Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) by S. L. Farrell

instead.”
    “Dillon!” Sevei exclaimed in mock horror, then chuckled. “So you noticed, too.”
    “Aye. It was obvious. Our Máister likes the First Holder, and she seems to like him as well.” He kissed the nape of her neck and she lifted her chin with a sigh, feeling the kiss all the way to her core. “I wonder if your great-da knows?” he continued.
    “I don’t think he would care, actually. They hardly spend much time toge—” Dillon stopped her words with his mouth, but she gave a gasp, feeling a stabbing of something almost like pain in her chest; Dillon pulled back, looking at her quizzically.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “I don’t know . . .” Sevei felt as if a knife point had been pressed between her breasts, heated to a white-hot glow. She reached for the spot and felt the clochmion there. Her fingers went around it, almost involuntarily, and with the touch, she felt her awareness double: part of her was standing there in the courtyard in Dillon’s arms, and another part of her went sweeping outward over the Westering Sea. She could feel . . . out there . . . something . . .
    ... the beating of huge wings, slow and steady and comforting . . . the waves rushing below cold and gray, the wave tops tipped with red from the sunset, the wind lifting phosphorescent whitecaps from the tops . . . off to the left, the island rising from the sea . . . and there the touch of recognition . . . the rumble of heat in your belly and the urge to be with another of your kind, but the pull of recognition brings your head around on your long neck . . . helpless to ignore the summons, your wings tilt, and the ocean looms close and clouds wheel overhead with the turn . . .
    “Sevei, what is it?”
    “Shh . . .” she told Dillon. “There’s something close to us, out to sea.”
    Letting go of Dillon’s hand, Sevei hurried to the entrance of the courtyard and the bars of the gate. She pushed open the gate open and stepped out from the keep wall, peered down the steep slopes of Inishfeirm to where the Westering Sea could be seen through the trees fringing the cliffs of the island. To her right, the main wing of the keep loomed. “I don’t see anything,” Dillon called behind her, still inside the gateway of the courtyard. “Maybe if we went up into the tower . . .”
    “We don’t need to do that,” Sevei answered. “I can feel it with the clochmion.” She lifted the chain over her head, holding the stone in her hand. It was glowing now, as if in response.
    ... the island coming near . . . an anger roaring in the belly at being forced to respond this way . . . wanting to turn and go seek out the nest of your own kind, but you can’t because of the call . . .
    “No, wait,” Sevei said. “There is something. Look. Is that a bird, maybe?”
    She tried to point so that Dillon could see, though it was difficult with the doubled vision in her head: she saw both herself looking out but also staring inward at the island where she stood. The form did seem like a large bird—a shape seen against the stars—but suddenly the perspective shifted on her and she realized that the creature was much farther away than either of them thought, and that the beast was far, far too large to be a bird. The creature rushed toward her, or she rushed toward it—with the twin visions in her head, it was difficult for Sevei to tell which.
    “By the Mother . . .” Dillon husked behind her. “Sevei . . .”
    “I know,” she answered, not looking back at him but at the creature, her voice full of awe. “Dillon, I think I brought it here.”
    Majestic and terrible, the dragon swelled in size as it came over the island, the tops of the very trees bending with its passage. It hovered above the library tower flanking the main gate of the keep: leathery wings catching the cold air, brown-and-gold scales glinting in the last light of the day, though with the moonglow from the east and the twilight to the west, the tail stretched out