He watched Zafir slide down from the saddle and walk away from Diamond Eye, sashaying along the wall. Alchemists learned to wall away the hungers and desires that came from the dragons around them; riders did the opposite. They rode those desires, mingling them with their own, guiding and steering if they could, if they were strong enough, succumbing to them if they weren't. Zafir, he could see, was on the edge. She was a like a lizard basking in the sun, a sleepy lioness sprawled with a full belly beside a fresh kill. She walked barefoot towards the watching Taiytakei, furs left Flame-knew-where, helm under her arm and swaying as she walked, swinging her hips in the afterglow of the dragon's flight. As for the Taiytakei? He had no idea how the dragon's desires would touch them or how deep they might reach.
‘And now you know,’ Zafir smiled at Tsen as she reached them and touched her finger to the tip of his nose, ‘what a dragon can be. I trust you are now pleased?’
Bellepheros had seen the Taiytakei after she'd lashed the castle wall, the naked awe raw and impossible to hide, but that had been hours ago. Tsen had found his calm again. ‘You damaged my eyrie, slave,’ he said.
‘Because you wanted to see, Sea Lord Tsen.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘They are for war, these glorious creatures. Nothing else.’
She was too wrapped up in her own satisfaction to see the tension in the t'varr. They each turned away from the other, Tsen back to his guests and soldiers, Zafir to Bellepheros. She lifted an arm towards him and for a moment he thought she meant to put it round his shoulder. She caught herself, frowned and then smiled.
‘Were our lords pleased?’ This close he could see her eyes were as wide as a dust-eater's, drunk on the dragon's joy. Dangerous. She was bright, flushed, face agleam with sweat, her hair matted and wet, damp patches where her silks clung to her skin.
Bellepheros bowed, cautious. He took her by the arm and led her gently away, and for once she didn't resist, didn't slap him with her eyes for his audacity. She needed to be away from the dragon, he thought, as far away as he could take her. ‘They were, Holiness. And fearful, though they do not show it now.’ Perhaps if they were quick, there would be time to talk alone now. Distant eyes always kept watch on him, but Tsen liked to give his slaves the illusion that they were free, that they were his guests. It was a dangerous freedom and yet a cunning one. They make us a part of their own but the words we think we speak in secret are always overheard. Tuuran might have said that all those months ago, but perhaps while the Tsen and his generals and his Elemental Man were all together, engrossed. .
He stole a glance at the dragon purring on the wall. Is an alchemist ever free? No. We enslave one another, monster and man.
They crossed the dragon yard, past the hatchlings still chained to the walls. The hatchlings were furious — he could feel the rage as he passed them. Maybe Zafir could work with them soon. Maybe the bigger ones were ready. Perhaps it was time to start making harnesses for them.
‘They want to fly,’ Zafir said.
‘They do.’
‘They're envious of me.’ She laughed. ‘And who wouldn't be?’ She stopped him out there in the yard, right out in the open beside the snapping hatchlings, and pressed a hand to his chest. ‘There's something about this place, Bellepheros. I've never known a dragon fly the way Diamond Eye flew for me today. Never such. . passion!’ She dropped her hand and looked away. ‘You said it might be this way and you were right. Why, Master Alchemist? Why do they have such a hunger here? My skin tingles with it, my blood is hot. They have so much desire! I haven't felt like this after flying for years!’
Bellepheros shook his head and took a step away. ‘A mystery, Holiness. I cannot tell you why it is so, but yes, I have seen it.’ He tried to move her away from the hatchlings, further away from Diamond Eye. Get her down under the ground where at least they couldn't see each other. ‘You shouldn't stand here, Holiness. The Hatchling Disease. .’
‘Yes.’ She smiled at him again but now her eyes had changed. The wonder was gone. She was a predator. As he guided her towards their passageway beneath the eyrie, her feet dragged. On the steps into the cold white glow of the tunnels, she stopped again. Her gaze lingered on Diamond Eye and the dragon stared back, a look of shared secrets.
‘I have something for you,’ Bellepheros said, reaching for anything he could think of.
Zafir's eyes snapped to his, curious and eager. ‘What?’
‘Come, Holiness.’
He took her down the spiralling tunnels. Zafir kept walking ahead, long strides, then turning, waving at him to hurry up until he was almost running at her heels. When they reached his study, Zafir closed his new iron-cased door behind them. Bellepheros never bothered. There was a lock too and he never used that either, because locks in this place were an illusion. Perhaps the Elemental Man could move through the white stone or perhaps he couldn't but he could certainly move through the air. His ear might be anywhere, always.
‘What? What is it?’
‘Here.’ He gave her a fresh gourd. Zafir tossed half of it down with a careless lack of interest.
‘This?’ She snorted and hung the gourd around her neck. ‘You brought me down here for this?’
‘Not just that, Holiness.’ He turned and started to rummage through the papers and books and glass beakers on his workbench. He could have given her poison just then and how would she have known? But then dragon-kings and dragon-queens had always trusted their alchemists to do as they were told for the greater good of the realms. It was just that it was a little more complicated now. Whose greater good and which realms had never been problems for any master alchemist before.
‘Well?’ He could feel her impatient energy, even with his back to her. He just needed to keep her here a while, that was all.
‘I'm afraid that potion's not as good as I could make were I in the Palace of Alchemy.’ He wondered how much to say, but in the end she was still his queen and more his mistress than Tsen or any of the Taiytakei. Trust. It all came to trust. Zafir trusted his potions and that he would keep the dragons calm so he must trust her to speak for the realm that had once been their home. ‘The dragons are restless here,’ he said, slow and unsure of how far to go. Do you even care? At last he found what he was looking for and mixed a little of the powder with a drop of his own blood, carefully so she wouldn't see, and a cup of water. He offered it to her.
‘I could hardly not have noticed, Master Alchemist.’ She gave him a hungry smile. ‘Was that why you brought me down here, out of the sun and the light? To tell me that?’
‘Holiness. .’ Were the Taiytakei somehow different too? Because they were different, from the colour of their skin onwards. Was that it? He put the cup on his workbench and pushed it towards her. ‘Please. . This will help with the. . to regain your composure, Holiness.’
‘What do you mean, alchemist?’ Her eyes narrowed and bored into him as though she already knew. Trust trust trust. And how much, really, should I trust you? For when I was taken from the realms you were barely a queen and Aliphera's death was far too strange to ignore, and yet in a few short months you became ruler of us all. And so young! How, Dragon-Queen Zafir? May I ask how?
‘There is no shame, but. .’ He stopped. She was nodding. He winced, half expecting her to strike him down where he stood. A slap, certainly. . but no. She just looked at him, that hungry predator look she'd worn ever since she'd come down from the back of the dragon. Full of scorn and desire.