Illyr did not, of course, fall to him in one battle, as Ith had done.

As Marith had said to Thalia, he didn’t want it to. No mercy. No accepting their surrender. The descendants of the traitors who had defied Amrath. Abandoned Him, turned on Him, torn His watch towers and fortresses down. Killed any number of Marith’s ancestors, saying they would have no more of demon-spawned kings. They wanted to fight for every scrap of ground he would rip from them? Then he’d fight them. Really fight them. Really make them suffer. Every village. Every field. Mageries and gods and magics, they’d throw at him, all the power that had destroyed his ancestors, and he’d show them.

The dragon looked to be even more fun than the shadows. His punishment on them. The way it killed things, the sheer power and weight in it, the glorious utter absurdity, “a dragon killed them,” “my dragon killed them,” “I sent the dragon and it burned them all to ash.” It hated him, bucked beneath his control of it, spoke to him with pain begging to be let free. Loved him. Knew that in him, at last, it had found a thing more terrible than itself. It made him almost ashamed, sometimes. To have something that vast and terrifying bound to his control.

Osen kept suggesting he try to ride it. It didn’t seem an entirely convincing idea.

“Too big.”

“Yes. Kiana said that to me this morning, too.”

They took the town of Thelkek two days after crossing the Nimenest into Illyr. Town: large village, really, low dark houses clustered around a meeting place with twin godstones, horses’ skulls set up on poles around the wooden walls. Little worth taking, and most of the people had fled or been killed already. They rolled over it, pillaged its meagre store rooms for a feast day, set up the remaining inhabitants in a pile between the godstones, a pyramid of flopping, thrashing, weeping meat. Some of the men made victory offerings there: honey, beer, coins, blood. His grandfather must have come this way, from the look of the maps and thinking about the way the roads went. An Ithishman who claimed to have lived in Illyr said he could take them out to the site of a skirmish where Nevethyn had set up a marker to his dead.

“Did Amrath ever come here?” Marith asked the man.

“This is Amrath’s own kingdom, My Lord King. Everywhere in Illyr, Amrath went.”

“Yes, well, obviously. But … did He come here? This particular place? Leave anything? Do anything?” An inscription, a statue, a pokey ruined backwater border post. After hurried discussion with a local girl one of the sarriss captains had taken a fancy to, a crack was found on the larger of the godstones made by a kick from Amrath’s horse. Marith stood and contemplated it, awed.

“Too big,” said Osen.

“Shush. Don’t ruin it.”

“What’s that sound I hear? Could it be someone hurriedly hammering a crack in a stone?”

“Shush!”

Osen produced a wineflask from his belt and poured a libation over the crack, soaking a posy of flowers someone had left in offering beneath. “Elenaneikth Ansikanderakane Amrakane. This broken stone a holy relic of the passage of the World Conqueror, whose favour I invoke.” He grinned at Marith. “Send for your horse and get it to give this a big hard old kick.”

The country opened up in beauty as they marched further into Illyr, harder and harsher than the Ithish forests or the wheat fields of Seneth, drawn out across the earth in fierce stark lines of green and black. It reminded Marith of the statue of Serelethe in the Amrath Chapel of Malth Elelane, the terrible, cruel beauty of the mother of Amrath’s face. One could see why the Whites had seemed a new world of comfort to the grieving Eltheia. Grasses stretched thin over black soil, high fells like armour, narrow valleys running with silver water, sheer crags where only birds could reach. This country, Marith thought, this is what made me. Ruined by ancient battles, wild and empty, forcing his ancestors to wildness, until they had to call upon demons to help them survive. The beauty of the light on the grass pained him, shadows of clouds moving across the lines of the hilltops, the flash of a distant river, green slopes falling into black hollows, grey stone that gleamed in the sun. At night the sky was vast as thinking, an eternity of stars. For this, Serelethe had offered herself to the demons. For this, Amrath had been born. My kingdom, he thought. Mine. Marith Altrersyr, King Ruin, King of Death, King of Shadows, dragon kin, dragon killer, dragonlord. Amrath returned. If Illyr had been rich in wheat and wood and cattle, a wealthy land of great cities and ten times a thousand hulking meat-fed men, I would not be what I am.

Things were … easier, between himself and Thalia. The beauty of the country cheered her, she enjoyed riding again beside him at the head of the columns, enjoyed watching the world. The longer days pleased her, the long blue evening light. They stopped a few days to rest; they went out together alone, explored the country. He swore to her no more hatha. She smiled, knowing he lied but thanking him. Embraced him with a new fierceness to her. “I love you,” she told him as they made love. “I love you, Marith.” Her voice was strange, choked and savage. But she’d never said that she loved him as they made love before.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her.

“You should be.”

Ashamed. So sick with shame. Everything in you, you destroy, Marith.

But not her. Not her. Please.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me. Please.”

She rolled over, sat up with her hair shimmering around her. “I should have told you, about meeting Landra Relast. Poor woman. I pitied her, Marith, that’s all. She looked so broken, so cold. You destroyed her whole family, Marith. I thought I owed her that. Some little scrap that I could give her, at least stop her from freezing in the snow. Let her eat. Things she did not give to me. But I should have told you.”

And the gestmet, Thalia? The god that tried to kill me? Landra’s friend? Should you have told me about that?

He said, “I’m sorry about Tyrenae. I should not have done it.”

I don’t regret it, he thought. Like my mother’s body, Ti’s body, it could not remain unburied to reproach me. Watch me. My heart was broken there.

Thalia took him into her arms. He heard her breath. The beating of her heart. Her heart was beating very fast.

“I know, Marith,” she said.

Alleen had a party for them that night in his tent, crowned them with bronze flowers more delicate and fragile than real living blooms. Osen and Alleen and Kiana and all, toasting them, smiling at them. There was a singer, a girl from the White Isles with a clear sweet voice. They both got very drunk, laughed together, Thalia kissed him and her eyes were heavy with lust. “Get back to your tent, you two,” Alleen shouted at them. Their friends carried them there like a bride and bridegroom, a weaving procession of singing and torchlight.

“I forgive you,” she said the next morning. “Now go away and let me sleep. Or stop the army marching. My head hurts too much to quarrel any more.”

“Lightweight. Do you need me to bring you a jewelled bucket to puke in?”

She groaned. “And I said your divine blood had no importance.”

I think I understand, he thought sometimes, why my father did what he did. Killed my mother, my real mother. If indeed he did kill her. Why he married Elayne so soon after my mother’s death.

“I know a very good hangover cure …” he said.

I’ll give Alleen half my kingdom, he thought. For giving me this one happiness back.

Onwards. Dark hills rose around them, steep and jagged, yellow with gorse. Wild goats and wild horses, picking their way over steep crags. Strawberries grew in great profusion in the shelter of the rocks. Blackthorn trees laden with sloes. A waterfall tore through a hillside, plunged down into a valley that was white with human bones. The land was empty of people. The Illyians all gone and fled.

“Up there.” Yanis Stansel pointed to a high felltop, black against the sky. It was crested, at its very top, with a huge cairn. On two sides the curve of the rock fell away sharply, a natural rampart. Lower down the slope, the remains of what might once have been stone walls.

“What is it?” Marith’s skin prickled. This was something of Amrath’s. A fortress guarding the pass through towards the city of Ethalden. Walls built at His own command.

“The Watch Tower of Irulth Kelurel, My Lord King. You see, to the left, where the hill falls away, the walls on that outcrop of rock? One of the beacons Serelethe built to bring news of Amrath’s victories, I think. And that cairn at the top … I think it must be the tomb of the magelord Nevet himself.”

Ah, gods … To see it! Actually to see it! To imagine the beacon relit, the walls raised, manned again with his banner flying proud at their top!

“Fetch the queen,” Marith said eagerly. “We will ride up and see.”

They had to scramble the last bit on foot, so steep was the slope. Close to, the walls were enormous, blocks of stone taller than a man, unweathered, their sides as clean and sharp as the day they were cut. A spring flowing into a carved basin, what looked to be store houses, the remains of a gateway, its lintel carved with dragons gnawing at their own tails. Huge fire-blackened roof timbers, carved with faces and horses’ heads.

“Nevet raised it with a song,” said Marith. “He sang and the hills shattered and the tower was raised. Amrath lay here a night with Eltheia, when He brought her back in triumph as His bride. Nevet died here, killed by the traitor Imarayre who one of Amrath’s own captains, when the people of Illyr rose up in rebellion at the end. Ah, gods, beloved! To see it! To stand here!”

At the very top the wind whipped Thalia’s hair up, so that she seemed doubled in height. Their cloaks made a noise like wings. The cairn rose before them, a rough pile of white rocks. Marith put out his hand to touch it. It felt warm, like dry skin.

“Nevet …” Thalia was shivering, her shoulders hunched. “I was always more afraid of Nevet than even Amrath, when I was a child.”

“Afraid?” But yes, he supposed, yes, she would have been afraid. The enemies of Sorlost.

“Mages’ bodies are supposed to be incorruptible …” He traced his hand lovingly over the stones.

“No!”

“I’ve seen mages’ corpses, beloved. All very much corrupted. In little crispy bits, indeed. One by a dragon’s teeth and several more by my hand. Nevet’s bare old dead bones. Don’t fear.”

“He burned things,” she whispered. “Nevet. Burned them with the power of his will. He destroyed the city of Elarne with a single word.” Her face was glowing, warm bronze light. Her light made the stones golden. Made dancing patterns on the grass.

She raised her arms, pointed to the sky. Cried out, “Look! Look!” Fear and rapture in her face.

Marith turned. Knew what she was pointing at.

The dragon came down beside them. So fast: a tiny thing small as a hawk, rushing up suddenly so huge it filled the world. Landed in a swirl of air stirring up dust and pebbles. Its claws crashed against the hillside. Its breath scorched the ruined walls. It was indeed, Marith thought as he watched it, the most wondrous thing in all the world.

Thalia shook with fear beside him. He squeezed her hand. It’s all right, beloved. I know what I’m doing. It’s no danger to us, remember? It’s just another thing of ours, like your jewels and my soldiers and my crown. Think of it rather as if it’s a sealed jar of banefire. Dealt with correctly, it almost certainly won’t explode.

The red scales shimmered before him. Long sinuous twists of the neck. The eyes turned from him to Thalia and back again. Eyes like shields. Eyes like stars. Eyes like staring up into the night. Falling upwards into the abyss. Falling down into the bottomless black sea. Cherry blossom falling white and pink like snow around him in triumph. Coloured fragments of mage glass falling falling falling red and blue and green and white. He thought: do dragons feel desire? Love? Pleasure? Need? Anything, aside from grief and joy at themselves?

“Kel temen ysare genher kel Tiamenekil?” What do you want, dragon?

The dragon cocked its head. Its teeth showed, yellow as old man’s fingernails, crusted with shreds of meat. Abattoir smell. Rank disgust. It hissed out a cloud of dark smoke.

“Kel temen ysare genher kel? Ekilet sasamenet!” Answer me!

The dragon shifted. Its voice was softer than that of the dragon in the Sorlostian desert. A cool gentle babble of water, the green depths of a forest damp with rain. Birdsong, the chatter of insects, the drowsy low hum of bees. Beautiful. Sad. “There was a village. A long morning flying north across the hills. A man stood up there, in the marketplace, rallied the people to him, called himself your enemy. Drew his sword. Promised them he would kill you.” A thrash of the tail, anger and hope. Like a child, Marith thought, it loved him beyond anything but yearned to be free of his love. So I loved my father, he thought. So I loved Carin and so perhaps I think Carin loved me.

Yes, he thought then. Dragons do feel desire, and love, and need.

“I killed him,” said the dragon. “I killed every person in the village and for many miles around. Nothing lives. Nothing stands. Even the grass is gone. The soil is poisoned. For a hundred years, nothing that walks there will live.” The great head bowed, the eyes dulled to hot charcoals. “Is this as you wanted, My Lord King?”

Marith said carefully, “Yes. Yes, dragon. It is as I wanted.”

The dragon snorted. Hissed out smoke. “Sekeken?”

Why?

“There is no reason. I am your king. It is as I wanted. You do as I want.”

The dragon said, “You outmatched my sister, in the deserts of the Sekemleth Empire. Broke her to you. She had watched that empire grow from a barren sand dune to a village to a dream. She had looked, once, upon the face of the Asekemlene Emperor, before he was bound in immortality, when he was a threadbare untested boastful young man. Now she is dumb and cannot think. You are Amrath. I do as you order me. My heart rejoices. But I do not know why I do this. And neither do you know why.”

“There is no reason,” Marith said again. “It is what is. What I wish to do.”

The head turned again. Nostrils flaring. Scenting the air. The eyes closed, thinking. The tail thrashed.

“Amrakane neke yenkanen ka sekeken. Vyn gykanith enkanen.”

Amrath also did not know why. But your woman: she knows.

“Enkane. Ynkesisnen temet, Amrakane. Ke be temen gakare nen.”

She knows. She will tell you why, Amrath. If you dare to ask her.

“She is your queen.” The dragon’s eyes looking at Thalia. The only thing in the world that resembled him. Understood what he was, how he might feel. The only thing able to judge him. Its huge broken-glass eyes. Looking at her. “You do not look at her!” He squeezed Thalia’s hand tighter. Sweaty trembling hot skin. Her nails dug into his fingers.

“Nenakt,” Thalia said. Leave. Go.

The dragon opened and closed its eyes again, thrashed its tail, sniffed at her. Its body shuddered, red scales moving changing colour, red-silver, red-golden, red-black. A great heat from its body, the smell of carrion and forge fires. Its wings beat and it was the sound of armies marching. Swords drawn, clashing together, cutting flesh and bone. Bronze spears striking iron armour. Cheering. Weeping. Ruin. Death. Its voice was cool as damp green forest trees.

“Nenakt,” Thalia said.

The dragon opened and closed its eyes again, thrashed its tail, sniffed at her. Its body shuddered. It leapt upwards, circling rushing up into the white sky. Its shadow filled the hillside. Then it was gone, tiny as a moth against the light of the sun.

Thalia said, “Light the beacon. We will make camp here tonight. When we are victorious we will rebuild the walls of the watch tower. Raise up a palace on the ruins of Ethalden. Rule as King and Queen of Illyr and Ith and all of Irlast. Burn the world.” Her voice came choking. “Come.”