The Dragon Heir by Cinda Williams Chima

she'd lifted it onto her lap, cradling it
in her arms.
    “Hey!” Jason jerked
the backpack out of her hands. “Careful.”
    Madison was mortified. She
wasn't usually a grabby person. “I—I'm
sorry. But, you know what? Something's still in there,” she said.
“It's like … I don't know…important!”
    Suddenly, it was like
everybody in the church had stopped talking and focused on them.
    “Is there something else, Jason?” Nick asked into the
silence.
    Jason's face hardened, and
his  eyes narrowed, like he might refuse to answer. He looked from Nick to
Madison, then sighed and groped in the front pocket of his backpack. He brought
out a velvet bag embroidered over with symbols in a darker thread. “It's
some kind of sefa,” he said, shrugging. “I … ah … picked it
out for myself.” He handed it to Nick.
    The old man weighed the parcel
in his two hands, as if he could discern its essence by touch alone. “This
is very old,” he said thoughtfully. “And yet, somehow new. Familiar,
yet strange. It has a potential for power that is truly amazing, yet not quite
manifest. Something I've never encountered before.”
    He opened the bag and drew out
a large, slightly ovoid stone. They all gathered around it, like planets around
a new sun.
    “Mere de Dieu,” Seph muttered. He always lapsed into French when he
got excited. “What is it?”
    “I think it's called the
Dragonheart,” Jason replied, his eyes on the stone." Then he shut his
mouth, as if he'd said too much.
    Nick's head came up. “The
Dragonheart? Really? What makes you think so?”
    “There was a book in the
cave. I read some of it. It talked about a stone like this. Called the
Dragonheart.”
    “Do you have the
book?” Nick asked, his black eyes glittering with interest.
    Jason shook his head.
“No, I—ah—lost it on the way
out.”
    “What else did it say
about the stone?” Nick's voice had sharpened considerably.
    “I don't remember
exactly,” Jason said sullenly. “Something about taking control of the
magical guilds or destroying them. Like it was a weapon or something. I
was kind of in a hurry.”
    “That's a pity.”
Nick stroked the surface of the stone with a wrinkled finger. “Even here
in church, you can feel it.” The glow from the stone lit the wizard's
face, accentuating the lines of age so that he looked like the oldest of
prophets. “Madison is right. This is important.”
    “I don't know about important,”
Jason said, clearly worried that his prize might be confiscated. “But
I thought it looked cool.” He pulled out a dangerous-looking metal stand,
all sharp edges and sinuous monsters. “This came with it.”
    Madison was fascinated by the
stone in Nick's hands. Broad flashes of blue and green surfaced as he turned
it, like the scales of some brilliantly colored fish surfacing in an exotic
tropical sea.
    Not that she'd ever seen an
exotic tropical sea.
    It was more than her usual
fascination with shiny things. She was always conscious of the presence of
power, drawn to it, in fact, but this beat against her senses and clamored in
her ears, impossible to ignore.
    Ambushed by a rush of desire,
Madison reached out a finger toward the stone. The stone kindled, illuminating
the entire church, and a small tongue of flame erupted from the center to lick
the surface, as if seeking a connection. She jerked back her hand without
making contact and retreated a step, gripping the side of the pew to steady
herself.
    No. No more. She was done with
that. She drew a shaky breath and looked up to see Jason watching her.
    “You okay?” he
asked, laying a proprietary hand on the stone. Madison nodded mutely.
    “I would like to study
these objects,” Nick said, frowning. “It would help if Mercedes
Foster could take a look at them, as well, since they're the work of sorcerers,
for the most part. Though the more people who know about this, the more
difficult it will be to keep it a secret.”
    Jason nodded. “Hastings
said