Dragon Flight by Jessica Day George Page A

lying.”
    There was no mistaking who had said this. Dragon voices sound like rocks being scraped together, and Krashath’s was particularly loud and harsh. The twittering over Marta’s faint died instantly, and one of the ladies of the court fainted in earnest.
    “It talks,” gasped a large woman, her face rigid with shock.
    “How astonishing!” Lord Arjas threw up his handsin a startled gesture that I thought looked a little forced. I frowned at him, but didn’t have the time to study him too closely.
    “Yes, yes, of course! If he senses danger,” Nason said, his words tumbling over each other. “Guards, seize them!” He pointed a finger at me and Marta.
    Recognising that our ploy had failed, Marta sat up, causing the court to glare and murmur accusingly. She gave them a defiant look. Meanwhile, I decided to lay it all out on the table, as the guards stalked towards us with bared scimitars.
    “Lord Arjas, Krashath is controlling the king, not the other way round,” I said, reaching out a hand to him and trying to sound as sincere as I could. “You have to believe us: the king’s helmet allows the dragon to control him. Krashath was supposed to be dead for his crimes in Feravel – you must believe me!”
    But Arjas’s face was closed and still. He stepped aside without a word as the guards came forward. One grabbed me by the arm, the other seized Marta, and they forced us to our knees in front of Nason.
    “Clear the room,” Nason ordered, and his shocked courtiers filed out. Even the guards let go of our shoulders and stiffly exited the room.
    “Your outburst is going to cause a great deal of trouble, young woman,” Arjas said once the doors had been closed. He frowned at me.
    “Let Marta go,” I told Arjas. The king’s face wascompletely blank, and I knew he would be deaf to any pleas. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know. But first you have to believe me: Krashath is controlling the king.”
    Arjas laughed. “I knew that already.” He shook his head with mock regret. “But the court didn’t, and that’s why your little scene was so troublesome. I can’t very well have the entire court executed to stop the rumours.”
    He said this last as if it were an option he might still consider. I suppressed a shudder even as my mind turned over what he had said.
    “You knew?” Marta gasped.
    “Of course! Krashath and I have been working for this for over a year. He came to me with his army of dragons, and I gave him access to this idiot.” Arjas’s lips twisted in distaste as he indicated the king. “It was ridiculously easy to put that scale-lined helmet on him. The difficult part was convincing the generals that coherent orders for the invasion of Feravel had actually come from our mad king.”
    Marta and I could only stand and gape. Arjas, the Grand Vizier of Citatie, had helped a dragon take control of his king’s mind. We had talked of him as though he were a potential ally, but he was just as much an enemy as Krashath himself.
    “You smell of
him
,” Krashath said suddenly.
    A light kindled in his black eyes, and he crept across the floor towards us. I took a step back, and his tailwhipped around behind me, keeping me from running.
    “You smell of my hated brother.”
    I went cold all over. The thin silk tunic I wore had once been a shift, but I had cut it off at the knees and hemmed it to the Citatian style just the day before. The last time I had worn it, I had been at the cave with Shardas and Velika, and there had not been time to launder it since then. Krashath’s nose was over a pace long: he could smell things that a dog could only hope to sniff out.
    “Shardas is your brother?” The words popped out before I could stop them.
    “You know my brother well?” The tip of Krashath’s nose was only a handspan from my chest as he sniffed at my tunic. One large black eye studied me, his head atilt. “You know him very well.” It was no longer a question.
    “He is coming to