of the night and the moonlight reflecting off the sand dunes — blue, the color of dragon scales. Ulhar — the quickest, the wisest. It hung down in the shape of wings.
… The shape of her wings, draped over her back as she dozed near the cavern's mouth…
Her breath caught in her throat, and she fought to keep her mind still and empty.
'I say, that shade suits you very well,' the seamstress said. 'Better than Lady Hawkwinter, even. What do you think?'
Nestrix swallowed. 'It's perfect.'
… blue and the blood red of rubies settled in her claws: one, two, three…
'I'll let you have it for four silvers. That's a quarter off, since it's already made.'
… blue and the red of rubies and the wash of gold in the back of the cave where she settles the rubies, like eggs in a nest…
'Yes,' Nestrix breathed.
… blue and gold and red like eggs in a nest, the nest tucked farther back still, three mottled eggs buried in a mound of sand. She sifts more sand over the nest; they need to stay warm…
'Stand up straight, and I'll hem it for you. Shoulders back, now.'
First she'd placed the statuette, the figure of some dead god from before she was hatched-a pretty thing even Tantlevgithus was jealous of-into the pile of coins and chains, then the rubies, then back to the eggs. She smiled, standing on the box in the tailor's shop, to remember it.
The thief who slipped in behind her came after. She remembered the sound of footsteps as she sprinkled sand over her clutch. She remembered looking back over her draped wings at a noise. She remembered slipping through the side caverns toward the entrance, of peering around the comer to see the woman hardly as tall as Nestrix's elbow creeping down the tunnel. Her leather armor blended into the gloom of the cave, but Nestrix's sharp eyes picked it out. Her hair was like spun gold.
… gold and red and blue, blue is the anger that storms and howls through her. Protect the treasure, protect the eggs. No filthy dokaal thiefs hands will touch them…
She remembered stalking the thief, the woman's form obstructed and revealed by stalagmites and columns. Invisibility cloaked Nestrix; the thief never saw her. The fool, the bitch-Nestrix would make sure the thief regretted her intrusion before she died.
… protect the eggs, protect the eggs. She'll not take them. Tantlevgithus will be jealous she took this prey alone. He is so young and furious-but this one is hers…
She remembered the thief coming to the treasure in the lower cave, watching her run her hands over the glittering jewels. She lit a sunrod, thinking herself alone-Nestrix remembered licking her lips, crouching for the attack.
… That's it-sift through the jewels, don't mind me, nothing to bother you. Who cares if that's mine? She picks up a gold-chased mithral torque, a beautiful thing with a great fat sapphire in the middle, and slips it around her neck. Creep forward, one claw at a time until the smell of the girl is heavy and close as old meat…
She remembered how her breath stirred the thiefs hair, how the girl had ducked suddenly, twisting beneath Nestrix and scrambling to her feet behind her. She ran for the exit-the exit Nestrix was careful to cover and hide from intruders-the one that led out into the Calim Desert. Nestrix pursued.
… gold is the torque and the hair of the thief; red is the blood pounding in her veins; blue is the fire that tears into the night, the desert, the world beneath their feet.
As they ran into the desert, as she caught up to the thief, the Spellplague ripped through Toril.
She remembered the feeling like molten glass in her veins, and then the heat vanishing, the glass suddenly going cold and stiff. And over again, hot and cold cycling through her veins until they split open. She remembered the girl, the thief, her eyes wide and then wider, her skin splitting and bubbling as the strange Blue Fire ripped through them both. The thief seemed to explode-she grew so quickly-and Clytemorrenestrix collapsed into herself at the same rate. Her scales felt as if they themselves were on fire-her first introduction to the nerves and softness of a human's skin. She roared, but the sound was thin and tore her throat. When the thief screamed alongside Nestrix, it was the voice of a dragon, not an anguished girl.
… blue is the fire and the end of the world, the end of the wings on her back, the end of the scales on her arms, the claws on her fingers, the end of long nights while the moon reflects on the dunes
… blue is the death of the goddess…
And for a moment she'd forgotten and pushed aside for a hundred years, she knew the thiefs thoughts, her life, her secrets as intimately as if they'd been her own. Her name had been Lyra. She had kissed her first boy at twelve and killed her first man at nineteen. She found the cave of Clytemorrenestrix after caravan guards spoke of the treasure the blue dragon had stolen from them tendays earlier. She wanted the treasure for the same simple reason Clytemorrenestrix did-it was beautiful and it was tricky to get.
Her thoughts and memories intertwined with Nestrix's, as tenacious as ivy. She watched the thiefs intrusion into her cave from Lyra's eyes, felt the sudden terror as she turned and saw the great and terrible head of the blue dragon looming over her.
Nestrix remembered the Blue Fire going on a very long time. She remembered the emptiness it created in its wake.
She remembered waking up in more pain than she'd ever imagined, in the valley of a bronze dragon's coiled body. She remembered looking down at the horror of her fleshy hands, her feet, those useless breasts. In the moonlight of that night, Nestrix felt the loss of her blue scales as keenly as she felt the absence of the Weave. Nothing, she was certain-although later she would convince herself otherwise-would ever be the same.
The bronze was dead, strangled by the torque it had worn as the thief, the same torque she had stolen from the hoard. Nestrix set a shaking, muddy-colored hand on the gore-smeared cabochon, now the size of her whole palm. The horror of the sight drove her heart like a wind whips a sandstorm out of a clear night. Her chest tightened around her breath.
Then she remembered her clutch.
She scrambled up the side of the bronze, struggling to get her back legs-they were suddenly so long- underneath her. The scales cut her bare feet. She kept slipping in the blood. Her tail was gone-without it she had no idea how to keep her balance. Tripping, running half upright, half on her hands and knees, Nestrix came to the cave entrance.
Instead of the cave, instead of the bluff that held her lair, Clytemorrenestrix found a pile of rubble lanced by a spire of glass. As if the Blue Fire had melted the sand and pulled it up through the roof of the cavern.
Streaks of gold, blisters of rubies and sapphires, grit and rock embedded in the spire. And halfway up-twice Nestrix's shriveled height-the charred remains of blue eggs.
A scream built in her throat, but it couldn't find its way out. She fell to her knees, eyes locked on her clutch, and gasped for air. They were gone. They were gone. Nothing could bring them back.
She threw back her head and noiselessly sobbed at the Blue Fire still dancing over her head.
Then the rubble stirred and something crawled out. She looked down. The scream exploded from her throat as the monster hauled itself out of the remnants of her home.
Of all the things she would refuse to forgive the Spellplague for, what it did to her third egg would be the last she let go of.
What crawled from the rubble was coated in a slime of yolk, and bits of the shattered shell clung to its hide. It hadn't been ready. It hadn't been time for the hatching. The wyrmling crawled toward her on stubby, half-formed legs, its blind eyes still dark patches. Its hungry maw was augmented by that shattered magic, rimmed by toothed tentacles that waved toward her. Curled inside its shell, it had been small enough to fit in the hollow of her claw before the Spellplague had started; what stalked her now was half again as big as she'd become.
It did not know her. And as it clambered toward her, she did not know it.
Nestrix scrambled away, through the rubble. She threw rocks and shards of glass, learning quickly how to work her new, flexible hands. The thing howled and squealed, but didn't slow. Its tentacle-teeth lashed the air, catching her soft ankle. Nestrix grabbed hold of one and yanked. The creature squealed again and shuffled back a few steps, clearing enough of the rubble for Nestrix to see the edge of her hoard. And the handle of an axe.
She'd never held an axe as a weapon before-the thief in her thoughts seemed to take hold of it for her, recognizing a weapon and not a bauble-and she swung wildly, still unsteady on two legs. It bit into the creature's still-unhardened flesh again and again, without aim. The thing screeched and thrashed, and managed to wrap a pair
