Upon a stag of many legs the Earthen King rides

Iron is his skin and dark are his eyes

advancing and retreating, he kills with his stride

Unbreakable as diamond, sure as the tide

-A Skyfolk rhyme, author unknown

The dragon is gargantuan and black, though sunlight glows from his mouth, eyes and claws. His six rolling eyes are liquid gold, and his scales and talons have gilded tips.

He’s the most terrible and beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and he awaits us atop a rocky outcropping connected to the manor by a bridge. Behind him the clouds darken, and on the platform carved from the jutting rock below, the sky carriage awaits. A trunk’s worth of my new belongings are already packed away in its cargo hold along with the rest of our supplies. General Khavad leads the procession, breaking away to join the behemoth on the peak while the rest of us file out onto the platform. Wind whips the rain sideways and tosses my hair across my face, obscuring my vision. Bastren reaches out to steady me, putting a reassuring hand to my shoulder.

Inside the carriage the wood is lacquered dark. Harnesses hang from the seat backs and soft black sheepskins are tossed over the cushions, while woven rugs in shadowed jewel tones cover the floor. Coral-colored sunlight flickers through lantern lattices of wrought iron, casting mesmerizing patterns over all.

The Solar and Lunarborn girls, whom I’ve since learned are indeed sisters—and Khavad’s at that—move to the front seats. I’d been worried when I’d learned they’d be joining us, and then immediately relieved when Zhama explained it was only so far as the southern palace. The housekeeper and the girls’ Middleborn governess take up positions at either side of them.

Bastren busies himself checking on each of us in turn, ensuring we’re secure in our seats with our leather harnesses strapped about our chests before taking a place at my side. Once settled, he whistles at the raven’s head construct at the fore of the carriage, which quorks its acknowledgment.

My bond-brother is more composed now than I’ve ever seen him, with hair pulled smoothly back and beard close-shaved. I still have no idea of his age, but he has the air of someone older and wiser than me, and I feel foolish to have ever looked at him as an equal. Though for much of the past week both he and Zhama were busy with preparations, they spent whatever time they could helping me ready myself, too, for life at the war camp.

The beating of Avathor’s wings sounds like the heartbeat of a god above. The carriage lurches once and then swings free as the great creature lifts us in his claws. The rock and manor and forest all drop away, shrinking rapidly as my master’s mount heaves us up into the clouds.

The king’s mount, I correct myself, for all our people’s dragons belong to him by law regardless of who rides them.

It’s my first time flying, and my stomach quivers with fear and exhilaration at the sensation of it. At the sight of the world spread out and expanding below us.

A flickering of light draws my attention away from the vista below and toward the western horizon. A storm is building there, lightning flashing in the clouds.

Bastren leans in a little closer. “That’s a good sign, by Tusk tradition,” he says. I turn to look at him, and the next bolt illuminates his eyes, a perfect reflection. He smiles, flashing fangs. “A battle heralded by a storm is a battle won by the sky.”

“I pray it’s so,” I say, not much caring about any of that, though I should. Storms are beautiful, and I’m happy to see one regardless of what it might portend.

I know when we’ve crossed into the Southern province of Ilpatra when I see the greater body of the Shoh river spread out before us like a many-branched tree etched in quicksilver across a sea of churning canopy. The dragon veers westward, following one of the branches until the trees give way occasionally to broad, flower-strewn fields and then into the rocky uplands where the rain is falling in heavy sheets that nearly steal away my view.

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Thunder hails our arrival as we come within sight of the Raj’Shoh Palace, a monumental bolt of lightening illuminating our destination for half a heartbeat. A sprawling series of walls, halls and towers made of the same marbled gray stone as the mountains at its back, peering down across a swollen stretch of river to the province’s capital where it crawls over the hills below us.

We make a swift descent into the elevated grounds of the palace, Avathor depositing us upon an enormous stone platform made for the purpose before swooping off and upward to the dragon rooks. When I tear my gaze from the window at last, Bastren grins back at me, the light in his eyes suddenly rendering him youthful once more. I give up on ever trying to guess his age.

The set of suites appointed our household in the court of Raj’Shoh are immense and lavish, though half of us won’t be here longer than a few days. Again, I get my own room warmed by a real fire—this one of fragrant red sambic wood. I haven’t long to settle in though.

“We’re lucky,” says Zhama, joining me in a flurry of bustling skirts within moments. “Such a feast only comes along thrice or so a century.”

I wonder if we’re celebrating something. Our victory, perhaps? I wait for her to tell me more but she doesn’t, instead settling into a rambling hum as she begins to braid and be-ring locks of my hair. She lets me do my own make-up, and I apply Sister Nix’s teachings to the best of my ability. They’ll all know who I am already, of course, but not having to actually see the unpleasant reminder that is my true face might make things easier.

As it turns out, the occasions for the feast are threefold. Firstly, and as I guessed, to celebrate out initial victory against our would-be invaders and the man behind it—my master. Secondly, as a matter of custom. With a new war beginning, a feast of fortification is called for. The third occasion is the very recent death of one of the king’s eldest dragons, Ixos the Banisher. The waste of dragon flesh is, quite literally, a crime. And with so much to go around, all the province will get some share of it.

The halls are crowded with nobles and soldiers alike as we make our way to the grand feast hall, my master in all his mane-mantled splendor at the head of our procession. But when we arrive, he breaks away from us to join the Queen Regent and other favored at the high table, just a few seats down from the empty throne of the king. I’m unsurprised to see that, as our sovereign never appears in public. Essatra, the elder girl, joins her Solarborn peers at another of the greater tables, while Eshka, the younger, breaks off to sit further back with the other nobleborn moon children.

Zhama, the Governess, Bastren and I all turn to the darker end of the vast hall, where gather the ranks of Middleborn and Lunars privileged enough to dine here regardless of their ignoble blood.

On the way to our place in the back, I catch sight of more than a few creatures I can’t put a name to. One of them—a bird something like a peacock but with iridescent black feathers—turns to look at me as I pass. I startle as a third eye at the center of its head opens, gold and frightening in its piercing intelligence, and hurry forward and out of its gaze. In raised galleries to the eastern and western ends of the halls, musicians play in perfect tandem. The song of their strings, drums and bone flutes are celebratory and mournful in turns.

Where the Solar end of the hall is lit by grand chandeliers aglow with golden sunlight, our end has its black paper lanterns and their silvery moonlight. Rather than high tables with their spindly legs and uncomfortably opulent chairs, here we have low, oily tables of dark wood and cushions laid directly on the floor. I find this vastly preferable to the eye-blinding brightness and excess of the other end. It’s calmer here, too, without the chaotic addition of the noble’s animal companions both real and constructed.

Nearly every dish that fills our tables features dragon meat. The air is drenched with its mouth-watering aromas, the intermingled scents of human sweat and a thousand different perfumes.

I fill my trencher with a little bit of everything I can get my hands on. A stew made with dragonbone broth and chunks of belly meat veined with fat like heavenly butter. Kurga eel stuffed with dragon marrow that melts in my mouth in an explosion of flavor—savory and salty but with just the right amount of exquisite sweetness. Herb bread with a crystal-like glazing of seasalt and bits of dried saffra flower, pulled apart and drenched in dragon gravy.

It’s all as delicious as Khavad’s blood. More than mere food—a drug. I wash it all down with spiced wine, my appetite only seeming to build with each bite.

The high builds discreetly, only to break over my head like a crested wave as I begin to reach for another portion of stuffed eel. Beside me, Bastren’s face has gone red from laughing at the antics of our table companions, and I can see in his eyes and manner that its hitting him too. The entire hall, in fact, has already fallen under the dragon’s influence.

Ixos must have been a magnificent beast.

The dangers that lie in the day ahead fade out of my thoughts, and I’m so giddy on the dragon-high that I’m not even bothered by the sour way in which most of my peers regard me. But then a shadow descends over our table, and the faces across from me pale. I know his presence immediately, and I stand and turn at once to face my master. His expression is grim.

“The Eye of the King has seen you,” says the iron raven-head jutting from the leather bandolier about his chest. “Your presence has been called for.”

“I’m to escort you,” adds the general, his voice scraping low over the rough edges of a threat—though to whom I’m not sure.

As we make our way out of the feasting hall I have to fight to keep my legs steady beneath me, to stop moonlight from leaking from my ice cold skin and shadows from pooling at my feet.

There are only a handful of reasons I can think of for the king of all the skylands to demand my presence, and none of them are good.