I will keep you warm.

Yes. As he burned from the inside after shed killed him. She hopped a little further and looked up.

The gla.s.ships were high overhead, far higher than theyd been before, receding into specks. The eyrie was falling. The lightning had stopped. Maybe they were out of range. She glanced at the walls but everything around her was lifeless ruin.

She dragged herself to Diamond Eyes head. Shed have to climb on top of him to drive the knife through his skull. She wasnt sure she could. She threw off her helmet and wiped her eyes, brushing away the pain, reached for the ruins of his harness to pull herself onto his shoulder, took hold of a rope and then howled in frustration when her arms didnt have the strength and she fell back. Another wave of pain washed over her. She could feel herself failing. I cant. And she couldnt. Just couldnt.

You were worthy to ride me, little one.

She wept. Nothing anyone had ever said had meant so much. And at the same time the pain in her head was like drowning.

'Hush. She felt a shadow move over her. The Crowntaker stood there, eyes burning silver.

'Why didnt you . . . ? She let out a long breath. What was the point? 'You could have been my Vishmir. She lifted the bladeless knife to him. 'Finish us. Both of us. Above them the gla.s.ships were little more than specks now, glints catching the sun. The Crowntaker, the Silver King, the Black Moon, whatever he was, crouched beside her. The circlet tightened a little more. She cried out and arched and then cried out again at the fresh wall of pain.

'Ill not be your Vishmir; Ill be your Isul Aieha. And she might have laughed if they werent all about to die. A darkness seemed to swell up around the eyrie. The storm-dark.

He reached out and touched her brow and the gold-gla.s.s circlet dissolved into ash. 'Be free.

The storm-dark swallowed them.

Liang found Belli where shed left him, sitting in his study, rocking in despair. She pulled him up by the arm and dragged him onto her sled and into the tunnels. They were glowing brilliant silver now. 'Come on, come on! The eyries falling. Its all going to the storm-dark now. Driving the sled faster, holding him tight. 'Dragons, hatchlings, eggs everything, all of it. Up the spiral to the surface. 'Everything it touches. Past the rooms where Tsens tvarrs and kwens once lived. Maybe they were still there, for all she knew. 'We have to get off before its too late. Past the rooms where some of his favoured slaves once slept. 'We have to fly- She reached the end of the last twist and emerged into the dragon yard. The madman with silver eyes stood in the centre, arms stretched wide, head pitched up, light blazing out of him. The red-gold dragon Diamond Eye lay curled up on its side behind him, still. Two hatchlings flanked him, watching like sentinels. A handful of men and women stood nearby a few Taiytakei soldiers, a dozen slaves from across the different worlds, maybe a few more the last survivors. They seemed entranced. Enraptured.

Belli stepped off the sled and walked to join them but Liang barely noticed the people. She barely even noticed the wind.

The sky above and beyond the eyrie walls was black churning cloud and flashes of purple lightning. They were too late. She was too late. She knew what happened next.

The wind stopped.

The darkness turned absolute.

Silence.

58.

The Silence That Comes After.

A light flared and flickered somewhere about Baros Tsen, bright enough to stir him. When he opened his eyes, a figure stood at the edge of the darkness. 'Baros Tsen TVarr! A voice echoed through the tunnel. There was something not quite human about it.

'Kalaiya! Tsen sat up. He nudged Kalaiya awake.

The figure held out its hands. Two specks of light flashed across the s.p.a.ce between them. Tsen tried to duck. Kalaiya opened her eyes and screamed. Something as large and solid as a fist hit him in the chest and he felt it run up his skin like a giant centipede, irresist ibly quick as it wrapped itself around his neck. He clawed at it but it was as hard as metal. He struggled, panicked for a moment, then, as nothing else happened, calmed himself. He looked at Kalaiya. She too had a collar around her throat. It was made of gold-gla.s.s.

'Do you know who I am, Baros Tsen? rang out the voice.

Tsen clawed at the gla.s.s collar around his throat and then gave up. All this way and then days starving in a cave in the dark, unable to find the way out, and now this. He closed his eyes and squeezed Kalaiyas hand and wept, because really, after everything hed done and all hed been through, hed well and truly had enough. The Arbiter of the Dralamut stood, a shadow amid the dancing lights of her enchanted globes. There didnt seem to be anyone with her but wherever the Arbiter went, killers were always on hand. Stupidest thing of all was that hed never wanted to run away in the first place.

'Im sorry, my love.

The Arbiter reached out a hand. The sled began to move, drifting closer until it stopped in front of her. There was a dead man on the sand behind her. He looked as though hed been ripped to pieces by a thousand knives. It took another moment for Tsen to realise that the shredded blood-soaked clothes were the robe of an Elemental Man.

The Arbiter of the Dralamut c.o.c.ked her head. She didnt wear the headdress or the flaming feather robe, only the plain white tunic of an enchantress. For all he knew this was another skin-shifter. She was draped in the Arbiters shards of gla.s.s, though. And they were stained red and dripping with fresh blood.

'Another Baros Tsen? she asked. 'Or is it truly you?

Tsen dropped to his knees and bowed. 'Lady Arbiter. Judge me as I know you must but my slave is innocent.

'I am Red Lin Feyn, daughter in blood of Feyn Charin and the Crimson Sunburst, enchantress, navigator. Arbiter of the Dralamut until two days ago but I no longer claim that right. I have discharged that duty. Her eyes narrowed. 'Who are you?

'I am Baros Tsen TVarr, said Tsen.

'Really? The collar round his neck contracted. He choked and clawed at it. Beside him Kalaiya screamed but Tsen found he couldnt make a sound. Couldnt breathe no matter how his lungs pumped and his ribs and belly heaved. He flailed, staggered to his feet, lurched a few steps forward, but the Arbiter simply backed away with such grace that she seemed almost to be floating. The darkness closed on him. He fell forward. As he closed his eyes he saw Kalaiya too clawing at her throat.

He came round perhaps a minute later. The Arbiter was sitting between them, perched on the edge of a gold-gla.s.s disc. 'Baros Tsen TVarr. She smiled and then laughed. 'Welcome to the Queverra. You are free to go.

'What? The collar had gone from around his neck.

'The Arbiter has pa.s.sed judgement. I found you guilty in your absence of complicity in the razing of Dhar Thosis. They found your body in a gondola close to the G.o.dspike. Theyll take it back to Khalishtor to be hanged by the feet so I doubt anyone is looking for you. Although given that that was already the second time your body was found, Id be careful. Nevertheless, you may go. I suppose the second body was the shifter, was it?

Tsen shrugged. Last hed seen Sivan, the shifter had looked like himself and had had a spear stuck through him. Seemed best not to mention that though.

'Free, lady?

'In the end I believe you. I believe you tried to stop it. Because of your enchantresss faith. Because of your rider-slaves honesty. You were stupid, Tsen, but not evil.

'Yes. Wisdom suggested shutting up and taking Kalaiyas hand and walking away as fast as he possibly could, and yet the devil inside wouldnt let go. And he had a hundred questions about how shed found him and why shed thought he was a shifter and how much she knew about what lay beneath it all, but one thing more than anything else . . . 'You called yourself daughter of Feyn Charin and the Crimson Sunburst, lady.

Red Lin Feyn paused and then chuckled and nodded. She let out a long deep breath. 'A change is coming. A catastrophe, perhaps. You see it in the swelling of the storm-dark and in the cracked needle beside the G.o.dspike. You see it in the rise of the sorcerers of Aria and the Necropolis of the Ice Witch and in the dead that do not rest, in Merizikat and also even here. In other things. In the storm-dark itself. The skin-shifters know. She looked across the darkness at the shredded man on the sand, paused again and smiled. 'In your history, when the Crimson Sunburst appeared at the foot of Mount Solence with her army of golems, what became of her, Baros Tsen?

'The Elemental Men fought her and she was defeated.

'So she was. Red Lin Feyn turned away. 'Disappear, Baros Tsen TVarr. Youll find its not so hard.

'Why do you want the egg? Tsen blinked. The question wasnt his. It had popped into his mind from somewhere else. He looked about himself. Nothing.

Red Lin Feyn shook her head.

'But the answer is in your thoughts, little one. The grey dead have called the Black Moon to rise . . . Tsen gasped. A hand flew to his mouth because the words didnt belong, made no sense, werent his at all. 'I . . . Then he jumped as a sharp cracking noise broke the quiet. It came from the sled, and it took Tsen far too long to understand what it was and so he simply gawped as the dragon egg cracked and burst apart in a flurry of wings and claws and two furious eyes gleamed.

I am Silence.

Epilogue.

The dragon Snow circled high over the mouth of the Fury, enraptured by the ripples in the water. On a clear fine day like this there was still a dark stain across the earth where the city of Furymouth had been. The ruins were overgrown with weeds and gra.s.s and briars now, but underneath them the stones remained black with soot and the air carried a tang of ash. There were little ones down there. She could feel their thoughts, pick them out and read them if she wanted to. They lived in cellars and damp old tunnels and came out to hunt for food when they thought it was safe.

Nowhere was safe.

A speck in the sky far out to sea caught her eye. Another dragon. She reached out her thoughts to greet it. Perhaps they would hunt together, digging these little ones out of their holes . . .

She stopped her circling and almost fell out of the sky in surprise. The dragon had a rider.

Fly! it said. Just Fly!

Snow saw what was in the dragons mind, what was coming out of the storm-dark, and fled.

Acknowledgements.

With thanks to Simon Spanton, devourer of unnecessary prologues, who asked for dragons and got more than he bargained for. To Marcus Gipps and Robert Dinsdale for their editorial work. To Hugh Davis for copy-editing all my dragons and to the proofreaders whose names Ive rarely known. To Stephen Youll for his gorgeous covers. To Sea Lord Jon Weir, even though hes gone to other things.

With thanks to all the people who read A Memory of Flames and talked about it and werent afraid to be honest. Dragon Queen and The Splintered G.o.ds are different books from the ones they might have been because of you.

Its still very true that none of this would have happened without the trust and faith of the same special few as always. Thank you again. Thank you to lovers of dragons everywhere. Thank you to all the alchemists and enchantresses out there. Thank you, for reading this.

To any who want to explore the world of the dragons for its own sake, you can do so at the online gazetteer at www.stephendeas.com. There are other goodies there from time to time too.

If you liked this book and want there to be more, please say so. Loudly and to lots of people.

Also by Stephen Deas from Gollancz:.

The Adamantine Palace.

The King of the Crags.

The Order of the Scales.

The Black Mausoleum.

Dragon Queen.

The Thief-Takers Apprentice.

The Warlocks Shadow.

The Kings a.s.sa.s.sin.

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