timing me-he had the tiniest eyes, which I've always felt was a sign of a shifty nature- and May followed him around for a week without him ever knowing she was there."
"Mayling will stay with me," Gabriel said, grabbing my wrist and hauling me up the stairs after him.
"Well... I suppose I could do it," Cyrene said with a slight frown. "It can't be that hard to follow someone. And I've been watching May do it for years."
"Don't even think about it," I called from the top of the stairs. "He's much too dangerous, Cy. We'll keep an eye out for him, never fear."
The last I saw before Gabriel pulled me to our bedroom, Cyrene was still standing in the entryway, her lips pursed as Aisling smiled at her dragon.
"To Paris?" Aisling asked.
"To Paris," Drake replied in a grim voice.
"This is just like that wacky movie with the Black-adder guy, where they were all racing to find a treasure," Jim said, its voice following us as we hurried down the hall. "Only with dragons, an ex-virgin doppelganger, and a really attractive Newfie. Bet people would pay big bucks to see this!"