for many years and have found them both to be exactly what they seemed from a distance.'
'You are cruel, King Sirion.'
Sirion snorted. 'Don't pretend that your heart is broken, Speaker. You may have fooled Hyram but it is clear enough to me that you and Jehal were lovers before and are lovers still. I will not believe in illusions of any affection between you and my cousin. Say your piece, Speaker. Tell my why you have asked me here, alone and far away from prying eyes. I can think of only two things, so which is it to be? Do you plan to seduce me as you seduced my cousin? Or do you mean to murder me? Although I warn you, you will find neither easy.'
Zafir half turned, glancing over her shoulder, and met his eyes for a moment. 'Perhaps I mean to do both.' 'Then you will fail twice.'
'Very well, King Sirion. I will not trouble you with sentiment, but with cold pragmatism. Hyram and I had a simple trade.' She turned to face him. 'Am I young, King Sirion?'
'Very.'
'How many children have I carried?'
He took a step back. A frown shadowed his fair. He peered at her. 'None that are known. Why do you ask such a thing?' 'Do you suppose I am fertile?'
He looked distinctly uncomfortable now. Which, as far as Zafir was concerned, was perfectly fine. 'I do not know, Your Holiness.' 'Then guess.'
'I… I suppose there is no reason to think otherwise.'
She took a step towards him, closing the distance between them. 'Am I deformed?'
'I would not say so.' He stepped back, and so Zafir stepped forward again.
'Am I beautiful?'
'Of course.' He tried to step away, but as he did, Zafir caught his hand and pressed it against her breast. 'Am I desirable?'
He pulled his hand away, but for an instant he'd hesitated. Her heart was beating strong and fast. She knew he'd felt it. His face coloured. 'I am not to be had, harlot.'
Zafir brushed the insult aside. She smiled. 'I would not presume such a thing, King Sirion, not from you. But look at me. Look at me with Hyram's eyes. Imagine for a moment that you are him. Am I desirable?'
'You may well be, Your Holiness. Although I can't imagine why you would ask such a thing.'
'Hyram made me speaker. In return I shared his bed. I would have made him heirs if he'd lived. He would have kept much of the power that he had. That was the nature of our arrangement. A simple contract, bound by a marriage. Are not all weddings for the same reasons? Heirs and power?' She laughed. 'You think I brought you here to bend your ear about Queen Shezira? No. The Adamantine Men have accused her. I've heard their evidence and to me it's strong enough to make her hang, but you can all make up your own minds about that. The kings and queens of the realms will hear the case against her and each of you will make your own decision. I do not care, King Sirion, what fate awaits her. Frankly, I will have as little part of it as my duty allows. I care only that a decision is reached, and that whatever is decided is decided by the rulers of the nine realms and not by me. What I care about, King Sirion, is making sure there is no dragon-war. I care about peace.'
'Peace?' Sirion snorted. 'You?'
'A happy coincidence of duty and self-interest, Your Holiness. You may make your own judgement as to how securely I sit on the speaker's throne now that Hyram is gone.'
Sirion was frowning. Obviously he hadn't expected such blunt-ness. 'Then why…?'
'Why did I bring you here? To ask you a question, Your Holiness. To ask your advice as a great king of a great realm. I am a queen and I am the speaker. I have carried no children. I am, as you have agreed, young, fertile and desirable.' She took another step close to him. 'My husband is dead. I should have the pick of all the princes across the realms. There is certainly no shortage of them, and more and more arrive at my court with every week that passes. You see that for yourself and doubtless find many of them as tedious as I do. But they are all southern princes, from the courts of King Narghon or King Silvallan or King Tyan. The peace of the realms requires that I marry to the north, not the south. I do not seek a war with Shezira's daughters, but nor can I marry them.'
Sirion frowned again. He shook his head. 'I cannot offer you any advice. If Queen Shezira had a son, that would be your answer. There are others who carry her blood.'
'Plenty of them. But I cannot marry into her line if she murdered Hyram. If she were to be found innocent then perhaps so, but not if she's guilty.'
'Valgar has a son.'
'He's two years old.'
'He has brothers.'
Zafir looked down the sheer drop to the river below. 'That is true. Valgar's realm is small though.' And now, Sirion, the seed is planted. Although you might be too vain and think yourself too wise to answer me now, the seed is in there nonetheless. For if I cannot marry into Shezira's realm, and will not choose Valgar's, then only yours remains. But only if Shezira is found to be guilty…
'There is-' She held up a hand and he stopped. She glanced inside. There wasn't much to the lodge, only a single airy room with open arches instead of windows. At the back were two wide alcoves, both piled with luxurious furs and soft cushions. It wasn't hard to guess what the visiting speakers had used those lor. She'd lain in them, naked, with both Hyram and Jehal; flying here again with Sirion she'd wondered if she might lie there naked again. He reminded her of Hyram though, which was unfortunate.
No. She'd done as much as she could with him. As much as she'd hoped. Now all she could do was trust time and greed and doubt and pride.
He followed her eyes and must have guessed her thoughts, for his face went hard.
'I-'
She struck first, before he could finish. 'Don't flatter yourself, Sirion. You have an unmarried son, Dyalt.' 'Promised to Princess Jaslyn.'
'Promised but not yet given. And promises, as we have seen, can be broken.'
Sirion flushed with anger, but before he could say anything else, dragon shrieks ripped through the air – first one, then another, then several more, answering the first. Cries of warning.
He jumped away from her and half drew out a knife. 'What trickery is this?'
Zafir barely heard him. Her skin prickled with an acid mix of fear and fury. The cries were coming from her own dragons, circling overhead, but what they'd seen was flying down the valley, skimming the waters of the Diamond Cascade River. Three dragons were heading almost straight at them. They were hard to see at all against the backdrop of trees and water and broken stone, but they weren't hers. She squinted, paralysed with dread. Her lookouts were too high. These new dragons would get to her first, before any of her riders could stop them. If they were here to kill her, she was as good as dead…
As they rushed towards her, she recognised them. Two of them at least. Dragons that she'd lost to the Red Riders only weeks ago. They could only be here for her. As they flew closer, she closed her eyes. They were huge. She was going to die in agony and fire… No! No no no!
The fire didn't come. When she opened her eyes again, the dragons were flying past right in front of her, nose to tail, their necks straining forward, their immense wings so wide and so close that they almost touched the stone at her feet. She still couldn't move, but then Sirion grabbed her and hurled her to the ground away from the edge an instant before the wind of the dragons' passing picked them both up and flung them around like a pair of dolls. The dragons dived over the falls towards the City of Dragons and the palace below. Zafir rose shakily to her feet and watched them go. She still could hardly move. She touched a finger to her brow where the skin was beginning to sting. She was bleeding. A scratch, that was all. If they'd seen me. If they'd known I was here…
'You're shaking, Your Holiness. You're very pale.' King Sirion touched her shoulder lightly, awkwardly. She flinched away, ignored him, frantically waving her arms at her own riders already swooping out of the sky. Within seconds, a hunter thundered awkwardly in to land nearby. Zafir ran, screamed at the rider to move aside and hauled herself up onto the dragon's back. Sirion was forgotten. Never mind that he might have saved her life only a moment ago – for all she knew or cared, the hunter might have crushed him or swept him over the cliff and into the river below. Before she'd even strapped herself into the rider's harness, she commanded the dragon to fly. What mattered was her palace.
The dragon felt her need and threw itself over the edge of the Diamond Cascade, soaring out into the immensity of the void below, into the skies above the City of Dragons.
