He fell to his knees as Jehal approached. He kissed the speaker's feet and struggled to rise again.

'Having trouble?' Isentine listened for the mockery in Jehal's voice but it wasn't there. Instead the speaker reached out a hand and helped him up. Jehal flashed Isentine an empty grin laced with pain. 'I know the problem all too well now, you see. Your last queen did that to me. A lesson I could have done without. The first of rather too many.'

'Your Holiness.' Isentine met Jehal's gaze at last. He looked worn out, almost defeated. Broken.

'Eyrie-Master Isentine.' Jehal put a hand on each of his shoulders. 'I've been looking forward to meeting you for a very long time. I imagine no one knows more about raising dragons than you. My uncle, I know, was greatly disappointed that you couldn't come to my wedding.' The sorrow in the speaker's face had to be real, didn't it? But this is the man who ruined our realms.

The eyrie-master bowed again, a little dip from the waist. 'I live to serve Your Holiness. If there's anything you would like to see while you are here, I'll be happy to show you.' He put on his best smile. 'Does Your Holiness desire something? We are poorly staffed with so many of our dragons away, but we are not devoid of pleasures. Baths scented with oils, a feast of delicacies from around the realms, men and women who desire nothing more than to serve Your Holiness. You must be tired after your flight . . .'

'I want my wife back, Eyrie-Master. I want my son. That's all. I've flown from the Adamantine Palace to Sand in a day, and then from Sand to here, and I barely feel it.' His brow furrowed. 'No, wait. Now I mention it, I do feel it. I'm tired. Yes. Baths, feasts and so forth. All of that. Whatever you have. And then I'll take your dragons.' Jehal gave a bleak chuckle. 'Are the wh.o.r.es good here? We always had good wh.o.r.es near Clifftop, and the brothels around the Adamantine Palace are the best in the realms. I don't see any here, though. Cows and fields surrounded by sand that seems to go on for ever that's all. Where are your women, Eyrie-Master?'

Isentine bowed. 'Where they belong, Your Holiness. Kept inside out of harm's way, or else far far away. You'll find Sand more to your taste, perhaps, but I can send you whatever you desire.'

'No, you can't.' Jehal's smile snapped to a sneer in the blink of an eye. 'I desire my queen. Whatever you've got will just be a disappointment, but I suppose it'll have to make do. Send a few wh.o.r.es later. It might amuse me to watch them frolic together. Who knows? If I manage to drink enough to numb how much it hurts, I might even enjoy myself.'

'I will have my servants show you to your rooms right away. The women will await your pleasure.'

Jehal waved him away. 'Master Isentine, I jest with you. I have half a dozen riders and my pot boy with me, that's all. I don't need your rooms or your women.' He gestured at the huge emptiness around them. 'We're to have a wedding, after all. I dare say we'll all p.i.s.s in our pants and pa.s.s out where we sit. No, we'll wait in your halls for your queen to grace us with her presence.' They walked across the entrance hall, a gloomy cavern of ochre stone that was the lower level of Out.w.a.tch. 'You might have a few men standing by ready to throw blankets over us while we snore, though. I imagine it grows cold here at night. You should do something about this place. Put some windows in. How do you live in such dreary gloom?' He paced restlessly about. 'You know, this is probably bigger than the Chamber of Audience in my palace. Perhaps I should move my throne here. I certainly don't seem to be very welcome anywhere else any more. Actually never mind the men with the blankets. Let the Night Watchman's soldiers do that. They might as well make themselves useful.'

'Yes.' About that . . . 'I hear you mean them to stay, Your Holiness. It is most unusual.'

'They're here for their own reasons, Eyrie-Master. Please don't imagine that I have any say over their comings and goings, let alone their doings. I am merely the Speaker of the Realms, their lord and master. No, don't imagine that they answer to me.'

Isentine bowed and nodded and pretended to listen. You deserve your bitterness, he thought. That's all you ever brought for the rest of us. I hope you choke on it. Servants brought drinks of scented water. The speaker's riders filed in behind him. They were subdued. Scared even. Before Isentine could eavesdrop on their conversation, though, Hyrkallan was back, and Queen Jaslyn with him. Isentine hadn't seen his queen for days; she looked terrible. Her face was drawn and haggard. Her eyes didn't quite focus on him. When he looked, he could see the skin on the back of her hands, on her knuckles, was hard and flaking. Hatchling Disease, despite all his efforts.

She walked straight towards him. Didn't exactly meet his eyes, but more looked past him, through him, as if she was looking at something from another world that none of the rest of them could see. 'Morning Sun,' she said curtly. 'Have him saddled and ready to ride. Every other dragon here too.'

Isentine bowed as best he could. 'Yes, Your Holiness. But nearly every dragon is already at Sand or at Southwatch.' So you're going then. Almiri didn't mean enough to drag you away from the horror you've created for us, but Lystra does. Good. We'll have an end to it then.

'Now. Every dragon I have. All of them. I want them ready to fly. At once.'

He nodded. 'You mean to fly to war, your Holiness?' At least she was lucid. There were days now when the potions he gave her to keep the disease at bay left her babbling like a madwoman. On days like that he took care that no one else saw her.

'I do. Do you have food and drink for these riders?'

'It is being prepared, Your Holiness.' Another bow. She hardly noticed.

'Make sure we have plenty of wine. Get them all drunk. You too. Get me so drunk I can't stand. I don't want to remember any of this.' She s.n.a.t.c.hed a bottle from the nearest table and swallowed deeply. 'Hyrkallan! My Lord! To me, if you please!' She cast her eyes wildly around the hall and then back to Isentine. 'Get the Viper,' she hissed. 'Him as well.'

By the time Isentine had found Jehal, already half in his cups, Hyrkallan was standing at Jaslyn's side. His face was a mask of stone.

'Marry us,' snapped Jaslyn.

'I must call a priest.'

'Not you.'

Jaslyn pointed a finger at Jehal. 'You. Marry us. You can do that. Then put a crown on Hyrkallan's head and call him king.'

Jehal sniffed. He wrinkled his nose. 'I'm not sure I should. Do you consent to this, My Lord?' He gave Hyrkallan an arch look. 'I'm not sure I would advise it. This one looks like she has the makings of a cuckold. You never know; you might yet do better elsewhere.'

Hyrkallan clenched his fists. Isentine wondered, briefly, if he should be looking for that knife again. The only person who seemed unmoved was Jaslyn. She looked at Isentine. With the same stony mask as her mother, he thought. Hiding the same sorrow underneath.

'You will witness this, Eyrie-Master. You and every rider present.'

Isentine nodded. Jehal raised his eyebrows and then shrugged. 'Fine, then you're married. Congratulations.' He leered at Hyrkallan. 'If she's like her sister, go easy on the Maiden if you want any sleep.'

Hyrkallan's hand shot out and grabbed Jehal by the throat. He squeezed. 'When we're done with this, you and I will have a reckoning.'

Jehal choked. 'There's a long queue,' he gasped, 'and there might not be much left by the time you get to the front of it. Do you want your crown now, King Hyrkallan?'

'Oh let him go.' Jaslyn turned away from them both. 'Is that all? Aren't you supposed to say more than that?'

Jehal rubbed his throat. 'Oh, you could do the whole staying up all night for the dawn vigil and then the standing still waiting for the sunlight to strike your face, and then the speeches and the feasting and the endless witterings of the priests and so forth, but really what's the point? I've done all that and I can't say it had much to recommend it. You're married. Sorry that I don't have a present for you. Go f.u.c.k and make an heir. And then can we get on? I'm not nearly drunk enough for this and my leg is killing me.' He hobbled away.

Hyrkallan shook his head. 'Will your dragons be ready?' he asked. Isentine nodded. Hyrkallan looked back to Jaslyn and held out his hand to her. 'Come, my queen. Come with me.'

She didn't move. Isentine saw a muscle in Hyrkallan's jaw twitch.

'Must I drag you?' He reached for her.

Jaslyn neatly batted him away but then pressed her cheek against his and whispered in his ear so only he and Isentine could hear: 'Touch me without my permission and I'll cut your hand off.'

'We have a duty, my queen. To our realm.'

'Will you get me back my Lystra. From both of them?'

'I will do what I can. If I cannot, it will be because I am dead.'

Jaslyn took his hand and pressed it against her thigh. 'Then if you will do your duty, I will do mine. Leave me. I will come to you shortly.'

Hyrkallan lingered, unwilling to move. Jaslyn had almost to push him away, and then slowly he went, in long strides across the hall towards the one hundred and twenty steps that led to the Queen's Rooms and beyond. Jaslyn stood very still, watching as he climbed them. She didn't move until her was out of sight.

'Zafir has my sister,' she said as if that explained everything. Then, all of a sudden, she led Isentine out of the cavernous hall full of riders and servants. As soon as they were alone, she took his hands and rested her head against his chest. 'I have to go and save her. You have to look after my Silence.'

She's mad. Isentine stumbled away. 'Your Holiness. You are my queen, but . . .' But you cannot be seen like this. Not by anyone. Never like this.

There were tears in her eyes. 'Then, as your queen, I command you to look after my Silence. You must feed him yourself. I've told him you'll do that. You have to make the kill and then bring it to him. If you don't he'll know.'

He bowed. 'Yes, Your Holiness.' Lying to her was like sticking a knife in his own eye. But what else is there to do? The dragon is an abomination. It cannot live to grow.

'Thank you. I won't be gone for long. No other riders on Morning Sun, please. No scorpions. I would much prefer to ride alone.'

'As you wish.' And then I'll wish you well and wave you farewell, for before you return your abomination will be dead and I will have taken the Dragon's Fall. He almost wept. Not for himself or for any of the rest of them here in Out.w.a.tch, but for dead Queen Shezira, for everything she'd done and what had become of it. Before Jaslyn could turn away, he held out Hyrkallan's pouch. 'You will want this. For later. For the night. It will numb the sadness.' Which was one of many ways of putting it and made giving it to her feel like yet another betrayal. 'This isn't the wedding I would have wanted for you.'

Jaslyn looked at him as though he was stupid. 'And what wedding would you have wanted, Eyrie-Master? I suppose some grand affair with the lords and ladies of all the nine realms gathered around. Just like my mother. What I wanted, Eyrie-Master, was no wedding at all. I do not desire men, Eyrie-Master any of you, for any purpose, or are you too blind to see that? I suppose you've been kind enough. There was a rider in the alchemist caves. I forget his name. He was kind too. Two kindnesses. I think that's all I can remember.' She s.n.a.t.c.hed the pouch out of his hands. 'But my desires don't seem to mean very much. What is this?' She opened it and sniffed. 'Ah. The Maiden. Thank you for that small mercy at least. I shall take it all and as much wine as I can stomach and hope to have no memory of this night. It appals me, but I find I have some sympathy with Jehal. We both love my sister, and we both have our hands tied fast behind our backs by the power we hold.' She took a deep breath. Her face softened. 'I'm sorry. You have been kind. Look after my Silence for me, Isentine.'

He bowed and then watched her go. There didn't seem to be much else to do.

War.

As weddings went, Jehal decided, it could have been worse. He'd had enough wine to take down a horse and no one had murdered him. Hadn't even had much of a hangover, somehow. Two pleasant surprises in the same day. So yes, as weddings went, it could have been worse.

The morning came, the sunlight unkindly bright. They flew south. No reason to wait.

And now the Adamantine Eyries were bursting. Hyrkallan's dragons, Sirion's dragons, Almiri's dragons, his own, a few from Narghon that had escaped Valmeyan in the south. Some of Zafir's, the ones she'd lost at Evenspire. Six or seven hundred, and that wasn't counting the dragons that weren't fully grown. You had to laugh at that, Jehal thought, not counting the dragons that weren't fully grown. Give it a second or two to work out that it wasn't an egg any more and even a hatchling could kill any man that crossed its path with ease. No sucking at its mother's t.i.t, no blind helpless mewling. They started as they meant to go on. Vicious, mean and hungry.

Which is why we wrap chains around their necks before they're even out of their sh.e.l.ls and fill them with potions at their first meal. Jehal had watched a hatching once. His father hadn't wanted him to. Didn't want to take the chance of Hatchling Disease. Just look at Jaslyn to see he was right about that one. But he'd never taken very well to doing as he was told. He'd probably gone to watch it just because he'd been told not to. And what I saw made me forget why I'd gone. The egg cracking, splitting open, a head shooting out like an arrow, black and glittering, jaws already open, clamping on the armoured arm of the nearest handler. He was a big man, but you flung him back and forth like a doll. Practically tore his arm out of its socket before the rest of them jumped on you. Six men and you were still half in your egg, only born seconds ago. And you shook them off. You let go of the first man and bit the hand clean off another one instead. I remember you knocked two of them over with a slash of your tail. The first one was the lucky one. You broke both his legs but at least his helmet stayed on. The second one lost his. I'll never forget that, the gleam in your eye when you saw his face, the terror in his. There was nothing anyone could do to stop you. Jaws and claws and fire all at once. You ripped his head clean off. What was left of it. I remember the smell, the stink as he emptied his bowels, the reek of burnt skin and hair. You could have had the rest of them, I have to believe that because I was there and I saw what you did. But you paused then to admire what you'd done and that was when they got the chain around your neck. Jehal stroked Wraithwing's neck. After that I had to have you. And do you want to know something funny? When I first saw Zafir, I thought of you at that moment. How perfect you were. How singularly and perfectly designed you were for what you were destined to become. He smiled grimly. That was just the first thought, of course. Second thoughts followed rather different paths.

'Three days,' Jeiros had told him as the hordes of the north had landed around the palace. 'We have enough potion here for three days and then we have nothing and I will poison any and every dragon here.'

'I don't suppose they brought any of their own with them?' They hadn't. Of course they hadn't. Jeiros was strangling them all, and so they in turn h.o.a.rded what little they had for themselves. Poor man, do you think that when the potions run out and the dragons threaten to run amok, we'll all stop and see the madness of our ways? I can promise you we will not. We'll all wring our hands and say how terrible it is and agree with you that others should put their dragons down for the good of all the realms, but will we do it ourselves? No, we will not. It will always happen to someone else. Another king will find his dragons turning before ours do. We'll all watch each other, all hold for another to act first, all look at you to relent, and so we will all lose. The Night Watchman has the right of it. Sending men to our eyries with hammers. Yes, I know you meant to do it in secret, but really, do you think I wouldn't notice a score of men piled on to the back of my own dragons as we flew north? Don't worry though; I'll not tell anyone what you're up to. Why should I when I don't even have an eyrie of my own any more? No, if you'd have asked me, Vale, I'd have told you to send a legion to every eyrie in the realms. Have your way. Put them all down, the lot of them. All except my Wraithwing. That's what you plan, isn't it? As soon as this war is done? A cull. A slaughter. The dragons will come back, but you have potion enough for eyries filled with little hatchlings, is that it? Hatchlings and a choice few, carefully chosen and carefully saved. Do you care into whose hands they fall, those few? No. But I do.

He climbed onto Wraithwing's back. Vale and Jeiros could do whatever they liked. Meteroa was dead. Lystra and his baby son were lost too. Hard to accept, but Zafir would never let them go, never. Even if they were the last things in the world that could save her own skin, she'd kill them before she let them go. There was only one thing that mattered now, and that was killing Zafir, preferably in a nice quick clean war that would wipe her out so thoroughly and in such a way that he could afford to let Jeiros have the cull he so desperately wanted. Most likely she'll insist on burning Furymouth. Anything to make my victory as bitter as it can be. Well you can burn that if you want to. It's a bit of a mess in places, rather smelly, and I'd been thinking about having a new palace soon anyway. But I'd give up this crown, give it back to you and go into exile if it would get me back my Lystra and my son.

Something Meteroa had said to him once: 'Don't fall in love, Jehal. Have a queen for the allies she gives you. If she's barren so much the better. Take as many mistresses as you can get and make as many b.a.s.t.a.r.ds as you can, then pick the best of them to follow you.'

He'd laughed. 'And how are you finding that works for you, uncle?' It was a long time ago, before Calzarin's madness and all that followed, and for some reason he'd thought Meteroa was virtually celibate. He'd been very wrong about that. Which just went to show . . .

Oh just goes to show what, exactly? Stop feeling so sorry for yourself. You made this mess. It didn't work out the way you thought and now you have to lie in it. Start being a king.

And after the stain of Zafir was wiped away, then what? There would be another council, another choice of speaker. Hyrkallan, most likely. Certainly not me. Even I wouldn't vote for me after all this. So back home then, to a city probably reduced to ash. To the memories of a family that used to think they were so f.u.c.king clever. At least I can still make heirs, even it's blinding screaming burning agony. Thank you, Shezira, for that last little twist.

Everything was rushed. He'd turned Hyrkallan into a king and Queen Jaslyn into a wife. On the hard flight south he'd landed by Evenspire, or what was left of it. Blackened fields and gutted stone towers. He'd been surprised to see how much of the city had been lost. Nearly all of it. I don't remember doing that. If anything I thought we tried not to burn it down. He'd taken his dragons and flown a hundred miles further on and stopped for the night in the desert near the Silver River. People had memories and bad att.i.tudes when it came to being burned out of their homes.

Another day to the City of Dragons, another and now he was about to fly to war. Even without Jeiros fretting about his potions, Jehal wouldn't have waited. Hyrkallan had had the Scales in the Adamantine Eyrie up all night, painting the bellies of their dragons white again. The palace servants and half the city had been roused and set to tearing and st.i.tching bedsheets, making a thousand long white streamers for their dragons to fly around their necks.

'Won't that get in the way?' Jehal had scoffed, thinking of flying on the back of Wraithwing with one of these flapping in his face.

'Tie them to his tail if you prefer, or his claws. See how long they last there in a fight. Then think about what will happen after they're torn or burned away.' Hyrkallan grinned and showed his teeth. 'Come to think of it, Viper, why not? Yes, mark your dragon apart from the rest of them. I'll get you a special red streamer all of your own if you prefer. In the height of battle, perhaps you'd prefer it if everyone was quite certain which dragon was yours.'

He'd chosen to be white, like all the rest. Thought about going with red and then flying a different dragon entirely, like Zafir must have done at Evenspire, but that wasn't what a speaker should do. A speaker didn't hide.

And now, finally, they were ready to go, and every eye was turned to look at him. For the first and last time most likely. Bit of a joke, really. Here I am, Speaker of the Realms, symbol of our unity. Meteroa must be looking down on this and laughing himself back to life again. And Vishmir will be weeping and asking how we came to this. Well, I don't need to ask that. I know exactly how we came to this. I did most of it, after all. And now I'm going to finish it.

Except he didn't even get that little pleasure. They were almost ready to fly when the shout rang through the makeshift eyries around the Mirror Lakes. Valmeyan's dragons had crossed the Fury. The King of the Crags was coming.

Jehal raised a hand, held it there for a moment, then let it drop and screamed at Wraithwing to fly.

The Scales.

We are the lowest of the low and the highest of the high. We have abandoned our fellow men and they in turn have abandoned us.

We don't even look like them.

Our lives are short and filled with pain.

We end our days as living statues.

We are loveless and unloved, except by the charges we care for.

And what charges they are. I would have nothing else.

Unnatural Allies.

Even the best plans failed in the end. Kemir had learned that a long time ago. There was always something unexpected to put a talon in. You had to react and adapt, that's what Sollos used to say, but then Sollos was always the one with the plans. Kemir, he'd never bothered. React and adapt was his way. So it didn't bother him much that he had no idea what he was going to do when he got to Furymouth. He wondered how he might get Kataros to come with him so he could sell her to the Taiytakei, but his heart wasn't in it. No point thinking about it, really. Not until they were getting to Plag's Bay and she was thinking of leaving. React and adapt.

The Order of the Finger. Couldn't have planned for that. Couldn't have planned for drifting down the upper reaches of the vast Gliding Dragon Gorge, watching the ma.s.sive cliffs on the southern side slowly recede into the distance. Couldn't have planned for lazing in the sun, feeling warm for the first time since he'd crossed the sea riding on Snow's back. Couldn't have planned for watching the north side of the valley fragment and fall apart into a grand spectacle of canyons and chasms and cliffs and columns in layered shades of orange and red. Couldn't have planned for what any of that would feel like. Like shedding his skin. Maybe like dying and being reborn, remembering everything, able to start again.

Couldn't have planned for Snow, lurking at the edges of his dreams, always watching, never far away, never quite letting him go. Couldn't have planned for the little boat that signalled for help and then turned out to be filled with men and knives hidden beneath an old sail. Or for the other little boats that surged out of those canyons, out of the place that the dragon-riders called the Maze. The barge fell without a fight, most of the sailors too dazed and surprised to even reach for a weapon. Couldn't do much about it even if he'd wanted. Had his knife and his bow and he'd been in enough sc.r.a.ps, but a fat lot of use that was with a broken arm. They were outsiders too, so he wasn't afraid of them. Just sat back and let it happen.

He was the only one. The rest of the boat filled with wailing and begging. Everyone had heard of the Order of the Finger. Vicious pirates. Got their name from what they did if they found you wearing a ring.

They came through and shouted and waved their knives and helped themselves to whatever took their fancy. Kemir sat quietly. This sort of banditry was best over with quickly. They'd take your money and anything that looked worth something and then they'd be on their way, quick as they could. Wouldn't want to risk being caught out in the open if a dragon-rider happened to pa.s.s overhead. Kemir had travelled the realms for long enough to know how this went. He had a purse with a little money in it to let them take. The stuff that mattered, the gold and the dust from the eyrie, that was much better hidden. The bow . . . Well, losing the bow and his knife would be more than a shame but there wasn't much he could do about it. They'd take them or they wouldn't. As they reached him, he kept sitting quiet and still and offered up his purse. It got s.n.a.t.c.hed out of his hand, but the man didn't move on.

Instead he bared his teeth and hissed, 'Dragon-knight.'

Kemir blinked. He even looked to either side before he realised the man was staring at him. 'What?'

'Dragon-knight,' said the man a second time.

'Where?' Everyone was looking at him. The river pirates with an angry hunger, everyone else with a strange mix of fear and loathing. Seemed like they all hated dragon-riders, even more than they hated being robbed by pirates. 'Me? I'm not some a.r.s.ehole dra-'

A kick in the face cut him off. He managed to half parry it, half roll with it and so keep his teeth, but he wound up flat on the floor and then the pirates were on him, punching and kicking and holding him down.

'Shall we kill him?' bellowed a voice. ''What do you say, lads? Shall we gut him here?' They had his hands behind his back now, tying them. His arm screamed, half healed and raw. He felt someone at his feet and lashed out. Connected with something, which was satisfying.

'I'm not-' A boot stood on the side of his face, crushing him into the deck, almost breaking his neck.

'Now now,' said the voice that belonged to the boot. 'Let's not be doing these folk a disservice. We'll take him away and have some sport away from these good people. But what say you, ladies and gentlemen of the river? When we've stripped him bare, shall we let our dragon-rider go or shall we slit his throat? Speak up now!'