Page 259 of Dragon Strike (Age of Fire 4)

“I know there’s more behind, husband.”

“Yes. Well, there’s a lot of talk about the glories of Silverhigh in the Lavadome. I don’t think brother RuGaard, as he styles himself, has new poems composed and read at his dinners to offer lessons about its folly.”

The Copper and various representatives of the Hypatian races added tinder to the eternal flame. The dwarves threw in some sort of chemical that sparkled bright blue, the elves added wood, and men bits of oily charcoal. As for the dragons, Wistala and the Copper spat.

They’d asked him to add his own fire, representing the Isle of Ice, but he’d declined and his siblings hadn’t pressed him. Besides, there was hardly space at the top of the Ziggurat for two dragons, let alone three.

I wonder if the lessons of Silverhigh must be relearned, or can they be learned from? Natasatch thought to him.

The lives of many a hominid and dragon alike will be shaped by the answer.

You can’t think your sister is part of it. She thinks all her elves and humans and so on are quite her equals. AuRon. So cautious. Except once—on the day you won me.

And almost lost you just as quickly. It rather reinforced the lesson.

So what shall we do? Go back to the island and scrape out a living? After the hatchlings have seen all this, can they be content with play-hunting sheep? I’d have them know more of the world.

AuRon sniffed the air. Scents from across half a world rose from the crowd. Not just smoked meats and fresh-baked breads, but the decorative scents, floral or woodsy, metals, sweats, dried herbs being smoked or stewed, the dust of the poured stone the Hypatians used in so much of their construction, dogs, cats, horses, and other beasts, and above all, dragon. The Isle of Ice smelled like sheep, peat, and melting glacier.>“Tell them the worst of the danger is past. Ghioz has been humbled.”

He found Nilrasha stretched out in a ring of rubble. A trio of blood-fat bats snored, hanging like bulging sausages in a broken crevice. Essea reclined near her, next to a pot bubbling with what smelled like liver soup. Essea’s flanks were crisscrossed with sword wounds, and she had grease-covered burns about her sii and wings.

He observed the bound-up, blood-black stump of Nilrasha’s wing with horror.

“Nilrasha, what has happened?” he said, shocked too stupid to say anything else.

“I appear to have got my share of Firemaids killed again,” she croaked.

“Will you . . . will you live?” She was cut up all about the neck and face, and there were deep scars all along her flanks.

She rolled her head and lifted her snout. The drakka attending to his mate gasped. “Her head’s up!” one whispered to her gaping sister.

“The sun is lovely, my lord. It reminds me of Anaea, except here the air smells of the sea.”

Word passed back. “The Queen’s head’s up!”

Ayafeeia blinked in the sunshine. “That’s all she needed. A glimpse of her mate. Perked her right up.”

“The Ironriders tested their blades against my scale as I lay in the ruins, pinned,” she said. “They would have cut my hearts out if I hadn’t chewed through my wing.”

“A proper punishment for disobeying your Tyr’s orders,” the Copper said, his voice choked and harsh. But he found himself rubbing his snout against hers the next moment.

They chatted with mind-pictures for a few moments, quietly catching up on each other’s experiences, but he was still Tyr, among dragons who’d fought bravely and deserved recognition. A Tyr who thought only of his mate was no Tyr at all.

“I must learn more about the situation here,” he told Nilrasha. “I will return as soon as I may.”

“I will just be asleep anyway. But bring me some silver, if you see any plate about. I’m absolutely famished for silver.”

The Copper joined his chief Firemaid, and heard her account of the battle.

“By the way, Ayafeeia, your sister slipped off again. NiVom begged mercy, and I granted it. I’d have that DharSii fellow back too, if we could just find him.”

“Wistala knows more about him than she gives away, I think,” Ayafeeia said.

He had no reason to be embarrassed at his sister’s name.

“Speaking of relations, how is my sister?” the Copper asked.

“She managed to break her wing again in battle in the pass. Intentionally, as it turns out.”

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