‘I know,’ said Imladrik. He was not blind to their frustration. ‘And if I have my way they will be waiting longer still.’
Do you really think you can halt it? Liandra sang, her voice appearing in his mind as suddenly and as clearly as Draukhain’s did.
That stung him. It was an intrusion, an unwelcome reminder of how they’d once conversed.
‘You always wanted to fight them, Liandra,’ he responded aloud, pushing Draukhain harder. The wind raced against him, making his crimson cloak ripple. ‘You wanted it even before Kor Vanaeth.’
‘No,’ she replied, shaking her head vigorously. ‘I did not. I came with you to the mountains and tried to understand them. Remember this — they started the killing.’
Imladrik let slip a weary laugh. ‘Oh, they started it. Then that makes everything clear.’
You make it sound as if our races are equals, she sang. You make it sound as if they could actually hurt us, if we had a mind to prevent it.
Draukhain swung round again, enjoying the speed and exchange. He seemed to be goading his younger counterpart a little, daring her to match his mastery of the air. Imladrik let him.
‘You are all the same,’ said Imladrik wearily. ‘You, Salendor, my brother: you think we are bound to destroy them. You are all wrong.’
Are we? Or is it you, my lord, who is afraid?
Imladrik spun around, hauling Draukhain back on himself in mid-air, rearing up in the sky like a charger on the battlefield.
‘Afraid?’ he asked, incredulous.
Liandra laughed again. ‘Of battle? You know I do not mean that.’ She was struggling to keep Vranesh on a counter-trajectory to match Draukhain’s dazzling change of angles. You are fearful of what would happen if you unleashed yourself, if you allowed yourself — for one moment — to let slip the shackles she has placed on you and became what you know you should be.
Only then did Draukhain’s flight dip from perfection. Imladrik’s mind flickered, momentarily, out of focus.
What do you mean? he sang, inflecting the harmony with warning.
That you are a dragon rider, lord. You always have been. You have fire in your blood but you will not light the kindling. As Liandra spoke her eyes glittered, as if she was both thrilled and appalled by what she was saying. You think you love her — you have persuaded yourself you do — but you are wrong. She has tamed you.
Imladrik rose in the saddle, angling his staff towards her, feeling a hot wash of anger building behind his eyes.
‘Foreswear those words!’ he cried, feeling Draukhain respond instantly. The dragon’s vast wings fanned the air into a whirl of ashes and flame-flickers. Raw aethyr-fire rippled along his staff-length, crackling angrily.
Liandra glared back at him, her face twisted in both delight and fear.
‘I take back nothing, lord!’ she shouted across the gap between steeds. ‘The truth needs to be told!’
Imladrik spurred Draukhain towards Vranesh, and for a moment, just a moment, he teetered on the edge of attack. He could already see the outcome — the tangled clash of talons, laced with the quick burn of actinic magic. He had a splintered image of himself, wreathed in anger and lightning-crowned majesty, cleaving the air apart and casting the Sun Dragon down and into the sea.
At the last moment he pulled away. Draukhain turned, pulling out of the encounter and swinging back out seawards, and he caught a glimpse of Liandra’s defiant, terrified face staring right at him.
The dragons spun apart, wings beating and tails writhing. Draukhain quickly took up the dominant position, his shadow falling over the smaller Vranesh and turning her vivid red scales into a dull, dried-blood colour.
Is this what you intended? Imladrik sang, controlling his mighty steed with some difficulty. To make me angry? You would risk that, knowing what it means?
Liandra’s resolve dissolved then — she was like a child who’d pulled at the tail of a cat and now had to contend with the claws.
‘Something had to stir you!’ she cried aloud. ‘You are dead! You treat me with contempt, like some lordly conquest which now means nothing to you — a toy, thrown aside now that you have taken up loftier things.’
‘I never dishonoured you,’ said Imladrik.
Then Liandra laughed for a third time, and the sound was bitter. ‘No, you did not. I do not believe a day has passed when you have not kept your honour, my lord.’
Imladrik said nothing. The words cut him deeply, especially coming from her. He knew what they all wanted of him, and he also knew what she wanted of him — the two things were much the same. Just as he had done years ago, he felt the tug of desire, the pull towards oblivion. The dragon responded to it, growling like a blast furnace lighting up.
It would be so easy. He could give in this time, forgetting about windswept Tor Vael, forgetting about Ulthuan and its survival. The two of them could do what they had resisted before and take the fight to the enemy together. They could sweep east at the head of Caledor’s armies, burning a furrow through the forest until the flames licked the very ramparts of Karaz-a-Karak.
He saw Draukhain and Vranesh flying in dreadful unison, the Master and Mistress of Dragons searing through the air like vengeful gods, cracking open the halls of the dwarfs and exposing the deeps within. He could cut loose at last, unlocking the cage that kept his true nature sealed behind layers of control. He could unfurl, giving into the second soul that whispered within him and finally, just for once, forget duty and embrace pleasure.
He felt the words form in his mind, ready for the song that would seal things.
I long for it. I long to bring ruin on them, with you by my side. I would wage war until the end of the world with you, caring for nothing but death and splendour.
In the end, though, it was Liandra that turned away, as if suddenly afraid of what she might goad him into doing. Vranesh’s head dipped, and the two of them started to circle back down, gliding through the twisting air currents.
‘But you are right, of course,’ she said bleakly. ‘You are always right.’
Imladrik followed her. The fury ebbed from him, but only slowly.
You deserved better than silence, he sang.
That halted her. Vranesh slid round, angling so that Liandra could look back up at him. She gave him a proud look.
‘I did.’
‘And do not think, even for a moment, that I had forgotten.’ Imladrik came down to her level, easing Draukhain’s bulk alongside the slender Vranesh. ‘We are all the children of Aenarion, Liandra. That is our downfall. We have only ever been defeated by ourselves.’
Tor Alessi was by then barely visible, a speck of white stonework on the long shore. They could have been alone, the two of them, lost in an edgeless sky.
‘Do you not think it would be easier for me to give Salendor what he wishes?’ Imladrik asked softly. ‘I know what it would bring — victories, to begin with. For a time we would hurt them. Our thirst for vengeance would be slaked, and we would revel in it.’
Draukhain was circling Vranesh now, turning in a wide falconer’s arc as Imladrik kept speaking.
‘But then the long grind would begin. Athel Maraya would burn. Athel Toralien, Sith Rionnasc, Oeragor — they would all burn. We would throw our finest into those flames and they would wither. Even the dragons would grow sick of it as the years wore on; they would no longer heed our songs, leaving us alone against an empire of mindless fury.’
Liandra listened warily, as if he was spinning some deception around her.
‘And who would gain from this?’ asked Imladrik. ‘You know whose hand was behind the war — the same that grasps the sceptre in Naggaroth. I will not see that happen. I will not let our desire for vengeance give him what he desires.’