The Adamantine Palace (4 page)

Zafir giggled. 'When I'm a queen, and you're still only a prince, does that mean you have to do as I say?'

'I will be yours to command.'

'Then I know exactly what my first demand as queen will be.'

'And what is that, my love?'

'As soon as I'm queen, I shall summon you back here at once.' She cupped his face in her hands and pushed him slowly down on her. 'More!' she sighed. 'That'll be what I want from you. More ...'

Later, Jehal watched Zafir dress herself and leave. After she was gone, he stood naked at the window, waiting, wondering if anyone was watching him. The Tower of Air was the tallest and grandest of the palace towers, and Speaker Hyram had set it aside for Zafir as soon as he'd known her purpose in coming to the palace. The floors below were full of servants, a few of them Zafir's but most of them the speaker's. It wouldn't do for Hyram to know whom Zafir had taken to her bed, and yet he stood at the window anyway, daring fate to expose him.

Once he thought Zafir had been gone for long enough, he slipped on a plain tunic and a pair of slightly soiled trousers, and walked out carrying the chamber pot. In the confusion of unfamiliar faces, no one spared him a second glance.

In contrast to the Tower of Air, Jehal's own lodgings were somewhat more modest, almost the meanest that the palace had to offer. Hyram had probably wanted him banished to a leaky hut of mud and straw somewhere outside the city walls, Jehal thought. That would be too overt an insult, but the slight was not lost on him, and he made up for it by being late to Zafir's coronation, loudly bursting into the Glass Cathedral when Hyram was halfway through his tedious speech about dignity and service and the duties of kingship. Kingship, not queenship. Jehal made a mental note to mention that to Zafir once he had her naked again.

Hyram droned on and Jehal picked his nails. The cathedral felt immense and empty. A gaggle of dragon-priests hovered and twittered in the shadows at the back. A few lords and ladies of Hyram's household sat politely, but the only other person who mattered was the potion-maker, dutifully recording the event: Bellepheros, grand master alchemist and First Lord of the Order of the Scales. Jehal watched him and yawned. They could have done all this in ten minutes in Hyram's study with a bottle of fine wine. Oh, but then it wouldn't have been the same. Perhaps flirting with death from both boredom and hypothermia at once somehow gave the event gravitas. He should have brought a cloak, he decided. A thick, warm cloak. And a pillow. As it was, the amusement of watching Hyram shake and stutter his way through his speech would just have to do to keep him awake.

Eventually Hyram was done. Jehal slipped out and watched, waiting for Zafir, already thinking about how he would fulfil her first queenly command. But it was Speaker Hyram who came out first, and walked purposefully towards Jehal.

'G-G-Good of you t-to eventually attend,' he stuttered.

Every part of him was trembling. Jehal gave him the slightest of bows.

'I'm quite aware that Queen Zafir could not be crowned without at least someone else of royal blood to bear witness, otherwise 1 would not be here at all. Are you cold, Your Highness? There's certainly a chill to the air today. I could get a cloak for you, if you like.'

Hyram spat. 'D-D-Don't play the fool with me, Prince J-Jehal.'

Jehal smiled and touched his forehead. 'Of course, Your Highness. I forgot. Your sickness. It seems to be getting worse. It will be a terrible loss to the realms. All that wisdom. Who among the dragon-kings could possibly take your place?'

'And h-how is your father, Jehal?' Hyram looked like a broken old man with his constant quivering, but there was still fire in his eyes. Jehal bit his lip. Careful, careful. He's not a fool. Not yet.

He tried to look sad. 'His mind, I think, is still as sharp as ever. It is hard to know. Most of the time he's rigid with the paralysis. When the shaking comes and he can actually open his mouth, none of us can understand what he's trying to say. It's a wonder we're still able to feed him. The sickness--'

'Sickness?' Hyram snorted. 'I think you will f-find it is almost taken for granted that you're p-poisoning him.'

Jehal clenched his teeth. 'Then I must be poisoning you as well, Your Highness, for your symptoms are the same as his were in the early days. Yes, it's hard to remember a time when he could still talk and feed himself and fuck women and do everything a dragon-prince's father should be able to do, but I would say your symptoms are exactly the same.' He spat and turned to walk away. 'It's as well your time will soon be done. How pitiful it would be to have a speaker who can't actually speak. And how's your memory, by the way? Are you starting to forget things yet?'

'Jehal.'

Jehal stopped but didn't turn back. 'Your Highness?'

'Queen Aliphera. They say she f-fell from her dragon.'

'So 1 heard.' He turned now, so he could watch Hyram's face.

'I knew Aliphera. She 1-loved the hunt. She rode her d-dragons as well as any man. This notion -- it's p-preposterous.'

Jehal shrugged. 'Yes it is, isn't it. But she'd chosen to fly away from her escorts. No one saw what happened, or no one will admit to it.' He laughed. 'You could always ask the dragon.'

'I'm asking you.'

'What are you asking me, Your Highness?'

'D-Did Zafir do it?'

'If that's your question then you should ask her, not me.'

'I d-did. They were my f-first words after I put the crown on her head. D-Did you kill your mother to get this?'

Jehal smirked. 'I imagine that went down very well. If you've suddenly taken to valuing my opinion, the thought did cross my mind. I doubt Zafir murdered Queen Aliphera, though. She may have the ambition to think it, but she lacks the nerve.'

'Y-You, however, do not.'

'Me?' Jehal growled. 'Since it appears I have failed to finish poisoning my own father despite a decade of effort, perhaps I am not as able an assassin as you think. Your Highness.'

'I will send t-truth-seekers to your eyrie. T-To Zafir's as well. B-Bellepheros already has my orders. If you make a-any attempt to interfere with them, I will kn-know you are guilty.'

'Your faith in my character is touching, Your Highness. By all means, send whoever you like, and of course Bellepheros shall have everything he needs put at his disposal. I shall demand that he is as meticulous and thorough as he can be, and when he finds nothing I shall expect you to doubt me no less than you do now. Are you done with me, old man?'

'I-I very much hope so.'

Jehal leaned towards Speaker Hyram and held his gaze. 'What if you're wrong? What if I haven't spent the last few years slowly murdering my own father? What if I've been looking for a cure instead? What if I were to tell you I'd found it?'

For an instant Hyram's eyes faltered. Only for an instant, but Jehal could almost taste the victory. 'Then I look f-forward to seeing him in the s-saddle once more.'

'So do I, Your Highness. So do I.' Jehal walked away, biting his lip, his face stony. When he was sure no one could see, he looked up to the Tower of Air.

'There,' he whispered, as if the wind might somehow carry his words to Zafir. 'Do you think that went well?' He began to giggle and then to laugh until he wept, and after that he didn't know whether it was the laughter or the tears that wouldn't stop.

5

Shezira

The snapper pack was already scattering. Shezira picked one of them and yelled at Mistral. Obediently, the dragon wheeled and dived, tucking in his wings and plummeting towards the ground like a falcon. The snapper was going to be too quick, though. It was going to reach the trees before Mistral was in range. Shezira growled softly to herself. This was what she got for riding a war-dragon on a hunt. They were so vast, their shoulders were so broad, their wings so large, that she couldn't even see what she was doing half the time. Unless she dived like this, in which case the wind almost blinded her instead. She squinted at the scattered trees below.

'Fire!' she shouted.

Mistral spread his wings. Shezira found herself hugging scales as the dragon almost stopped in mid-air. She quickly shut the visor on her helm. She heard the roar and felt Mistral quiver, and a wall of heat washed over her. Then Mistral shuddered and lurched as he landed heavily and stumbled. Shezira felt branches and leaves tear at her armour and heard the crack of a tree trunk. The air was hot and filled with the smell of charred wood. When she opened her visor it was to see a swathe of forest floor a hundred yards long burning. The trees around her were blackened; some were broken where Mistral had smashed into them. Shezira couldn't see whether the blast had reached the snapper. Slowly she backed Mistral out of the wreckage.

'You missed him, mother,' shouted Princess Almiri. Her dragon was already on the ground, some fifty yards away, clutching a headless snapper in its front claws.

Shezira instinctively ducked as something huge flew right over her head, so close that she felt the wind of its passing almost lift her out of the saddle. A sooty grey hunting dragon arched up and flew over the forest, so close that its tail slashed the treetops. Again and again, its head darted down and spat out a narrow lance of fire. Then the dragon climbed, turned and came back to land next to Shezira, squeezing into the space between her and Princess Almiri. Its rider took off her helm and waved an angry fist.

'That was my kill, mother!' Princess Jaslyn bellowed and threw her helm away in disgust. 'What do you think you were doing? You flew right into my path! Silence almost ploughed into you and your clumsy behemoth. You should have borrowed one of Almiri's hunters.'

'Height has precedence!' snapped Shezira. She had to shout to make herself heard. Mistral was scratching at a fallen tree, rolling it over. He could smell something.

'The chaser has precedence!' Jaslyn yelled back. Silence folded his wings and took careful steps sideways, until he and Mistral were almost touching. Mistral dropped the tree, shifted and hissed, and Silence hissed back. War-dragons didn't like being crowded. Shezira felt suddenly small. Dragons didn't actually attack riders unless they were commanded. Being accidentally crushed to death, however, was a very different matter.

'I was the chaser!' Shezira tried to calm Mistral down. Jaslyn was right. Mistral wasn't made for this sort of flying, and she should have borrowed a proper hunter.

'Only after you practically barged me out of the air!' Silence was baring his teeth at Mistral now. The difference in size didn't seem to bother him at all. At least being on a war-dragon means I can loo\ down on my daughter while we bicker.

'Did you get the snapper?' shouted Almiri. She'd shuffled her own dragon sideways too, coming close enough to distract Silence. As the eldest of Shezira's daughters and the only one married with a family of her own, Almiri had taken to the role of family peacemaker. This always made Shezira smile, because she remembered a lime when Almiri was every bit as bad as jaslyn.

'Of course I got it!'

All around them, the other dragons were landing on the open ground and the earth trembled as each one came down. At a quick count, Shezira guessed they'd got about a third of the snapper pack, which certainly wouldn't be enough to keep King Valgar happy. Snappers were a menace. Standing up on its back legs, a snapper was half as tall again as a man, twice as fast, and if it got the chance would happily bite your head off. They were cunning, ate anything and everything they could catch, hunted in groups, and weren't averse to slaughtering entire villages. Dragons were by far the best way of keeping them under control, and King Valgar had been holding back from this herd just so they could have this hunt.

Mistral took a few steps towards Silence, barging into him, and growled. Silence hissed again. The dragons were sensing the moods of their riders. Mistral was probably hungry too, and most of the other dragons were eating their first kills now. The scent of blood was in the air, mixed with the sounds of cracking bones and tearing flesh and heavy dragon breathing.

'Would you like to swap, mother?' asked Almiri, still shouting to make herself heard. 'Have a proper mount for the hunt?'

The offer was tempting, but Shezira shook her head. 'It'll be dusk before you're finished here and I need to get back to Valgar's eyrie. I should be keeping an eye on Lystra, in case she does something stupid.'

'You should have let her come.'

'A week before she's supposed to kneel before Jehal? You know what she's like, especially when she's got Jaslyn to goad her on. I want to present her the way she can be, perfect and beautiful, not the way she usually is, saddle sore and covered in bruises. No. It was nice to fly with you for a while, but I should go.'

Almiri smiled. 'It's a pity, though. I would have liked the four of us to fly together one last time.'

The words cut, although Almiri surely hadn't meant them to be cruel. It seemed only yesterday that she'd given Almiri away to King Valgar. Which had been hard, but at least their clans had been intertwined by blood for centuries and their realms were close. Besides, Almiri was the oldest. She was the heir to the Throne of Sand and Stone, and letting her go had been right and proper. And she'd still had Jaslyn and little Lystra.

Somehow, over the years, she'd lost Jaslyn to her dragons; now she was about to lose the last of her daughters to a prince she barely knew, to live in a palace more than a thousand miles away. A necessary arrangement and certainly not without its benefits, but once the marriage was made, Lystra would be a stranger to her. She was going to have to get used to the idea.

Almiri must have seen something of Shezira's thoughts in her face, for she added, 'Once you sit in the Adamantine Palace, you'll be able to summon all of us as often as you like. You can have as many hunts and tournaments as you want. Prince Jehal will have to bring Lystra with him if you tell him to.'

Which was all true, but she couldn't shake the feeling that it would never quite be the same. She sighed. 'There will be a day, Princess. One day. Would you spare Mistral half your carcass? He's restless.'