All saw the strain as the two men pulled. The rope creaked, and Leftrin came to add his strength. ‘Stuck in the dried muck,’ Carson guessed breathlessly and Leftrin grunted in agreement. The rope creaked more loudly and then Sylve gave a small shriek as all three men abruptly stumbled back.

‘You’ve lost it!’ she cried. But she was wrong. The line swung slowly as it took the weight of the bucket in full.

‘Keep the tension on it,’ Carson advised them. ‘Go slow. We don’t know how strong the bail is on the bucket. Try not to let the bucket touch the wall; it might jar it loose. Then we’d have it all to do over again.’ Sedric watched the keepers trade their grips, hand over hand, as the ancient bucket slowly rose toward the surface.

The sun was toward the horizon when the flame jewels finally emerged and the handle of the bucket was seized with eager hands. ‘It’s plain damn luck that line held,’ Leftrin exclaimed as they lifted it over the lip and onto the ground. The keepers crowded round. It was, as Rapskal had speculated, large enough for a dragon to drink from, lovingly crafted from dark wood lined with beaten metal.

‘Silver!’ Tats had gasped.

Sedric stared at it, unable to speak. Carson came to rest a hand on his shoulder and stare with the others.

It was obvious the bucket had long rested at an angle at the bottom of the well. There was a slope of packed silt in the bottom of the bucket. Draining away from it and gathering itself into an uneven puddle on the bottom was Silver. Sedric stared at it, his breath caught in his chest. Yes. He understood now what Mercor had said about the stuff, that it was in the blood of dragons. For that was where he had seen it before.

The unwelcome memory burst into his mind. He had crouched in the darkness, full of greed and hope, and cut the dragon’s neck and caught the running blood. She had not been Relpda then, his gleaming copper queen. She had been a muddy brown animal dying on the riverbank, and his only thought had been that if he took her blood and sold it, he could buy himself a new life in a distant land with Hest. He had trapped her blood in a bottle and left her to her fate. But he remembered now how the dragon’s blood had swirled and drifted in the glass bottle, scarlet on silvery red, always moving before his eyes.

Yes. There was Silver in dragon’s blood, for he watched it now as it stirred and moved like a live thing seeking an escape. Such a shallow puddle to evoke such awe in all of them! It drew itself together in a perfect circle and stood up from the bottom of the old bucket like a bubble of oil on water. There it remained in stillness, and yet silver in every variant of that colour moved and swirled through it. ‘It’s beautiful,’ Thymara breathed. She stretched out a hand and Tats caught her by the wrist.

Malta and Reyn stood side by side. The babe fell suddenly silent.

‘It’s deadly,’ Tats reminded them all. The young keeper looked around at the circle of faces that hemmed the bucket and its contents. ‘What do we do with it?’

‘For now? Nothing,’ Leftrin declared sternly. He met Malta’s stare with one of his own. ‘We brought it up. There’s Silver down there, though this is scarce enough to wet a dragon’s tongue. What little we have here, we save until the dragons’ return, in hopes they can use it to save the baby. Do any disagree?’ His eyes roved the assembled keepers.

Sylve looked shocked as she said, ‘What else would we do with it? All of us want the young prince to live!’

Leftrin concealed his surprise. Prince. So they thought of the sickly child, and so they had risked all for him. He cleared his throat. ‘Well then. I say we take no more risks this evening, but set this aside and all of us go take some rest.’

She could feel the light fading from the day. Her last day? Probably. Pain lived in her, a fire that did not warm her. Some little scavenger, braver than most, tugged at her foot. Tintaglia twitched, a reflex that hurt now, and it scampered off into the rushes to wait. Not for long, she thought. Not for long.

She felt him land not far from her. The thud of a grown drake vibrated the mud beneath her, and the wind of his wings washed over her. She smelled his musk and the fresh blood of his latest kill. It stirred hunger in her, but suddenly even that sensation took too much effort. Her body released her from that need. Nothing left to do but stop.

She felt him coming closer.

Not yet. It was hard to focus the thought at him. I’ve had enough of pain. Let me die before you take my memories.

Kalo came closer and she felt him stand over her. She braced herself. He would finish her with one bite to the back of her neck, at the narrowest part, where her skull joined her spine. It would hurt but it would be quick. Better than feeling the ants that were already investigating her wounds.