The maze-like hallways of the palace still made little sense to me, but we hadn’t walked too far from Jean’s quarters before we came to a short stair that led up into a square tower. According to Fronsac this was where condemned noblemen were taken to await their execution. There were only four cells, all of which were dry and had beds, wooden floors with thick rugs and even glass windows. They left the chains on when they pushed me into a cell and Tatyana in the one alongside mine. The doors had small windows in them but were heavy things of ancient wood, bound in thick iron with strong locks that turned noisily as they shut us in.
Fronsac chose three of the uninjured guards to remain by the doors to the towers while the others returned to wherever they were supposed to go. He then sent these three to fetch food and drink while he ostensibly guarded us, a clever ploy on his part.
‘That was well played, although I doubt that Falco appreciates it at this moment,’ he said, pacing in front of our doors.
‘Falco?’
‘Jean’s bodyguard. You all but scrambled his brain with that little trick.’
I had meant to kill him, and I expect that Fronsac misread my surprise that he was still alive as some sort of concern.
‘Don’t worry, he’ll be fine in a day or so.’
‘What a relief.’ I sent a flash of sorcery into the manacles, popping the lock open so that I could shake my hands free. ‘So, when do we leave?’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t. Not yet.’
‘I agreed to this on the understanding that we would leave.’
‘And you will leave, but not yet.’
‘Why not?’
‘We need to let some of the dust settle on this. We have won some time with our little display, but the Order will not be shaken off that easily, siege or not.’
I stepped up to the door and pressed my face to the little window. ‘I saved this miserable city, and now I am to sit in this prison simply so that your prince is not embarrassed?’
‘Lucien is out there, Fronsac,’ called Tatyana from her cell. ‘Every moment that we waste brings him closer to the worms. We have to get out of here.’
‘I know. And I understand, really, I do.’ He stepped close to the door as well and met my gaze frankly. ‘My friend, do you think I want this? Do you not think I would prefer you at my side, hurling destruction down on the scum gathering outside our walls?’ He paused for a steadying breath. ‘I ask only that you trust me, just for a day, perhaps two. You will be safe here. And fed. Take it as a chance to rest and gather your strength, because I have no doubt that you will be needing it sooner than you realise.’
He had lowered his wards as he spoke and now met my gaze once more. Not one to waste an opportunity, I fed some power into mine and accepted his invitation. He was a skilled wizard, and I had no doubt that he could influence what I gleaned from his thoughts, but even so I would have sensed some doubt or hesitation if he was hiding anything. He kept his deep thoughts hidden, but I could sense his deep curiosity about me, some fear too, but nothing I associated with either malice nor falsehood. He believed what he was saying, which either made him a very good liar an honest fool.
I blinked the thoughts away and broke the connection. ‘Fine, I will wait. But the morning after next, I am opening this door and leaving this city whether your Prince wants it or not.’
He nodded. ‘The morning after next.’ He tilted his staff and the torches set into the sconces all flared to life, dispelling the shadows. ‘I’ll tell the guards to remain outside, in the main passage. Until then.’
He touched his fingers to the edge of his cowl, then turned on his heel and left, shutting the main door behind him.
‘Some reward, eh?’ said Tatyana after a few moments.
‘It feels more of a punishment than a reward.’
‘I know that. So what are you going to do now?’
‘Sleep.’
‘And then what?’
‘I hope to eat. Lamb, preferably.’
‘Really? We’re locked in a damned dungeon and that’s your plan?’
I closed my eyes, set my hand against the wall and sent a few strands of sorcery running along the cold stone until I felt the wood and metal of her door, then sent them burrowing into the keyhole. The lock was a masterful piece of engineering, and it took me a fair amount of probing to find and move the correct part. I heard it spring open with my ears even as I felt it through the sorcery.
‘What the Hel!’ A few moments later I heard her shuffle out of the cell and come stand before mine.
‘The doors are not keeping me here, only my promise to Fronsac,’ I said, peering at her through the window.
‘Let me in.’
I shivered at her words as she unknowingly echoed the voice of my draconic self. ‘Are you going to hit me again?’
She laughed. ‘No. I’ve just grown used to having you around.’
I pulled the sorcery back to me and opened my door too.
‘Nice place,’ she said, stepping inside.
‘It’s my favourite dungeon so far.’
‘Did you just make an actual joke?’
‘No.’
‘No, I suppose not.’
She folded her arms and stared at me until I started wondering if there was some social convention that I had misinterpreted. I remained as I was as she slowly walked around me, her hand trailing across my borrowed tunic.
‘A dragon,’ she said when she finally stood before me again.
I fought the urge to sigh. ‘That is still correct.’
Her eyes suddenly widened, and I turned, expected some assassin behind me, but the cell was empty.
‘Sorry,’ she said, a hand pressed to her breast. ‘I just remembered what you said when you healed me. You used your blood.’ She looked quite pale as she said it. ‘Dragon blood.’
‘It flows in your veins too now,’ I said. The memory wasn’t a pleasant one, seeing as I’d been impaled on a number of wooden beams and had to rip myself free to reach her before the wound to her heart killed her. I hadn’t regretted it yet, and the realisation actually improved my mood. She gasped as I grabbed her hand and the sorcery within her drew some of my energy into her, sharpening her senses and filling her with a surge of strength.
‘Tatyana Henkman,’ I said, enjoying the sensation of the fire kindling in my eyes once more. ‘The only other being in this world with the blood of dragons.’
She looked up at me, the green of her eyes glowing like sunlit emeralds. She didn’t resist as I drew her into my mind and folded her into my memories.
The night air was cool across my scales as I sank through the clouds, ribbons of vapour clinging to my wingtips. Below me the great plains were a dark mass broken only by rivers that gleamed like silver in the moonlight. I woke my vision and the heat from the migrating herds lit the dark earth in a moving patchwork of colour, red where the great bison roamed, gold to the west where the oryx grazed and the yellows of the striped horses to both the south and north. Between them were dozens of families of the small, dun buck that served as the ears and eyes for all of them, their small heat traces giving them the look of wandering fireflies.
I silently circled the herds. Their senses were attuned to the threat of the great cats that crept ever closer on the fringes of the herds, rather than what waited in the sky above them. I could fall upon them now and fill my jaws before the first warning call, but there was no sport in that.
I dipped my wings into a dive, my speed increasing until I could feel the strain of holding my wings level pull at my shoulders. I was mere moments from the edge of the first herd before I gave voice to my hunting call, the sound of it lighting a blind panic among the herds. As one, the plains exploded into movement, the colours brightening as their blood surged and the blind instinct to flee overwhelmed their senses. I skimmed over the nearest herd, low enough that I felt the males’ antlers brush my thighs, the wind of my passing bowling over the weak and infirm.
With another roar I tilted my wings and powered my way upwards once more, exulting in the feel of the great muscles that spanned my chest and back working in perfect unison as I gained enough height to wheel on my wingtip and plunge down amongst them once more. It was time for the killing to begin.
I closed my eyes and pulled my mind from Tatyana’s, then caught her as she fell against me.
‘What was that?’ she exclaimed in rush.
‘A memory of a better time.’
‘I could feel it. I felt it.’ A smile crooked my lips as she closed her eyes and stretched out her arms, tilting them to the left. ‘The wind, everything.’
‘They were good years.’
‘It was so fast. You were so fast.’
‘Only in the hunt. I always preferred to fly above the clouds.’ The smile found its way onto my face again. ‘I could soar for days with nothing but cool air between me and the sun.’
‘Can you show me?’
I considered it, and was surprised to find that I was not actually opposed to the idea. Quite the opposite. My own memories had been hidden from me for too long, and while there was a danger in dwelling in them too often, surely I deserved such a small indulgence. I bade her sit facing me, her on the bed and me on the floor. I could feel her excitement radiating from the connection between us, and it was hard not to feel flattered. I took her small, delicate hands in mine and looked into her eyes. I had many memories of flying, so it was no difficult matter to drag her consciousness into such strong memories, particularly when I enjoyed revisiting them too.
The shadows were lengthening when I finally closed the memory and released her hands, and I found myself feeling both strangely refreshed and tired at the same time. I had almost grown used to the body I was wearing, but after sinking so deeply into my older memories I could feel the unnatural shape of my flesh chafing against my soul.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, watching me from the edge of the bed with a furrowed brow.
‘I should not have indulged myself so deeply,’ I said. ‘Some memories are dangerous to linger on.’
‘Well, I have no regrets, if that’s any consolation.’ She sat back and crossed her legs under her in a way that made me wince, even though the knees of this body bent the same way as hers. ‘But I know what you mean. I’m the same with anything from my childhood. Even after so many years, merely thinking of my father sets my teeth on edge.’
‘I didn’t like him either, if that’s any consolation.’
‘Sorry?’
‘That’s not necessary. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘No. I mean, what do you mean you didn’t like him either?’
‘Your father was the one who found me. After his father’s father had abandoned the circus and left me to die.’ I sat back as the memories of the overgrown barn I had spent so many decades in welled up, my mind conjuring the earthy scents of decaying wood and spreading moss that had been all I could smell for nigh on a hundred years. ‘Another fifty years or so and the floor of my cage would have been soft enough to break, and then I would have been free. But instead your father found me, and I was still struggling to awaken from my long sleep to be able to do anything about it on that first day. He walked right into the cage and sat closer than you are now.’ I forced the memories away. ‘If I’d known what he was thinking I might have tried harder to get to him.’
‘Why?’ She edged forward. ‘What did he do?’
‘He sold me to Navar Louw.’
She recoiled as if I had struck her and pushed herself backwards until her back met the wall, then covered her face with her hands.
I shifted so that I could lean against the wall too, rolling the memory around in my mind once more like I would a pebble in my hand. Navar Louw. Even bereft of my sorcery and with my senses dulled by disuse and generations of old enchantments, I had sensed the corruption within him on our first meeting, but had then thought it merely a facet of his humanity and exposure to magic. As ever, hindsight chided for me for missing the obvious, but Navar was a master of deceit. For years he had sat in the centre of a vast web, ostensibly teaching the wizards who would take to the fields to fight the very army he was leading, all the while corrupting and subverting their will to his own. And even then he had pursued a greater prize: me. Forgotten and lost for two generations, left to die in an old barn because some old fool decided that owning a circus was too demeaning a profession for his illustrious family.
I glanced across as the bed creaked and saw that Tatyana had pushed herself back into a sitting position.
‘You knew,’ she said.
It was too obvious to be a question so I didn’t bother answering her.
‘Dad sold you. To him. Do you think he knew? He couldn’t have. No one did. But he knew about you.’
‘Eventually, yes. That was the first time I saw him. The last was the next day, when Navar’s men came with their wagons and oxen to haul me away.’
‘How did you survive?’
‘That’s a tale for another day I think.’ I drew a deep breath and tasted the air. ‘The food’s almost here.’
She grunted and hauled herself to her feet. ‘I suppose I’d better go back to my cell.’
She paused at the door. ‘Stratus?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you. For, you know.’ She tapped her head.
‘I enjoyed it,’ I said. It was true, after all. ‘If only to have put an end to your questions.’
‘Think again,’ she said with a smile, then closed the door behind her.