Over the next few hours I told Embers just about everything that had happened to me since I became Draka, and she listened. She listened with rapt attention, asking questions now and then when she didn’t quite understand some local nuance of human society or behavior, or when she simply wanted to know more. When I asked about Behold Her she told me not to worry, and that Indomitable would be keeping an eye on things from his tree. If we heard thunder, she said, we’d know that something was wrong. And so I just kept talking.

  We even took breaks. The subject of my hunger came up, and she left, only to return with a giant, somewhat crispy bird of some kind. I ate myself sluggish, halfway to a torpor, then went for a drink. She waited patiently for me to finish, and then I continued.

  It went on for so long that the humans finally decided they couldn’t just sit around any longer and made an appearance, climbing up the ropes that we’d left handing down through the hole into the cellars. They all greeted Embers with the politeness owed to a creature that could destroy every trace of you with barely a second thought, and she mostly ignored them as they rigged up a simple crane to help lift the mules. The exceptions, of course, being Herald and Mak, whom she basically commanded to join us.

  Why she wanted Herald was a no-brainer. Embers wanted her daughter there, and I was pretty sure that Embers just straight up liked Herald for herself. Mak, though… Embers didn’t say so, but I suspected she wanted Mak there because of what I’d said about her betrayal. I didn’t think that she doubted Mak’s loyalty; when they first met, Embers had said that she could smell my power on Mak, and she’d been fully satisfied that Mak could be trusted. Despite that she kept a close eye on Mak as I continued with my tale. And whatever she saw there must have satisfied her, because after a few minutes she stopped paying such close attention. After that Embers mostly ignored her, and Mak was happy just to be there, supplying information or better explanations than I could manage whenever I asked them of her.

  Somewhere in the background, around the time the sun got closer to evening than noon, the humans hoisted the mules back down into the lower levels of the palace. And that, by some silent agreement, was our cue to start wrapping up as well.

  “Since you have been so open and honest, I feel I should reciprocate,” Embers said. “I visited this city of yours, and spoke with some of the chiefs there. They told me many of the same things you have just shared. Some they knew of with certainty, others were mere guesswork or suspicion. Many, I suspect that you have kept secret from them, as you should. But despite having heard much of what you have told me already, I am no less pleased that you have chosen to share that and more. It is difficult for me to know for certain how much you have kept from me, and how much of what you have told me was untrue, but it is to your credit that the only contradictions between what I heard from the humans and what you have told me today is in such things as I would expect you to keep the truth of from them.”

  “Oh,” I said, not caring the least bit how like Sandstorm it might make me sound. There had been a set of sharp intakes of breath from beside me when Embers mentioned visiting the city, and my mind was reeling to the point that I felt a little faint. I was glad she’d waited until the end to drop this bombshell on me, because I was going to need to lie down for a bit, and soon. “You visited Karakan, did you?” I asked, just in case I’d hallucinated the last two minutes or so.

  “Indeed. Oh, but do not worry. I left the city as I found it. Despite their ignorance of the proper way to show a dragon courtesy, the elderly humans who answered my questions were most accommodating. I believe that they meant no disrespect, and saw no reason to punish them.”

  “Right. Yeah. That’s good. So no destruction at all?” I asked

  “No, little one,” she said, her expression softening as she caught on to how disturbed I was by this revelation. “No destruction, and no slaughter. Though I suppose I must have unavoidably upset quite a few of the humans simply by my presence.”

  “No, that’s fine,” I said, forcibly calming myself as Herald and Mak both pressed their hands to my scales, reminding me of their supportive presence. “Upset is fine. Thank you.”

  “Little one,” Embers said seriously. “I am aware how important the humans are to you. Even before you confessed your state, I knew, and I only approached them because I needed to understand you better. I have accepted that you hoard them, just as Night did, and I will take great care not to harm them unnecessarily. You have my word on that.”

  “And what did you tell them?” Instinct asked from beside me. Herald walked out of my shadow as the dragon inside her spoke. “We have taken care not to reveal too much to them.”

  It hurt more than perhaps it should when Embers faced Herald directly and said, “Daughter, I cannot possibly account for everything I may have told them. Rest assured that I did not share anything that might have put you in danger, or which might have tarnished your reputation. They did ask about the interlopers, and I saw no reason to withhold that there has been a conclave here, the outcome of which is none of their concern.”

  “Unless Behold Her And Know That All Things Must End decides that laying waste to Karakan might be a good way to hurt us,” Instinct pointed out. “She knows that we have humans with us. Would she not guess where they came from?”

  The moment Herald was back in control of her mouth, she gasped. At the same time, something terrible occurred to me. “Oh, gods and Mercies, it’s worse than that,” I said, the words barely coming. “I told them. When I made my case before the conclave, I told them that the humans of this island have paid me tribute, and that they are under my protection. Why wouldn’t she go after them?”

  With a calm bordering on indifference, and which would have been infuriating if I was not still too damn cautious to let myself be angry with Embers, my mother said, “Hrrrm. So you did. That is unfortunate.”

  “Unfortunate,” I echoed. I looked around the field of dust that surrounded the remains of the palace, and tried to fight off the emptiness that threatened to consume me, like a yawning pit had opened before me and I was teetering on the edge. How many people could Behold Her kill in a single breath? Hundreds? Thousands? The markets, the Forum, the docks, they were all packed practically all day, any given day. An attack like what she’d done here, and they’d be fields of bone.

  I’d only said a single word, but Embers understood all that I meant by it. And she wasn’t unkind when she said, “What would you have me do, little one? Beg my uncle to guard you at all times, so that I can go and brood over a human city? That is the only way that we can prevent that red lizard from laying waste to your Karakan, should she so desire. Unless we can enlist others, that is, and who would that be? Splendor has some prior involvement with the red fool and is unlikely to take a side. The Sun Need Not Rise In His Presence is still grievously injured, and The Winds Weep To See His Grace will not leave his side for long. That leaves only the two young fools, The Unquenchable Flame At The Heart Of The Mountain and As He Moves, So Do The Trees Quake, and we both know what they desire, even if they have not made any overtly hostile moves since the conclave began. No, little one. The humans of this island must fend for themselves.”

  “They can’t!” I cried desperately. “How can they fight something like her?! They won’t even know she’s coming! They’ll get wiped out! Gods, I need to get my wing healed. Mak, Herald, we need to find Rifts for Kira to drain so that she can heal me again. I need—”

  “Little one! Draka!” Embers’ voice boomed through me in a way that took the words right out of my throat, along with the air in my lungs. I looked up from the humans, speechless, my mind still half on what we might do to get me in the air as soon as possible. “You worry overmuch,” she said once I was looking at her again. “Setting aside your assumption that she remembers what you said, which may not be the case, she could not possibly kill all of the humans on this island, or even in your city. Humans are tenacious. Believe me when I say that you can reduce a city to rubble and shapeless lumps, and there will still be a considerable fraction of them left.”

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  A considerable fraction, she said. If that was her attempt at soothing my worries, she may as well have stayed silent.

  “Even if that were not the case, I doubt it will come to that,” she continued. “Your city has warriors, and her range is short. I am sure they could make any attack unpalatable enough for her to withdraw quickly.”

  “The city is at war,” Instinct said, her matter-of-fact tone entirely at odds with the stricken expression on Herald’s face when I looked down. “Most of their soldiers are away to the south, fighting Tekeretek and Happar. It is mostly city guards and adventurers left.”

  “As I said,” Embers replied. “Unfortunate.” At least she appeared just the slightest bit apologetic this time.

  Conscience’s voice came urgent and anxious in my mind, saying, I’ll check on Barro and Onur. Not much we can do, but we should know. Her presence vanished as soon as she stopped speaking.

  We should know, she’d said. Fat lot of good that would do us, trapped here, unable to do anything but watch. If only my dreamwalking wasn’t limited to when I slept on my hoard! At least then I could have told Onur and Barro, and they could have passed word along to the council; Onur through the lord mercantile Parvion, and Barro through Alanna. As it was, I couldn’t even warn them of what might be coming.

  Unless…

  “Please,” I told Embers. “I know that our relationship is strained at the moment, and it’s my fault. I know that I’ve asked you to stay away from Karakan, and I know that you’ve just returned from there. And I know that it is a completely undragonlike thing to ask. But please, even if you can’t or won’t defend the city, I’m begging you. Sower of Embers, Reaper of Flame, can you at least take a warning to them? Can you at least let them know that they should prepare to defend against a dragon? They would listen to you, there’s no way they wouldn’t!”

  She looked down at me. For the longest time she didn’t answer. She just sat there, silent and unreadable; there was none of the suffocating pressure that came when she was truly displeased, but no sign that she approved or intended to grant my request either. After the longest time, she said, “You are right. That is completely undragonlike.” Then she turned away and leaped into the air, throwing up great, billowing clouds of the gray-brown dust.

  I looked after her as she flew south, vanishing beyond the trees and taking my hope with her.

  That evening the mood in our dormitory camp was somber. Conscience was gone most of the time, returning now and then to let me know that nothing terrible had happened, but with how quickly any adult dragon could fly that didn’t mean much. She’d added Jekrie to her rotation as well, on the miniscule chance that anyone in Lady’s Rest had seen a dragon fly overhead, but no luck. Or perhaps all the luck; no news was good news when it came to Behold Her, after all.

  At least one good thing came of it all. At some point between when one of us last checked on Jekrie and now, Tam had woken up. He was physically weak and confused, Conscience said, asking often about me and his human sisters, but she’d tried to “possess him,” as she called it, and had failed. So I still had one adoptive sibling whom I hadn’t enthralled. That was nice.

  The humans were all worried. Of course they were. Except for Avjilan and Tammy, their whole lives were there; their homes, their possessions, their friends and family. Zabra was a nervous wreck, beyond herself with worry for Kesra, and less so for her new love Samara. Ardek and Kira fretted over the staff of the inn, whom they were both friendly with, and even more so over the children Ardek employed. And Herald had Soandel and Yakamo. She tried not to let her fear for them show, but she couldn’t hide it from me. I knew better than anyone how she felt, the terrible sense of helplessness at the impending loss of something immeasurably precious.

  We didn’t know that Behold Her was going to do something, but the knowledge that she might, that it was entirely in her power and in her character, was enough. We slept in a big pile that night, all trying to comfort each other and only partially succeeding.

  The next morning I got up late. We all did. I was absolutely famished again despite Kira not having done anything further. I mentioned it to her but she told me not to worry. It was no surprise, she said; apparently Tammy was eating more than normal, too.

  Surprise or not, I was hungry, and awfully so. I left for the surface while the humans were still waking up, intent on finishing off the bird Embers had brought me the previous day. There had been a fair bit of meat left on it, and I wasn’t beneath crunching up the bones, either.

  I was thus not best pleased to find Sandstorm tearing through the carcass like some humongous, shiny vulture. And in honesty, not best pleased would be a massive understatement. Between the hunger, my worry for Karakan, my disappointment in Embers’ apparent disinterest in helping, and my frustration at having to scrabble up from a hole in the ground, it would be more correct to say that I went spare, or perhaps borderline feral.

  With a furious hiss of “Mine!” I sprinted the short distance to where my thieving cousin perched by the carcass, then flung myself at her, wings flapping uselessly and jaws snapping. It was, in retrospect, one of the most stupidly instinctive things I’d ever done. Sandstorm was so engrossed in her meal that she didn’t even see me coming. She sprung several feet into the air in surprise, hissing and swatting at me and catching me on the snout with a smack hard enough to make my head spin. I was only lucky that she didn’t douse me in whatever napalm-like substance it was that she breathed, and that she was who she was. Another dragon might not have stopped when she recovered her wits and realized by whom she’d just been attacked.

  But Sandstorm was who she was, and when I staggered to the side, groggily trying to figure out which way she was and how to keep moving in her direction, she simply sat down and said, “Oh. Draka. You startled me.”

  An angry “Startled—” was all I managed through my snout before pain shot through my face, seeming to enter through my ear and continuing to my eye. I shook my head as though that would help clear it, but all it did was to inform me that I had a terrible ache in my skull. After working some of the stiffness out of my jaw I carefully said, “What the hell are you doing eating my damn breakfast?”

  “I am not,” she said, completely matter of fact. Then she pointed with her snout and said, “That is your breakfast.”

  I looked where she pointed, and there lay the—again rather burnt—remains of some kind of large deer. “What?” I asked, my eloquence rivalling Sandstorm’s own.

  “I brought it for you,” she explained. “Your mother came by the tree very early and asked us to watch you and the humans. She needed to talk to someone in the south, she said, but she would not say who. And she said that you might be hungry, and asked us to bring you something. So grandfather told me to, and I did!”

  She managed to seem both annoyed and proud of that.

  “Oh,” was all I managed at first. I was too distracted by the hundreds of pounds of meat that she’d brought me, and I fell on it with gusto, tearing into the guts to get at the best bits. It was still warm! Only after I’d horked down some lovely offal did what she’d said really catch up with me.

  I got out of the deer and looked at her, my whole head dripping with gore, and asked her, “You hunted this? For me?”

  “I did. I just told you,” she huffed.

  “Thank you. That was very kind.”

  She shifted awkwardly and muttered something like, “Well, they asked me to…”

  Then the rest of what she’d said fell into place and I asked, “My mother flew south to talk to someone?”

  “That was what she said.”

  “To the humans?”

  “I do not know. But I do not know of any dragons there, unless she meant Behold Her And Know That All Things Must End. And I do not think so, because your mother wants to kill her very much.”

  “Right. Thank you,” I said, and went back to my meal.

  Despite what she’d said the previous day, Mother had gone south to talk to the humans. To warn them, presumably. And she’d even asked Indomitable and Sandstorm to feed me.

  As I tucked back into the deer, and for the first time since Mother confronted us over our secrets, I allowed myself to think that things just might work out.

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