I waited for the rest, but that seemed to be it. “I like that myth,” he went on. “It corresponds to the laws of nature, except for the part where there are gods.”
I frowned, trying to understand why he was telling me this. “Is that how you think I ought to create the rest of the garden?” I hazarded. “Walk through my mind like a god?”
“It’s not blasphemy,” he said, replacing his spectacles and peering owlishly at me. “It’s a metaphor, like everything else you’re building in your mind. It is permissible to be the god of your own metaphors.”
“Gods aren’t helpless,” I said, with more bravado than I felt.
“Seraphina isn’t helpless,” said Orma solemnly. “This garden will be your bulwark. It will keep you safe.”
“I wish I could believe that,” I said, my voice frog-like again.
“It would probably help if you did. The human brain’s capacity for belief produces interesting neurochemical effects in the …”
I ignored the lecture, adjusted my posture, and set my knees akimbo with my hands upon them. Closing my eyes, I made each breath successively deeper and slower.
I descended into my other world.
Queen Glisselda spotted the dragon first. It was a swift-moving patch of darker darkness against the night sky, obliterating stars and birthing them again.
She pointed at it, shouting, “Singleton from the west, St. Ogdo save us!” in imitation of the knights of old. She spoiled the impression slightly by bouncing on her toes and laughing. The winter wind carried the cheerful sound away; far below us the city curled under a quilt of new snow, silent and thoughtful as a sleeping child.
Trained spotters had once scanned the skies for dragon battalions from this selfsame place, atop Castle Orison’s Ard Tower. Tonight it was only the Queen and me, and the approaching “singleton” was a friend, thank Allsaints: the dragon Eskar, erstwhile undersecretary at our dragon embassy. She’d helped my uncle Orma evade the Censors almost three months ago, just as the dragon civil war was breaking out.
Ardmagar Comonot, the deposed leader of dragonkind, had expected Eskar to find Orma a safe haven and then return to us in Goredd, where Comonot had established his headquarters in exile. The Ardmagar had intended to make her one of his advisors, or even a general, but months had brought no Eskar and no explanation.
She had contacted Comonot, via quigutl device, earlier this evening. Over dinner, Comonot had informed Queen Glisselda that Eskar would fly in after midnight. Then he had taken himself off to bed, leaving the Queen to wait up or not, as she saw fit.
It was a very Comonot way of dealing with things. The Queen wearied of him.
He’d said nothing about why Eskar had suddenly decided to come back, or where she’d been. It was possible he didn’t know. Glisselda and I had been speculating about it to distract ourselves from the cold. “Eskar has decided the dragon civil war is dragging on too long, and means to end it single-handedly,” was Glisselda’s final assessment. “Did she ever glare at you, Seraphina? She could stop the very planets in their spheres.”
I hadn’t experienced the glare, but I’d seen the way she looked at my uncle three months ago. Eskar had surely been with him this whole time.
Glisselda and I each held a torch, intending Eskar to understand that she should land on the tower top. This was Prince Lucian Kiggs’s idea—something about updrafts and a fear that she’d take out a window trying to land in a courtyard. He had left unspoken the fact that she was less likely to alarm anyone way up here. Goredd had begun to see full-sized dragons in the sky, as Comonot’s allies came and went, but it would be an exaggeration to say people were used to it.
Now that Eskar was approaching, she looked too large to land on the tower top. Maybe she thought so, too; flapping dark leathery wings with a rush of hot wind, she veered south toward the far edge of town. Three city blocks still smoldered there, sending the new snow up as steam.
“What’s she doing, checking out her countryman’s handiwork? Some insomniac is going to see her,” said Glisselda, pushing back the hood of her fur-lined cloak, her earlier merriment already dimming to fretfulness. Alas, this was her usual expression these days. Her golden curls gleamed incongruously in the torchlight.
Eskar soared into the spangled sky and then plummeted back out of the darkness, diving toward the heart of the city like a falcon after a wren. Glisselda gasped in alarm. At the last second, Eskar pulled up short—a black shadow against the new snow—and skimmed along the frozen Mews River, cracking the ice with her serpentine tail.
“And now she reveals how she might breach our defenses, flying so high our missiles and flaming pyria can’t reach her. That’s not how those houses were razed, Eskar!” called the young Queen into the wind, as if the dragon could hear her from such a distance. “He was already inside the walls!”
He had been the third dragon assassin Prince Lucian had flushed out, sent after Comonot by the Old Ard. The saarantras had transformed into a full-sized dragon to make his escape. Comonot had transformed in turn and killed his assailant before he could flee, but five people had died and fifty-six lost their homes in the resulting inferno.
All that destruction, caused by just two dragons. None of us dared to guess how awful the damage would be if Comonot’s Loyalists failed to hold off the Old Ard and war came to Goredd in earnest.
“Lars is designing new war machines,” I said, trying to inject some optimism. “And don’t discount the dracomachists training at Fort Oversea.” The elderly knights of the Southlands and their middle-aged squires, hastily promoted to knights, had joined together in this endeavor.
Glisselda snorted derisively, her eyes following Eskar’s second circuit of the city. “Even when our knights were at full strength—and quickly trained dracomachists are not knights—this city was routinely burned to the ground. You and I have never seen the like, having been raised in peacetime.”
The wind gusted, making it hard to forget how high up we were; my palms sweated in my gloves. “Comonot’s Loyalists will defend us.”
“I believe they will defend our people, but the city itself doesn’t matter a jot to them. Lucian says we must focus on making the tunnels livable again. We survived there before, and we can always rebuild.” She raised an arm and dropped it, as if she found it futile even to gesture. “This city is Grandmamma’s legacy; it has blossomed in peacetime. I hate that I might have to let it go.”
Eskar was returning, catching an updraft on the eastern side of Castle Hill. Glisselda and I pressed back against the parapet as the dragon came in to land. Her dark, laboring wings blasted sulfurous air, extinguishing our torches. I bent into the wind, terrified of being gusted over the edge. Eskar touched down on the tower top and paused with wings extended, a living shadow against the sky. I had dealt with dragons—I was half dragon—but the sight still raised hairs on the back of my neck. Before our eyes, the fangy, scaly darkness furled and contracted, cooled and condensed, folding in upon itself until all that remained on the icy tower top was a statuesque naked woman.
Glisselda gracefully swept off her fur cloak and approached the saarantras—the dragon in human form—holding out the warmed garment. Eskar bowed her head, and Glisselda draped the mantle gently across her bare shoulders.
“Welcome back, Undersecretary,” said the young Queen.
“I’m not staying,” said Eskar flatly.
“Indeed,” said Glisselda, no trace of surprise in her voice. She’d only been Queen for three months, since her grandmother had fallen ill from poison and grief, but she’d already mastered the art of appearing unflappable. “Does Ardmagar Comonot know?”
“I’m more useful to him where I’ve been,” Eskar said. “He will understand when I explain. Where is he?”
“Asleep, to be sure,” said Glisselda. Her smile covered a spectacular annoyance that Comonot could not be bothered to stay up and greet Eskar himself. Glisselda saved her complaints about Comonot for her harpsichord lessons, so I
routinely heard how inconsiderate he was; how she tired of apologizing to human allies for his boorish behavior; how ready she was for him to win his war and go home.
I understood dragons reasonably well, thanks to my uncle Orma and to memories left me by my mother. Comonot could not offend Eskar, whatever he did. Indeed, the Undersecretary was probably wondering why we hadn’t gone to bed ourselves. While Glisselda had felt propriety demanded a welcoming party, I was so thirsty for news of Uncle Orma that I’d leaped at the opportunity to greet Eskar myself.
I felt a little overcome, seeing her again. I’d last glimpsed her protectively holding my injured uncle’s hand at St. Gobnait’s Infirmary; it felt like an age ago. I reflexively extended a hand to her now and said, “Orma’s well? You’re not here with bad news, I hope.”
Eskar looked at my hand and cocked an eyebrow. “He’s fine, unless he’s taking advantage of my absence to do something inadvisable.”
“Please come inside, Undersecretary,” Glisselda said. “It’s a bitter night.”
Eskar had brought a bundle of clothing clasped in her talons; she picked it out of the snow and followed us down the narrow stairs. Glisselda had cleverly left another torch burning below us in the belfry, and she collected it as we spiraled down the tower. We crossed a small courtyard, ghostly with snow. Most of Castle Orison was asleep, but night guards watched us pass through a back corridor into the palace proper. If they’d been alarmed by the late-night arrival of a dragon, they were too professional to show it.
A page boy, so sleepy he seemed not to register Eskar at all, held the door of the new Queen’s study. Glisselda had left her grandmother’s book-filled chamber alone, almost superstitiously, and had chosen another salon for herself, airier, more parlor than library. A broad desk loomed before the dark windows; rich tapestries cloaked the walls. At the hearth to our left, Prince Lucian Kiggs prodded the fire industriously.
Kiggs had arranged four high-backed chairs before the fire and started a kettle warming. He straightened to greet us, smoothing his crimson doublet, his expression neutral but his dark eyes keen. “Undersecretary,” he said, giving the semi-naked saarantras full courtesy. Eskar ignored him, and I suppressed a smile. I’d hardly seen the prince these three months, but every gesture, every dark curl on his head, was still dear to me. He held my gaze briefly, then turned his attention to Glisselda. It would not do for him to address the second court composer before his cousin, fiancée, and Queen.
“Do sit, Selda,” he said, brushing imaginary dust off one of the middle chairs and offering his hand. “I should think you’re half frozen.”
Glisselda took his proffered hand and let him seat her. There was snow around the hem of her woolen gown; she shook it onto the painted hearth tiles.
I took the chair nearest the door. I had been invited here for news of my uncle and should leave if the conversation turned to state secrets, but I was also, unofficially, a translator of sorts, helping smooth out dragon-human interactions. That Glisselda hadn’t thrown Comonot out of the palace yet was due in part to my diplomacy.
Eskar dumped her bundle onto the seat between mine and Glisselda’s and began untying it. Kiggs turned determinedly back to the fire, placing a new log with a cascade of sparks. “Have you come with good news about the war, Eskar?” he said.
“No,” said Eskar, locating her trousers and turning them right side out. “I’ve been nowhere near the front. Nor do I intend to go there.”
“Where have you been?” I blurted, entirely out of order but unable to contain myself. Kiggs met my eye, his brows bowed sympathetically.
Eskar tensed. “With Orma, as I’m sure you guessed. I don’t like to say where. If the Censors learn his whereabouts, his mind is forfeit. They will strip his memories bare.”
“Obviously none of us would tell them,” said Glisselda, sounding affronted.
Eskar shoved her head and arms into her tunic. “Forgive me,” she said as her head popped out. “Caution becomes a habit. We’ve been in Porphyry.”
Relief rushed through me, as if I’d been underwater for three months and could finally take a breath. I was seized with an impulse to hug Eskar but knew better than to try. Dragons tend to bristle when embraced.
Glisselda was watching Eskar through narrowed eyes. “Your loyalty to Orma is admirable, but you owe even more to your Ardmagar. He could use a smart, strong fighter like you. I saw you bring down the dragon Imlann.”
There was a long pause. Imlann, my dragon grandfather, had struck at midwinter, killing Glisselda’s mother, poisoning her grandmother, and attempting to assassinate Ardmagar Comonot. Orma had battled Imlann in the sky and been gravely injured; Eskar had arrived in time to finish Imlann off. Meanwhile, a cabal of dragon generals, the Old Ard, who deplored Comonot’s Treaty with Goredd, had led a coup in the Tanamoot. They’d seized the capital and declared Comonot an outlaw.
If Comonot had been killed, the Old Ard might simply have swooped down upon Goredd, reigniting the war Comonot and Queen Lavonda had extinguished forty years ago. Comonot lived, however, and he had Loyalists willing to fight for him. The war had so far stayed in the mountains to the north, dragon against dragon, while Goredd watched warily. The Old Ard wanted Comonot, an end to peace with humankind, and their southern hunting grounds back; they were coming south eventually if the Loyalists couldn’t hold them.
Eskar combed her fingers through her short black hair, making it stand on end, and sat down. “I cannot be Comonot’s general,” she said bluntly. “War is illogical.”
Kiggs, who had taken the kettle off the fire and begun filling cups with tea, overfilled a cup and scalded his fingers. “Help me understand, Eskar,” he said, shaking his hand and frowning. “Is it illogical for Comonot to want his country back, or to defend himself—and Goredd—from the Old Ard’s aggression?”
“Neither,” said Eskar, accepting a cup of tea from the prince. “Comonot is right to resist. But it’s a reactive stance, answering aggression with aggression.”
“War begets war,” I said, quoting Pontheus, Kiggs’s favorite philosopher. He met my eye and risked a quick smile.
Eskar turned her teacup in her hands but did not drink. “Reactivity makes him nearsighted. He focuses upon immediate threats and loses sight of the true goal.”
“And this true goal is what, in your estimation?” said Kiggs, passing a cup to his cousin. Glisselda accepted it, never taking her eyes off Eskar.
“Ending this war,” said Eskar, staring back at Glisselda. Neither of them blinked.
“That’s what the Ardmagar is trying to do,” said Kiggs, his eyes darting toward me with an unspoken question. I shrugged, having no insight into Eskar’s argument.
“No, the Ardmagar is trying to win,” said Eskar, glaring down her nose.
When we did not appear enlightened by this distinction, Eskar clarified: “Dragons lay one egg at a time, and we grow slowly. Each death is significant, and so we settle our differences with litigation, or with an individual combat at most.
“It has never been our way to fight on this scale; if the war continues, our whole species loses. Comonot should return to our capital, the Kerama, take up the Opal of Office, and argue his case, as is his right. If he can get there, our laws and traditions dictate that the Ker shall hear him out. The fighting would cease at once.”
“You’re certain the Old Ard would accept this?” asked Kiggs, handing me the final cup of tea.
“There are a surprising number of dragons in the Tanamoot who haven’t taken sides,” said Eskar. “They will come down on the side of order and tradition.”
Glisselda tapped her foot on the hearth tiles. “How is Comonot to get there without fighting every ard along the way? There’s a whole war’s worth of enemies in his path.”
“Not if he follows my sensible plan,” said Eskar.
We all leaned in. Surely this was why she’d come back. But she scratched her chin and said nothing.
“Which is what, exactly???
? I prompted, as designated dragon-prodder.
“He should return with me to Porphyry,” said Eskar, “and enter the Tanamoot from the other side, via the Omiga River valley. The Old Ard won’t anticipate an incursion from that direction. Our treaty with the Porphyrians is so ancient that we forget it’s not a law of nature but a document that can be changed or disregarded at need.”
“The Porphyrians would allow this?” said Kiggs, swirling his tea.
“The Ardmagar would have to bargain,” said Eskar. “And I expect that there might still be fighting along this route, so he can’t go alone.”
Queen Glisselda looked up at the shadowed ceiling, thinking. “Would he take an ard with him?”
“That would alarm the Porphyrians and make them uncooperative,” said Eskar solemnly. “Porphyry has its own ard, a community of dragon exiles who’ve chosen a circumscribed life in human form over excision by the Censors. It’s a provision of our treaty: Porphyry keeps an eye on these deviants in exchange for our leaving their precious valley alone. Some exiles might accompany Comonot if he’ll pardon them and let them come home.”
“How many is some?” asked Kiggs, spotting the weak link at once. “Enough?”
Eskar shrugged. “Leave that to me.”
“And to Orma,” I said, liking the thought of him helping the Ardmagar’s cause.
At this mention of my uncle’s name, Eskar lowered her gaze for a second and her lower lip twitched. I saw—or maybe felt—the smile lurking below the surface. I glanced at the royal cousins, but they seemed not to have registered the expression at all.
She was fond of Orma. I knew it. For a moment I missed him terribly.
Eskar fished in a deep pocket of her trousers and extracted a sealed letter. “For you,” she said. “It isn’t safe for Orma to send anything through the post, or use thniks. I enforce his safety tyrannically, he tells me.”
The letter’s wax seal, brittle from the cold, shattered under my fingers. I recognized the handwriting, and my heart beat faster. Leaning toward the wavering firelight, I read the dear, familiar scrawl: