“There is nothing woeful about stating a matter in plain speaking. Petulance, however—”

The young man banged his fist on the table.

“Enough,” said Sath Wisdom, her white brows narrowed. “We speak out of turn and with a lack of respect.”

From long experience, Mal knew she was quietly mocking his leadership. At the moment, he didn’t care. Her intervention gave him a moment to cool his temper as Pendray Youth’s posture lost its aggression.

“Now,” Mal continued, as if the outburst hadn’t occurred. As long as he kept calm, he could play any political game. Twenty years of contentious rule—and before that, years as the head of his clan—had made him a master. “The letter from my cousin is our most decisive proof that the human cartels have overstepped. We’re no longer talking about volunteers, desperate to pay off debts or to gamble on the possibility of a child. Human criminals are taking Dragon Kings from their homes! I’m struck dumb by how easily you’re letting this happen.”

“Because even if it can be proven, the information is from your cousin.” Sath Youth lifted his chin in an obvious sign of disdain. “She was banished for good reason.”

“She was banished because she married a human, and if we’re all honest, as retribution for circumstances surrounding her mother. But not because she was someone to spin tales. That Nynn bore a natural son is something we should be praising. Something to be thankful for. You’d rather dredge up what happened years ago.”

“Her son is only six,” said Indranan Youth, with his dark, steady eyes. He always spoke for himself and Indranan Wisdom, who sat stooped and shrouded to his left. Their telepathy made whispered discussion unnecessary. “No one yet knows whether he possesses a gift from the Dragon.”

How the Indranan chose their representatives was a mystery to the other clans. Northern and Southern factions had been engaged in a bloody civil war for three thousand years. Mal would never know if these two hailed from the Indian subcontinent or from the wilds of the Australian outback. But he resented them because they represented all that stood in the way of the Dragon Kings’ survival. Ridiculous rivalries. Long-held grudges. Jealousy and hatred and all the emotions they’d long disdained of human beings.

The humans thrived. The Dragon Kings held off extinction as if by chance.

The Indranan senators never failed to disagree with Malnefoley. He didn’t attribute it to their unnerving telepathy. They simply didn’t want to acknowledge what he had to say, for reasons he could never comprehend. Personal? Political? A means of manipulating the emotions he kept in check?

Then there were the senators from Clan Garnis. Useless. They were almost always quiet—even their Youth. Compared to the organized, even powerful governments of the other four clans, Garnis had nothing. The Lost. In twenty years, Mal had yet to discern whether their lack of involvement in Council discussions was because of their clan’s ways or because they had little power to reinforce any point of view. Surely they believed something.

He wanted to pace—or rain lightning down on those who opposed him. Too much temper for a Giva. He’d known it from the beginning. A slow-boil fury made him vibrate with things unsaid, actions not taken. He pushed his anger into the pit of his stomach. No one would humble him. For all the doubts others harbored about his legitimacy, Mal knew the truth. He had the insight and resolve to see his people through this crisis.

“We all know her husband was killed. No one has seen her or her son since. This letter is the first communication anyone has received from her. It’s half-scrawled in blood, for Dragon’s sake.”

Arguments burst across the table as the senators took his words, warped them, turned them into weapons to brandish at one another.

Aster guards the secret to our survival, but at this price?

Nynn’s words haunted him day and night. Even the fierce mountain winds sounded like his long-lost cousin. Her voice was strong enough to compete with the ticking clock in his mind that said they were running out of time.

His aunt, Leoki, had been dead since the accident no one mentioned. She had given birth to Nynn by a Pendray man. Perhaps one day she would’ve been accepted back into Clan Tigony, especially with Mal as Giva. Instead, Nynn had killed her.

Grief still pounded in his joints. Leoki had been his aunt, but they’d been separated by only five years—more like siblings. He’d lost so much that day. Leoki dead. Nynn subjected to the process that had boxed away her dangerous powers. She’d emerged practically human, so that his decision to have her educated in the States was an easy one to edge into her consciousness. After only a few weeks, she’d taken up the idea as her own.

And marrying a human man . . . That had been the end of Nynn’s life as a Dragon King.

He’d fought the Council. He’d even fought Nynn, hoping she would relent and come home. But layered over that wretched era had been one moment of goodness. She had appeared happy for the first time in years. Even when the Council delivered its verdict, she was a woman relieved of deep burdens.

Only, she didn’t know what burdens remained in her mind.

“That’s what I’d expect to hear from a Thieving liar like you!” came a shout from Pendray Youth.

“Quiet!” Mal’s voice thundered around the wide circular room. “You’re spoiled children, not senators. I will act without this Council’s consent if name-calling is the extent of your involvement.”

“Act without our consent?” Sath Youth looked ready to turn his chair into a weapon—whether to strike Mal or Pendray Youth didn’t seem to matter.

Tigony Wisdom cleared her throat. She was the only person who could stem the tide of so much anger with the arch of one brow. The Pendray and Sath Youths glared, but one cast his eyes toward the table and the other fussed with draped robe sleeves.

Named Hobik, Tigony Wisdom was Mal’s adoptive grandmother and the only senator whose name he still used in his mind. Despite no blood relation, they looked a great deal alike: thick, straight bronze hair and eyes so deeply blue as to appear black in the low light of the Council room. Elegant, the Tigony had always been called. Cultured. Gracious.

Another reason they weren’t taken seriously in times of war.

Mal could’ve laughed. His people had taught the Greeks and Romans how to fight. How to build cities and raze them. At that moment, a crackle of static was taking the form of sparks in his blood, inside him, all around him. If he let his concentration slip, those sparks would amplify into violent kinetic energy. He would become a living turbine.

Not now. Maybe not ever.

He gave his grandmother the barest nod.

Hobik turned her attention to the rest of the Council. “Whether or not Nynn’s child has been blessed by the Dragon, the other two human cartels remain our clearest stream of information. They are openly jealous of Dr. Aster’s acquisition. Because of the timing of her kidnapping, we can assume some truth to the Asters’ involvement. Why would he hold them captive if they weren’t important?”

That logic was apparently the key to coalescing the Council’s attention. Mal had been too agitated to think of it.

He breathed deeply of the mountain’s thin, chilly air, thankful that Hobik’s logic had quieted the senators. For now.

Nynn was a piece missing from his life since her departure for the States, and then gone from him forever after marriage. She had never treated him as a man apart, but as a friend. Worse, she had since become an obsession. She represented the first and only significant time he’d given in to the Council’s demands. As a result, he’d never met her husband or her son. Her resentment had been too strong.

Now he had her letter. What might be her last. Her disappearance finally warranted the Council’s involvement. He’d been waiting for such an opportunity.