Stephen Deas: The King of the Crags

Jeiros turned to go. 'I have argued with Vale for you. Your feud ends here. I need you both to understand that.'

Jehal gave him a wry smile. 'Do you give orders to all your speakers?'

'No. Nor do I bring them all back from the brink of death.'

Except you didn't. That was the blood-mage. For reasons that I find ever more troubling. Jehal sighed. 'The realms need a speaker and I am available. I understand, Master Jeiros. I will try not to disappoint you.'

'If you do, Vale has a cage waiting for you.' The alchemist smiled weakly. 'I have some faith in you, King Jehal. I hope you prove me right.'

"Well I'll see what I can do.' Jehal snorted and shook his head. 'I had an ambition to be speaker once. Being your puppet isn't quite what I had in mind.' He curled his lip. 'Do one small thing for me, Grand Master. Zafir did not take your precious spear to war with her. It's been stolen by a blood-mage. His name is Kithyr. Find him. Bring him back.' He chuckled. 'But don't tell him I sent you. Apparently he'll kill me.' He sighed and waved Jeiros away. A hundred and one days. Lystra will make peace with the north for me long before then. And then we shall see. He opened Meteroa's letter.

The end of Zafir's line as near as I can manage it. The Pinnacles are mine. Kazalain is dead and so are his sons. Say the word and Princess Kiam can follow them. Not that that'll help. The trouble with royal families is that everyone is always related to everyone else. No matter what you do, it's never the end of any bloodline. That's the whole point, isn't it? Not unless you kill absolutely everyone. Although as I look around at the carnage in the throne room here, at the two dead princes who were barely more than children, I will concede that extinguishing us all might be a very fine thing.

Your father once said that only a madman took his wife to war on the eve of giving birth. Lystra's your wife though, not mine, so perhaps I'm not so mad after all. She is safe and has celebrated our victory by giving you a son. She asks what his name should be.

Jehal stretched, trying to ease the cricks in his back, chewing on Dreamleaf to numb the pain in his leg. He read the letter again, and then a third time. When he started for the fourth, it occurred to him that he wasn't actually reading the words any more and that he had a stupid grin plastered all over his face.

I am the speaker.

I have a son.

I win.

Again.

Zafir stood on the ramparts looking out over Fuymuouth. Behind her, parts of Jehal's palace were burning. She stared out at the sea. There were Taiytakei ships out there. Hundreds of them. They'd simply appeared in the night, lurking out to sea, asking to be burned. She mulled the thought over, but whatever she might have wanted, there was little she could do. She'd gone to Evenspire with two hundred dragons. Now she had exactly one. Sometimes she wished she'd ignored Tichane. Ignored the blood-mage. Ignored the Night Watchman. Ignored herself. Sometimes she wished she'd ignored them all and believed that Jehal was hers and ridden her Onyx to Evenspire and died before she could know she was wrong.

Her fists were clenched so tight they were starting to hurt. With a few deep breaths she forced herself to relax. She couldn't say she hadn't seen it coming, but it made her want to scream.

A rider appeared at her side. He took her hand and touched it to his lips.

'I am sorry, Your Holiness. Queen Lystra is not here.'

She pulled her hand away. 'Then he took her with him, Prince Tichane. Yes, and now she's at the Adamantine Palace. She'll be sitting on my throne. My palace. My soldiers. My throne. My everything. They'll be fucking in my bed, if Jehal can still fuck at all.' She cracked a grim smile. At least that was one little thing she could savour, when she wasn't grinding her teeth.

'No,' whispered Prince Tichane. 'She went with his uncle. We will trap them both in the Pinnacles.' He was so close that she could feel his breath on her hair. There was no doubting what he wanted.

She stepped away, hiding a shiver of revulsion. 'I want him dead. I want her in chains at my feet. Let them quiver in their beds at night!'

'She will not escape. When my father has finished smashing King Narghon's eyries into little pieces, the south will be ours. And when he knows you didn't die at Evenspire, the Night Watchman will fall over himself to put the Viper in chains. It will all be ours in a stroke.' He moved beside her again and slipped a hand around her waist and across her belly, spreading his fingers wide, pressing himself against her. This time she leaned into him and purred. He was no Jehal, but he was every bit as easy to use. And Valmeyan did have a lot of dragons.

'I want that mongrel who's sitting on my throne in the Pinnacles dead. I want the rest of them hanging in cages where I can watch them die for days. I want a blood-mage so I can keep them alive for ever and wake up every morning to listen to their pain as I break my fast. Promise me.'

'I promise. You'll have your palace back and I will make you an empress. There will be no one to stop us.'

She smiled. 'No one.' Oh, Lystra, Lystra, if there's a cage for anyone… She put her hand over his and sighed.

Rider Semian clenched his fists. 'This isn't how it was supposed to be!' he screamed. 'I was supposed to serve the Great Flame! I have a destiny! Damn you all!'

He was standing on the top of one the taller peaks of the Worldspine. It would have been easy to circle even higher on Vengeance's back, but he needed the stillness, the quiet, the calm of being alone. He'd landed the dragon as close as he could and then he'd climbed, damaged leg and all, through the snow and the ice, still wrapped in his dragon-scale armour and his riding furs. He'd almost had to claw his way up at the end. But he had prevailed. He stood on top of the world, in the still quiet air, in a cold so bitter that it seemed to freeze his words to his lips. There wasn't even a breath of wind. Despite conquering them, the mountains and the Worldspine scorned him with their silence. Prince Jehal had broken him. His Red Riders were destroyed. And that was how it was going to end, in a battle too small to even have a name? 'I have a destiny!' he screamed again. Unless the Great Flame had chosen a new champion. Unless he was discarded, old and used up and no good for anything any more. Had he done what he was sent to do? Had the Red Riders served their purpose?

No. That couldn't be. He'd drunk the dragon-venom. He was chosen.

Standing alone so high gave him clarity. There was no need to be angry. Perhaps the Red Riders had served their purpose. Perhaps he alone was meant for other things. He didn't know what his new destiny would be, but did that matter so much? War was coming. Men and dragons, eyries and castles and cities and palaces, all of them would burn. A whole generation of men would die. The Great Flame would be served well.

Yes.

Semian started. The word had come into his head, but it wasn't his. He fell to his knees and almost wept for joy. That was why he'd climbed all the way up here. To hear the voice of the Great Flame itself.

I remember you.

'Yes. Yes, remember me. And in return, I will serve you.' He looked about in case the red priest had come to him, but there was nothing but stillness and empty space and mountains.

No. Not you.

The cold suddenly seemed to crash in through the cracks in his armour. 'What have I done?' He took a deep breath. No, no, there was no need to be afraid. No need at all. That was a mistake. 'I have a destiny…'

Do you?

Semian stood up again. He could hear something coming on the wind. And the voice, the voice in his head. The Great Flame, coming for him. To make him whole.