“Well, little darkling.” She was hard-pressed, but she mocked him still. Her claws took powerful sweeps at Tek and Dagg. “So it is only you and I now, again.”

Her breath came short, though her eyes were jeering. The smallest head continued to shriek.

“Your friends fight well—but even if they kill both my little heads, you will still have me to deal with.”

From the tail of her eye, Jan glimpsed the whipping and coiling of the wyvern’s necks. Tek and Dagg were being shaken, their forehooves lifted from the ground.

“Yield to me. You cannot win.” The wyvern held her main head high, just out of reach. She laughed. “Betray your friends—now, Aljan, before I shake them off.”

The smoke of rosehips still mingled in his blood. Despite himself, Jan felt her wordspell taking hold again. Her cut-jewel eyes had fixed on him. Pale, with an inner fire they shone, marvelously, malevolently inviting. And he knew that she was lying; yet it didn’t seem to matter. Jan felt himself growing lost.

“Yield, little princeling. Yield,” she whispered, moving toward him. “Help me to slay your friends. Even these two will be of use to me against my king. And if the prince of the unicorns is lost to me this year—well, perhaps you will stay with me, and we will try another spring.”

Her hollow voice was sweet, soothing. Jan stumbled away from her, and she shook her head.

“Do you think to fly?” She laughed. “You cannot escape. The world’s a Circle, Aljan. You will always come back to me in the end. Come. You know that in a moment you will come….”

Then something slipped underneath Jan’s heel. He felt it give like rotten fruit. A sweet stench filled his nose, and his heel felt suddenly wet and warm. He lost his footing on the slickness, falling. More shells gave under him, cutting his flank. He had stumbled amid the bed of eggs. The realization came to him as he struggled up. Gray globes crowded about his legs.

“My eggs!” the wyvern shrieked. “You fool. Come away. You will breach them!”

She writhed then, fighting toward him. Tek and Dagg held on, bracing to hold her back. Jan kicked at the eggs encircling him, tripping his limbs—he could get no footing. He plunged, trampling, but could not get free. The ground here was a shallow dish, and new eggs rolled constantly about him.

“Stop!” cried the wyrm. “You have killed my fire. Leave me my eggs.”

She shook herself, furiously. Tek lost her grip and was thrown. The white wyrm staggered Dagg with a blow. He dropped her head; his legs folded. Jan hardly marked it. He stood astonished, the sick-sweet savor choking him. All about him lay fragments of egg. Broken shell ground underneath his heels. His legs were wet to hock and knee. Only one egg remained unbreached. The wyvern lunged for it. Jan sprang between her and the egg.

“Let me have it,” screamed the wyrm. “What good is it to you?”

“Wyverns!” Jan thundered back at her, and it was his new voice again, resonant and strong. “I know your kind to the marrow of the bone—for you have been in my head for a long time now, uninvited guest. Did you think I would not know the things that tempt a wyvern?”

He felt the egg against his fetlock and kicked it very gently—not enough to breach it, only enough to make it roll. He kicked it again, carefully, backing toward the near wall and keeping his eye on the white wyrm the whole time; for a stratagem had come to him.

The wyvern slithered after him. Beyond her in the dimness he saw Tek getting unsteadily to her feet, Dagg shaking his head as though stunned. Jan came up against the wall behind the wyvern’s nest, and held the egg between his hind heel and the stone.

“Give it to me,” the wyvern said.

“What will it buy me if I do?” Jan asked her, quietly. His limbs trembled and he was breathing hard; but despite it all, he felt strangely lightheaded—for he had her, had her in his teeth now like a pard, and that sure sense of his power made him flush. He met the wyvern’s eye. “What will your last egg buy?”

The wyvern watched him, shifting uneasily. Her third head flopped weakly, whimpering. Her second head gasped, bleeding from the gills.

“Name what you would have,” the wyrm queen spat. “Your freedom. Your companions’ lives—your father’s life. Give me the egg, and I will say nothing, will not raise the alarm till you are clear of these dens.”

“I did not come here of my own will,” murmured Jan. A quiet rage was filling him. The egg felt smooth and fragile beneath his heel. “You brought me here with a spell of fire. All my life you have troubled me, till the wild mare had to sing away my dreams, the good ones with the bad….”

The wyvern strained, writhing. Her fingers clawed her belly scales. “You have had your vengeance, and more,” she cried. “My fire, my golden god is gone. All my little prits but one. Leave me that. Only that. And go.”

Jan shook his head. He could not trust her. He felt the slight give of the shell beneath his hoof. The wyvern’s breath hissed, trembling. The prince’s son snorted. “The word of a wyvern is as good as a lie.”

“How might I pursue you or give the alarm?” the wyvern demanded. “I must hide the egg before it hatches. With only one left, I dare not risk discovery. The king must never….” She broke off angrily. “Give it to me. You must. Give it to me now.”

Jan stood three-legged, eyeing her. Behind her, Dagg had gotten to his feet. Head up, Tek glanced at him, at Jan, at the wyrm. Her hoof dug a shallow scratch on the crystalline floor. Jan motioned her back from the wyvern queen.

“You might have spared yourself,” he said, “if only you had let me be. Your eggs, your fire would still be yours. I did not ask to come here.”

The wyvern hissed. Behind, Tek was moving too slowly.

“Tek, Dagg, get to the entryway.”

The young warrior glanced at Dagg. Still he stood, shaking his head.

“Now,” barked Jan.

Tek turned to Dagg and shouldered him. They circled toward the entry. The wyrm’s heads turned, watching them, her eyes blazing. Jan took his heel from the egg and moved aside. Tek and Dagg were at the door.

“The egg is yours,” Jan told her, halfway to the entry now himself. “Take it and use it as you will against your king. I am a unicorn. The games of wyrms are nothing to me.”

The wyvern’s heads snapped back around. Her main head’s eyes bored into his. Those of her second fixed on the egg. She drew breath fiercely.

“Godkiller,” she muttered at him. “Hoofed monster. Murderer.”

He saw her body begin to shift, the hindquarters bunching, and cavaled, nervously, aware that she was planning something but not quite sure what. Though the wall still crowded him, he was out of reach of her teeth now, even if she lunged. But he dared not take his eyes from hers. Her wounded head wailed shrilly. The others hissed and gargled.

“The stings,” he heard Tek cry out suddenly. “Jan, the stings!”

The wyvern twisted her lower half. He heard the sweep of scales across the floor, glimpsed the long tail lashing. There was no retreat, no room to run—the wall was at his back. He sprang hard forward, the only way she had left to him—and the sting-barbs whipped beneath his hooves.

He closed his eyes, ducking his head. His knees and forehead collided with the wyrm. She shrieked. His brow burned in a thin arc of soreness where the firebowl had touched it. He did not realize at first that his fire-tempered horn had pierced the bone of the wyvern’s breast.

The claws of the wyrm’s fingers raked his cheek. Jan struggled free; he stumbled back. The white wyrm reared up, up, looming above them all like a massive white tree—and then she toppled, pitching forward. The three of them shied and scattered. And as the dead wyvern came to earth, her third head struck the last egg, pashing it.

Jan found himself standing panting by Dagg. The two of them stared at the fallen wyrm. It lay quivering, the necks twisting and twining still while the tail thrashed madly, like a murdered snake. Jan turned away. He shuddered. He felt battered, bruised to the bone. Beside him he saw Dagg champing his teeth as though they ached.