Stephen Deas - The adamantine palace

He came back an hour later empty-handed, looked at her and shrugged an apology, then walked off again. After a while she got up and followed him. He was standing at the edge of a precipice looking out at the mountains. Away from the dragons, the cold air quickly worked it way through her clothes to her skin. She shivered and huddled next to Kemir.

'There's no food up here,' he said. 'We go hungry tonight.'

He didn't speak much, and usually she was glad of that. The dragons spoke even less. The white one said things to her sometimes. The black one only spoke as though she wasn't there. Hearing them inside her head had been a terror at first. Now, when they flew into a rage she flew into one too; apart from that, she barely noticed. They were all quiet company. She liked that, but not tonight.

'I've been hungry before. This is it, isn't it? They've found what they're looking for.'

Kemir nodded.

'Good.' It ought to frighten her, but it didn't. Instead, she felt a sharp stab of anticipation.

'Might be. Might not be.' Kemir shrugged. 'When they've done what they've come to do, I don't know what happens to us. They might leave us here. They might eat us.'

'I don't think so. We'll find some way to be useful to them.'

'We should run away again. They might not look for us this time.'

Nadira put her arms around his shoulders. 'Come back to the dragons. I'm cold.' When he talked at all, Kemir mostly talked about running away. She wasn't sure how much he meant it. They'd tried it the once, and that was all.

He shook her off, so she went back to the dragons on her own and curled up beside them to sleep. Kemir came back a few minutes later. He lay next to her, wide awake, staring at the stars.

'I was born in a settlement,' he said. 'I lived there until I was fifteen. Then the King of the Crags came. He was only a prince then. I wasn't there. I should have been, but I was off larking about with one of my cousins. When we came back, it was all gone. Nothing but ash. All we had was each other. On the day that you first saw me, they'd just killed him too. I can't run away. Not now. I want to see it all burn. They know that too, Snow and Ash. They know I'll stay.'

Ash had started to snore. The sound was so deep that she didn't hear it so much as feel it gently shaking the mountainside.

'Riders came to my settlement too,' she said quietly. 'It was deep in the forest. Everyone thought we were safe. It was all trees. There was nowhere nearby for a dragon to land. Didn't help though. The trees weren't big enough. They found us and burned us through the leaves and branches, and then the dragons crashed into what was left and knocked it flat. The riders came after us, those they hadn't burned. Everyone was either killed or they took us as slaves. I wasn't good enough to be a slave. Too old, too ugly, too something. They took my boys though, the ones they didn't kill. I saw them.' Her eyes glistened. That was the one memory she hung on to, watching her two boys, one eight years grown, one ten and almost a man, being dragged away. They'd been weeping and cowering, but it was a happy memory in a way, because at least they might still be alive, even if they were chained to the oars of a Taiytakei galley somewhere.

'They did what they always do,' she said quietly. Kemir was still staring blankly at the sky, so she lay down next to him, forced herself to rest her head on his chest and run her fingers though his hair. 'When they were done with us, they killed all the other women too old to be sold. But not me. They took me back to their castle and helped themselves whenever they wanted. After a few days I must have bored them. They took me back to where they'd found me and left me there in the cold ashes to die. The others were still there, their corpses already chewed to the bone. I suppose they thought that some snapper would find me before I could reach another settlement.'

Kemir muttered something and draped an arm over her shoulder.

'The snappers must have eaten their fill. But it was all wrong after that.' All wrong because she was useless. She was too old and no one wanted her. Among the settlements a woman on her own could mean only one thing. She'd moved from one place to the next, never staying long, selling herself to stay alive, stealing when she could, until she got caught and sold to a Dust gang. She didn't remember too much for a while after that, just doing everything they asked. Anything.

'Whatever it took to get more Dust,' she breathed, and felt a pang of craving inside her. Even thinking about it, even after all this time… 'And then they had enough too, and left me for the snappers again. Them or the cold.' She laughed bitterly. 'Snappers don't like me, I suppose. Too skinny. Not good eating. I thought I was seeing things. There was a huge white dragon. And then there was Kailin Scales. And then there was you, and then Kailin Scales went away, and I was still alive, and even the Soul Dust was gone, as much as it ever can be gone.'

And she'd survived.

She felt the rise and fall of Kemir's chest. He was sleeping. She rolled away and lay next to him, watching the stars, feeling the heat from the slumbering dragon on the other side of her. She ran a hand over Snow's scales. They should have run away. They both knew it. They should have left when Snow found Ash. Right then, when the dragons were so distracted they might have got away. Instead they'd waited too long. Now the dragons would never let them go, but it didn't bother her; if anything it made her feel special. There were worse places to be.

Snow was deliciously warm. She could feel the sense of purpose that filled the dragons now, even while they were sleeping. It hadn't been there the day before. It was infectious. She wanted to do something. She had no idea what. She'd never had a purpose before, never had time for it. Not starving, not being eaten, not dying of cold and exhaustion – all that had been purpose enough. Suddenly she didn't have to worry about those any more.

Kemir had a purpose. The dragons had a purpose.

She'd thought about that all through the day, as the mountains grew shorter and steeper and sharper and more pressed together.

'I want to help kill the dragon-knights,' she whispered. She wasn't sure if she'd meant it for Kemir or for Snow, or whether she was simply speaking to the wind. 'Every one of them,' she added. 'I want to kill them all.' This surprised her. It wasn't the purpose she'd expected. Maybe it wasn't her purpose at all. Maybe the dragons had made her want it, in the same way that when they grew angry she grew angry too. Or maybe she'd caught it from Kemir. In the end it didn't really matter, did it?.

Nadira hunched her shoulders and closed her eyes. She made herself small and snuggled next to Snow. The dragons were dreaming, and from their dreams she knew exactly what was coming.

Yes. There were far worse places to be.

Returning the Cinders

There is one last price a dragon-rider must pay. When a dragon

finally dies, it burns from the inside so that all that remains

beneath the scales is charcoal and ashes. The scales survive.

They are light and strong, and above all fire and heat will not

penetrate them. Thus they are much sought after as armour.

When a dragon dies and only the scales remain, the rider must

gather them and return them to the eyrie and the dragon-king

from whence they came. Thus the dragon returns to the place

of its birth. Only from the cinders, say the alchemists, can a new

dragon be born.

The Alchemists

Jaslyn had come to see the alchemists once before. She'd been thirteen years old. Lystra was eleven, Almiri sixteen and very soon to be wed to King Valgar. They'd come with their mother and Lady Nastria on the backs of two dragons, both dead now. Jaslyn's memories were of huge dark caves and wizened old men and damp stone, and of Almiri being unbearable. Their mother had taken them down through endless tunnels to a place that had never seen the sun, lit only by a few lamps. The rush of some underground river had echoed everywhere they went. They'd come out into a huge cavern, and her mother had pointed at the purple stains on the walls.