Stephen Deas - The adamantine palace

Lystra

'At last!'

Jehal yawned and stretched. He'd taken to sleeping through part of the afternoons, simply as a way to make the time pass. Queen Shezira and her flight had been expected five days ago. Dutifully, albeit at the last possible minute, he'd left behind the pleasures of his father's palace in Furymouth and ridden to the eyrie at Clifftop to greet her. Except she hadn't come, and the eyrie was a full day on horseback from the city, and there was absolutely nothing to do except look at his dragons and listen to the noise of the waves crashing against the cliffs.

He'd been on the point of going back, but now the Queen of the North had finally arrived. Either that, or someone else was flying thirty-odd dragons towards his eyrie.

Maybe it was more alchemists. As he dressed himself, he smiled. Hyram had sent twelve of them, including the old sorcerer himself, Bellepheros. They were crawling all over his eyrie, dragging in his men, his riders, his soldiers, his servants, his Scales, even their own kind, the alchemists who served King Tyan's dragons. Every day Jehal made a point of going to watch them at their work. Every day they took a few dozen of his people and filled their lungs with truth-smoke. They asked their questions: What do you know about Queen Aliphera's death? Do you know how she died? Did you have any part in it? Every day they got the same answers. They were so sure of themselves, and yet, in the days since they'd arrived, they'd found out nothing. When he was watching them, Jehal would smile a lot and ask how else he might be of help, and try to not to laugh at the frustration on their faces. In a few more days they'd be done with the eyrie and would move on to the palace at Furymouth. It was an intolerable imposition, of course, but one that was almost worth bearing simply to watch them fail.

The speaker's alchemists had almost unlimited power, but there were a few things they weren't permitted to do. Inflict their potions on someone of royal blood, for example. Which was a pity for them, since unless they were going to conjure up Aliphera's ghost and question her, that was the only way they were going to find out what had happened. Jehal had put a great deal of thought and effort into Aliphera's death, and so there was a certain pleasure to be had in watching the alchemists flounder.

But only to a point. Having them here was also a humiliation, an insult that couldn't be ignored and for which Hyram would have to pay.

Jehal pulled on his boots and looked at himself in a mirror, carefully adjusting his clothes to make sure everything was exactly as it should be. He couldn't really complain, he thought. This business with the alchemists would just make him feel that bit more justified in doing what he'd been going to do anyway.

There. He was shrewd enough to see through his own vanity, and he could cut a dashing figure when he wanted to. He nodded to himself in the mirror and walked briskly away, to the stairs that would take him down to the landing fields. It wasn't going to be enough to simply murder Hyram, he decided. Something more was called for. Some sort of vivisection, that would be more like it.

He marched out through the gaping doors of Clifftop and into the open air. Hundreds of soldiers were running to their positions, forming up into wedge-shaped phalanxes. Jehal wasn't sure whether this was supposed to be a show of strength or a display of respect. He ignored them, as he was sure Queen Shezira would do, and looked up. Dozens of dragons were circling overhead. Four were already coming in to land, plummeting towards the landing fields in near-vertical dives. Jehal put Hyram out of his mind; for now he had an entirely more delicious problem to deal with.

The four dragons unfurled their wings, three slender and elegant hunting dragons and one brutish war-beast. They hit the edge of the landing field hard and at exactly the same time; even at that distance the air shook and the earth trembled under Jehal's feet. All four stood exactly where they had landed without taking a single pace forward. Which, he supposed, was meant to show him how skilled the riders were. Well it doesn't. That's the dragon doing the work, not you. All you're showing me is that your trainers and your Scales are as competent as they ought to be.

He almost expected to see the four riders slide out of their saddles and march towards him in perfect synchronisation; instead, if anything, they seemed to be arguing.

Then one of them – it had to be Queen Shezira – took the lead and the others fell in behind. Jehal and his eyrie-master, Lord Meteroa, walked out to meet them. In the periphery of Jehal's mind he noted all the other things that were happening: the guards of honour carefully formed up, marching to exactly where they were meant to be, the Scales taking the visiting dragons to the feeding paddocks while the best of his own were lined up for inspection, harnesses and saddles polished and gleaming. None of this mattered at all unless someone made a mistake, and since Meteroa never made mistakes, Jehal largely ignored it. He needed his attention for the queen whose daughter he was about to marry.

Shezira stopped an instant before Jehal. She met his gaze with a stare of her own. Her eyes weren't exactly cold, he thought, but certainly not warm. And relentless. Above all, that was his impression of her.

Good. I could do with a decent challenge. He smiled and took one further step. Queen Shezira held out her hand, and Jehal bowed to kiss the ring on her middle finger. As he did, he was already looking past her, at the three woman behind her, who were presumably her daughters. One with a plain flat face, beady little eyes and an angry look, one rather more delicious, clearly the youngest, shy and nervous but not too shy and nervous, peeking back at him through her eyelashes. And the one at the back, who looked the oldest, plain and unassuming, with her eyes cast to the ground and much darker skin than the others. There was something kinetic about that one, as though any at moment she would burst into violent motion. She set Jehal on edge.

Oh gods and dragons, I hope it's the young one she's here to give me.

'Queen Shezira.' Jehal bowed again, deeper this time. 'Welcome to Clifftop.'

He watched her look around. She didn't say anything, but her face told him all he needed to know. Adequate, she was thinking. Adequate. He felt Lord Meteroa bristle behind him. Apparently her face was telling him the same thing.

He waited. This was where Queen Shezira was supposed to introduce her daughters and he got to find out which one would be sharing his bed before the month was out. And then she was supposed to explain what had taken her so long, and why he'd had to spend days out here when he could have been back in Furymouth, slipping into Queen Zafir's bedchamber every other night and helping himself to an occasional cousin in between.

Finally, Queen Shezira nodded.

'We met,' she said, 'a long time ago. When Hyram was made speaker. Do you remember? Your father was showing you off.'

Jehal smiled and bowed and gritted his teeth. As if I could possibly forget. 'Yes, Your Holiness, I remember very well.'

Shezira stepped to one side 'This is my middle daughter, Jaslyn.' She was pointing at the plain one. Jehal breathed a small sigh of relief. 'You won't remember her, because she only wanted to stay with the dragons and spent all her time hiding in the palace eyrie.'

Jaslyn's face tightened a notch. Jehal bowed to her. 'Grown into a most beautiful princess. Dragons are our life, Princess Jaslyn. They are what sets us apart, and without them we are nothing. You are welcome to spend as much time at Clifftop as you wish. We will set aside rooms for your exclusive use while you are here.'

Jaslyn seemed to soften, although only a fraction. Shezira's face didn't change at all. 'The lady at the rear is my knight-marshal, Lady Nastria.'