“How are you feeling?” Anzi needn’t have asked. Letti’s sunken eyes and inability to get up when she had entered was indication enough, but on the other hand, she looked far better than she had before. Just yesterday, there had still been hints of bruises around her arms, but they were now as pale as ever as they lay folded on her chest over the sheets. Indeed, she looked almost at ease if not for the more obvious signs of her condition, and the harem girl sent her a beaming smile so sweet it hurt her heart. Too bubbly by far for someone who could have died just days earlier. “Anzi! You’re here.” “I was here yesterday, but you were sleeping.” She grasped the back of the wooden chair by the wall and dragged it over on its rear legs to Letti’s bedside before sitting on it. “You don’t look well.” The girl clucked her tongue. “Never tell a lady that,” she scolded. “That’s just another way of saying th

The healers were inadequate, making excuses that her injuries were too extensive and greivous for her to get up and move around on her own. They also claimed she needed to waste several more days lying in bed and doing nothing at all. And these were supposed to be the best in all the Imperial City? Pathetic. It was the only time she wished she were surrounded by those more adept in magic. Damn them. She had expected to be back on her feet already. Experienced healers, her ass. Two more days! Two, even with her constitution, they said, and she was going to have to continue relying on others to care for Netra. Whoever was responsible for the task had not revealed themselves, nor had they brought the dragon to her. But she couldn’t be surprised. Netra was probably terrorizing them according to her ways and would scarcely tolerate being toted around by strangers. All the more reason that she needed these healers to do their job. But on the sixth morning aft

She had talked. When was anyone going to tell Anzi that not only did dragons speak, but they could also barge into someone’s mind to do so? She had thought before that a rider and their dragon must be able to communicate, but she hadn’t dwelled on it ever since learning the Premier enslaved dragons rather than truly bonding with them. Speech! Real speech! Bastien had said nothing about this. Or maybe it was just Netra who was special? She was more clever than full-grown humans by half even though she was still so small. That must be it. Or maybe it was something else entirely. What was it the Emperor had asked her about the wyrm, again…? Whether she had communicated with it. Her heart fluttered as she stared up at the ceiling with the hatchling splayed out next to her, not quite touching but close enough that she could feel each breath Netra took. She’d spoken. She’d spoken in her mind, clearly, unmistakabl

Before departing, Anzi had changed into lightweight desert garb in anticipation of boiling heat, but the sunlight that streamed down over her was more comforting than hot. It had been a long time since she had last trekked this far into the desert, although this wasn’t anywhere near the true deep sands at all. They’d gone no more than twenty kilometers, roughly, and the stallion was still trotting comfortably over the dunes with no signs of tiring. Large, fanned ears flicked this way and that, and over Anzi’s head, the creature’s long, tufted tail did the same, providing both of them shade. Captain Gorien had been telling the truth. This stallion was a remarkable specimen. Well-trained, intelligent, strong, and possessing even greater stamina than its kind typically had. Anzi was sure they could go another twenty kilometers before they had to stop for a rest, and that only because of her own limitations, not the sand horse’s. At least

Netra was furious for a week. She ate well enough, but every time Anzi reached over to pick debris between her scales or examine her claws for chips, she snapped at her, teeth clacking furiously and head twitching this way and that like an angry bird. There was no soothing the young dragon and even when Anzi and Bisset arrived on the back of the colonel’s dragon outside the city of Lumenera, Netra was still refusing anything but the most necessary of handling. There was no way for Anzi to explain why she had had to leave without warning for the desert expedition. It was one of the few times she wished the hatchling would communicate again despite the risk of alerting the colonel. She and Bisset stood at the front gates of the city before a small retinue of men who had come to receive them, mostly soldiers wearing the colors of Lumeneran scarlet. The elderly man at their head wore military garb as well, making her narrow her eyes in skeptical question. T