‘Enough.’ I hold up a hand. ‘I don’t care what my maidservant’s cousin’s friend thinks she heard. And you should know better than to listen to gossip.’
‘But the beach could be dangerous …’ My glare must be effective, because my companion falls silent and screws her mouth up into a pout. Still, when I turn Henga’s head towards the beach, she sighs and follows me.
By the time we get there – Letya, for once, has not spent the intervening minutes commenting on my reckless indifference to endangering my life – the low tide has exposed a wide expanse of black sand. I can feel the heat rising from the ground, but there is a breeze here, creaming the distant sea into a mass of white-crested waves. We set off, racing to the end of the beach, to where the sand tapers away and the land begins to rise into the cliffs that I see from my bedroom window.
Letya has the lighter horse and she accelerates quickly, glancing back to smirk at me over her shoulder. But I ride harder. Soon I draw level, then overtake. Still, it’s only a narrow lead. So I lean low over Henga’s neck, tightening my knees a little around her girth, urging her forward as loose strands of hair whip around my face. Her hoofs strike the hard, damp sand and every forward plunge jars my whole frame, but I don’t care; the spar of rock that marks the end of the beach is so close now. Almost close enough for me to jump.
Faster now, Henga. Faster –
Henga bucks and twists and rips the reins from my hands, and there’s space surrounding me, and salt spray …
The force of my landing drives the wind out of my lungs, sends stars wheeling across the blackness inside my eyelids.
Silence. Until –
Until I gasp, sucking in air, and the world comes back again.
‘Aderyn?’
Every muscle and bone in my body throbs. When I open my eyes, Letya is crouching above me, her face white. ‘Aderyn, are you hurt?’
‘Um …’ I flex my fingers and toes. ‘Just bruised, I think.’ The ache in my shoulder makes me flinch. ‘What happened?’
‘A sand mole. It shot up right in front of Henga, but I don’t think she’s injured.’ A bit of luck, that – sand moles have fangs as long as my hand. Letya is scanning the ground anxiously. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have come here. And what is Lord Lancelin going to say to me, when he finds out?’
I sit up, wait for the dizziness to pass and try to stand. Too quickly – a bolt of pain shoots the length of my leg and sends me sprawling.
‘Aderyn …’ Letya holds out her hands. ‘Here, let me help you.’
I shake my head. Letya is my best friend – my only friend, in truth – but she is flightless. One of the ruled, not one of the rulers, brought to Merl to be my attendant after my mother died. And I cannot safely touch her. Anything but the lightest brush of my skin against hers could hurt her. ‘No. Not unless you have some spare gloves.’
My companion stiffens and huffs with irritation. ‘Of course I do.’ She pulls a pair of gloves from her pocket and drops them into my lap. ‘Your Grace.’
I ignore her sudden attack of formality and drag them on. ‘May I?’
‘Yes! Just hurry up.’
I take hold of her gloved hands, she pulls me upright and, though I’m gritting my teeth with pain, I manage to limp to a large flattish rock nearby.
‘I’ll get help.’ Letya wags a finger at me. ‘Don’t move, Aderyn, please. I’m going to be in enough trouble as it is.’
An unnecessary injunction; other parts of me are beginning to hurt almost as much as my leg. Letya and the horses are soon out of sight, so I switch my attention to the sea. The tide has turned. I try to distract myself from the pain by counting the seconds between each ebb and flow, thinking about the phases of the moon and the tidal bore on the River Rythe, in the west of our dominion; my father took me to see it once, many years ago. I don’t notice the heavy grey clouds creeping across the sky, and the first fat drops of rain take me by surprise. There’s still no sign of Letya. No sign of anything much: the beach seems oddly quiet, missing the usual flocks of sandpipers and true gulls. Wincing, I shift position, wondering where the birds have gone, wondering whether the sea will reach this rock before my rescuers –
Shock jolts me back to the present. To the inexplicable, impossible solidity of a rock dragon, lurking in the cool darkness at the foot of the cliff, its marbled grey-and-white scales blending into the background.
I hold my breath. Try not to blink.
Perhaps the creature hasn’t seen me: its yellow eyes are sunken, rheumy, and it twists its head as if it can’t quite focus. It looks old, and more than half starved. But it could still crush me. Or rip me to shreds. Even its blood is toxic, supposedly. And yet … The creature stirs in the shadows, and the faint chime of metal on metal tells me my eyes aren’t deceiving me. Someone has put an iron collar around the dragon’s neck; a broken length of chain dangles towards the ground.
The path to the top of the cliffs is about five wing-spans away. Maybe I could crawl. Or maybe … Maybe I could transform. That’s what I should try to do. I have no weapon. The dragon’s scales are doubtless too thick for the creature to be hurt by my touch while I’m in human form. But as a swan, the power that runs beneath my skin is hugely magnified. And of course, I could fly away –
Too late. The sun breaks through the clouds, lighting up the rock on which I’m perched. The dragon sees me. Drops forward into a crouch. And as it begins thundering across the sand, and I sit there, paralysed by fear, some part of my brain starts screaming at me, cursing my own stupidity: would I really prefer to die here than shift my shape?
Apparently so. As the creature bears down on me I can do nothing but stare, mesmerised, at the strands of saliva dripping in anticipation from its huge jaws –
The black-feathered bird – a rook or a crow, I think – drops out of nowhere. Not a true crow – the bird’s massive wing-span, the size of its outstretched claws, proclaim it to be a shape-shifter. The dragon feels the force of the crow’s approach and skids round, bellowing in discomfort seconds before the crow first rakes its talons across the creature’s back. Again and again the shape-shifter strikes, gouging the dragon’s eyes, tearing its armoured hide, while the dragon snaps its jaws in vain, closing only on empty space. As the air fills with a mist of blood and the dragon’s screams get louder and louder, I cover my ears and screw my eyes shut –
A thump – the earth shakes – followed by silence.
‘You can open your eyes now.’ The voice of a young man. But not one I recognise, even when I look at him. He’s walking towards me, his feet stained red. I switch my gaze carefully to his upper half and I’m surprised – and embarrassed – by a flutter of admiration in the pit of my stomach. The boy’s shoulders are broad, his chest and arms contoured: the result of much time on the wing, despite the fact that he can only be a little older than me. He’s pale, for a member of one of the corvid families. But his hair and his eyes are a deep, iridescent blue-black. When he draws nearer, I see that there’s an arrogance to his expression, as if he is well aware of his worth. ‘Are you injured?’
‘My horse threw me, and my leg –’