'Get away! Get away!'

Something fluttered past her and flew at Hyram. In the darkness she couldn't see what it was. Some sort of bird perhaps, but it glittered like gold and made a strange sound as it flew, more a clattering of metal than the fluttering of feathers. It buzzed at Hyram's head.

'Get away!' He flailed at it, stumbling towards the parapet.

Shezira took a step towards him. Somewhere inside the keep a commotion had started. It was rapidly getting closer.

'Get away! Get off my dragon!'

He was going to fall.

'Hyram!' She lunged at him, trying to grab his arm. He shrieked and hurled himself away from her, straight into the parapet. His head and arms kept going, tipping over into the emptiness beyond. His legs flew up. It all seemed to happen very slowly, so slowly that Shezira couldn't understand why she couldn't do anything about it. And then he was gone. He didn't scream at all, but she heard the thud, a few seconds later, as he hit the ground.

There were people running into Hyram's bedchamber behind her.

'Murder!' shouted a woman's voice. It was Queen Zaflr. 'She's murdered my husband!'

For the first time in many years Shezira didn't know what to do. She stood staring over the edge. Behind her she could hear her riders trying to defend her. There were only two of them, though, and Zafir had come in force. It didn't last long.

Jehal unwrapped the silk from his eyes. Then he lay back on his bed while Kazah pulled his boots off again. He stared at the ceiling filled with immeasurable satisfaction.

I win.

68

The Glacier

She was getting hotter. Kemir felt it. They hadn't gone very far before Snow's back grew first uncomfortable, then painful and finally almost unbearable. He'd made a mistake, he thought. She was dying, and there wasn't much to be done about it.

At least we'll be far from the alchemists when they finally come out of their caves. We can just die slowly from cold and hunger instead.

He could live with that, he decided. Better to die out here, fighting to survive in these harsh lands, than rot in some dungeon. Nadira probably wouldn't see it that way, but there wasn't much she could do about it now. They'd tried, him and Snow. They'd tried and they'd failed, and that felt so much better than not having tried at all. He could die happy with that.

Snow flew higher and higher, arrowing deep into the World-spine. The mountains and valleys grew more wild and broken, the peaks higher, until they arced into a narrow valley filled with an azure lake. Snow dropped through the air until she was skimming the water. Her flying had become erratic. She was aiming for the end of the lake, where a glacier stretched down from the mountainside and immense chunks of grey ice drifted lazily in the brilliant blue water. As she reached it, she crash-landed close to the shore. Even as Kemir and Nadira were struggling out of the freezing water, Snow was backing away into the deeper parts of the lake, towards the ice cliff of the glacier. There was madness in her thoughts now, mixed in with the fury. She wasn't afraid, though. She was sure she was dying, but she wasn't afraid.

Goodbye, Little One Kemir.

Kemir spat and shook as much water as he could from his clothes. The air up here was so cold the wet furs were already starting to freeze. 'Live, dragon,' he hissed. 'If you live, you can free as many dragons as you want. But if you're gone, who else will do it?' Never mind that there's little chance of us surviving on our own up here.

She was sinking beneath the freezing water. When she finally lifted her head and looked up, she was instantly wreathed in steam. She must have read his thoughts, though, for with one last gasp, she spat a stream of fire at the trees nearby, setting them ablaze. Giving him warmth and fire and a chance, at least, to survive. Then she gave Kemir a look and cocked her head. Her thoughts felt distant and vague, and also a little confused, as if the answer to his question was obvious. You, Kemir. You will do it.

Kemir laughed. 'I don't think so, dragon.'

He pulled Nadira after him into the forest and didn't look back. Behind him, the dragon sank with barely a ripple and was gone.

Epilogue – The Perfect White

'Where is she?' Almiri had barely landed. She wore full armour and had nearly fifty dragons with her: Shezira's from the encampment in the Purple Spur, and a detachment of Valgar's riders. She started to take the armour off. The weight of it left her almost unable to walk.

Rider Jostan glanced towards the caves and bowed. 'She's still with the body, Your Holiness.'

Almiri wrinkled her nose. The valley still stank of smoke. The alchemists were out of the caves now. Some of them had left; most had stayed to rebuild the ruins of their homes.

'Did you find all the others?'

'No.' Jostan sounded solemn. 'We found four dragons. The fifth is missing. The white.'

'The four you found, were all of them dead?'

'Yes, Your Holiness.' Then he smiled a little. 'We even found Rider Semian. Or he found us. Naked and half-dead from the cold, but he recovered quickly enough. It was hardly a problem to get him warm.'

'So one more to find. And the riders? The ones that brought the dragons here in the first place?'

Jostan shrugged. 'Left on the back of the white. Semian saw them go, heading into the deepest parts of the Worldspine. He says there were two of them. A man and a woman. The man used to work for-' He didn't finish, but Almiri knew what he had been going to say: Queen Shezira's knight-marshal. For the assassin who'd tried to murder Speaker Zafir, who'd died rather than be taken when she failed, and who might just have started a war.

Jostan bit his lip. 'I'm afraid Semian took the Ember poison, Your Holiness. His mind is-"

'I need to speak to her.'

Jostan looked uncomfortable. 'Yes, Your Holiness.'

He left her presence and headed for the caves.

Almiri took her time with her armour. They couldn't stay long; the alchemists' eyrie was tiny, and all the cattle they'd kept to feed visiting dragons were gone. She wasn't entirely sure what to say to her sister. She'd waited for a couple of days, hoping that Jaslyn would come to her, but she hadn't.

Eventually she couldn't put it off any longer. She walked towards the cave mouths and the dead dragons that lay there. The ground around them was already blackened from the heat. She could still recognise Matanizkan, Levanter and Silence, all three hatched and raised in Outwatch. Jaslyn was sitting, legs crossed, beside the river, as close to Silence as she could without being scorched. She was soaking wet. Sweat, Almiri thought, until she saw Jaslyn scoop handfuls of water from the river and splash it over herself.

She sat beside her sister. The air was burning hot and hard to breathe. There wasn't any wind.

'This is as close as I can get,' said Jaslyn quietly.

Almiri felt herself begin to cook under her flying clothes. 'You have to leave him,' she said uncomfortably. 'He's gone. We can make sure you get his scales.'

'I want to take them myself, when he's cooled enough.'

'I…' Almiri stood up. The heat was intolerable. 'Can we go back to the eyrie?'

'Have some water from the river.' Jaslyn splashed some over her own face. She made no move to stand. Almiri sighed and sat down again.

'We fought our way out of the Adamantine Palace, Jaslyn. After they took mother and Valgar. Out of a hundred riders, twenty of us reached the eyrie and our dragons. We took as many as we could. I have Mistral. They say our mother murdered Hyram, and that our knight-marshal tried to kill the speaker. They mean to put mother and Valgar on trial. They'll be executed. They won't even be given the Dragon's Fall.'