Free The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas

Knight-Marshal?’
    Nastria kept her eyes to the ground. ‘Your alchemist and a pair of sell-swords, Your Holiness. They were on the ground with the Scales and your white dragon when the attack came.’
    ‘Did they see who did it?’
    Nastria shook her head. ‘No, Your Holiness.’
    A savage impulse gripped Shezira. She drew a knife and put its edge against the bare skin at the back of Lady Nastria’s neck.
    ‘Have you asked them how they dare still to be alive when my dragons are dead?’
    ‘Your Holiness, there is little—’
    ‘ Have you asked? ’ she roared.
    ‘No, Your Holiness.’ Nastria shook her head very slightly. Shezira felt the hand that gripped the knife urging her to bite into flesh.
    ‘Who chose the dragon-riders to escort my white, Knight-Marshal? ’
    ‘I did, Your Holiness.’
    ‘Who brought in those sell-swords?’
    ‘I did, Your Holiness.’
    ‘Who chose the route? Who chose the numbers of dragons that would fly? Who said that I should not fly my white to the palace for fear of what Hyram might do to her?’
    There was a pause. ‘I chose the route, Your Holiness.’
    ‘Who said I should not take my white to Speaker Hyram’s eyrie?’
    Nastria didn’t reply.
    ‘Answer me, Knight-Marshal, or I will have your head here and now.’
    ‘Then have it, Your Holiness, for that idea was yours, not mine.’
    Shezira froze. For a second she seemed to go numb. Then she withdrew the knife. ‘Yes. It was, wasn’t it? And you chose the riders, but I would have chosen the same. I wouldn’t have sent sell-swords, but I don’t suppose they stole my dragon. Very well. Someone has betrayed me, Knight-Marshal, and they will die for this. Get up.’
    Nastria rose. She was shaking, Shezira saw. Good. You should be.
    ‘I will find them, Your Holiness.’
    ‘Yes. You will. Now where is my daughter?’
    ‘Lystra is at Drotan’s Top under guard.’ Nastria frowned, confused for a moment. ‘As you ordered. With the supplies and as many riders as we could spare.’
    ‘Not her. Jaslyn.’
    ‘Flying guard, Your Holiness.’ They both looked up at the dragons circling overhead.
    ‘Get her down. I wish to speak with her.’
    Shezira looked blankly around her as her knight-marshal stumbled off. They were in the middle of nowhere, in some piece of wilderness that could have been claimed by any one of three kings, but in reality wasn’t claimed by any. The steep sides of the valley were covered in trees with nowhere for dragons to land except the river. No one lived out here.
    Two kings and a speaker. Valgar, Valmeyan and Hyram. Any one of them could have flown dragons here and no one would have known. I should add Aliphera’s heir as well. All she’d have to do is skirt Drotan’s Top, which is hardly a difficult thing to do. But which one of them did this?
    She dismissed Valgar at once, since there was no way he’d be able to hide a white dragon without either her or Almiri finding out about it. Hyram then? She’d mistrusted him enough that she hadn’t brought the white to the Adamantine Palace. The old Hyram, he might have done something like this...
    But . . .
    She shook her head, trying not to think of the broken and pathetic thing that had masqueraded as Speaker of the Realms. Maybe not Hyram. This new Queen Zafir? Audacious, perhaps, to start a war within days of gaining your crown, but she wouldn’t be the first. Or Valmeyan, the King of the Crags?
    She paced back and forth. Valmeyan. Yes. Easy to hurl the blame at a reclusive king who hadn’t left his mountain strong-holds for more than twenty years and showed no interest in the affairs of the other realms. Not so easy to prove, though, and not so easy to exact retribution against a king who has more dragons than any other two of us put together . Shezira snorted. She didn’t even know where Valmeyan’s eyrie was. One rumour said far to the south, close to the sea and King Tyan’s realm. Another rumour said it was much closer, near the