The alchemist lifted his eyes to hers for a moment. ‘Holiness, I beg this may be a small compensation. The first part of your true rider's armour.’ A Scales lifted some shapeless thing off the ground; Bellepheros pulled away the cloth that covered it, and underneath was the most perfect dragon helm that Zafir had ever seen. There was no wind visor, no fire visor, only a perfect curve of gold-glass. The cheeks were golden, puffed out and with a series of wide slits below the ear like the gills of a fish for breathing in the wind, and the crown and the sides and the back were yet more gold, ornate and carved with rampant dragons, yet swept back so as not to drag in the wind. The nosepiece was pointed like the beak of a bird, gold again, and the parts that covered the mouth and jaw pivoted open beneath the ear and were lined with more air slits. Fighting dragons entwined around one another, etched into the metal. She'd never seen anything like it, and when she put it on it felt so light on her head that she might almost have been wearing nothing at all. She closed the jaw piece. Breathing was effortless. And she could see. She could see as though she had nothing on at all. In all the dragon realms there had never been a helm so magnificent. A shiver ran through her. To see, finally to be able to see as Diamond Eye breathes his fire. No blurry-eyed wind visor, no blindness as the fire shield comes down! To see it all, all the terrible beauty. . A shiver ran through her.
‘Liang made it to my design.’ Bellepheros looked pleased with himself and for once Zafir didn't think to slap him down. For this even she would let him puff his chest. ‘Dragon-scale would be better than gold, but the glass will not melt until long after you no longer care and the gold is mostly decoration.’
A helm of glass and gold. ‘It's exquisite.’ A dragon-rider's dream. Any one of them would sell their ancestors for a helm such as this. She bowed to him, something a speaker had never done to a grand master of the Order of the Scales since Narammed, but he deserved it for such a gift in this strange place. She smiled as he blanched and almost staggered in gratitude. ‘It's a pity I can't honour you for this as you deserve, Grand Master.’ She wiggled the jaw piece, locking it into place and then opening it again. It was perfect and it made her look once more at the glasships dragging them through the air. Do they make everything like this? No wonder we seem to them like barbarians.
Barbarians with dragons, she reminded herself. She let out a deep sigh of pleasure and smiled, then turned to Tsen with the helm still on and was pleased to see him at least blink. What a sight I must be. You should see me with the dragon-scale armour I wear for war. A true dragon-queen to make you wet your precious silk pants. Pity it all went to the bottom of the Sea of Storms. ‘Shall I mount?’
Tsen clicked his fingers. ‘Watcher!’
‘You don't need him today. Today I'll fly for you because I desire it, and for no other reason. And because you've both given me such a pretty helm, I'll show off as best I can what my dragon might do for you.’ She cocked her head at Tsen. ‘Thank you, Sea Lord.’ He wasn't that, of course, but she knew it both needled and flattered him.
‘The Watcher will be there, nonetheless.’
She let her smile linger over his disdain. ‘When you ask me to fly to war, and you will, I would like a sword. Not much use for a dragon-rider, I know, but still it is a tradition. I think your enchanters must make quite exquisite blades.’
Tsen snorted. ‘Mount, slave.’ He meant it as a slight, a retort to her refusal to address him as anything more than an equal and to the mocking she let slip into her voice. But that was good. Every little reminder of her fragile place in his order of the world added to the flames in her belly. I will have you. One way or the other I will get my fingers under your skin and you'll be mine. Jehal, Hyram, Tichane, they all fell one way or the other. I'll find your weakness, Baros Tsen, and then I will own you.
She turned and walked to the dragon, waving it down, head cocked, arms outstretched, clucking her tongue, gestures any trained dragon should understand. It responded, lowering its shoulders and its neck, bending its head down to the ground.
‘I remember you, Diamond Eye,’ she said, quietly and to no one but the dragon. ‘I watched you grow. I picked you out to be one of my own. You were never as huge as Onyx or as fast as Glory but I never forgot you. You must be getting old now.’ Of course the dragon couldn't hear her, couldn't understand her, not if Bellepheros was feeding it his potions. But it was watching her. It had its head turned towards her and its eyes followed her steps. Potions or no, you do understand at least a little, don't you?
Diamond Eye bared his teeth. He flared his wings, sending a wind across the yard.
‘Frisky today!’ She smiled. Good. We both need this. We both want the same thing.
Behind her she felt the air pop.
‘Do not forget I am watching,’ said a voice, and when she turned he was there, the Watcher standing rigid behind her, stony-faced and teeth gritted, taut with tension and breathing hard. He nodded to her and there was another pop of air as he went rigid and vanished again.
‘Oh, but I will,’ she whispered. ‘For a little while I will forget everything.’
The mounting ropes were in a terrible state but at least they were there. She climbed up onto Diamond Eye's back and began looking for the buckles. The last time the dragon had flown, it had flown to war. The harness was meant for battle where it would become a part of the rider's armour from the waist down. Which was a blessed relief, because it meant she could throw away at least the boots. She struggled to fit inside with Bellepheros's bulky coat around her, had to lift it up and balloon it around the saddle. But she did, and if she'd had to she would have thrown away the coat and ridden in silks to be on a dragon's back once more. With the last strap done she sighed into the harness and smiled at the sky and closed her eyes.
‘Everything,’ she whispered. ‘Now fly, my winged half-god, my deathbringer. Fly and show them who you are.’
Diamond Eye leaped into the air. He was flying in a single bound and one mighty pull of his wings and with such strength that Zafir pitched backwards and would have fallen off if it hadn't been for the harness. He drove into the air, strong and urgent and powerful, exultant in his freedom from the earth. On other days Zafir might have felt a twinge of caution, for the Diamond Eye she'd known had never been so strong, nor had any dragon she'd ever flown, but the dragon's joy of simply being aloft once more flooded through her, merged with her own and drove all other thoughts away. To fly! To be free! Up and up and up until the castle below was a dark speck in a sea of orange waves. The wind was a hurricane over her. It tore at her face and at her furs, but the helm held and she could see as she'd never seen before. If there had been clouds then she would have gone on higher still, up above them and into the deep and endless blue above, to the holy sky where only a dragon-rider could fly and sometimes the ancestors and even the gods themselves would send their visions. But there were no clouds in the desert and so she turned Diamond Eye and dived towards the ground once more, wings tucked in, legs pressed back, her own head squeezed into the dragon's shoulders as the hurricane became something more and the roar of it was as loud as Tsen's cannon in her ear.