Three nights later, Brisi pointed out the slender Acata River, which Comonot said was the border of Loyalist-held territory. Within an hour, we were found: the Loyalists, expecting our arrival, had sent a small battalion—a flight of thirteen dragons—to keep an eye out for us. The hatchlings screamed Comonot’s watchword, but the Loyalist dragons still nipped at their wings and tails, herding us south to a sloping valley above the tree line, where their ard was stationed.
General Zira was a canny old female, small but with great presence. Something in her gaze must have reminded the hatchlings of their own mothers; they flattened themselves submissively. “I’ve received word from the Ardmagar!” Zira screamed. “Seraphina is to be transported to Lavondaville; one of my ard is to take her.” Around me, the Porphyrian dragons began to protest. Zira shrilled over them: “The hatchlings are to remain here. The Ardmagar hopes I can make decent, disciplined fighters of you.”
“We’re already fighters!” cried Brisi, clutching my basket to her. “The Ardmagar gave us this duty. Completing it is surely discipline.”
Zira, unimpressed by this argument, agreed to a compromise: Brisi would finish the journey with an experienced guide, while her comrades remained with the Loyalists.
We slept that day and left at first dark. Lavondaville was a single, long night’s flight away, due south. Brisi muttered incessantly that it was not so hard to find and she didn’t need help. Our guide, a spiny male called Fasha, had recently returned to the front from the city garrison at Lavondaville; he led in stoic silence. We passed Dewcomb’s Outpost, the northernmost Goreddi settlement, and soared over the rolling hills of the Queenswood. Then, just as the sun poked its bright nose over the eastern ranges, I saw my city. The walls held new constructions—trebuchets, ballistae, and other machines of Lars’s devising—but I knew the silhouettes of the rooftops, knew the castle and cathedral tower. This was my home, however far afield I roamed. I choked up to see it again.
“Can I set you in that clearing?” Brisi screamed, circling a relatively treeless spot at the southern edge of the Queenswood. She was proposing to dump me in the swamp. I’d be soaked and muddy by the time I waded home.
I cried, “Not here! Castle Orison.”
Saar Fasha heard our conversation and shrieked, “No dragons may land on the castle.” It seemed a very sensible rule, honestly, and I wondered what had happened to make it necessary. Fasha led us west around the city, across the Mews River, and south toward an armed encampment on the plain.
At first I wasn’t sure whose army it was, but then I saw the Goreddi green and violet flying from one of the larger tents. These were our knights, it looked like, the ones who’d escaped Fort Oversea with Sir Maurizio.
The night watchmen, who’d been playing cards and watching the sunrise, cried out at our approach and scrambled into a more defensive stance, polearms at the ready. A skinny fellow—Sir Maurizio himself—emerged from one of the largest tents in just his breeches, blinking and scratching his shaggy head. As we drew closer, he spotted me, waved enthusiastically, and tugged a shirt on over his head.
We set down in a nearby beet field. Brisi miscalculated the softness of the ground and had to flap her wings like a hummingbird to avoid crushing my litter into the dirt. Sir Maurizio struggled against the hot headwind but was soon at my side, reaching out to untangle me from the basket.
He helped me get clear of the flapping wings, then turned and saluted the two dragons, shouting, “Thank you, Saar Fasha and Saar Other-Dragon-I-Don’t-Know!”
“Colibris!” screamed Brisi, arching her neck proudly. “A Porphyrian dragon. Witness how I am not as useless as you supposed!”
That last comment was directed at Saar Fasha, I assumed. He took off again at once, without a word; Brisi had to scramble to catch up. Once in the air, she flew impertinent circles around his head like a crow harassing an eagle, and I couldn’t help smiling. That hatchling was going to find her own way.
Around camp, dracomachists had emerged from their tents in defensive stances, as if they slept with their polearms at hand; they now relaxed and stretched and went looking for breakfast. Sir Maurizio led me to one of the command tents—distinguishable by its stripes and by the fact that an adult could stand upright inside—just as a young man came barreling out, still buttoning his scarlet doublet, and nearly crashed into us.
It was Prince Lucian Kiggs. “Seraphina!” he cried, clasping my hands impulsively and letting them go almost as fast. He’d kept the beard, to my absurd delight.
“She fell from the sky like a comet,” said Maurizio, grinning roguishly. “Is Sir Cuthberte decent? In body, I mean. His mind is always in doubt.”
“These walls are quite thin, you know,” called a grumpy voice, only slightly muffled by the canvas. “And of course I am. I was up before all you laggards.”
“Good morning, Prince Lucian,” I said, my voice husky with exhaustion and disuse. “I need to speak with the Queen at once, and then I should like to sleep. I’ve been nocturnal for the past week; I’m up past my bedtime.”
The smiles around me had all evaporated; Kiggs and Maurizio exchanged a glance I couldn’t interpret. I was suddenly struck by the strangeness of Kiggs camping out with the knights. “What is it?” I said quietly. “What’s happened?”
Kiggs’s mouth puckered as if he tasted bitter bile. “I can’t take you to the Queen. She’s forbidden me to set foot in the city.”
“What?” I said. “I don’t understand.”
Kiggs shook his head, too angry to speak. Maurizio stepped in. “We arrived two weeks ago; Jannoula arrived three days before we did.”
I inhaled sharply, my heart sinking like a stone. “Saints’ dogs!”
“The guards at the gates had orders to seize her on sight, but she persuaded them not to, or so I’m told,” said Sir Maurizio. “Lars of Apsig, who was overseeing construction on the city walls, supposedly smuggled Jannoula into the palace.”
“She’s wormed her way into my home,” said Kiggs, worry written plainly in his eyes, “and has clearly influenced Selda—”
“We don’t know that yet,” said Maurizio.
“The worst of it,” said a portly old man with a drooping white mustache, opening the tent flap behind Kiggs, “is that Jannoula’s proclaimed herself a Saint, and instead of sensibly throwing her out on her ear, the city can’t seem to get enough of her.”
I met Sir Cuthberte’s sad gaze; he held the tent flap wider. “Come in, all of you. Seraphina hasn’t told her news yet. I suspect we’ll want to be sitting down.”