The dragon’s head was held high and he appeared to be looking off into the distance. Was he thinking, or merely wishing the puny humans would leave him alone so that he could safely launch himself back into the air and return to hunting?

He spoke reluctantly. ‘Humans are vulnerable to dragons. Of old, we changed some of you deliberately, to better fit you to be companions and servants to our kind. You lived such a short time that it was nearly impossible for us to achieve full communication with a human before it died. And so we allowed and shaped change for those who seemed most fit to live alongside us. But soon humans learned that any exposure to dragons and the things of dragons could change any human, and that those changes were not always beneficial. So those who took pleasure and found purpose in serving the dragons built their cities and their works, lived alongside us and took joy in serving us. They cherished the ways we could change them.

‘Those who wished to remain unchanged ventured into those cities but seldom and knowing the risk involved. Here, in Kelsingra, Elderlings lived. Humans lived and worked in a different settlement, across the river. Others lived outside the city, where they tended herds or grew crops far from the Silver-streaked stone walls of the city. Risks were known, and those who took the risks did so of their own will. We did no wilful harm to humans; if harm was done, they brought it on themselves.’

Was it the dragon’s words alone or did he summon memories from the stone? Malta felt entranced, as if she saw and heard the things he related. She could see this square thronged with folk, talking together in the spring sunshine. A silver-gloved Elderling with three elaborate marionettes dangling from his hands shouted to three tall, slender women carrying gleaming pipes. One lifted hers to her lips and tweetled a reply to him, and several passers-by laughed at the exchange. Through the Elderlings came a lumbering violet dragon, his wings chased with silver, wearing an elaborate golden harness covered with a thousand tiny round bells. The crowd parted for him and many an Elderling shouted a greeting or made an obeisance to him as he passed. The bells made a sweet, shrill jingling. Mercor’s ancestor? The glorious scene of prosperity and plenty faded and she once more stood in the windy plaza hearing his words.

‘While dragons were gone from the world and Elderlings, too, humans came into the lands where once we had prospered. You discovered the magic creations of the Elderlings and the places they had shared with dragons. You handled their works and lived where dragons had walked and lived. Enough influence remained that those who lived there changed. But the changes were random, not shaped by a dragon, and often displeasing or dangerous.

‘So you keepers were when you first came to serve us. Contorted by proximity to the things of dragons, but not on the path to being true Elderlings. But, with a bit of blood to bond you to us, we could shape you to be more pleasing. For there is Silver in dragon blood, and we are most powerful when our blood is rich with it. Deprived of Silver as we have been, each of us yet still has the power to shape an Elderling to our service. So, we have Changed you, made you Elderlings, and if later you attempt to have children, we may shape them as well. But no dragon can change what another dragon has begun, any more than a human can change the aspects of another human’s child. Tintaglia herself might be able to aid your baby, but none of us can.’

There was nothing of apology in his tone, and a cold part of Malta wondered if dragons could even grasp the concept of regretting something they had done, or feeling responsible for the pain their carelessness could cause. Her fear vanished suddenly, leaving only her fury. If her son could not live, what did it matter what this dragon might do to her? She stepped forward suddenly, almost shouldering Alise aside to stand before Mercor. She felt her skin flush with her anger and knew that the crest on her brow and her scaling took on brighter colours as she did so.

‘I never asked for this!’ Her low voice was swollen with anger and sorrow. ‘Tintaglia never sought our permission for the changes Reyn and I have experienced, let alone warned us that our baby might suffer for them. Our changes brought beauty and pleasure to us, but we would not have accepted them if we had known the price! Nor did I ever take blood from Tintaglia! So how can this change in me be her doing?’

The dragon tucked his head and looked down on her. His black eyes were spinning with silver glints that seemed to ride that ominous whirlpool. But his response was thoughtful rather than angry. ‘You were near her at some point. Did you run your hands over the cocooned dragon? Share long thoughts with her, perhaps, breathe the warmth of her breath?’

Reyn spoke quietly, to her rather than the dragon. ‘Selden and I were there when she melted her way out of her case. The air was thick with the stench of dragon; we both breathed it in.’