PROLOGUE
Changes
Tintaglia awoke feeling chilled and old. She had made a good kill and eaten heavily, but had not rested well. The festering wound under her left wing made it hard to find a comfortable position. If she stretched out, the hot swollen place pulled, and if she curled up, she felt the jabbing of the buried arrow. The pain spread out in her wing now when she opened it, as if some thistly plant were sending out runners inside her, prickling her with thorns as it grew. The weather had become colder as she flew toward the Rain Wilds. There were no deserts, no warm sands in this region of the world. Heat seemed to well up from the earth’s heart in the Chalcedean deserts, making it nearly as warm as the southern lands were at this time of year. But now she had left the dry lands and warm sands behind, and winter’s stranglehold on spring had claimed its due. The cold stiffened the flesh around her wound, making each morning a torment.
IceFyre had not come with her. She had expected the old black dragon to accompany her, although she could not recall why. Dragons preferred to be solitary rather than social. To eat well, each needed a large hunting territory. It had only been when she had left his side and he had not followed that the humiliating realization had drenched her: she had been following him, all that time. She could not recall that he had ever requested her to stay; neither had he asked her to leave.
He had all he needed from her. In the early excitement of discovering one another, they had mated. When she grew to full maturity, she would visit the nesting island, and there lay the eggs that he had already fertilized. But once he had impregnated her, there was no reason for him to stay with her. When her eggs hatched into serpents that would slither into the sea and renew the endless cycle of dragon-egg-serpent-cocoon-dragon, the memories of his lineage would continue. Eventually, there would be other dragons for him to encounter, when he chose to seek their company. She felt puzzled that she had lingered with him as long as she had. Having hatched so alone and isolated, had she learned undragonlike behaviour from humans?
She uncoiled slowly and then even more gingerly, spread her wings to the overcast day. She stretched, already missing the warmth of the sands, and tried not to wonder if the journey back to Trehaug were beyond her strength. Had she waited too long, hoping she would heal on her own?
It hurt to crane her neck to inspect the wound. It smelled foul and when she moved, pus oozed from it. She hissed in anger that such a thing had befallen her, and then used the strength of that anger to tighten the muscles there. The movement forced more liquid from the wound. It hurt and stank terribly, but when she had finished, her skin felt less tight. She could fly. Not without pain, and not swiftly, but she could fly. Tonight she would take more care in selecting her resting place. Taking flight from the riverbank where she presently found herself was going to be difficult.
She wanted to fly directly to Trehaug in the hope of locating Malta and Reyn quickly and having one of her Elderling servants remove the arrowhead from her flesh. A direct route would have been best, but the thick forests of the region made that impossible. For a dragon to land in such a thickly treed area was difficult at the best of times; with a bad wing, she would certainly go crashing down through the canopy. So she had followed first the coast and then the Rain Wild River. The marshy banks and mud bars offered easy hunting as river mammals emerged on the shores to root and roll and as the forest creatures sought water. If she were fortunate, as she had been last night, she could combine a stoop on a large meal with a safe landing on a marshy riverfront strip.
If she were unfortunate, she could always land in the river shallows and crawl out onto whatever bank the river offered. That, she feared, might be her best option this evening. And while she did not doubt that she could survive such an unpleasantly cold and wet landing, she dreaded the thought of attempting to take flight from such a place. As she had to do now.
Wings half-extended, she walked down to the water’s edge and drank, wrinkling her nostrils at the bitter taste of the water. Once she had sated her thirst, she opened her wings and sprang into the sky.
With a wild flapping of her wings, she crashed back to earth again. It was not a long fall, but it jarred her, breaking her pain into sharp-edged fragments that stabbed every interior space of her body. The shock jabbed the air from her lungs and crushed a hoarse squawk of pain from her throat. She hit the ground badly, her wings still half-open. Her tender side struck the earth. Stunned, she sprawled, waiting for the agony to pass. It did not, but gradually it faded to a bearable level.
Tintaglia lowered her head to her chest, gathered her legs under her and slowly folded her wings. She badly wanted to rest. But if she did she would awaken hungrier and stiffer than she was now and with the daylight fading. No. She had to fly and now. The longer she waited, the more her physical abilities would wane. She needed to fly while she still could.