Free The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas Page A

dragons Shezira was resigned. The white was gone. By now she could be anywhere. One day she would find who had done this and there would be blood and fire and pain, but for now her perfect white was lost.
    One little thing troubled her, as they turned their faces back towards the south, towards King Tyan and Prince Jehal, towards Furymouth and the sea. They never found the body of the Scales.

12
     
    Lystra
     

    'At last!'
    Jehal yawned and stretched. He'd taken to sleeping through part of the afternoons, simply as a way to make the time pass. Queen Shezira and her flight had been expected five days ago. Dutifully, albeit at the last possible minute, he'd left behind the pleasures of his father's palace in Furymouth and ridden to the eyrie at Clifftop to greet her. Except she hadn't come, and the eyrie was a full day on horseback from the city, and there was absolutely nothing to do except look at his dragons and listen to the noise of the waves crashing against the cliffs.
    He'd been on the point of going back, but now the Queen of the North had finally arrived. Either that, or someone else was flying thirty-odd dragons towards his eyrie.
    Maybe it was more alchemists. As he dressed himself, he smiled. Hyram had sent twelve of them, including the old sorcerer himself, Bellepheros. They were crawling all over his eyrie, dragging in his men, his riders, his soldiers, his servants, his Scales, even their own kind, the alchemists who served King Tyan's dragons. Every day Jehal made a point of going to watch them at their work. Every day they took a few dozen of his people and filled their lungs with truth-smoke. They asked their questions: What do you know about Queen Aliphera's death? Do you know how she died? Did you have any part in it? Every day they got the same answers. They were so sure of themselves, and yet, in the days since they'd arrived, they'd found out nothing. When he was watching them, Jehal would smile a lot and ask how else he might be of help, and try to not to laugh at the frustration on their faces. In a few more days they'd be done with the eyrie and would move on to the palace at Furymouth. It was an intolerable imposition, of course, but one that was almost worth bearing simply to watch them fail.
    The speaker's alchemists had almost unlimited power, but there were a few things they weren't permitted to do. Inflict their potions on someone of royal blood, for example. Which was a pity for them, since unless they were going to conjure up Aliphera's ghost and question her, that was the only way they were going to find out what had happened. Jehal had put a great deal of thought and effort into Aliphera's death, and so there was a certain pleasure to be had in watching the alchemists flounder.
    But only to a point. Having them here was also a humiliation, an insult that couldn't be ignored and for which Hyram would have to pay.
    Jehal pulled on his boots and looked at himself in a mirror, carefully adjusting his clothes to make sure everything was exactly as it should be. He couldn't really complain, he thought. This business with the alchemists would just make him feel that bit more justified in doing what he'd been going to do anyway.
    There. He was shrewd enough to see through his own vanity, and he could cut a dashing figure when he wanted to. He nodded to himself in the mirror and walked briskly away, to the stairs that would take him down to the landing fields. It wasn't going to be enough to simply murder Hyram, he decided. Something more was called for. Some sort of vivisection, that would be more like it.
    He marched out through the gaping doors of Clifftop and into the open air. Hundreds of soldiers were running to their positions, forming up into wedge-shaped phalanxes. Jehal wasn't sure whether this was supposed to be a show of strength or a display of respect. He ignored them, as he was sure Queen Shezira would do, and looked up. Dozens of dragons were circling overhead. Four were already