Page 208 of Dragon Outcast (Age of Fire 3)

“War? The empire is cracking. After cracks, pieces crumble off. Then collapse. If the Kayai Uphold declares independence—”

“Flames burn in Anaea as we speak.”

“Then you must speak to the Tyr. Except he’s in his Gardens. He won’t emerge until this evening, when the light fails.”

“I know my way to the Gardens.”

Though he knew the way, a wide-bodied Skotl, fully twice his weight, blocked the tunnel up to the courtyard and the gardens.

“Tyr level,” the small mountain of scale grunted.

“Please, Skotl, let him pass,” NoSohoth said. “It’s war news.”

“I have my order,” the Skotl said.

Not smart enough to remember more than one, NoSohoth mind-spoke to him. The Copper thought it a rare intimacy.

“I’m mated to the sister of his mate. He can see me.”

The Skotl’s eyes narrowed as he tried to work out the family dynamics.

“You see Imfamnia, then,” the Skotl said.

“Oh, very well.”

NoSohoth led him, the Copper nudging him along whenever he tried to stop and talk politics. They found Imfamnia in Tighlia’s old quarters. She’d mounted colored quartz and sheer fabrics in her balconies and galleries, bathing the room in a hideous watery color trying to be green.

“Tighlia lives with the Anklenes now,” NoSohoth said. “She fell into a rage and started burning the silks and smashing Imfamnia’s glasswork with her tail.”

They found Imfamnia with SiMevolant. A thrall was painting her griff, and another slave was mixing colors for the one with the brush.

“No, dull as passwater,” SiMevolant said as she lowered her griff and turned her head this way and that. “Would you consider having gemstones embedded?”

“But then my griff wouldn’t close up properly.”

“That may become the new fashion, then. Remember, as queen of the Lavadome you set the style.”

Tyr’s mate was always title enough for Tighlia, NoSohoth thought.

“Mate-sister,” the Copper said, breaking in on the decorating. “I must see the Tyr at once.”

“NoSohoth, I thought there were orders about guests without invitations,” SiMevolant said.

The Copper came forward, the quartz-filtered light making the whole interview dreamlike. “Anaea has been attacked. By men flying on dragons.”

“Ewwww. That must look a fright,” SiMevolant said. “Skin tones.”

Mother had warned him that he would have to overcome. But there were few foes as implacable as stupidity.

“Quiet, love,” Imfamnia said. “You’ll find my mate in his Gardens.” She walked over to curtains dividing this chamber from another, opened them, and then stuck her head outside and said a few words.

“Not you, NoSohoth,” she said as the Copper moved toward the gardens. “Family only.”

The Copper passed out under two silver-clawed griffaran perched high to keep watch over the Tyr’s privacy. He saw SiDrakkon in one of the warm pools.

One of his human females washed him behind the crest by sitting astride him, a blanket-sized piece of soft leather polishing Tyr SiDrakkon’s scale, grinding her body back and forth. The rest of his human females bathed, or lounged, or ate, or anointed one another with oils taken from silver vials.

A muscular blighter brought forward a huge, polished turtleshell of wine. He grunted as he set it down.

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