“Mother, no!”

  I didn’t know exactly what Reaper had in mind when she said that she would “make the humans remember fear,” but I knew that it would be terrible, and that I had to stop it. Six pounds of gold and my future in Karakan depended on it!

  And God knows how many lives, Conscience reminded me. Leave it to her to somehow break through a terrified stupor to scold me.

  I could see Reaper tensing to take off. I moved first, leaping into the air right at her, silently begging Herald to forgive me as I pushed her away and abandoned her to the rain.

  I was terrified, and I was relying heavily on my assumption that she wouldn’t actually harm me or Herald. The only reason I could do anything at all was that I feared the consequences of letting her leave far more than anything she might do, and I couldn’t think of any other way to stop her.

  I flew at her face. Reaper reared back, then ducked under me with a startled, rather undignified screech. I didn’t actually try to bite or scratch her or anything. I just flew at her, swooping, and generally making a nuisance of myself. “Daughter—!” she started, but I didn’t give her a chance.

  “Mine!” I screamed. I was panicking, just flapping around like a crazed magpie. I had nothing resembling a plan; I just had to stop her from ruining everything. “They’re all mine! All of them. I claim all of them!”

  “What—!”

  “All of them! Every city, every village! They’re mine! My humans! My flock! My island! My—!”

  “ENOUGH!”

  I swooped on her, and a massive hand grabbed me. Her hands weren’t big enough to wrap around me — she wasn’t that big — but they were big enough to get a grip on my waist and pull me down to the ground where she could make me eat mud. She did it with the same terrifying ease and surprising gentleness as back on Vanar. She didn’t squeeze me; she held me. She didn’t slam me down; she put me on the ground. And she didn’t crush me into the mud; she just kept me pinned with no hope of getting free.

  That wasn’t entirely true, of course. I could Shift at any time. But that was surprisingly hard to remember when I’d just been effortlessly plucked out of the air and made intimately familiar with the ground.

  Reaper’s head came down with a growl that rumbled in my bones, and her jaws slammed shut a foot from my head. Then, her point made, she released me.

  I lay panting in the mud for a hot minute, then looked up at the adversary that had beat me so easily. But she wasn’t looking at me, nor did I look at her once I understood what I was seeing.

  Herald stood above me. I hadn’t noticed her move, but I’d been a little preoccupied with learning what humility feels like. At some point she’d put herself between Reaper and myself. She stood about three feet away from the towering dragon, and all she had was an eight-inch dagger that she’d produced from somewhere, and her courage.

  She was shaking, but her stance showed that she was prepared to fight. I couldn’t see her face, but I had no doubt that her teeth were bared.

  “Back!” Herald screamed up at a creature that could kill her as easily as she herself might step on a beetle. “Back, damn you!”

  God, she was threatening Reaper, the dragon who’d promised not to touch any of my humans unless they did something monumentally foolish.

  I needed to get up. I needed to get her out of there, but my limbs wouldn’t obey me. I barely got my chest out of the mud before Reaper spoke.

  “Drakonum Herald,” she rumbled. She actually took a step backward, though I had no doubt that it was so she could more comfortably lower her head to get far, far too close to Herald for my liking. “You truly would die for my daughter.” It wasn’t a question.

  “If I must,” Herald choked out. The sinews on her forearm stood out from how hard she gripped the dagger, but her body looked loose and ready. I had no doubt that she’d try to take an eye at least if Reaper tried anything.

  “And she would die for you?”

  “She would try. I would not let her.”

  Reaper huffed thoughtfully, then took another step backward and lay down, keeping her head level with Herald’s. “Tell me, little Herald. Does my daughter love all the humans of this island the way she does you?”

  Herald laughed. It was shaky and with a slight edge of hysteria to it, but it was still one of the most beautiful sounds I’d ever heard. “No! Not even close! She loves me above anyone else. There is no comparison.”

  “You are arrogant, little human.”

  “I am right! I know Draka. My other sister and I, we are her little dragons, and she does not say that lightly. There are others that she loves nearly as much, but the general population? No. She is protective of all innocents, that is all.”

  “Little dragons?” She snorted with amusement. “Yes, I can see it. You are certainly fierce enough, and do not lack pride.”

  “Herald—” I said, but Reaper cut me off.

  “Not now, Draka. I am speaking to your… sister. Tell me, little Herald: these other humans my daughter is so protective of, do they care as much about her?”

  “No. But there is gold on the line. A pittance to one such as you, I am sure, but a significant addition to Draka’s hoard.”

  “Tribute?” She gave another long, amused huff. “Why did you not say so, daughter? These humans are paying you tribute?”

  Close enough, I thought. “Yes. For my protection.”

  “Protection? Against what, precisely?”

  “Well… against you.”

  Dragons did not laugh the way humans did. Or, at least my mother didn’t. She had a number of ways to show amusement: with her eyes, or with huffs and snorts that translated as clearly as any chuckle or cackle. When I told her that I’d been contracted to protect Karakan from her, I learned a new one: She purred. Much like my involuntary expressions of great pleasure or contentment, a deep rumble, like a giant, idling motorcycle engine, rolled across the campground.

  I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved or insulted.

  “What was your plan, my brave daughter?” she asked once she got herself back under control. Her eyes still told me just how funny she found the idea.

  “To try to reason or bargain with you,” I said defiantly. I knew that I was being patronized, and I hated it. I’d always hated it, and no one had dared to try since the Night Blossom had me chained in a cell. That had ended poorly for her. “If that didn’t work, to lead you away from the city, to give them time to plan. And if that failed, to fight. To die, if I had to.”

  “The more you speak, the more it becomes clear that you need my guidance. But very well. I will bargain with you, little Draka. These humans, they will pay you tribute if you protect them from me, yes? Then I will let you do so. I will spare them the flames, and keep my distance. But there will be a cost, daughter. Will you pay it?”

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  “What do you want?” I asked apprehensively, glancing at Herald for support. She came in close, placing her hand at the base of my neck, and feeling her there grounded me a little.

  “In exchange for my forbearance, you will let me teach you. I will make a lair here, on this island, and you will come to me regularly. And you will refrain from foolish risks! My mercy will last so long as you are unharmed. If any of these humans should be so arrogant as to raise a blade against you, I will punish them. Is that clear?”

  “Clear?” I could barely believe what I was hearing. We’d gone from her spiriting me away to the north for a decade or two, or her burning half of Karakan to the ground, to demands on my time, and some restrictions on my behavior. “Yes, it’s clear.”

  “And you accept my terms?”

  “I do!” It wasn’t like I could refuse, but as it was I could only hope that I didn’t sound too eager. She’d offered me better terms than I could have hoped for, and I had to lock them down before she changed her mind! “Will you promise to stick to these terms?”

  She snorted with annoyance. “I would not have offered them if I did not intend to honor them. But if you wish to be formal, then, yes. I will make a binding promise, if you do so as well.”

  “Then, it’s a deal,” I said. Tense muscles and locked joints relaxed as relief coursed through my veins

  “It is. And we have wasted far too much time here. In the spirit of our little bargain, I ask that you come with me. You must see where my lair is, so that you may find it later. Take your little dragon. We cannot very well leave her here.”

  I didn’t even try to argue, both because I didn’t want to push my luck and because I would have looked childish if I did. She wasn’t being at all unreasonable, after all. I did, however, get two small concessions out of her.

  The first was to wait so that Herald could break down her camp and properly pack her gear. I tried to convince Mother to let me drop Herald off back home, but they wouldn’t hear it, neither of them. Reaper could, however, agree to my second concession, being a small detour. Herald questioned if it might stir up trouble, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was as pissed about our absent gold as I was. And so, at about eight or eight thirty in the morning, I presented the Council and the people of Karakan with all the proof they could possibly want that I was in contact with Reaper.

  That morning, not one, but two dragons came to the city. We flew in from the north, taking a long turn over the harbor, and then Reaper followed my lead as I flew on a line that took us directly above Her Grace’s Favor and on to the Forum and the Palace. Let the weasley old bastards try to deny me my gold when the whole city had seen us together! And if they did, I didn’t care what I’d have to promise Reaper. I’d find a way to have her join me on the Forum and stick her head through the doors of the Palace to say “Hello!”

  After taking a long, slow round of the Palace quarter it was Reaper’s turn to lead. She took us north along the coast, which made me wonder where we were going; I’d expected her to take us to the mountains, which wasn’t impossible, but going along the coast and then turning inland would be a waste of time if we were heading to the center of the island.

  Once that much became clear, I sped up until I was above and to the left of her, where I wouldn’t get in the way of her wings. “How is your rider doing?” she asked. She did nothing to hide her distaste for the idea of anyone riding me, but she’d had her opportunity to make a fuss back at the lake, and she hadn’t.

  Herald had been silent for most of the flight. I could still feel her trembling against me, and I was sure that if it hadn’t been for me, she would have preferred to stay at the lake, or to be let off in or outside the city. She didn’t say anything to Reaper’s question, only giving me a reassuring pat where her hand rested on my upper chest.

  “She’s fine,” I replied. It struck me that neither of us had to shout to hear each other; we both had such powerful voices that we could hear each other over the two dozen feet separating us. And with our long necks we could easily look at each other as we spoke. I was so used to turning my neck ninety degrees to see a passenger in the corner of my eye. I hadn’t expected how nice it would be to just be able to talk on the wing, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much better it would be on a clear day.

  “Good,” my mother continued. “She is the only reason we are flying in this miserable rain. They are such fragile little creatures.”

  I realized a few things from that. She knew that it was cold above the clouds. She knew that the cold would get to Herald, who would be wet despite her raincoat. And on some level, she cared. I couldn’t tell whether that was because I cared about Herald, and my mother didn’t want to make me upset by getting her sick, or because she didn’t want to hurt Herald unnecessarily. It didn’t make much difference to me; It was unexpected either way, and I appreciated it.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, right around the point where we were as far north as I’d ever been.

  “Have you explored this island properly?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I’ve mostly kept to the south.”

  “I do not see why. The humans have entirely ruined the delicate balance of rifts and monsters there. The ambient mana is practically non-existent. It would be better for you to make your lair in the north, where the rifts are so delightfully plentiful.”

  “The humans are in the south,” I said, feeling inexplicably self-conscious. I knew what she’d think of that explanation, but why should that matter? “And my hoard, too,” I added quickly. “I moved it once, just a short bit, and it was awful.”

  She looked at me in silence for a few wingbeats, and with a deep, honest sympathy. That, at least, she understood. “Did it feel like losing everything?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I am sorry. Your father or I should have been there to guide you in how to choose your lair, before you claimed your first bauble or shiny rock. But I can promise you this, daughter: it gets easier. As you grow older, and your will develops, your hoard will have less of a hold on you. The love will still be there, and the comfort, but the compulsion will be easier to resist.”

  The topic was clearly uncomfortable for her, and I got that. When I thought about my hoard having a weaker hold on me, I wasn’t sure that I wanted it to. I loved looking at it, and sleeping on it, and I didn’t mind the reminder every so often that I should go back. It wasn’t like I absolutely had to visit it every couple of days or anything either, not like in my first days. I was already better at keeping that need at bay.

  “Ah, but you asked about our destination!” my mother went on, oblivious to my musings. “When I was last here, that city we flew over before was much smaller. The humans of this island swore their fealty to another city, near the north end. There is a line of cliffs there, and a harbour with a tall spire of stone, and they made a great city around it. It is a pitiful ruin now, of course, but some of their halls still stand, roofs and all, after all these centuries. Enchantments, I am sure, strong enough to survive the disaster that laid low the city’s inhabitants. They have always been terribly clever with enchantments, humans.”

  “Old Mallin!” I couldn’t contain my excitement, and I felt more than heard Herald’s breath catch. “We’re going to Old Mallin!”

  “Perhaps? I never bothered to learn what they called their cities. Night visited that city every so often, but mostly they traveled to Night’s mountain to pay him tribute, and otherwise left us alone. Except for his flock, of course. That mountain was crawling with them, and I told him that it was dangerous, but it was his territory…”

  If she were human, she would have rolled her eyes.

  “But we are going to that city, whatever it is called,” she concluded.

  Herald’s arms tightened around me, and I could feel her practically shaking, her excitement far stronger than her anxiety. “Old Mallin!” she shouted. “We will see Old Mallin!”

  “Ah, she speaks!” Reaper looked at us both with amusement, and I got the feeling that she enjoyed seeing Herald excited. “Yes, we will go to this old city. There were quite a few monsters there, but the ones near my lair have wisely left, since I consumed their rifts. Perhaps you wish to explore the ruins?”

  “I would like that very much, great lady!”

  Reaper gave us both the dragon equivalent of a grin.

  She’d come around when it came to Herald. The way my sister had stood between us with just a dagger and a massive set of brass ones seemed to have impressed her. Though, based on some of the things she’d said I was getting the feeling that my mother liked humans overall, just in the way a human might like cats, for example. Cute and amusing, but never equals. That kind of thing.

  I was different. At least I hoped that I was. Yes, there was a magically enforced power imbalance that meant that most of my humans and I could never truly be equal, but I didn’t see them as pets. I didn’t see them as part of a “flock.” With a few exceptions, I loved them, and I respected them. I didn’t just keep them around because I liked looking at them.

  Well, there was Avjilan. But he’d tried to kill me three times, so if I kept him around for his amazing voice and androgynous good looks — and also because he was my only lead on explaining how my human soul had ended up inside a dragon’s body — he could just count his blessings as far as I was concerned.

  It ended up taking us a couple of hours to reach the city which must have been Old Mallin. It lurched out of the rain suddenly, like some Transylvanian castle in a vampire movie, only on a vastly larger scale. Like so many cities it was built around a hill, a jagged tooth of stone that rose above the sea like an extreme version of Karakan’s high city. A fortress had once sat on the height, but it was a mess of broken halls and collapsed spires. The massive walls that ringed the city still stood in most places, and must have been at least four miles from the center in any given direction. Half a dozen aqueducts still stood, crossing the walls and bringing water from the mountains.

  And between the sea and the walls were the shattered remains of a city.

  By the size of the overgrown mounds and the sheer mass of stone that was still visible as we passed above, the buildings must have stood tall and close to each other. Vegetation was everywhere, but a multitude of wildly overgrown areas told of parks and gardens or, where the trees stood less dense, possibly squares, plazas, or forums. I couldn’t imagine how many people might have lived there before the city fell.

  “Ah, here we are!” my mother exclaimed, taking us down toward a monumental domed building that had the look of a cathedral or large mosque. I would be shocked if it hadn’t once been a temple. The trees and other vegetation in front of the building had been reduced to ash, the entrance excavated from the three feet of soil that had gathered over the centuries, and the tall doors lay in splinters.

  “Welcome, daughter,” Reaper said as we landed before the remarkably well preserved building. “And welcome to you as well, Drakonum Herald. This is my lair away from home. Let us get inside, and out of this damnable rain.”

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