blades. He could write her a letter explaining the symbolism. Or, would that be insulting to her intelligence? Every time he thought about the contents of the letters he wanted to write her, his mind quickly locked as doubts and possibilities slid against one another and ground to a halt.
The hours he'd spent in Hampton resisting the pitches of hawkers left him weary by mid-afternoon. The flight back to the palace felt especially long. He wondered if Nadala would be standing guard. It was nearly nightfall when he caught sight of the palace. The first things that captured his attention were several earth-dragon guards rushing back and forth in the courtyard. The fringes on the back of his neck rose as he sensed something terrible had happened in his absence.
Graxen swooped into the Peace Hall and found a chaotic scene. Humans were shouting at humans in one corner of the room, biologians were bickering in an opposite corner, and the valkyries were nowhere to be seen. Charkon and the other earth-dragons were filing from the room. Charkon glanced back with a look of disgust in his one good eye as Graxen's claws touched down on the marble. For an instant, Graxen wondered if his arrival had somehow offended the elderly earth-dragon; it took a few seconds to realize the disgust wasn't directed at him, but toward the bickering humans.
Shandrazel looked glum as he sat perched on the golden cushion at the head of the room. All the optimism and energy that normally animated him had vanished. Behind him, a tapestry depicted the face of his father, Albekizan, glowering down at the room. The emerald green threading of the eyes shimmered against the blood red scales, making the eyes look almost alive.
'Sire,' Graxen said, approaching Shandrazel. 'What has transpired? Did Blasphet attack again?'
'No,' Shandrazel said. 'A gang of assassins would be relatively easy to deal with. Zorasta and her contingent flew away, saying the talks are over. The humans won't agree on anything, and now even Charkon has left angry. Why is this proving so difficult?'
'What was the point of contention? What caused the crisis?'
'I'll tell you what caused the crisis,' the young Bitterwood called out, having noticed Graxen's arrival. The tall blond man looked quite agitated, completely unlike the wise and fatherly friend who had counseled him on how to approach Nadala.
Bitterwood walked before Shandrazel, addressing his words to both Graxen and the king. 'Zorasta condones human slavery. She wasn't here to discuss freedom. She wants to keep all men in chains!'
Shandrazel sighed. 'That really wasn't the issue being discussed. Zorasta merely proposed that bows be outlawed. It is the weapon of choice for a human to use against a dragon. Her proposal shouldn't have produced such a violent reaction from you humans, if you'd only stopped to consider the point. My brother was killed with a bow, as was my father. It strikes me as a reasonable item to be discussed.'
'Are dragons being asked to give up their teeth and claws? Are they being asked to stop flying above us with spears? A bow is the only weapon that gives a human a chance of defense!' The young Bitterwood was shouting in a most disrespectful tone, Graxen thought. Perhaps the matriarch was correct in saying humans couldn't control their emotions.
'There will be nothing to defend against,' said Shandrazel, sounding weary, as if he'd repeated the words many times before Graxen's arrival. 'Dragons will no longer hunt humans under the new laws. What need do you have you for arms that have no use other than killing dragons?'
'Most bows have never been raised against dragons,' Bitterwood said. 'We use them for hunting, or to-'
'Hunting?' Shandrazel scoffed, incredulous. 'Humans plant crops. You fish. You herd cattle and sheep. Hunting plays no real role in your diet.'
'You called this meeting to grant humans rights. On the second day you're already talking about taking a right away.'
Graxen leaned forward and interrupted the argument. He didn't care whether humans had bows or not. He did care that Nadala might no longer be in the palace.
'Sire, did you say the valkyries flew away? Did they return to the Nest?'
'I assume that is their destination,' said Shandrazel.
'With your permission, sire, I'll give chase to their party. Perhaps I can persuade them to return.'
'Zorasta doesn't want to return,' Bitterwood said. 'She arrived wanting to thwart these talks. We should just move ahead without her.'
Shandrazel thought the matter over. Graxen waited impatiently, feeling the miles between Nadala and himself growing by the second.
'I doubt you can change her mind, but if you choose to try, I wish you good fortune,' Shandrazel said. 'Go.'
Graxen dashed toward the balcony, the weight of the bead-belt heavy in the satchel slung over his shoulder. If he didn't catch Nadala before she made it to the Nest, he might never see her again. Though he was already tired from his trip to the coast, he threw himself into the air beyond the balcony and beat his wings with all his strength, flying as fast as he had ever flown before.
Graxen never caught sight of Nadala and her party as he chased after them. He'd hoped that a group of armored sky-dragons might stop frequently to rest. Despite sky-dragons' prowess in the air, flying could be an exhausting endeavor. While a dragon with Graxen's youth and stamina might cover a hundred miles without stopping for rest or water, the average sky-dragon seldom put their endurance to the test. Flying to the point of exhaustion was dangerous-a muscle cramp striking a human runner might cause a stumble; a similar seizure in a dragon even a few dozen feet above the earth could prove fatal. Combined with the facts that male sky-dragons often led sedentary lives of study, and female sky-dragons seldom strayed out of sight of the Nest, this meant that most sky-dragons broke long journeys into smaller flights of ten or twenty miles at most.
Unfortunately, while the need to rest apparently wasn't slowing the valkyries, Graxen himself was trembling with weariness. When he'd returned to the palace, he'd already flown over three hundred miles that day. Adding another hundred fifty to it meant that as he neared Dragon Forge he was pushing a limit he'd never fully tested. At what point would his wings simply fail?
His heart wanted nothing more than to see Nadala again, but his mind was wracked with doubt. He was too late. If they'd already made it to the island, there would be fresh guards preventing his entrance. His earlier stunt of invading the island was one he doubted he could duplicate. He'd caught the guards unaware, and surprised them with his speed. Now that they knew how fast and agile he was, they would take no chances, and simply overwhelm him with numbers.
His lungs burned. His shoulders felt as if the muscles were riddled with fish hooks, tearing deeper with each flap of his wings. The day was now long gone, and he found it difficult to judge his distance above the earth in the dark. Several times he'd been forced to pull upward as he discovered himself only a few feet above the treetops.
Ahead, he could see the glow of the foundries, still some miles distant. The air carried the faint trace of burning coal, which mingled with the more woodsy smoke of the hundreds of campfires dotting the landscape beneath him. Graxen grew curious. He knew that human gleaners lived near Dragon Forge, but were they truly so numerous? The campfires below spread across the hilly landscape for the better part of a mile. Was this some human festival he was unaware of?
Curiosity combined with his exhaustion finally drove Graxen to find a place to land. His keen eyes located the main road beneath him. His wings wobbled as he attempted to hold them steady. The ground came up faster than he'd anticipated and his hind-talons buckled as they slammed against the hard-packed earth. He tumbled tail over snout, skidding to a halt on ground worn bare by generations of travelers. He landed on his back, his wings spread limply to his sides.
Dragons didn't normally lie upon their backs, but Graxen found the position unexpectedly comfortable. He stared up into the stars, which twinkled softly behind the haze of smoke. Rocks polished by countless footsteps pressed into his shoulders and hips, but this discomfort was outweighed by the relief of absolute surrender to gravity after a long day in the air. He felt as if it would be a welcome sensation simply to sink deeper into the earth.
He closed his eyes, feeling lost and alone. What was he doing out here in the darkness, pushing himself beyond all safety and sanity on such a hopeless mission?
'Nadala,' he whispered. 'Where are you?'
He listened to the night, as if expecting a reply.
There was a crunching sound from the nearby brush. Someone was moving. Several someones. Humans? They
