to kings and queens. Only Isentine would answer her questions and she no longer trusted even him.
She walked past the yawning doors that led into the cavernous halls of Outwatch, on to the edge of the scarp slope. The wind was strong there, tugging at her hair. At the bottom of the slope was a lake. Above it, caves studded the cliffs, dark holes leading into the tunnels of the eyrie. She couldn't look at a cave now without a shudder of fear, without smelling smoke, without starting to cough and choke, but if she closed her eyes she could imagine herself at Clifftop, Jehal's eyrie in the southernmost corner of the realms. A place almost as far away from Outwatch as it was possible to be, but another eyrie built over underground caves and tunnels at the top of a cliff looking out over water. If she tried, she could bring back the smell and the sound of the sea, of the waves breaking at the foot of the cliff. Of Lystra, standing next to her, looking around at her new home with wonder in her eyes and laughter on her lips.
If you were here, I could do this. I miss you, little sister.
She opened her eyes again, dispelling the sound of the Sea of Storms and bringing back the hot dry desert winds that filled her mother's realm.
'You will take me to this hatchling, Eyrie-Master.' She had to see, after all, even if it wasn't her Silence. Probably he'd been born in another eyrie, far away. If he'd been reborn at all. If it wasn't a myth.
'He will try to eat you, Your Highness.'
Through the gloom-laden hall of Outwatch, Isentine led the way to an immense pit lit by hundreds of alchemical lamps, a hole in the earth fifty feet across with a spiralling staircase clinging to its side. They went down. He walked slowly, clutching at the guardrail bolted into the stone. Jaslyn had lost count of the number of times she'd come here, yet she'd never been all the way to the bottom. They reached the hatchling caves, but the stairs and the pit went on. She always found herself wondering how many people had slipped and plunged down into the inky blackness, and whether they were still there, still falling. When she asked Isentine what was down there, he only shrugged and told her it was flooded, that no one went down there any more.
He led her off the staircase towards one of the higher caves. Jaslyn clenched her fists until her knuckles went white and her fingernails gouged her palms. This used to feel like home. She'd pause and take a deep breath and fill her lungs with the smell of dragons. Now what she remembered was being trapped underground with dragons trying to kill her and all she ever smelled was the memory of choking in the smoke.
'The hatchery isn't far, Your Highness.' As if she didn't know. She'd told Isentine everything because Lystra wasn't here and she had to tell someone. She couldn't tell anyone else. If she closed her eyes that made things ten times worse; the stench of smoke in her mind grew so strong that she was almost sick. She tried thinking of cold mountains and running water but that didn't help either. Nothing helped. Nothing would. Except maybe if she found the reincarnation of one of the dragons that had nearly killed her. Maybe then. Maybe when she understood why.
'Here.' The eyrie-master stopped at the entrance to a cavern gouged out of the side of the cliff. The end of the cave was open to the sky. Jaslyn wanted to run to it, to embrace the sky and the freshness of the air, but Isentine had a hand on her shoulder. He was offering her something.
'What is this?'
'Against the Hatchling Disease, Your Highness.'
Which she should have known without having to ask. Cross with herself, she took the ointment from him and rubbed it over her hands and face. It was brown and smelled of mud. Then she went over to the opening. With the wind whistling around her, the claustrophobia and the smoke eased away.
A hatchling dragon was chained to one wall. It couldn't have been more than a few days old, skinny and sickly, but it must have been ten feet long already from the tip of its nose to the end of its whip of a tail. They came out like that, all scales and bones, usually dark-coloured. They uncoiled from their eggs like a flower opening from a bud, painfully and slowly. Sometimes it took them days to stretch themselves out. They'd lie there dozing as their skin dried and shrank. And then, usually, they'd wake up and eat everything in sight. Unless they were one of the difficult ones, like this one.
Jaslyn knew at once that this wasn't the dragon she was looking lor.
'It refuses to eat and attacks any who come close to it,' said Isentine. 'The usual for a hatchling that fails, though more aggressive than most.'
'It attacks them because it's hungry.' Jaslyn looked at the dragon curiously. It was curled up with its eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. She wasn't quite sure how she knew, but secretly it was watching them.
'No doubt. But we've had hatchlings like this much more often these last months. Since…' Isentine trailed off, but Jaslyn knew what he would have said. Since the white dragon attacked the alchemists. Since Silence died. He clasped his hands and looked at the floor. 'They won't eat unless they've made the kill themselves.'
'This isn't Silence.' Jaslyn stepped closer, cautious but curious. The dragon knew she was there, she was sure of it. And she'd left her helmet up above. The rest of her was still covered in dragon-scale armour, but if the hatchling spat fire at her face-She didn't have time to finish the thought. The dragon lunged and snapped its jaws. Fire burst out between its teeth, aimed straight at her eyes. She ducked and raised her hands to shield herself, but the fire didn't even reach her and all she felt was a waft of hot air. The hatchling must have been desperately weak. Then the chain around its neck jerked tight and it collapsed on the floor, seemingly too drained to move.
'Did you read my mind, little one?' she asked, absently. 'Is that how you knew to strike at my head? Or was it simply obvious?' She turned to Isentine. 'This one's going to be dead in a few hours if it doesn't feed.'
The eyrie-master nodded sadly. Jaslyn looked back at the baby dragon. She wanted to stroke it and nurse it, but even as weak as it was, it was quite capable of biting her arm off. She crouched down and looked it in the eye, careful to keep her distance.
'Can you hear me in there? Can you understand? Do you remember?' What had Silence said to her as he was dying. I remember the flames. 'Do you remember the flames?'
The dragon cocked its head and gave her a quizzical look, surprise mixed with hatred. A look that said Yes. She waited to hear it speak inside her head, but nothing came. They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then the dragon closed its eyes and laid its head down on the floor. Maybe she'd imagined it. Just seen what she so desperately wanted to see.
She turned away, away from the dragon and away from Isentine as well. She didn't want either of them to know of the despair that was welling up inside her. Instead she stared out of the cave, at the sky and the distant fields.
You delude yourself, little one. You do not understand.
Jaslyn almost jumped out of her skin. She whirled around, but the dragon hadn't moved. Isentine was looking at her curiously. 'Did you…' Did you hear? But she could see the answer to that straight away. No.
'Did I?' He peered at her.
Did I imagine it? 'Bring it something, Eyrie-Master,' she said. 'Something alive that it can kill for itself.'
'We already have, Your Highness.' She sensed the reproach in his words. Of course they'd tried. They tried with every dragon, as hard as they could. 'Every-'
'I know, I know. Every hatchling is precious. Do it again. This time, don't let the alchemists near whatever you bring.'
She still couldn't bring herself to look at him. The tone of the silence was enough to tell her how much he disapproved of her order.
'They won't allow it,' he said at last.
'Then don't tell them.'.The alchemists would forbid it, she realised. They'd tell her, again, that she wasn't the queen of this realm and that they answered only to kings and queens. She didn't even rule her own eyrie. The thought didn't help her, but at least it gave her a little anger, anger that she could harness into motion. She swept out of the cave, past Isentine and back towards the pit, heading out to the fresh air and the open skies as fast as she could. The look the hatchling had given her would haunt her, she knew. Was it the look of a spirit that knew what was waiting for it, one prepared to die and die and die again, over and over, rather than become a slave to the eyrie alchemists? Or maybe she was imagining all that, and the look was simply one of hunger and despera-tion. She'd never know. Isentine would never defy the Order. By tomorrow, the hatchling would be dead.
When she reached the surface again, a messenger was waiting lor her. 'Your Holiness.' He bowed, and this time she couldn't be bothered to correct him. 'Rider Hyrkallan has returned to South-watch.'
