his generosity.' He leaned towards Princess Lystra. 'Is the dragon as pure?'
She turned to him, startled, with a wonderful look of horror. 'You don't know?'
'What don't I know?' He smiled again, all innocence, as various shades of panic flew across her face.
Lystra turned towards her mother, sat on the other side of her, and started whispering.
Jehal tapped Lystra on the back of the hand. 'Sorry, did you mean the theft of your white dragon? I know about that. Terrible business. I'm sure it doesn't matter.' She was shaking, completely flustered, like a rabbit caught by a farmer's lantern. He kept his smile in place, warm and reassuring, glancing at her from time to time, making sure she caught his eye. Terrible business? That was putting it mildly. I'm sure it doesn't matter? Of course it bloody mattered. At the very least everyone who had anything to do with the theft was going to die. With a bit of luck, open warfare might break out. There would be trials and tribunals in the Adamantine Palace. It was quite easy to imagine an entire realm falling. Now that would be fun.
Somehow, though, tormenting Princess Lystra wasn't as satisfying as it ought to have been. She still looked pale and worried when her mother's dragons were finally brought down to the field and Jehal stood up to inspect them. He picked one quickly, said something nice about it and waved the rest away. He'd had his bride squirming in her seat, and instead of revelling in her discomfort, he found he felt… well, vaguely guilty.
And that wasn't right. That wasn't how it was supposed to be at all.
Maybe it was the heat. He sighed, stood up and made a pretty speech about how this was the start of a new era, and how proud he was to be joined to such a great clan and yet humbled too. When he was done, he hoped that at least a few of his guests had paid more attention to it than he had.
Riding back towards the palace didn't help either. Having a wife had sounded like a simple enough business, and it had all been arranged so long ago that he'd never thought to question it. However, meeting her in the flesh was somehow… disconcerting. She would be his queen one day, perhaps sooner rather than later. Which was fine, as long as she was the right queen. A simple queen with a demented obsession for needlework or embroidery or something like that, who stayed in her tower all day, had no interest in the world around her and paused only from her handicrafts to pop out a steady stream of heirs, preferably male ones. That was the sort of queen he needed.
'Terrible business,' muttered a voice beside him. Jehal snapped out of his reverie. Lord Meteroa was riding next to him. 'I'm sure it doesn't matter, Your Highness.'
'What do you want?'
'I'm afraid you have to attend a little diversion, Your Highness. After all, no one can leave the ceremony of gifts until you and King Tyan lead the way, and yet somehow everyone is required to be in place for the wedding feast before you arrive. In the normal course of things, this would simply oblige you to take a particularly tortuous path from one part of the palace to another, with perhaps a dalliance in the gardens to kill the time. As things are…'
Jehal raised an eyebrow. 'What, with several hundred relatives all rushing back to the palace as fast as they can, all getting in each other's way? And that's just Aunt Fyon's family.'
Meteroa smiled and nodded. 'Your Highness must be delayed.'
'And do you have something in mind, Eyrie-Master?'
'I do indeed, Your Highness.' Meteroa flashed Jehal a knowing look and kicked his horse into a trot. After a moment Jehal followed him. They turned off the road and galloped down a narrow track lined with trees, then off into the fields. Behind them, a dozen of Jehal's dragon-knights followed, keeping at a discreet distance yet never too far away.
'You weren't thinking about the dragons at all when you picked one, were you?' shouted Meteroa.
'On the contrary,' called Jehal. 'My thoughts were entirely devoted to how none of them was white.'
'Really? I could have sworn your mind was somewhere else. I certainly wouldn't have made the same choice as you did.'
Jehal felt a flash of irritation. Lord Meteroa was clever and loyal and ran Clifftop like a precise machine, and his frankness was usually a refreshing change from the sycophancy that infested the rest of King Tyan's court. Sometimes, though, the eyrie-master seemed to forget that Jehal wasn't King Tyan's little boy any more.
'Well it was mine to choose. Queen Shezira can thank me for not taking the best she had to offer.' Mentally, Jehal kicked himself. He'd meant to choose the ash-grey, the dragon that Princess Lystra's elder sister rode. He'd completely forgotten about that, and now he had no idea which one of Shezira's knights would be flying home without a mount of his own. He sighed. He ought to find out. Doubtless he'd made himself another enemy there.
The ground was starting to get rocky. Lord Meteroa dived down another track, where the trees and undergrowth pressed in so close that Jehal kept having to duck while thorns tore at his cloak. Better change into a new one as soon as we get to the palace. That'll keep everyone waiting another few minutes. After a little while the wood gave way to great slabs of rock, and the mud below became sand. They were in the Stone Forest, a maze of spikes and spires and walls of rock woven with tracks and trails and clearings, caves and tunnels. Jehal knew it like the back of his hand. It was the perfect place for a secret meeting.
A perfect place for an ambush too.
He slowed and stopped, then glanced over his shoulder. 'What is this diversion of yours, eyrie-master? I'm not so sure I shall like it.'
'Wait here if you will, Your Highness. I will fetch them to you.'
'And who will you fetch?' Something about Meteroa's manner made Jehal uneasy.
'No one who means you any harm, Your Highness.'
Jehal looked behind him again. His knights were emerging from the woods, funnelling into the cleft between the rocks.
'This is not a good place to stop, eyrie-mas-' He broke off. Emerging from the shadows between the stones, three riders approached, their horses stepping slowly in the sand. They were strange folk, dark-skinned with overly ornate clothes studded with gold and jewels and dazzling rainbows of feathers. They stopped a dozen paces short of where Lord Meteroa waited, dismounted and bowed.
Taiytakei.
The middle one, who wore the brightest clothes, came a few paces closer and then carefully knelt in the sand.
'Your Holiness,' he said. 'We pay homage on this auspicious day.'
With slow deliberate movements, like a cat stalking its prey, Jehal dismounted. He drew nearer, never taking his eyes off the man.
'Sea traders,' he whispered. He glanced at Meteroa. 'What is this?'
'We bring you a gift,' said the dark man. 'A gift for you, O mightiest of princes, to honour your wedding day.'
Jehal forced a smile. 'Forgive me, but it is said that the Taiytakei do not deal in gifts, only trade, and that what may appear at first as a gift will always turn out to have a price.'
The kneeling man beckoned one of his fellows, who brought over something under a cloth and then quickly withdrew. 'We wish nothing more than to bring to you what you desire, and take from you that for which you have no need.' Slowly, the man placed the object on the ground and then backed away, still on his knees. When he reached the others, he rose and turned. All three of them mounted and rode slowly away.
Jehal watched them go, and only when they were long gone did his eyes move slowly to what they had left behind. He took a step towards it.
Meteroa jumped off his horse.
'Let me, Your Highness.'
'Why did you bring me here?'
'Forgive me, my Prince, but I will show you. The Taiytakei wished to give this to you in person and in private. You will see why.' Meteroa tore away the cloth. Underneath was an exquisite box carved from black wood, inlaid with vermilion and gold.
'Open it.'
Meteroa lifted the lid. Inside lay three strips of plain silk, two black and one white, and two tiny golden dragons with ruby eyes.
'Pretty.' Jehal shrugged. He would have said more, but one of the golden dragons turned its head and looked
