“Tell them the worst of the danger is past. Ghioz has been humbled.”

He found Nilrasha stretched out in a ring of rubble. A trio of blood-fat bats snored, hanging like bulging sausages in a broken crevice. Essea reclined near her, next to a pot bubbling with what smelled like liver soup. Essea’s flanks were crisscrossed with sword wounds, and she had grease-covered burns about her sii and wings.

He observed the bound-up, blood-black stump of Nilrasha’s wing with horror.

“Nilrasha, what has happened?” he said, shocked too stupid to say anything else.

“I appear to have got my share of Firemaids killed again,” she croaked.

“Will you . . . will you live?” She was cut up all about the neck and face, and there were deep scars all along her flanks.

She rolled her head and lifted her snout. The drakka attending to his mate gasped. “Her head’s up!” one whispered to her gaping sister.

“The sun is lovely, my lord. It reminds me of Anaea, except here the air smells of the sea.”

Word passed back. “The Queen’s head’s up!”

Ayafeeia blinked in the sunshine. “That’s all she needed. A glimpse of her mate. Perked her right up.”

“The Ironriders tested their blades against my scale as I lay in the ruins, pinned,” she said. “They would have cut my hearts out if I hadn’t chewed through my wing.”

“A proper punishment for disobeying your Tyr’s orders,” the Copper said, his voice choked and harsh. But he found himself rubbing his snout against hers the next moment.

They chatted with mind-pictures for a few moments, quietly catching up on each other’s experiences, but he was still Tyr, among dragons who’d fought bravely and deserved recognition. A Tyr who thought only of his mate was no Tyr at all.

“I must learn more about the situation here,” he told Nilrasha. “I will return as soon as I may.”

“I will just be asleep anyway. But bring me some silver, if you see any plate about. I’m absolutely famished for silver.”

The Copper joined his chief Firemaid, and heard her account of the battle.

“By the way, Ayafeeia, your sister slipped off again. NiVom begged mercy, and I granted it. I’d have that DharSii fellow back too, if we could just find him.”

“Wistala knows more about him than she gives away, I think,” Ayafeeia said.

He had no reason to be embarrassed at his sister’s name.

“Speaking of relations, how is my sister?” the Copper asked.

“She managed to break her wing again in battle in the pass. Intentionally, as it turns out.”

“You don’t mean she did it to feign injury?”

“Quite the opposite, brother. She did it to tell the other Firemaids that they stood there until either victory or death. They bought a little of both with their valor.”

“Would you have her action rewarded?” the Copper asked.

“Yes. She did good service with the Hypatians in battle before the city.”

The Copper considered. Could he trust Wistala with the management of matters in Hypatia? Where would her loyalties ultimately lie?

“Your mate will be well, my Tyr. Her appetite is good, her heartbeat strong,” Ayafeeia said.

“Hmmm?”

“You looked worried. You always bob your head when you’re concerned about something,” she said. “Do not be alarmed. The secret is safe with me.”

Chapter 27

The summer wore on and left. That next fall was as brightly colored in the north as if all the blood spilled in the Iwensi Gap had run down off the mountains and been drawn up into the leaves of the trees.

Lada said it was the trees showing their approval of the dragon alliance—at a whisper from Rainfall.

In Hypatia, it made the day warm enough so that it was pleasant in the sunshine, but not so hot that the crowds filling the street to observe the ratification of the Grand Alliance sweltered.

The city reminded AuRon of bones all jumbled together. Unlike a rural village in the north, where the same set of carpenters built all the homes and barns in a similar fashion, varying details only to defeat prevailing winds or to take advantage of the lie of the land, the city, uniform in color but variegated in components, clustered with the haphazard density of whelks clinging to an old bit of pier.

The high road sloping up to the Eternal Light had never seen such a crowd—at least not in living memory, according to the old timekeeper on the fourth level AuRon spoke to.

Each of the columns flanking the road held a drake or drakka, leaning out and looking down, or a griffaran.

Wistala stood on the level just below the Eternal Light with her collection of elves and dwarves and men, a jewel glimmering above and between her eyes on a silver-chain headdress. He spotted Halfmoon, Ghastmath, and Fyerbin standing in the throng, ermine-edged robes held closed with jeweled brooches as big as a dwarf’s helmcap.

As usual, Wistala had been a fountain of information about Hypatian history and custom and the meaning of this oversized stairstool. His brain had become befuddled somewhere between the Contract of the Kings and the Restoration of Truth.

He watched his brother limp up the long road, those thick-beaked birds above, spine-painted demen in heavy, sun-shading helms all around, carrying not weapons but banners in thick limbs. The crowd stared at them in particular, a rarer sight than even long-haired elephants—which trailed at the back, bearing booty taken from the Ironriders.

The Copper looked well, thick scales polished to the highest sheen, trimmed neatly and, he suspected, subtly edged with black paint to make them weave fascinating patterns as he stepped. One hardly noticed that he limped.

He had enough sense to keep those horrible bat creatures out of view, if they were with him.

Strange, the difference that glass made. The Copper no longer looked vaguely stupid with sleep, but alert as a startled snake.

AuRon saw Natasatch and the hatchlings—he really must stop calling them hatchlings, for they were drakes and drakka now—and edged over toward them. They’d been in and out of the dragon-parade at the old circus pavilions all morning, meeting the Lavadome representatives of the Grand Alliance.

“This is how it should be,” Aumoahk said, sighing in satisfaction at the display with a slight whistle through his slit nostril.

“Father. Tremendous news!” Ausurath said, his sii spread gravely as he bowed to his father, saa jumping all about and tail thumping as though they belonged to a different drake. “The Tyr had promised me a place in the Drakwatch. It’s the surest path to the Aerial Host. NoSohoth himself told me so!”

“The Firemaidens do all the real work,” Varatheela said. “Nilrasha says that if you want a lot of noise and dirt, summon the Drakwatch. If you want a victory, call in the Firemaids.”

AuRon read excitement in all their faces. Their father, dull and gray and full of little but correction and reproach, how could he compare against such shining glory? Had he lost his hatchlings to the Copper? Of all that stood or slithered or flew through the two worlds, him?

You have doubts, Natasatch thought to him. Even on a day such as this.

It’s my temper. The pageantry’s nice enough, I suppose. It’s this Grand Alliance business. Everyone is fresh off fighting for their lives and sharing out spoils. It’ll look different after the first famine when the hominids start grumbling about how much dragons eat.

The Copper and the Hypatian high officials bowed to each other, speaking words long arranged. He’d heard most of it from Wistala, grand-sounding bargaining that put a lengthy dwarf-contract to shame.

“I know there’s more behind, husband.”

“Yes. Well, there’s a lot of talk about the glories of Silverhigh in the Lavadome. I don’t think brother RuGaard, as he styles himself, has new poems composed and read at his dinners to offer lessons about its folly.”

The Copper and various representatives of the Hypatian races added tinder to the eternal flame. The dwarves threw in some sort of chemical that sparkled bright blue, the elves added wood, and men bits of oily charcoal. As for the dragons, Wistala and the Copper spat.

They’d asked him to add his own fire, representing the Isle of Ice, but he’d declined and his siblings hadn’t pressed him. Besides, there was hardly space at the top of the Ziggurat for two dragons, let alone three.

I wonder if the lessons of Silverhigh must be relearned, or can they be learned from? Natasatch thought to him.

The lives of many a hominid and dragon alike will be shaped by the answer.

You can’t think your sister is part of it. She thinks all her elves and humans and so on are quite her equals. AuRon. So cautious. Except once—on the day you won me.

And almost lost you just as quickly. It rather reinforced the lesson.

So what shall we do? Go back to the island and scrape out a living? After the hatchlings have seen all this, can they be content with play-hunting sheep? I’d have them know more of the world.

AuRon sniffed the air. Scents from across half a world rose from the crowd. Not just smoked meats and fresh-baked breads, but the decorative scents, floral or woodsy, metals, sweats, dried herbs being smoked or stewed, the dust of the poured stone the Hypatians used in so much of their construction, dogs, cats, horses, and other beasts, and above all, dragon. The Isle of Ice smelled like sheep, peat, and melting glacier.