The whole room shook around Janu, and the light was fading. Bright magic illumination gave way to flickering candle light, and it seemed that shadow instead of flame leapt and danced over the rocks. He couldn’t focus on any of it. His breath came in short gasps. A thousand needles juddered and poked behind his eyes. Someone was speaking loudly – too loudly, the bass growls of their voice at the root of the shaking.

  ‘We need to get out.’ He tried to roll over and failed, pawing at Divya with his right arm. He couldn’t move his left. ‘Get off me. Let me up. The room...’ It swam again before his eyes. He blinked and swallowed a lump of pain-tinged nausea. ‘...falling.’

  Divya glanced at him, her expression stern, but her eyes full of concern. Her appearance shifted from young to old to hideously burned with each shift in the light.

  ‘You’re going nowhere, Janu,’ she said. ‘Now stay still. The room is in better shape than you.’

  Janu brought his right hand up and laid it on his forehead as if he could push back the headache that was building there. The loud voice kept going, pulsing in his skull, breaking only now and then for some quieter conversant to speak.

  ‘Is that Galnai talking?’ he asked. ‘Can... tell her be quiet?’

  He tried to push himself up again to see what was going on, but he still couldn’t move his left arm. Glancing towards it, he gagged.

  ‘Don’t look!’ Divya turned his face away, but he swatted at her hand and fought against her. Her hands were blood red, and she was cutting through something with a knife.

  Janu’s gaze kept drifting away from the knife, towards his upper arm, where a too-tight strip of cloth wound around his flesh.

  ‘It’s too tight,’ he said. ‘I can’t feel anything.’ That was a lie. Every time Divya moved the knife, something tugged his arm. His vision wavered for a moment. Gorge rose in his throat.

  ‘Ilarion.’ Divya waved one red hand to the side, not taking her attention from Janu’s arm. ‘Ilarion, reach into my back belt pouch. There you will find a phial of white liquid. Find a cup, mix it with a little water, and have Janu drink it for me.’

  Ilarion staggered over from the right, wincing, one hand held across his chest. His shirt was pink where it had been slashed over one shoulder.

  Janu wanted to keep an eye on him and on Divya, to find out what she was doing to his arm, but then his eyes found enough focus to make out, in the fading light, what stood further into the room.

  The dragon still lived. Red streaks painted its jaws – he knew it must be blood, for Popilia’s markings still visible on the rest of its hide were green. The girl herself stood there talking to it alongside Nazagin, practically nose to nose, but it didn’t attack. Its head wove from side to side, and every now and then it drew its lips back in a silent snarl, but it didn’t attack.

  At length, Janu realised the loud voice was his – the dragon Izimendalla’s. That realisation was like a puzzle piece clicking into place, and finally the noise resolved into harsh words spoken by an unpractised tongue.

  ‘I feel Anshar amongst you, and yet I do not see him. What trick is this?’

  Nazagin replied, and Janu had to focus with all his might to hear her.

  ‘How much have you forgotten in your time trapped beneath the earth, old friend? You sense Anshar because he is within me, as any dragon’s soul within another.’

  Janu missed the first few words of Izimendalla’s response, as Ilarion came over and cradled his head, tilting it up to give him a sip from a small bowl. Parched, Janu didn’t care to object, but the damned drink was so bitter when it hit his tongue that he gagged and turned his head away, trying to spit out what he could.

  ‘—only yesterday,’ Izimendalla was saying. ‘I am not so lost. But tell me, children, what was your intent in freeing me?’

  Ilarion called back over his shoulder as he drew a small, stoppered skin from his belt. ‘Freedom,’ he said, ‘ for you and all your kin. That is all the intent we need, surely?’ He unstoppered the skin and poured a small measure of its contents into the bowl. ‘We freed you for freedom’s sake.’

  Izimendalla made a derisive snort. ‘I could not have been the easiest target.’

  Having swirled the bowl around, Ilarion put it to Janu’s lips again and wouldn’t let him shy away. This time, at least, the bitterness carried an overpowering kick to it. Warmth flowed down Janu’s throat and burned through his sinuses.

  Through watery eyes, he watched Divya move something distinctly arm-shaped and distinctly unattached to one side. He found he didn’t care much, though his mind kept poking up against it like a finger at a new spot.

  ‘We also think you can help us,’ Popilia said, though Janu had trouble focussing on her voice. ‘Nazagin isn’t strong enough to do the ritual Anshar came here for. But you are. Or, Nazagin says you are, at least.’

  Look at the thing. Of course it’s strong. Janu waved his free hand in the air to trace the giant form of Izimendalla, only realising halfway through that he hadn’t spoken out loud. Ilarion’s face wrinkled with such concern that Janu almost laughed at him. Whatever Divya was still doing over by his shoulder made little sharp hisses and let out puffs of scent like burning meat. She swore a lot. He should probably have found that worrying.

  ‘What would you have me do?’ the dragon asked.

  Janu tried to pay attention. He really did. But they kept going on about magic and bonds and horns, and about three words into each sentence he found his attention drifting. Ilarion was trying to talk to him, too, holding his hand, of all things. His voice grew a little more panicked each time Janu looked left. Divya even clucked at him for it once or twice.

  ‘Are you cooking something?’ Janu asked her after the second cluck.

  ‘No, Janu.’

  ‘I can smell food.’ His mouth was watering so much he kept having to swallow. ‘Been a while since we ate.’

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  ‘Janu!’ Her voice snapped with exasperation. ‘For the love of all things holy, be quiet and stay still. No, you do not smell food. You smell your own flesh burning.’

  ‘But—’ He lifted his head to check. The dragon was over there, and he didn’t remember it burning him again since last time.

  ‘No buts! Don’t move. I am burning the ends of the blood vessels in your arm to stop all your blood flowing out of you, and every time you move, it is harder to burn the right spot.’ As she spoke, there came another one of those sharp hisses, and he felt a small sting as that from an insect.

  Loud, semi-tuneful chanting spread through the room. Over Ilarion’s shoulder, the dragon had taken the horn from Popilia. As Janu watched, it brought the point to its neck and cut a crimson line in the softer part of its hide above its underside.

  Janu tried to point at it, his efforts hampered by Ilarion’s grasp of his right hand. ‘You’ll have to burn his, too. He’ll bleed more than me.’ After a drawn-out sigh from Divya, he rethought and added, ‘I suppose he can burn his own, though, what with being a dragon and all.’

  Izimendalla’s chanting cut like a whip, full of anger and energy, cracking from the sides of the cavern like thunder. Popilia took a few steps back from him, consulting Nazagin with concerned glances and silent conversation. Dust began to swirl around the dragon’s feet, darkening the room even further and making Divya’s curses increase in fervour.

  One patch of warm light bobbed closer to them and Galnai appeared with a lantern held aloft. With her other hand she held a cloth to her forehead. Red streaks painted the side of her face, but Janu had seen Galnai weather worse injuries without complaint. She didn’t need anything burning. As the dust picked up, she swatted at the air by her missing ear, scowling, and eventually moved the cloth to cover it instead of the scrape on her head.

  Ilarion looked up at her approach. ‘Are we all clear of guards?’

  ‘Don’t know. Had my face in the dirt.’ She jerked her head in the dragon’s direction. ‘Imagine that one’ll deal with them if they turn up, though.’

  As Galnai took a seat beside Divya, Ilarion stared back at the dragon and whatever magic it was working. It clearly didn’t need Popilia’s help – she was trudging across the chamber towards them with one arm raised to ward off the wind. Janu was accumulating quite an audience.

  ‘We’re overlooking one big problem here,’ Ilarion said. ‘We’ve freed Izimendalla – that’s all well and good – and Critobulus is dead... but how are we going to get him out of the palace?’

  Even Divya paused in her work and glanced over to the enormous dragon, far bigger than even the collapsed tunnel entrance he had been brought in by. Janu chuckled at the thought of him tunnelling up through the palace grounds like a giant mole. That was the sort of thing Fraidun would have loved to see. Poetic justice, in a way, for the imperial family – to be turned over and buried by the creatures they had enslaved.

  Galnai shrugged. ‘It’s all hard rock here, but he’s a big dragon. Could just go straight up.’

  Divya shook her head as she tugged on a length of bandage. ‘Have you not been keeping track of where we are? Even if I couldn’t feel the water above us, I know we have walked further than the width of the palace. We are directly beneath the lake. Going up might get him out, but it would drown us all. Not to mention it would flood the lower levels of the palace.’

  ‘Well, we can just use your scales again. And who cares if the palace floods. Idiots shouldn’t have built it below water level.’

  ‘The servants would care,’ said Popilia as she reached them. ‘They’re all quartered on that level. They’ll be working in the kitchens down there, too. It might damage the eggs in the hatchery as well.’

  Janu tried to gesture with his left arm, but it just provoked a string of curses from Divya. ‘Just have him magic himself out.’

  She ignored him, which he considered poor manners for a princess, and said, ‘When they were building the palace, they drained the lake. I remember hearing about it, but I can’t remember the details. I think maybe they diverted the rivers into the canals. But if they did it once, they might be able to do it again.’

  Ilarion’s voice was soft when he replied. ‘What would we do? Just walk upstairs and ask nicely? You may be royalty, but I doubt your family would aid us in this regard. They have already shown they’re not above torture.’ His hand tightened on Janu’s – he must have forgotten he was holding it, but Janu couldn’t wriggle free.

  ‘I’ll go upstairs,’ Popilia said. ‘You leave however you got in, and leave getting Izimendalla out to me.’

  ‘You’ll have a hard time convincing them.’ Another glance towards the dragon. ‘Can you be confident he won’t just attack whoever he finds up there?’

  ‘If this ritual works, they’ll have other dragons to worry about.’

  Just then, Nazagin poked her nose into Popilia’s shoulder and the two exchanged a glance. Then the hatchling said, ‘Anshar was able to disguise himself as a human to enter the palace with us. If Izimendalla can do the same – and I think he can, easily, with the right ingredients – he can just walk out. No one will need to drain any lakes.’

  Galnai’s gaze flicked around the group. ‘So we’re done here.’

  Ilarion nodded. ‘We’ve done our job. We should get out of here and go back to Kimah-Kur.’ He glanced at the dragon again. ‘But if this ritual doesn’t work, they’ll still need the horn. If Izimendalla can’t come with us as soon as he’s done, will he let us take it?’

  ‘It’s safer with you than in here,’ said Nazagin. ‘I don’t think he would object.’

  The ritual peaked, loud enough that the little stones beside Janu’s head hopped and bounced along the floor, sometimes floating and moving in strange patterns where they met the current of the swirling wind. He found it difficult to concentrate on the others’ conversation, almost drowned out as it was. He just laughed at the strain on their faces as they struggled to hear and be heard.

  Then the world tilted strangely, the floor turning into the ceiling, his blood rushing to his head, his limbs dangling in the air. Well, most of his limbs. One arm remained in a reddish patch on the floor, bobbing further and further away with each moment.

  Janu reached out to it, finding his right hand finally free of Ilarion’s grip. ‘My arm!’ he said. ‘You’ve left my arm on the floor. Hey!’ He flailed his arm around and managed to hit someone in the side, but no one replied. Maybe they grunted. He couldn’t tell. After a couple more hits he found his arm pinned and, try as he might, he couldn’t free it.

  The chanting diminished, letting several footsteps and the rhythmic swish of fabric become more noticeable. They acted almost like a lullaby – Janu struggled to keep his eyes open, and every time he blinked they had turned some fresh corner away from the cavern. He caught fragments of an exchange between Ilarion and Divya, enough to know it was about him but nothing of real substance.

  At length, the roar of water almost entirely covered Izimendalla’s voice, and it set Janu’s head into a spin. Little drops of it struck him all over. He couldn’t tell which way he was facing anymore – up or down, towards the water or away from it. He couldn’t feel anyone’s hands on him anymore either, and a moment later he felt nothing but water all around. He settled into it as he would into a comfortable bed, as if he had always belonged there and never wanted to leave.

  A great current pressed against him, pulsing into the main body of water up ahead, but it didn’t deter him. He laughed, though no sound came out, and gave a little shimmy like a drakfish leaping a rapid. In one burst, he speared through the current, water slipping around his form with no resistance, and emerged into some vast and empty depth.

  He would have quite happily hovered there for some time, rocked and cocooned by the water, but someone hauled him up by his arms. He emerged from the surface, spluttering, air unwelcome on his tongue, and opened his eyes.

  The sky was full of dragons – dozens of them, wheeling and diving with no semblance of order. Some attacked figures on the ground or the walls of the palace, claws outstretched, teeth bared. Others rolled upside-down in flight and tried to cut the straps of the harnesses they wore.

  A few, soaring higher than the rest, seemed to fly only for the sake of flying. They made grand loops into the rosy dawn clouds and back, the rising sun glinting from their barding and filling their bright-coloured feathers with warmth.

  The empire’s dragons were free, for the first time in decades, for the first time in most of their lives.

  Something trickled down Janu’s cheek. Whether lake water or a tear, he didn’t know, but he looked up at those bright dragons and smiled nonetheless.