The firedrake’s eyes smoldered, her beautiful voice growing tighter, more harsh.

“Lynex declared himself king of wyrms and cousin to dragons. Master of fire he styled himself, porting coals about in a golden bowl. My mother awoke at last and roused her kith to drive the wyrms away. Lynex fled, and all his poisonous tribe. We trusted winter’s cold aboveground to kill them—but they huddled about their king’s firebowl and escaped to trouble your tribe as once they had troubled my own. My dam held herself responsible for this wrong. It weighed upon her, and upon my people. Four hundred years have we lain in contemplation since, considering how best to fashion a remedy.”

“Remedy?” Jan asked. “Have you discovered one?”

The dragon queen turned. “To understand that, Firebrand,” she answered, “you must understand my kind.” Again she shrugged, at once both languid and restless. “Behold my wings. My mother was already well into her prime, as we dragons count time, her wings long shed, when your late princess’s scouts arrived.”

The dark prince listened as Wyzásukitán’s folded wings rustled softly, shifting.

“She had flown her mating flight a hundred years previous and would lay eggs from that tryst to the end of her days. She had no wings anymore, nor had any other of her kith, for as you may know, among my kind, only the queen and her consort ever breed. My mother’s consort had long since flown. They always do, after the nuptial flight. Where a queen’s consort flies, we do not know, for none ever return. We are a female race. A male is born among us only once in a thousand years.”

Before him, the great dragon’s voice warmed, gentled.

“They are black, these firedrakes, most beautiful to behold. My own consort is so much younger than I,” murmured Wyzásukitán. “My mother hatched him only shortly before she died. He will not be ready to fly for three centuries yet. So darksome fair, he will make the perfect sire to all my progeny. My wings, how they ache from disuse! They are ready now, and I long to try them.”

Realization jolted Jan. “Your…your consort,” he stammered. “He is your sib? Your own mother’s child?”

The dragon queen flexed her massive, bat-form wings. “Of course. It is always thus among dragons.”

A bitter taste rose in Jan’s mouth. He thought of Tek, his late sire’s own uncounted daughter, Korr’s first, unspoken child. Wary of offending the dragon queen, Jan swallowed hard. Yet such a union as she described was unconscionable among his own folk, even if his and Tek’s pledge had been undertaken innocently, neither knowing Tek’s secret parentage. Yet once done, it could never be undone: Dhattar and Aiony were the living proof. Shaken, Jan found his tongue.

“You say Lynex, too, bred with his own kin?” The thought repulsed him.

Again Wyzásukitán nodded. “As did your own scouts upon their arrival here.”

“What?” cried Jan, shocked. “How do you mean?”

Ever so subtly, the dragon queen cocked her head. “There were only two,” she answered quietly, “two that remained. They have had no contact with others of your folk these four hundred years. How did you imagine they had multiplied if at first sib had not pledged with sib?”

Jan’s mind reeled. He felt his knees lock. How was it he had not deduced something so obvious? Inbreeding explained the striking resemblance among all Oro’s folk: modest stature, stocky build, dark roan or dapple coats, those odd, half-standing manes. Jan shook himself, staggered. Numbly, he strove to collect himself, to bring his awareness back to the firedrake’s lair. He opened his mouth to speak. But the dragon queen spoke first.

“Your thoughts return to your Vale, I see,” she said, “and to those you cherish there. Come.” She bowed her head to the chamber’s floor. “Gaze into me, and you will see what is and is to be.”

Jan breathed deeply, trying to clear his head. Shaken still, he approached the dragon queen. Her mouth was easily great enough to engulf him in a single snap, yet he felt no fear, only his own turmoil roiling within. Despite her reptilian shape, he doubted somehow that dragons ate flesh. Steaming, her fragrant breath enveloped him. Her enormous, ruby-colored eye watched him as he leaned to peer into the dark pool of her brow.

Tek stood in the entryway to the cave, gazing off across the Vale. Equinox was upon them. Brief summer had run its course. Soon days would last shorter than the nights. The tang of fall seasoned the air, though the grass grew green, not yet goldening, and evenings had not turned chill. Tek watched the long shadow of the Vale’s sunward side advancing toward the far sunlit slope. Unicorns still grazed the hillsides, or ramped and frolicked on the valley floor.

The pied mare stood keenly aware that all she surveyed she beheld for the last time in season. Never again would she gaze upon the Vale on summer’s ending day, autumn’s eve. Come spring—whether or not her mate had returned—she and the herd must depart for the Hallow Hills. The creeping shadows overtaking the Vale advanced. Tek sighed, longing for Jan, heart filled with something akin to despair. Neither he nor she had expected his absence to stretch so long. Jan’s chasing his crazed sire had only achieved what Korr had striven toward all along: to part her from her mate and him from her.

The pied mare set her teeth. She loathed the dark king with all her fury. Though as a filly and young half-grown she had enjoyed his high favor—exactly why, she had never known—she had always mistrusted him, kept her distance. About the time of his son’s initiation, she and Jan had become shoulder-friends, and still the dark king had smiled his approval. Only when Jan had grown old enough to eye the mares had the king’s mood inexplicably darkened—though never toward Tek, only toward his son. She had steered well clear of Korr then, never dallying with the young prince before his father’s eyes.

Still, she never could have imagined the king’s rage upon her return from the Summer Sea when he learned of the sacred pledge she and Jan had shared, a vow unshakable in Alma’s eyes. The king had railed wildly against her then. When her burgeoning belly made plain that she was in foal, the dark stallion’s ravings tipped into madness, and he had sought her death. Fleeing the Vale, she had taken refuge with her then-outcast dam, Jah-lila, who had used sorcery to defend her and midwive her young.

Again the pied mare breathed deep, the bare hint of a smile quirking her mouth. How the world had turned since then: now Korr was the hated outcast, Jah-lila the honored insider, advisor to the prince. Tek herself had returned in triumph, her eminence second only to that of her mate. Quietly, she studied the darkening Vale, which she had ruled all summer as prince’s regent. The herd trusted her, gladly followed her word. She had won their respect on her own merits. That she was daughter to the red wych and dam to the prince’s heirs only enhanced her station.

Tek’s smile slipped, faded. A frown of frustration wrinkled her brow. Where was he? Where was her belovèd Jan? Weeks had passed since the scouts she had sent had brought back any useful news. At first, when summer had been new, she had waited. But when, after three days her mate had not returned, she had dispatched runners into the Pan Woods to look for him and his quarry. Her foster sisters, the young pans Sismoomnat and Pitipak, had set forth as well. All had returned with tales of Korr’s senseless terrorizing of the Wood. It had taken weeks for Tek to reparley the peace with all the goatling tribes.

She had realized then that Jan dared not return unsuccessful. The goatlings expected—indeed had demanded, and she confidently promised—that the dark marauder be captured and punished for his trespass against the unicorn’s allies. The pied mare shook her head. She had never considered herself a diplomat. She had none of Jan’s glib grace, his quick understanding. Still, she had evidently succeeded, for the pans had held their truce and agreed to wait the outcome of the prince’s quest.