Whatever battle raged in the palace grounds above their heads, it ended quickly. Janu kept an ear out as he helped Galnai tend Ilarion’s wounds – they had done more than just take two of his nails, and distracting himself with the noises above was half a substitute for averting his eyes. No wonder he had screamed. Janu would have fainted.

In any case, it had only sounded like one dragon, and now it sounded like none.

Janu mopped Ilarion’s sweat-drenched brow. Galnai did most of the work, her hands completely steady, her face passive, set in studious concentration. The remaining guard had given her bandages, but little else. She made do. Ilarion himself had finally slipped into a troubled unconsciousness, twitching at every tug of the bandages.

All the while, Janu listened. He couldn’t hear any movement above them. But dragons made much more noise than humans. He could just be missing it. Or the battle could have taken to the air and the remnants of the dragon guard.

After Galnai had finished securing the bandages, as they were doing Ilarion’s clothes back up, the sound of many feet and clinking arms came down the corridor. Chatter came with it, too chaotic to make much sense of, but the laughter and camaraderie suggested they had not just suffered a defeat.

Janu and Galnai exchanged a glance. No one was coming to get them. They were on their own.

‘Fancy missing out on all that,’ said the other cell guard from earlier, returning to his post.

‘What was it?’ his colleague asked. ‘Sounded fierce.’

The guard let out a deep breath. ‘Huge dragon. Wild one, but alone. Took out a few guys but the high sorcerer kept it mostly at bay. It’s sorted now. Looked like a porcupine and still kept fighting. Took two of the dragon guard to kill it. Rest of the lads are just patching up down here and then they’ll be right back up to clean the mess.’

‘Gods. Glad I wasn’t up there.’

‘Crazy thing is, it was doing magic itself. You ever seen a dragon do magic before?’

‘No.’ A pause. ‘You sure no one was riding it?’

‘Positive.’

Janu stood up and went to the window, prepared to tell them just what wild dragons could do if it might change their minds. But his movement attracted the returned guard’s attention,

The man’s beady eyes glinted through the barred window. ‘We’ll be shot of this lot soon enough, too,’ he said. ‘New orders. No more torture – their word’s no use to us. They’ll be hung at first light, once the dragon mess is cleared up.’

Both guards laughed and started chatting, not looking into the cell any longer. Janu burned his gaze into the back of their heads. His whole left side ached from his burns.

In the distance, movement suggested the rest of the guards were getting ready to go again.

There had to be a way to get out. They had taken his shoes and belt, both of which had back-up tools sewn into them, but there had to be a way. Perhaps on their way to the gallows tomorrow, they could run. They wouldn’t all make it, and he didn’t know the way, but they had to try.

It would leave them empty handed, though. It would make this all for nothing.

They had to get out, and they had to get the artefact from the chained dragon. Heketas had died for it. A dragon had just been killed for it too.

But how? Janu’s brained ached. He had let his eyes go unfocussed, and only a sudden shift in the guards’ posture brought him back to the present.

‘Your grace?’ one guard said. ‘What are you doing here?’

Popilia strode down the corridor and stopped a couple of yards before them, her hands clasped in front of her. She made a show of wringing them, and though her eyes bore the sore redness of genuine recent tears, Janu was sure of some confidence lurking behind them. His heart leapt – even more so when he noticed Nazagin behind her and her young handmaiden.

‘You need to come quickly,’ she said, her voice quavering. ‘The dragon did something, with its magic. My parents are being attacked. You have to help.’

Nazgin’s pointed head waved strangely in the air behind her like the languid dance of a serpent.

The guard answered with a note of uncertainty. ‘Why did they send you, your grace?’

Popilia’s gaze darted to the side where Nazagin stood. ‘They thought I would be safer away from them. And they needed all the guards up there to stay and help.’

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

‘Of course.’ Now the guard’s words were languid, and a pause came before his next words. ‘That makes sense, your grace. Stay down here where it’s safe. We’ll go up and help.’

And, without another word, both guards filed past the princess and her dragon, leaving the cell completely undefended.

Janu grabbed of the window bars. ‘How did you get here?’ The last he had seen her, she had been safe in Kimah-Kur. ‘And what was all that with the dragon? Who was it?’

Popilia drew in a shaky breath, but it was Nazagin who answered. ‘That was Anshar.’ The hatchling’s voice was stronger than last Janu had heard it. The semblance to Popilia’s voice was still there, but mostly gone, veering far closer to Anshar’s than it had before.

‘We came to stop Critobulus,’ Popilia said. ‘And to help you. Anshar thought that trying the ritual closer to the source would make it work, but Critobulus saw through his disguise.’

The thought of a dragon as large as Anshar trying to disguise itself put Janu’s mind on pause for a moment. By the time he shook the questions away, Popilia was already unlocking the door.

‘Did you see another man out there?’ Janu asked. ‘A prisoner, pot-bellied, scar on his jaw.’

As Popilia swung the door open, she shook her head. Janu was about to ask if she had heard anyone being fed to the serpents, but thought better of it. It had happened, he was sure, whether she had heard it or not.

A groan from behind Janu told him Galnai had hauled Ilarion to his feet. The man’s face was tight with pain, his eyes barely focussing on anything around him, only brought into semi-consciousness by motion.

‘Give me a hand, will you?’ Galnai asked.

Janu stepped in on the other side and helped manoeuvre Ilarion through the cell door. He tried not to think about the injuries the torturer had given him. Seeing them had been bad enough. The way Ilarion’s breath hitched with each step made him wince in sympathy.

‘I don’t know how you’ll get out of the palace,’ Popilia said. She led the way down the corridor, Nazagin walking in step beside her, and kept casting worried glances back over her shoulder. ‘How did you get in?’

‘There’s a lower level.’ Janu had half expected her to know everything about the palace, and had to set aside the image of her scampering around servants’ corridors in her free time. ‘We came in there, via the lake. Provided she hasn’t been caught, there’s a woman who can help us get out the same way. But there’s something else we need to do first.’

Nazagin tilted her head. ‘You found Izimendalla?’

‘Who?’

The princess and the hatchling exchanged a glance, as if dragging a spool of information out between each other. Then Popilia stopped, gestured for Janu’s group to lead the way and said, ‘He’s Critobulus’ bound dragon, and my– Anshar’s former student.’ She took a moment to recover from the trip in her words. ‘They key to completing Anshar’s ritual lies with him.’

Between them, Janu and Galnai moved Ilarion through the small prison complex. It was all new to Janu, but Galnai must have been conscious and not blindfolded when they brought them up here, because she knew the way.

‘But if Anshar’s dead,’ Janu asked, ‘how are we going to complete the ritual?’

‘Nazagin will do it.’

Janu glanced back at Nazagin out of the corner of his eye, at all her ungainly hatchling limbs. How long since she had hatched? Anshar had, he assumed, spent a lifetime learning to do what he could do. Ushuene had chosen no other dragon for the task of breaking the bond. A hatchling fresh from the shell surely couldn’t match that. And yet... the look in Nazagin’s eyes when she stared back at him was older than her years. A spark of Anshar-like mischief twinkled there.

He turned his attention back ahead of him as they started down the stairs, Galnai first. ‘Why did the guard believe you when you came to get us?’

‘That was Nazagin, too.’

‘Yes, but how?’

Nazagin’s head appeared by his side, curving around the top of the stairwell. ‘I can’t rightly explain it. The "how" and "why" of things are still so jumbled...’

A pained mumble from Ilarion cut her short. ‘Soul transfer. Anshar’s, to you?’

It took a while to make out the words. By the time Janu did, Nazagin was already nodding. ‘I didn’t... It’s not normal to receive a soul this young. But the alternatives were Izimendalla or one of the dragon guard. Anshar did what he could to avoid that, before he died.’ There was a note of consternation in her voice, as if the death was something she couldn’t quite believe. Did she remember it, from Anshar’s view?

The thought made Janu shudder.

When they at last reached the bottom of the stairs, they found themselves in the abandoned barracks again. Its quiet was eerier than before. Janu found himself peering into every shadow, certain they must have posted guards now they knew people could get in this way, but the fight with Anshar really had drawn them all out.

‘We should leave him here,’ Galnai said, inclining her head to one of the bare beds. ‘If we’re set on going after that dragon, he won’t be up to it.’

Ilarion made no protest, and Janu nodded. Between the two of them, they got him settled – albeit uncomfortably – on the wooden slats of the nearest bed, padded with a bundle of damp clothes. Only then did he try to rise, but his face immediately paled and he lay back down. It was hardly safe leaving him here, but safer than holding him out in front of a fire-breathing dragon.

‘So how does your ritual work?’ Janu asked. ‘What do you need to do?’

Nazagin and Popilia exchanged another glance, and Janu felt Popilia’s attention on the singed side of his body.

Popilia said, ‘We need to paint some patterns on Izimendalla. Then Nazagin can work the ritual. Maybe we can wait until he’s asleep.’

‘You need to...’ Janu closed his eyes and passed a hand over his mouth. ‘This place will be swarming with guards if we wait a moment too long. Whatever we have to do, we have to do it now. Do you even have paint?’

She shook her head, her lips pressed into a thin line.

‘Anything that makes a mark will do,’ Nazagin said. ‘Paint, powder, charcoal, blood. Dust, maybe, made into a paste.’

Janu nodded and pushed aside a wave of despair in favour of rationality. ‘Let’s get moving, then. Critobulus has a room with materials on the way. With luck, you can find what you need there.’ Remembering the siren fruit he had thrown in the water before their escape, he realised they would likely need to improvise some defence against that, as well. He hadn’t made things easy for himself, that was for sure.

Then again, all his plans were easy compared to Popilia’s. He turned to her and asked, ‘How exactly do you plan to paint a dragon that’s breathing fire at you?’

‘With luck.’ She shrugged, then gave him a disturbingly sweet smile that he had never before seen on her, and didn’t reach her eyes. ‘And with you all distracting him.’