The Time Weaver

in the sky into pinwheels, into comets.

'Will you come home with me?'

Her invitation was low and even. When he turned to her she was still in profile, blinking at a dazzling new blossom of fire.

He didn't know why he hesitated. There was no reason to. He'd come for this, he knew that. Sandu frowned down at the broken fruit in his hands. He'd come just for her.

'I've a supper prepared,' she said, replacing her veil. With her features completely covered once more, she faced him. He was graced with that enigmatic smile. 'Only that. If you like.'

He made himself nod. He dropped the remains of the orange to the limestone and presented his arm, and together they began to wend their way out of the palace of the Others.

Chapter Eight

Zaharen Yce will die like this:

It is a time of advanced weaponry. Mankind has mastered the technical intricacies of shooting metal balls through soft flesh at high speeds: bullets replace musket balls; cannonballs replace arrows. Sabers and bayonets are still satisfyingly lethal at close range. Horses are still used in most battlefields.

But there won't be saber fighting within the castle. And there are no horses willing to ascend the mountain. Even the mighty birds of prey avoid the winds that rush along the white-crystaled slopes on this day.

It begins after breakfast. In the morning salon, servants are clearing the main table and sideboards, stacking china platters in their arms, retrieving silver salvers, the Belgian coffee service of etched gold.

The air is still redolent of sausages and buttered crumpets and eggs. One of the younger footmen bobbles a cup but retrieves it midair, right before it would have shattered upon the floor. It earns him a stern look from the steward but a quick hidden smile from an even younger maid, which warms the footman from head to toe.

They are childhood sweethearts. He plans to wed her. He's already consulted her father and the Alpha of his tribe, both of whom have given their consent.

By now the sky burns that hard, lapis blue visible only from the most exalted places on earth. There are no clouds. There is only the teasing scent of spring, elusive, because it's March, and even though the true thaw won't come for another two months, green shoots have begun to break the crusted snow along the riverbanks. The dense layers of beech and pine comprising the forests seem less skeletal. A day before a single brown bear was seen loping through them in a panic, the first bear to venture close to the castle in years.

The enemy advances from the south. They chose this direction with great deliberation. South is disingenuous; south is not their home. However, south is more mountains—curving, distant peaks not so high as that of Zaharen Yce, but high enough.

It is the Alpha, fittingly, who senses them first. He's on his way up the main grand staircase, which is of marble. His fingers trail the banister, which abruptly feels different to him somehow; it's of gold-plated brass. Both the metals sting his hand.

He stops. He looks around, the hair on his scalp and arms prickling. The nearest window faces east, which shows him nothing amiss. He swivels about and bounds down the remaining stairs and Turns to smoke at the last step, leaving behind in the foyer his breeches and shoes and the imported silk shirt he favors.

He does not take the time to Turn human again to command open the main doors of the castle. He barrels through a south-facing window, shattering the glass, something smoke is not supposed to be able to do.

In the music room his wife finds her feet, lifting her toddler in her arms. She rushes to her own window, where beyond the eaves the sun begins to steal through, and observes the Alpha transforming from smoke to dragon, an ebony thread with wings flashing silver against the blue.

He is a lone speck. She watches as other threads begin to join him from below, but they are slow, all of them so slow, and the Alpha is far ahead.

There are not many Zaharen with the Gift of the Turn. Nearly everyone feels the sudden wild tug of their leader, but only seventy-eight of them are able to drop their bread or hoes or shepherd's crooks and take flight to follow.

They meet at the shining edge of the horizon. They meet a force of over five hundred.

There are no bullets. There are no bayonets. But there are teeth and talons, and blood begins to rain from the sky and stain the snow below. One meadow in particular appears abloom with scarlet flowers.

Later on, the peasants will refer to this meadow as the place of trandafiri moartea. The roses of death. It will be considered profane.

Dragons may perish in any of their three forms. Very few of the Zaharen are smoke when they are killed; most of them fall to the ground in pieces. They fall without noise. Dragons have no vocal cords.

There is a hamlet nearby. It is walled, like most of the alpine settlements. The people inside it never cry out, never weep. They hide in root bins and cellars. They burrow into mounds of turnips or potatoes and shield the bodies of their children with their own and flinch against the steady, ominous shuddering of the earth.

Their Alpha dies out there.

He was a particular target. His body is severed at the neck from behind. It lands heavily against an edging of trees, the wings ripped apart by bare branches.

The initial conflict lasts twelve minutes. In another eight minutes, the first of the invaders reach the castle.

There are a handful of Zaharen dragons awaiting them there. Older males, or the very young. Their blood splatters the castle walls, more red on white.

The wife of the Alpha is no longer in the music room. She has retreated to the dungeon with her child and a few servants and has armed herself with the best of human technology: a repeating rifle, a pistol, and a very sharp cutlass. She is adept with them all.

Of all the dragons of the mountains, she alone could escape unharmed. But she alone is the reason the invaders have come. And she will not leave her toddler.

The invaders find her at once. Her scent is distinctive, as is the scent of her power.

She slays threedra&on in rapid succession but the fourth one reaches her, swipes out a claw and snags her in the arm, the one holding her child.

She screams. The child drops. She's dragged to the ground and just as the dragon leans down to close its jaws upon her head, she vanishes, still screaming.

The year is 1791, two years before France will enter its final, convulsive death throes and devour its monarchy.

Honor is twenty-four. Alexandru was twenty-six. Their daughter was nearly two.

Chapter Nine

She lived, apparently, in the halls of an empty cathedral.

It was a cathedral, or had been once, but it wasn't truly empty. After the press of people in the palace, jammed in the streets, it was a shock to discover a building such as this, with open passageways of colorful ceramic tile, and chipped pillars of onyx, and towering stained glass windows, many broken, covered from the outside with boards. Alexandru smelled no rodents, no pigeons or even insects, only the residue of all of them, and the heavier, more fragrant whiff of rain, perhaps a few hours away.

But there were humans dwelling in the shadows. Young ones, a few very old, all of them shrouded in blankets or shawls, all of them watching in silence as he and Honor crossed the floors. A child of about seven had cracked open a side door for them at Honor's single sharp rap; that child trailed them still.

Male. Grubby. Brown-eyed, garbed in cotton and wool with an incongruously new leather belt stiff around his waist. Sandu sensed no metal upon him but for the buckle, so if the boy was armed, it wouldn't be with a gun or blade.