The day after the Khunuchanian man returned to Kimah-Kur was the day Popilia’s new routine finally broke. Where before she might have woken to an empty hall or the low humming of her watcher’s songs as he pottered about his home, today she woke to Anshar simply watching. Nazagin woke the moment she did, immediately alert, her downy hide shifting by Popilia’s arm. They had slept beside each other every night since coming here, which had given Popilia more comfort and warmth than the little bedding the dragons had given her.

‘Has something happened?’ Popilia asked, worried at first that she had done something wrong.

Anshar seemed relaxed enough. He shook his great head at her question. ‘I would like to try something, that is all. Now that you have settled in here. It’s nothing to be afraid of. I just want you and Nazagin to complete a... test, of a sort, while I make notes. Are you happy with that?’

Popilia blinked. ‘Of course.’

‘Just what I wanted to hear!’ he said and sprang to his feet, tail lashing in excitement. ‘Stay there.’ His wings brushed the ceiling, which had been painted in bright swirls and carved to match the stars’ positions. Popilia wondered if he was going to look at his stars again, as he liked to do for much of the night, but the sun had already risen. Instead he made his way to his curved, multi-layered workbench with its piles of pots and bowls and dried ingredients.

Wishing she had a change of clothes, Popilia stood and took a few paces to the side to see what Anshar was doing. Mixing something, by the look and sound of it. It must have been an easy recipe or one he already had prepared, for he turned around with a bowl cradled in one hand almost as soon as she had moved.

‘What’s that?’ she asked. She wished she had asked what the test would entail.

Placing the bowl on the ground in front of them, Anshar settled back into his previous spot. He dipped a claw in whatever mixture it contained, coating it white, and examined Nazagin while humming under his breath.

‘This is a... catalyst, I suppose you could call it.’ He reached out towards Nazagin, who shied back with a questioning glance to Popilia. ‘No need to be afraid. It’s only a dye, like on the ceiling.’

Popilia laid a reassuring hand on Nazagin, wishing she could speak, wishing she gave some indication of even understanding speech. The hatchling understood her reassurance well enough, though. She stayed still while Anshar drew his whitened claw in detailed patterns over her face, neck and chest. They appeared almost invisible except where they crossed over the pink and purple accents on Nazagin’s hide. When he was done, he repeated the same patterns on his own feathers. Without a mirror, he managed to make them perfectly symmetrical and perfect matches for each other, even considering the difference in scale.

‘But what does it do?’ she asked.

‘It gives me a certain insight into Nazagin’s thoughts and feelings. So when you do something, or tell her to do something, I may be able to tell how the bond acts upon her.’

‘Can you give me the same markings?’ She didn’t like the idea of someone else being able to read her thoughts, and she wasn’t sure it was fair to Nazagin, but what if it was the only way they could communicate both ways?

‘No, child,’ said Anshar, then paused for a moment, thinking. ‘No, not just yet. Although it is an interesting proposition, thank you. We may try it another day, depending on what I learn here.’

Then he began singing. He did this so often that Popilia couldn’t tell if he had simply become distracted, but after a couple of lines, the white markings flared yellow. As soon as they faded again, he stopped and nodded.

‘Come with me, then,’ he said. ‘Let us walk for a while.’

So Popilia and Nazagin followed him outside, unsure what this so-called test would entail and when it would begin, if it hadn’t already. From the curious looks Anshar kept giving them, Popilia suspected it had.

In the course of their walk, Anshar asked Popilia to instruct Nazagin – to run in a circle, to flap her growing wings, to go and fetch that stick over there. Each time, without fail and without hesitation, Nazagin complied, and a frown deepened on Anshar’s brow.

‘Do we have to keep doing this?’ Popilia asked after the last task, as they watched Nazagin swimming in the hot springs above the lake. Either it hadn’t washed the markings away or they were no longer essential for Anshar’s magic – she would have taken their disappearance as a convenient end to the test, otherwise. Her skin crawled at the gaze of the other dragons. Some had quit their bathing at the sight of their group and flown elsewhere.

‘Yes, we must.’ Anshar gazed down at her, the markings lending his face a fiercer appearance than usual, belied by his kindly eyes. ‘I can sense your discomfort echoed in Nazagin’s mind. Know that no matter your responsibility for this ill, your presence here and your willingness to help me is the key to righting it. Or so I hope.’

He turned his head to the sky and held it there as if searching for something. Popilia wondered if he could see stars even in the daylight.

At length, he said, ‘There are so many factors at play here. It is very rare that we shamans ever have to delve into human magic. It used to be that it was not so different from our own. But this binding magic...’ He shook his head slowly, lowering it as he did, his neck snaking from side to side. ‘It is a different breed. What I would give to know the mind of your Critobulus. My magic is already separate to that of my kin. My knowledge is more of the stars and less of the earth. Yet it is still far different to his.’

‘I don’t like Critobulus.’ Popilia scratched at her sleeve, shivering in a chill breeze that cut through the warmth of the springs. She wouldn’t want to see inside that man’s mind.

‘Why is that?’

Looking up into his eyes, she shrugged. She tried to sort through her memories of him. The way he acted. The way he spoke.

‘When he talks to you,’ she said at last, ‘he doesn’t talk for conversation. Not out of any interest in you, nor out of any need to talk. He just talks because he’s expected to, and he’ll speak the amount he’s expected to and no more. Whenever else he speaks, he isn’t speaking with you, but at you. That’s not to mention his concubines.’

‘Oh?’

‘He has three of them. No one ever sees them, but everyone knows. It’s not... It’s not the done thing.’

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

‘Hmm.’ Anshar dipped his claw in the water, cleaning off the white dye that had stuck to it. ‘I shall have to take your word for it. The habits of dragons and humans are somewhat different, I imagine. But I have no doubt your feelings are well founded. Often when our guts warn us of someone, it is right. Not always, of course, and it bears examination, but often enough.’

Did she need to examine her feelings towards Critobulus? It was he who had first bound dragons. If he knew about them when he did, like Ushuene had said, what did that say about him? With his attitude, she doubted her parents could have forced him. The thought of her parents knowing about the dragons and going ahead anyway sent a cold shiver through her gut. They wouldn’t, surely. Not if they had a choice. Not if it wasn’t the best option.

‘Call Nazagin back,’ Anshar said. ‘There is one more thing I would like to try today.’ He kept his voice soft. Perhaps he once again sensed some measure of Popilia’s unease through his view of the bond.

Nodding, Popilia brought the hatchling splashing back in to the rocks at the edge of the springs, where she lay down and crossed her forearms over each other.

‘Now, Popilia, you may not like this next task, but please be assured that nothing permanent will come of it. Whatever happens may be fixed, and whatever pain there is will be brief.’

A spike of panic shot through Popilia and Nazagin’s head shot up in response.

‘What are you going to do to me?’ she asked.

‘I? Nothing. These are all tests of the bonds between you and Nazagin. I play no part in it. No, what I would like you to do is lay your palm flat, like so, and instruct Nazagin to cut across it with her claw. Fast, and not too deep. Just enough to draw blood. It is important that you will this to happen, that you go into it with as little reluctance as possible. You want her to do this.’

Popilia really didn’t. She looked down at her hand, then at Nazagin. It sounded like Anshar could heal her as soon as it happened, at least, but still...

‘Will you do this for me, Popilia?’

It would help. She told herself that. Whatever Anshar had her doing now might help make Nazagin free again. As much as Popilia had dreamed of flying on dragonback as her heart willed, she didn’t want her romantic notions coming at someone else’s expense. So she nodded. She lined up all the arguments in her head and tried to convince herself she wanted this, that it was just another court ritual with a little bit of added pain, or a needle stitching a wound shut. Necessary, and bearable.

She held her hand out in front of her, palm up, and asked Nazagin to cut it.

This time, Nazagin didn’t comply. She climbed unsteadily to her feet, but just stood there, rocking back and forth as if trying to move with her feet caught. Her head snaked this way and that and her wings drooped. When she began shaking, Popilia looked to Anshar for guidance. Her heart ached in her chest, but she tried to ignore it, to still will her command as instructed.

Anshar didn’t notice her gaze for some time, his attention too caught in Nazagin’s behaviour, the light behind his green eyes whirling. His nose inched back, second by second, until his chin rested on his neck like that of a swan. Only then did his gaze shift to Popilia.

A shudder passed through him. ‘That is enough, child. You need go no further.’

With a relieved smile, Popilia stopped all her efforts and ran to Nazagin’s side instead. She threw her arms around the hatchling’s neck and buried her face in the soft down.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. Even if Nazagin couldn’t understand her words, she hoped she could understand how truly she felt sorry. ‘I’ll find you the biggest fish today. I promise.’

She had never fished, but the thieves had taken to fishing the lake themselves. Maybe one of them would teach her. A dragon could easily get them all the fish they wanted, but the thieves, she guessed, had needed a way to pass the time. For her part, Popilia felt she needed to do this with her own hands, to make up for how she had treated Nazagin herself. Besides, her tutors had never taught her to fish. It could be fun.

‘That’s all I need from you, as of now,’ said Anshar. He took a few steps forwards until he could immerse his whole body in the steaming waters of the spring and did so, washing clean the white markings. When he emerged, he continued. ‘I recommend you both bathe in the springs. Take the rest of the day to relax while I work through my findings. I will need peace for that. With luck, I will come up with something else we can try tomorrow.’

‘Do you know how it works?’ Popilia asked.

‘Not yet.’ A deep rumble in Anshar’s throat set the water rippling about him. ‘But I will break that bond, no matter how long it takes.’

Nodding, Popilia took her outer clothes off and slipped into the water beside him. ‘I hope so too.’

She stayed there for some time after Anshar had left, wringing out her underclothes and spreading them out on a rock to dry in the sun. When they had, and she had scrubbed all the markings off Nazagin’s hide, she dressed again and left to find the thieves. By now it was midday, and the two of them had taken their usual spot on some rocks by the side of the lake.

‘Where’s Ilarion?’ she asked after struggling to remember the man’s name for a few steps. Since his return, Popilia had wanted to do nothing but ask him questions about the dragons – those she thought too stupid to ask Anshar, mostly – but he had been busy with the thieves. Well, that and she always found herself too embarrassed to ask whenever he wasn’t busy.

Janu looked up from his bowl of fruit. His beard and moustache had lost their trimness during his time here and were getting to be as bushy as his eyebrows.

‘He’s preparing,’ he said after swallowing a mouthful. ‘We’re leaving soon, and he’s coming with us. He’s put himself in charge of sorting the provisions for our journey. Always nice to have a volunteer.’

‘Oh.’ The thought of losing her only human companions hadn’t occurred to Popilia until now. Her heart sank in her chest. It wouldn’t be too bad. She didn’t need people – or not human people, when dragons were people too. But only Anshar would speak to her, and now even he was busy.

Janu’s smile softened as he read her face. ‘I suppose you must be missing home, and your parents.’

Realising she still hadn’t sat down, Popilia perched on the nearest rock. Nazagin curled up at her feet.

‘Not really,’ she said, but she missed the food and her clothes, and a few of the handmaids who were close to her own age. Home itself was polished and clean, a palace full of wonders... but familiar wonders. Here was new and exciting. How could she miss home while everything here was so interesting? She pushed her foot along the ground, making a little divot of sand. ‘I don’t see my parents often anyway. Not outside big meals and formal events. Maybe once or twice a year.’ She always got excited to see them, but she realised now that there wasn’t really anything to miss. There was some subtle difference between missing a thing and longing for it to begin with.

‘I guess being a princess isn’t as fun as it sounds,’ Galnai said.

Popilia snorted. She didn’t have to see her parents to have fun. ‘I just wish I could go back and tell them about the dragons. I’d get them to kick Critobulus out. No, I’d make him free all the dragons first.’

Raising an eyebrow but not looking up from her bowl, Galnai said, ‘You overestimate your importance if you think they would agree to that.’

‘Of course I’m important!’ Popilia straightened, indignant, but the words sounded stupid and small in her mouth. ‘If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be marrying a prince.’

Janu stopped with his spoon halfway to his lips and glanced between her and Galnai. ‘It was my impression that all princesses eventually married princes, or kings, or some other man with a fancy title.’

‘Well, this prince is extra important. Prince Revor. He’s from Khunuchan. I’ll be the first Dreganor princess to marry into Khunuchanian nobility. That matters.’ Her tutors had told her as much.

‘It does, does it?’ Galnai dropped her bowl with a clatter onto the rock beside her, leaving it to wobble in place. ‘For sure, the parents you never see must love you greatly. The last I heard of your beloved prince, he was married and his wife with child. He would be five and thirty years now, by my count.’

Before Popilia could reply, the woman stood and left, taking long strides up the side of the valley. But she couldn’t have replied if she wanted to. Her insides had frozen. There were no words in her head, only the echoes of childish dreams and romantic tales. More of those dreams had been about whatever adventures might await her and her dragon in the wilds of Khunuchan than the prince she would be travelling there for. Now all those dreams turned grey and tainted.

The first of many tears rolled down her cheek. She barely noticed, and she only vaguely registered Janu coming to put his arm around her. All she truly noticed was the constant heat of the collar around her neck, the delicate shackle she could never remove, except in death.