The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

are you going?”
    Lukan paused in his attempt to cross the home Clearing as rapidly as possible. He shrugged rather than answer his mother.
    “You are not Glenndon. I will not allow you to dismiss me with that horrible gesture,” Brevelan admonished him. She slipped a well-worn travel sack over her shoulder—she must have had the thing since before she met Da—and stepped into the sunshine.
    He watched her lift her face and welcome the light and warmth. A brief word of thanks crossed her lips. Her once bright red hair tossed glints of gray and darker shades into her aura. Tiny lines around her eyes and mouth smoothed out for that short moment. She looked as young and vibrant as his sisters.
    Then she turned her attention back to him, and advancing age slid back onto her face. How old was she? Thirty-six? Not forty yet. Surely. Yet she looked as if she’d aged a decade in the last few months, ever since she had stopped ignoring her latest pregnancy and openly admitted that her seventh child was due in early autumn—or earlier judging by the size of her belly.
    “Long ago, the dragons promised you six children in a dragon-dream.” He cast his gaze upward, away from her. “Which of us is the unwanted seventh?” he whispered to himself, knowing that he was the unwelcome one, the odd one, the ordinary one in a family of brilliance and talent.
    “I might ask you what you are doing, Mama,” he said aloud, moving to her side and taking the sack from her. “Where are you going with a travel sack?” He suddenly felt protective. Brevelan, the core and center of life in the family, and in the Forest University, seemed tiny, almost shrunken beside him. The top of her head barely reached above his shoulder.
    He remembered hugging her knees because that was all he could reach.
    “Since when do I have to report my comings and goings to my second son?” she asked, a bit of humor returning to her voice. She reached up and caressed the partially healed weal along his cheek. “That’s going to scar. Mistress Maigret has an ointment that might help.”
    Lukan shook off her caress. He’d earned that scar observing the Circle of Master Magicians, spying for Da and figuring out who was going rogue before his father or either of his sisters had a clue. Master Marcus had sought him out and praised him for his actions. Da had ignored him. “I ask because you never leave the Clearing without good reason.”
    She heaved a sigh and rubbed the side of her belly. “Yes, this trip is a bit out of the norm. I’m meeting your father at the University. We are transporting to the old University to see Lillian and Valeria off on their journeys.”
    Lukan dropped the sack at her feet. Anger boiled in his stomach and heated his face. “My
younger
sisters are to be promoted to journeymen ahead of me!”
    “Lukan, it’s not like that. Your Da has to have a journey suited to a young magician before promotion. I doubt you’d deal well with either Lady Ariiell or Lady Graciella . . .”
    “That’s not the point, Mama. I’ve passed all my tests. I’m older and more experienced than half the apprentices he’s promoted. I’ll never be good enough for him.” He slammed a fist into the nearest tree trunk and instantly regretted it. A bone-jarring ache spread from his stinging knuckles to his shoulder. Blood dripped from the barked skin. He sucked on it, turning his back to his mother. If he admitted how much it hurt, she’d have him back in the cabin and soaking it in some foul mixture of herbs and goo before bandaging the injury.
    He wanted her to concentrate on him for a change. But he wouldn’t stoop to childish tricks to gain her attention.
    “Lukan?” She squeezed his shoulder from behind.
    “It’s not you, Mama. It’s him. I’ll never be as talented as the golden dragon child, Glenndon—even though he’s only just now learned to speak. I’ll never be frail like Val, requiring coddling and special foods. I’ll never be as