The dragons looked surprisingly different from one another. In addition to the red dragon Tamri had met before, there was a small sea-green one, a dragon the dark orange of a ripe bitterfruit, and one with slate-gray scales and pale lavender wings. Heath’s beetle-blue-and-white dragon was the largest of the five, and it carried itself with a certain dignity suggesting it was their leader.
Heath climbed down from its back, wearing a forbidding expression. He scowled at the spear-carrying guards until he spotted the princess among them. His eyes happened to meet Tamri’s, and his frown deepened.
“I’m afraid he was up all night, calming the dragons after your little adventure yesterday,” Selivia whispered in her ear. “He’s really much nicer than he looks.”
Tamri doubted that, but she was more worried about the dragons themselves. Yesterday’s “little adventure” hadn’t made her eager to mount another one anytime soon.
“Are we riding them the whole way?” she asked, striving for a nonchalant tone.
“Yes, isn’t it wonderful?”
The princess released her arm and went over to speak with Heath. He responded to her greeting with polite formality, and the princess’s smile became a little strained, as if she was struggling to maintain her cheery disposition. Tamri hung back from the pair, having just made eye contact with the red dragon she’d absconded with the previous day. It glowered at her worse than Gramma Teall in a strop and kept its jaws tightly shut, as if it suspected she might try to seize its Watermight stash again.
Tamri edged away from the creature, though there wasn’t much room with five dragons and all the guards and Waterworkers gathered on the narrow walkway. The other dragons and their uniformed riders—two men and two women—paid no attention to her. The creatures shuffled along the battlements, talons scraping, eager to be off at once.
The red dragon was still glaring at Tamri, rustling its feathers like a self-important rooster. She took another step back. Then a large, beringed hand landed on her shoulder.
Tamri jolted in surprise, realizing whom the hand belonged to just in time to keep from swatting it away.
“We meet again.” King Khrillin’s voice hummed dangerously in her ear. “Remember: you are not to speak of our little arrangement to anyone. The Watermight Oath will sense it if you try.”
Tamri’s neck went numb, and she felt that invisible icy collar around her throat for an instant.
“I know the rules,” she said, unable to keep the defiance from her tone.
“Excellent.” The heavy hand disappeared from her shoulder. Then Khrillin raised his voice and spread his arms wide. “Princess, Princess. I am so sorry to see you go. May you have safe travels, and do give my regards to your family.”
“It has been a pleasure, King Khrillin.” The princess smiled with something short of her earlier brightness. She adjusted the leather satchel on her back, and Tamri got the sense that she was eager to be gone from this place. They had that in common.
“Shall I carry your greetings to my betrothed?”
Khrillin’s nostrils flared. “Ah yes. It has been some time since I’ve seen young Lord Latch.” He didn’t sound as if he’d enjoyed the experience. “I wish you joy of him.”
“Thank you.” The princess studied Khrillin, her expression troubled, then she spun away from him. “Let’s go, Tamri,” she sang. “You’re riding with me today. Mav won’t bite.”
“Mav?”
“That’s him now. Please don’t be alarmed.”
Selivia pointed to the low-hanging clouds. Tamri scanned the expanse, expecting a sixth dragon like the others. But this time when the skies opened, a massive creature thrice the size of Heath’s beetle-blue mount swooped toward them.
This dragon had no feathers whatsoever. Its scaly body was deep green, its vast leathery wings as black as a bat’s. Cruel black spines crowned its reptilian head, and it moved with a deadly grace that made the feathered dragons seem cuddly by comparison.
The guards and Waterworkers gasped, and even Khrillin took a careful step back. This dragon was so big there was no space for it on the wall. It glided over their heads, casting a vast shadow and making Tamri’s spine tingle.
Selivia waved cheerfully at the great creature as it swooped away to fly around the circumference of the King’s Tower.
“There’s no room for him to land. Come on!” Selivia tugged Tamri forward a few paces then released her to scramble up on the low battlement wall. She teetered above the precipice, wisps of her curly hair floating on the breeze.
“Get ready to jump.”
Tamri froze. “What?”
“Now!”
As the dragon swooped suddenly below the battlements, the princess leapt from the wall and landed astride its back. Tamri gaped as the huge dragon soared into the air, the princess’s tinkling laughter trailing them. The wind from his huge wings blew Tamri’s hair straight back from her face, and she nearly toppled backward. Does the princess really expect me to—
“He’ll come around for another pass,” said someone with a gruff voice nearby. Heath had joined her at the battlements. “Don’t make him do a third loop. He’s not as accommodating for anyone except the princess.”
“But—”
“Here he comes.” Heath put his hands around Tamri’s waist and hoisted her onto the low wall as if she weighed no more than a sack of fish. “Don’t be scared. She’ll catch you.”
“I’m not scared,” Tamri hissed, feeling terrified.
“Then jump.” And he gave her a push just as the massive dragon glided beneath the wall a second time.
Tamri plummeted through the air with a strangled yelp and landed hard on the scaled back, pitching over the dragon’s other side as her bag of belongings swung wide. Princess Selivia grabbed her arm to keep her from falling off and helped her find her balance. There was no comfortable way to perch on the huge dragon’s back. Tamri managed to get one leg on either side and—with nothing else to hold on to—clutched the princess’s leather satchel in front of her.
The princess shouted something, and Tamri had to scoot closer to hear her.
“What?”
“I said, ‘Isn’t he marvelous?’”
“Yes, Princess,” Tamri managed.
The princess shouted into the wind, and Tamri had to ask her to repeat herself.
“I said, ‘Call me Sel’! No need for that princess business in the air.”
Tamri supposed they couldn’t stand on ceremony when they were already in such a precarious position. She clung tighter to the other girl, her worries about offending her forgotten.
She was glad she hadn’t put on her mother’s boots. Her bare feet made it easier to grip the dragon’s sides. Its body felt hot through the scales, as if lit with an inner fire. Tamri remembered when Pel had told her dragons with feathers didn’t breathe fire. She’d be willing to bet this one did.
Mav took them on another fast lap around the King’s Tower. The rising sun flashed off the canals, and shocked faces turned upward from nearby barges and bridges. As Mav completed the circuit and passed the group on the wall again, Tamri caught one final glimpse of Khrillin gazing up at them, a dangerous glint in his eyes.