When Anshar had worked his magic, it had been a mesmerising experience, made terrifying only by Critobulus’ interference in the first attempt to break the bonds of dragonkind. Izimendalla’s magic was different. Popilia and Nazagin huddled by the cavern’s entrance after the thieves left, weathering the angry might that Izimendalla poured forth. The sheer sense of it triggered something primal in the core of their minds. They resisted every urge to flee.

  We should go, Nazagin told her, her nerves still jangling along their shared bond at the shared sensation of Critobulus’ final moments.

  Popilia kept her eyes fixed on Izimendalla. His blood glowed where it coated the end of the horn, a bright, furious crimson. Streamers of it whipped unnaturally in the wind. She far preferred Anshar’s bloodless, natural magic to this. But perhaps this would work. After everything, she wanted to see it through to the end. Nazagin sensed as much, and her mood shifted to something gentler.

  If they find us here, with him, there will be questions, said Nazagin.

  There will be questions anyway. Popilia thought of all the things she needed to ask her parents. She couldn’t just ask those out of thin air. They would know the questions had come from somewhere outside the palace.

  Then let us get them over with. We may even buy Izimendalla some time.

  As if Izimendalla needed protecting, now that Critobulus’ hold over him was gone. Anshar may have died to imperial spears, but Izimendalla was so massive that Popilia couldn’t imagine the same felling him.

  She nodded and, without a word to the chanting elder dragon, left the dim cavern behind. They were halfway down the first stretch of corridor when Popilia stopped, suddenly remembering the siren fruit. Horror rooted her to the spot and made Nazagin shudder against her side.

  We can’t do anything about it. Nazagin was insistent, mentally nudging at Popilia to move on. If he keeps himself together through the ritual, that is enough. Kimah-Kur may be able to help him after that.

  Except Kimah-Kur was miles away and Izimendalla would be stuck underground if he couldn’t stay sane enough to become human. But Nazagin was right – they couldn’t change that. So Popilia walked on, trying to push the thoughts of a great siren tree growing through the floor of the imperial palace out of her head. Her imagination echoed with the sound of Izimendalla roaring in pain, trapped and eaten from within. Then at some point, silence, and a tree they would have to burn if they didn’t want to evacuate half the city.

  They picked their way back through the room with all the shelves and ingredients. She would have to convince her parents to let her ferry ingredients to Izimendalla, she knew. He wouldn’t fit down here himself.

  She swallowed, her tongue dry and rasping in her mouth. The cynical part of her, having grown in strength since her abduction, gradually filled her belly with fear. She wasn’t the eldest of her siblings. She had enough of those that really, if her parents took offence to her demands, it wouldn’t hurt them to put her under house arrest and forget about her. She didn’t matter. That was the truth of it. When she had been kidnapped, that bounty had just been saving face in the public eye. Behind closed doors, they didn’t need to worry about appearances.

  And some day, they would ship her across the ocean to Khunuchan anyway.

  Just worry about today, Nazagin told her, taking the lead along the last stretch of corridor. Dye still swirled in patterns over her chalky feathers, but the edges were smudged and blurred in places. Her tail flicked from side to side as she walked, like a stalking cat’s.

  Soon enough they came to the abandoned barracks – still abandoned, despite all the noise Izimendalla had made. Somewhere far above, a bell tolled. With each step Popilia took to the next level, the noise of the palace grew closer: hurrying footsteps, shouting, the clattering of stock being moved in the armoury. She had spent enough time living here to know that wasn’t normal. There was always movement, yes, but organised, predictable. This was more like a disturbed ants’ nest.

  Without another word between them, princess and hatchling took the steps two at a time. They didn’t stop when they emerged in the prison, and not a single guard remained to stop them. When they emerged onto the wide corridor that ran alongside the kitchens, they almost couldn’t move for servants. It seemed the whole palace staff had come down here. Cooks, laundry maids, gardeners, stable hands and runners all milled about, their voices forming a constant buzz. Every now and then one would glance up, fear written on their face.

  They had come down here to hide.

  A chill gripped Popilia’s spine. Nazagin was making good headway through the crowd, servants moving out of her way with cries and yelps as soon as they noticed her. Popilia knew the way to the stairs and because she knew, Nazagin knew. Neither of them missed the whispers that followed in their wake – the ones about mad dragons, that maybe they should call the guards, and was that one of the princesses going up there?

  They had just reached the foot of the stairs when a roar echoed down from above. In the corner of her eye, the whole crowd flinched as one.

  Mad dragons. Had Izimendalla’s blood-fuelled ritual gone horribly wrong? Popilia felt like lead weighted her legs as she took the stairs. Then instead of making her feel safe, the close confines of the servants’ corridor trapped her. She hurried along, trying to find an exit that led to the palace proper. All the while, roars and shouts came loud if muffled through the wall.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  At last, she found a door leading into one of the royal chambers. She didn’t recognise this one – it wasn’t hers, that was for sure – but the basic layout was the same. She hurried with Nazagin to the semi-open colonnade where her family would breakfast. The tables and chairs had been hastily moved to one side and guards stood by the columns, faces drawn, spears clutched tight in their hands.

  ‘Princess?’ One of the guards spotted her and stared, wide-eyed. ‘You shouldn’t be up here.’

  ‘Where else should I be?’ She shouldered her way through the nearest guards, easy enough at her height, and found herself with a clear view of the inner courtyard and the sky above it. Someone grabbed her shoulder to stop her going any further, but she would have stopped anyway.

  Above them, a chaotic mass of dragons whirled and soared, decked in the livery of the dragon guard without any of the guard’s usual order. One of the riders had ridden his last, and lay in the garden in a broken heap amidst the remains of what once had been an lute-playing automaton.

  Popilia dragged her eyes away from the bloody tangle. Nazagin still stared at the skies above, her eyes tracing the movements of the airborne dragons. A yearning to join them saturated their bond, and Popilia felt an ache behind her shoulder blades from wings she did not have.

  Their bonds are like ours, now, Nazagin told her. At first it wasn’t clear how she knew, but then Popilia understood through the memories of what she had seen – every time a dragon or their rider was injured, the other would react as if with the same pain. More than that — most dragons targeted not their riders, but those of other dragons, or sometimes humans on the ground below. Those were not forbidden. They did not hurt.

  And yet... We need to stop this. Popilia made the thought firm. The fighting had to stop. The retaliation could move no further, no matter how deserved. Every moment of destruction would make their task more difficult. How do we stop this?

  Let me try. The essence of Anshar stirred within Nazagin again, not taking over, just feeding information. That sense of seen-yet-unseen magic threaded delicately around her, making the hair on the back of Popilia’s neck stand on end.

  When Nazagin spoke, it was with a voice that filled the space around them and echoed from nearby buildings. She used the dragon tongue, projecting her melody up into the heavens.

  Popilia didn’t understand the language. Not yet. Every new word unravelled her understanding a little more. Still, she got a feel for it from Nazagin. She urged peace, spoke of Anshar’s sacrifice, called for an urgent message to go to Kimah-Kur. Dragonkind had to know what had happened here, if their shamans hadn’t sensed the change already.

  For a long while nothing happened above them. Several guards stepped back from Nazagin and levelled their spears, but Popilia stepped in the way. She was just opening her mouth to explain when, with great rushes of air like sheets being aired out, the dragons landed. They settled on rooves and thin-topped minarets, in tree limbs and on the ground beyond the inner courtyard walls. Most – those who had taken perches – were still young, just large enough to carry a rider in comfort.

  Silence settled with them. Popilia breathed out a sigh of relief. The guards made no move on her or Nazagin, too confused to act. Their eyes darted this way and that, taking in their giant new neighbours.

  ‘You.’ Popilia singled out the guard next to her. ‘Are my parents still in the throne room?’

  The guard hesitated and stared past her, at Nazagin, blank faced. When Popilia waved her hand in front of his face, he started stammering something, but a more senior guard behind him interrupted.

  ‘They took refuge in the hatchery, your grace,’ he said. ‘Had you aimed to join them?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ Since the hatchery was directly beneath the throne room, she moved towards it, but the guard took a step to head her off.

  ‘I can’t let you in with that thing, your grace.’ His gaze flicked towards Nazagin, whose anger lit a kindred spark in Popilia.

  The princess drew herself upright. ‘You can. And you will.’ She let her gaze drift around her little circle of guards. ‘Did none of you see what just happened? My dragon’ – she had to force herself to say those words instead of her name – ‘is the only reason the skies are empty now. She spoke to her kin and they listened.’ Now Popilia just had to do the same with hers.

  ‘But dragons can’t speak,’ said a nearby guard.

  Popilia glared at him. ‘You have ears. You just heard her. You don’t know the language, but you must recognise words when you hear them, surely?’ Without waiting for a response, she added, ‘You’ve just never been around a dragon that’s allowed to speak before. But they’re not slaves anymore.’

  Every face around her held the same look of quiet and confused alarm. Either this was too new for them or they just couldn’t process hearing it from a little princess. She rankled at the thought of the latter.

  In any case, they were too confused to stop her when she set off towards the throne room again. Only the guard who had stopped her before made a second attempt, but she shoved at his spear and he stepped back, blinking. That left the way to the building in the centre of the inner gardens clear.

  Popilia picked her way across the grass, around the strewn parts of dragon rider and automatons, towards the small side door set into the wide eastern minaret. It opened at a gentle push. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her. Why lock and bar the door when the enemies were dragons, too big to fit? She doubted the roof would keep them out if they really wanted to get in here. But for now, they didn’t. Popilia did, and Nazagin was small enough to follow.

  Light slanted down from thin windows as she crossed the inside of the minaret, falling upon rich carpets that muffled her steps. A latticed divider broke her view of the throne room ahead. When she rounded it, it was to find the great expanse of the throne room empty. A bright shaft of light picked out the thrones themselves, as if emphasising their owners’ absence. The floor was warm, heated by the hatchery below.

  It felt like so long since she had last stood here, and she had so rarely seen it empty. She shivered, her tongue suddenly dry in her mouth, a sense of unease crawling up her neck.

  Nazagin eyed her curiously and nudged her with her snout. What are you scared of?

  Her parents’ shadows sat on those thrones. It was them darkening her thoughts. The light would not dispel them.

  Popilia closed her eyes, drew a deep breath and told a lie to both of them: Nothing. I’m not scared.

  Then let us go.

  So they did, without any more hesitation, and as they strode towards the stairs to the hatchery at the back of the room, the shadow of the thrones passed them by.