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“Read message first,” the griffaran said. “Then duty done.”
The tube was one of NoSohoth’s message tubes, certainly. He flicked off the sealing wax with a claw-tip and extracted the paper inside.
TYR DEAD. PEACE DECREED. TYR SIMEVOLANT RULES. RETURN AT ONCE.
The Copper blinked, unable to believe his eyes. Each pair of words was harder to believe than the last.
Bwaaaaaaak!
He started. That was a blighter alarm horn!
It blew again, sounding from the dining chamber. His hearts froze for a second; then he spread open his wings and flew up to the balcony on the upper level. He crashed through the tattered, burned remains of the evening curtains and saw Halaflora, stretched out and twitching on the floor.
Blood ran from a corner of her mouth. A white-faced Rhea stood in the corner, gasping for air, the horn hanging loose in her hand. Over his mate Nilrasha stood, the claws of one sii bloody, scratched about her eyes.
“Away from her!” he roared, feeling his fire bladder well. He tripped on his bad sii and sprawled next to his mate, but he didn’t care. He rolled her undersize head toward him, but Halaflora’s eyes were white and sightless.
“She’s dead, my lord,” Nilrasha said, breathing hard. “There’s nothing you can do for her.”
The Copper shook his mate, struck her face, turned her upside down, and shook her until scales fell off and skittered across the spotless feasting floor. Finally he dropped her limp corpse.
“What did you do?” he asked Nilrasha.
“Do?” she choked.
“Shwok’d?”
“Am I not speaking clearly enough, you lisping lizard? Yes, she tore off a big piece of thigh—I think it had a bone in it—and lifted her head and gobbled it right down, smiling and happy as can be. It stuck. I tried to get at it with my sii, but I couldn’t reach it without tearing her head off.”
“How did you get wounded?”
“She panicked. She was flailing this way and that instead of letting me help her, and she scratched me.”
“It’s not like her to take such a big—”
“She’s been delirious these last few days. She thought she was brooding, stupid thing.”
“Get out of here!”
“But, Ru—I’m sorry about the lisping thing. You do it when you get excited. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Just go.”
AuBalagrave and the other dragons arrived, looking for enemies, a fight, anything—but they just found the Upholder, lying against his mate. Nilrasha slipped out.
“Leave me alone!” the Copper said. “I’m staying with her until she cools! All of you, get out. No, not you, Rhea. Clear away this mess.”
The dragons departed, and Rhea bent to pick up the spilled platter of spitted calf.
“Rhea. Please speak to me. For once in your life, don’t be afraid and speak. Did you see this? What happened here?”
The pale girl—no, woman; she had a swelling at her midsection and the feeding sacs had enlarged—looked at him with terrified eyes. Then she fainted.
He buried Halaflora on the mountainside with a good view of the palace, the vale, and their sleeping chamber. Then he went to see Nilrasha and found her idling in her bathing pool.
“If I find that you had a sii in this, I’ll kill you,” the Copper said.
“You’re upset, your honor. I know what you think. Put it out of your mind. She choked. It was a terrible accident.”
