His imagination offered plenty of possibilities, none of them less than terrifying. She was the most dangerous dragon he’d ever met, and she never even so much as extended her claws. He suspected she intended to entrap him with some giveaway.

He slept but little.

Bone-weary from his journey and the upsets of the previous day, he splashed cool water on himself and ordered a thrall to bring him some toasted meat and a little wine. Fortified, he made his way to her caverns adjoining the Tyr’s. Or, now, Tyr SiDrakkon’s.

He scraped outside the curtains.

“Come,” she rasped.

It was gloomy in her reception chamber. On a happier day there would be light bouncing off the glasswork mosaics worked into her walls and floors. He was rather surprised at how cheery the room could be, if it were better lit.

“RuGaard. I’m glad you made it early.” Her voice sounded a little stronger today. “I hate it when I invite someone over and they either don’t show up at all or spend the whole day getting ready for the visit. Wastes my time.”

“How are you feeling, Tighlia?”

“That’s better. Dragons never realize how much dragonelles—and yes, dragon-dames—love hearing their names said. It’s always ‘dear’ or ‘my love’ or ‘cloud-dream’ or ‘tenderness’ or something they’ve heard their fathers use. Just say her name, RuGaard. You have your faults, but you do speak well. It seems to me when you first came here, you lisped like a hatchling.”

“I remember. I hadn’t been around dragons much.”

“Just bats. Yes. Well, at least you don’t smell like them these days.”

“How can I be of service, Tighlia?”

“Good news. I’ve selected a mate for you.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Don’t act fixated. Whatever else is the matter with you, you can make up your mind and not just stand around gaping. I saw that yesterday.”

“I can’t imagine my mating or not is of consequence to you.”

“I want you a little more firmly in the Imperial line. The griffaran think well of you, and as you’ve no line to call your own, nobody hates you outright, which is more than can be said for most of your relatives.”

“I’m surprised you have time to think of such things with your dead mate still cooling. One might wonder—”

“You know, you almost look like a dragon who is working himself up to asking me if I’ve murdered my mate. And that would lead to a horrible scream from me, and a challenge, and then probably a duel, unless you have brains enough to flee for your scale, like NiVom.”

“Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Tighlia.”

“Everyone has the wrong idea of me. I want peace and quiet and beauty. Nothing more. No screaming dragons, no burning hills, no eggs tailswiped off their shelves to smash against uncaring, unknowing rock. Order, RuGaard. Simple order. You can help preserve that order.”

“I had other plans—”

“Well, forget them. Here’s my dilemma. Halaflora, my beloved mate’s oldest granddaughter through AgGriffopse and Ibidio—you remember her?”

“The sickly one.”

“You’re one to talk, but I like your honesty. Halaflora is from AgGriffopse’s first clutch. SiMevolant was the champion. Those eggs were laid under an evil star; that much is certain. Imfamnia and Ayafeeia came later. None of the males survived the hatching contest. Whatever’s the matter? She’s not that ugly.”

“Nothing. Go on,” the Copper said.

“Of course, Imfamnia—silly’s not the word for that brainless bit of fluff—has been dreaming about being mated with every breath her whole life, and now she’s got her wish. An Imperial mating, no less. It will be the celebration of a tri-score year.”

“What has Halaflora’s mating to do with this?”

“I was getting to that, if you’d tuck in your griff. Ayafeeia is taking formal vows to go into the Firemaids. Sensible girl—if I had to do it over again…Well, it doesn’t matter. But Halaflora. Poor little dear. She’s not as dumb as Imfamnia, but just as dreamy, and not as idealistic as Ayafeeia, but just as devoted. She wants nothing more than a mating flight, and those wings of hers aren’t even strong enough to get her off the ground. Poor dear. I’m not going to draw breath and have a titular granddaughter of mine sobbing her eyes out as her sister is mated. And I want some good news in this family for once! It’s like the last act of some bitter elvish tragedy. And fresh, hungry blood never hurts, if we’re to raise a new generation of dragons and not lounging, scaled felines. You need some new males now and then or you get more glittering piles of dung like SiMevolant. A mating between you and Halaflora is just the thing.”

“I’ve met a dragonelle already. Well, a drakka. She’ll have her wings in a year.”

Tighlia’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

“I’m not sure I want to jeopardize her health by giving you the name.”

“I suspect it’s Nilrasha.”

This time the Copper was dumbstruck.

“Of course, you could do worse,” Tighlia said. “Do you forget that I’ve got the management of the Firemaidens? A word of advice, RuGaard. She’s from a bad family on a worse hill. She’s out for a position in the Imperial line and a lookout from this rock, nothing more.”

“What would an old viper like you—”

“So young. So young.” She pushed open a curtain, and light came into the room through tinted panels of some thin-shaved crystal, or perhaps glass. As the Copper suspected, the colors were bright and cheery. She tore a bit of fabric off a polished piece of brass.

“I’m not as vain as I once was, but I’m vain enough that I can’t stand what I see in this anymore. Look into this, RuGaard. Look into the mirror. A beautiful, vital young dragonelle is going to want that?”

He looked at himself. The half-closed eye, the sloping stance, thanks to his bad sii, the broken-jointed wing that wouldn’t close…

“Lame and twisted, that’s you, RuGaard. Another hatching under an evil star. She’s after your line, not your scale.”

“We neither of us much like what we see in that mirror,” he said. “Perhaps you should give it to Imfamnia as a mating gift.”

“You can live in the world and accept it, or you can pretend the hatchling songs and stories are true. Which will it be, dragon?”

“At the moment, a quiet life in Anaea seems enough of a dream.”

“Easiest thing in the world. Simply mate with Halaflora and you can be back on the western road the next day. You’ll forget your little Firemaiden soon enough, roasting ceremonial kern.”

“What if her love is some pleasant dream of mine? What’s wrong with dreams? I’ve seen enough of the world to prefer them.”

She took a deep breath. “Oh, you are a prize fool, boy. I try and I try to help you. And this is what I get. Ingratitude. Ah, well, you’ll get no more help from me. Or my brother. I’ll see to that.

“Go to your precious Firemaiden, RuGaard. Someday you’ll learn what dreams are made of.”

He sought out Nilrasha on the milkdrinker’s hill. The place was a warren of aboveground dwellings housing mostly human thralls, with blighters in huts on the other side of a filthy stream running in twin channels with a wall between that held washing.

He remembered NeStirrath on one of the hikes telling him that the humans wouldn’t drink or wash in the blighter water, and the blighters wouldn’t drink or wash in the human water, yet both were indistinguishable in their foulness.

There were dragon-holes on the hill too; in fact, the whole area was sort of one vast catacomb, with little ledges and chambers off the main passage, so that few had what could really be called a place of their own, and mother dragons had to shelter their eggs with the weight of their bodies to keep them from being disturbed, if not accidentally crushed.

“Our day for visitors,” a mud-speckled Anklene said, looking at the painted stripes curling back from his shoulders.

“I’m looking for the Firemaiden quarter. I was told it was down here somewhere.”

“Down it is, and then some; they’re well below. Bottom of the air shaft to the left, your Imperial grace.”

He had to climb slowly, thanks to his sii, but he made it to the bottom of the shaft. A few of the Firemaidens made jokes or hooted about an invasion of Drakwatch.

He searched for Nilrasha but could learn nothing more than that an Imperial messenger had come for her. He managed to find Fourfang, and told him to make ready for a journey back to Anaea.

He hurried on the path back to Black Rock, scrambling up every prominence and kern mill to look over the grounds for Nilrasha. He hoped it was just some matter of business with the Firemaidens, or that she’d gone to visit friends.

He marked a lone female sitting on a wall next to a mushroom field, and hurried toward her. With each step he became more certain it was Nilrasha.

He limp-trotted up to her. “Nilrasha! I’ve been looking for you for hours.”