human separately spiraled earthward.
Khisanth forced herself into a nosedive. Gauging Maldeev's speed, she focused her sights on a location between his falling form and the treetops, swooping under shy;neath him and into position. The highlord sprawled awk shy;wardly with a jarring thump upon her spine. Maldeev clawed his way to where a saddle would have been.
Maldeev was speaking into Khisanth's ear, but she could scarcely hear him as she watched the body of her friend crash unceremoniously through the canopy of trees below.
'He must have killed her!' Khisanth heard Maldeev at last. He clung to the scales on her neck. 'It's an incredible bit of luck that you were riding as wing dragon, or I would have dropped to my death as well.'
On the ground, the broken branches settled around Jahef s still, twisted body.
Khisanth's eyes shot skyward to where she'd last seen Tate. The knight was gone. Then her fevered eyes spotted the knight's bright silver armor against the dull sky. He was relentlessly spurring his griffon toward Lamesh.
She engaged all the speed Jahet had envied in her and quickly closed the distance between them. Khisanth was angling herself for a mighty tail slap when Maldeev's voice, high-pitched with agitation, penetrated her pounding head.
'What do you think you're doing? I'm without a saddle back here. Disengage immediately!'
'Then you'd better hang on,' she said coldly, and Maldeev clutched her scales. Like a whip, Khisanth's tail snapped against the griffon's lionlike hindquarters. The creature shot forward, its feathered head jerked back hard. Knight and griffon began tumbling earthward. Khisanth shot forward to bat them back and forth between her wings like a cat with a mouse in its paws. The disoriented griffon, its wings broken in many places, began to spiral out of control.
Khisanth snatched the knight from its back and let the creature plummet. She did not even follow its descent, con shy;centrating instead on her own landing. She scarcely felt Mal shy;deev scramble from her back.
Khisanth squeezed the talons of her right claw tightly around Tate, pinning his arms and compressing the metal of his armor. She held him up before her eyes, pushed back his visor, and inspected him as a child would a bug. Almost ten shy;derly the dragon traced a talon along the scars she'd scratched into his flesh. 'What a waste. You were in the wrong army,' she said.
Though he gasped for breath against the pressure of her claw, Tate's heartbeat was slow and steady. Looking into the dragon's tawny eyes, Tate did not appear afraid. Instead, the knight calmly turned to consider the gray sky. 'The barbar shy;ians say it is better to die on a good day than live through a thousand bad ones. I think, perhaps, they are right.'
'You'll find out sooner than I.' Khisanth flicked one long talon and pierced Sir Tate Sekforde's brain. The Knight of the Crown didn't scream. Retracting her talon, Khisanth watched the light fade from the knight's brown eyes as his lifeblood spurted onto the claw that held him.
'Now we are even,' she said at last. But when the final flicker of life left Tate, the dragon was surprised to discover she didn't feel the great satisfaction she'd anticipated. Instead, she felt strangely hollow.
Khisanth let Tate's body drop to the ground. It rolled to a stop at the feet of the highlord. The dragon looked from the dead knight to Maldeev and back, more than a little disqui shy;eted by the fleeting thought that she'd slain the wrong human.
Chapter 23
'After the ceremony, there'll be no more incidents of disobedience like the one at Lamesh,' Maldeev was saying, pacing before the highly stoked fireplace in the great hall. 'When I tell my mount to disengage, you will do so without question. You might have killed me!'
Khisanth looked up with one lazy eye from her reclined position on the reed-covered plank floor. 'As I recall, I saved your life. What's more, my disobedience'- she shivered at the patronizing word — 'led to the demoralization of the remaining knights. The battle was over within minutes.'
Maldeev scowled. 'You're being amply rewarded for that.' He stopped his pacing to look squarely at the dragon. 'I'm getting the distinct feeling you don't realize the honor I've bestowed upon you.'
Khisanth sighed. She knew her attitude did not reflect recent events. 'It's just that I always envisioned Jahet in the position. I keep waiting for her to return.' That was partly true, Khisanth reminded herself. While she had been moody since the events at Lamesh, the highlord seemed to be adjust shy;ing to his soul mate's death with the stoic detachment neces shy;sary for a truly effective highlord.
The other part of Khisanth's unease, the part she couldn't tell her soul-mate-to-be, was that she couldn't forget her comparison of Maldeev and Tate.
'Did it really never occur to you under what circum shy;stances you would assume the number one rank?'
Khisanth's eyes focused; Maldeev was looking at her incredulously. 'I never thought that far ahead.'
'I don't believe that.' Maldeev returned to the fire to stir the coals pensively. 'I think we are fated to be together.'
Khisanth propped herself up on one elbow. 'What?'
'I can tell you this, now that we are to be soul mates,' he said through the mask he would continue to wear in her presence until after their union ceremony. Rocking back on his heels, the human appeared to choose his words carefully.
'I didn't seek my position as dragon highlord. Takhisis herself selected me, from all the officers in her service, to raise the Black Wing.'
Khisanth looked suitably impressed.
'I know that you, too, have been god-touched.'
Khisanth looked startled. She had told no one, not even Jahet.
'Were the rumors incorrect?' Maldeev asked, though he already knew the answer. Andor, his dark cleric, had long since confirmed that a black dragon had had audience with the queen in her domain and had been sent away alive. The dragon could only have been Khisanth.
'I spoke with our queen, yes.'
'What did she look like?' Maldeev pressed, his voice eager. 'What did she say?'
'Hideous … and breathtakingly beautiful,' remembered Khisanth dreamily, giving voice for the first time to the odd contrast. 'She told me-warned me, really-to pursue our common goals more intelligently.' She paused, wondering if she should share the next memory with Maldeev, then plunged ahead. 'She told me to take a rider, said I would know the right one when I met him, and that I would do great things in her name.'
'There you have it! She was telling you your destiny!' Mal shy;deev had begun pacing again, working himself into a lather. 'How else can you account for the foresight that brought me to suggest you ride as wing dragon? What greater thing could you do in her name than unite with a dragon highlord selected by the very god who bestowed the prophecy?'
Khisanth was beginning to see the logic in his argument. She could hardly reject the wing highlord to join with Salah Khan now anyway. She felt mildly reassured. Any reserva shy;tions she felt likely resulted from her former resolve to remain riderless.
Still, something else plagued her, something she could not share with anyone, something she needed to do before she could move into her new role. When Salah Khan stepped into the great hall and nodded curtly to his once-intended before addressing Maldeev, Khisanth took the opportunity to slip from the room.
Three hours later, Khisanth was in the guise of an eagle. Her sharp eyes scoured the hilly landscape south of Lamesh Castle. She was looking for Jahet's body. The heat of battle distorted her memory of the location; still she thought she had to be close.
As she flew, Khisanth told herself the intense desire to lay her friend's body to rest was simply a last gesture of respect for Jahet. They had, after all, blood-mingled. Jahet was the only dragon who had not betrayed her. Jahet had served the forces of the Dark Queen admirably, died with honor, and deserved better than to rot in the sun or
