Free The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas Page B

coming in to land, plummeting towards the landing fields in near-vertical dives. Jehal put Hyram out of his mind; for now he had an entirely more delicious problem to deal with.
    The four dragons unfurled their wings, three slender and elegant hunting dragons and one brutish war-beast. They hit the edge of the landing field hard and at exactly the same time; even at that distance the air shook and the earth trembled under Jehal's feet. All four stood exactly where they had landed without taking a single pace forward. Which, he supposed, was meant to show him how skilled the riders were. Well it doesn't. That's the dragon doing the work, not you. All you're showing me is that your trainers and your Scales are as competent as they ought to be.
    He almost expected to see the four riders slide out of their saddles and march towards him in perfect synchronisation; instead, if anything, they seemed to be arguing.
    Then one of them -- it had to be Queen Shezira -- took the lead and the others fell in behind. Jehal and his eyrie-master, Lord Meteroa, walked out to meet them. In the periphery of Jehal's mind he noted all the other things that were happening: the guards of honour carefully formed up, marching to exactly where they were meant to be, the Scales taking the visiting dragons to the feeding paddocks while the best of his own were lined up for inspection, harnesses and saddles polished and gleaming. None of this mattered at all unless someone made a mistake, and since Meteroa never made mistakes, Jehal largely ignored it. He needed his attention for the queen whose daughter he was about to marry.
    Shezira stopped an instant before Jehal. She met his gaze with a stare of her own. Her eyes weren't exactly cold, he thought, but certainly not warm. And relentless. Above all, that was his impression of her.
    Good. I could do with a decent challenge. He smiled and took one further step. Queen Shezira held out her hand, and Jehal bowed to kiss the ring on her middle finger. As he did, he was already looking past her, at the three woman behind her, who were presumably her daughters. One with a plain flat face, beady little eyes and an angry look, one rather more delicious, clearly the youngest, shy and nervous but not too shy and nervous, peeking back at him through her eyelashes. And the one at the back, who looked the oldest, plain and unassuming, with her eyes cast to the ground and much darker skin than the others. There was something kinetic about that one, as though any at moment she would burst into violent motion. She set Jehal on edge.
    Oh gods and dragons, I hope it's the young one she's here to give me.
    'Queen Shezira.' Jehal bowed again, deeper this time. 'Welcome to Clifftop.'
    He watched her look around. She didn't say anything, but her face told him all he needed to know. Adequate, she was thinking. Adequate. He felt Lord Meteroa bristle behind him. Apparently her face was telling him the same thing.
    He waited. This was where Queen Shezira was supposed to introduce her daughters and he got to find out which one would be sharing his bed before the month was out. And then she was supposed to explain what had taken her so long, and why he'd had to spend days out here when he could have been back in Furymouth, slipping into Queen Zafir's bedchamber every other night and helping himself to an occasional cousin in between.
    Finally, Queen Shezira nodded.
    'We met,' she said, 'a long time ago. When Hyram was made speaker. Do you remember? Your father was showing you off.'
    Jehal smiled and bowed and gritted his teeth. As if I could possibly forget. 'Yes, Your Holiness, I remember very well.'
    Shezira stepped to one side 'This is my middle daughter, Jaslyn.' She was pointing at the plain one. Jehal breathed a small sigh of relief. 'You won't remember her, because she only wanted to stay with the dragons and spent all her time hiding in the palace eyrie.'
    Jaslyn's face tightened a notch. Jehal bowed to her. 'Grown into a most