The Adamantine Palace

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Authors: Stephen Deas

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BOOK: The Adamantine Palace
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The Adamantine Palace

 

Stephen Deas

 

 

 

Version History
v1.0 - scanned and proofed by DragonAshe
v1.1 - converted to html, formatting and minor typos fixed
v1.2 - chapter numbers fixed, header tags, toc, and metadata added - spooked

 

 

Table Of Contents

 

Prologue - Jehal

Hatchling Gold

Chapter I - Sollos

Chapter 2 - Kailin

Chapter 3 - The Eyrie-Master

Chapter 4 - The Speaker of the Realms

Chapter 5 - Shezira

Chapter 6 - Huros

Chapter 7 - The Glass Cathedral

Chapter 8 - The Attack

Chapter 9 - The Knight-Marshal

Chapter 10 - The Ash Dragon

Chapter 11 - An Act of War

Chapter 12 - Lystra

Chapter 13 - Furymouth

Chapter 14 - The Search Party

Chapter 15 - Gifts

Chapter 16 - The Outsiders

Chapter 17 - Bellepheros

Chapter 18 - The Price

Chapter 19 - The Taiytakei

Chapter 20 - Knights

Chapter 21 - The Wedding

Chapter 22 - Scorched Earth

Tipping The Scales

Chapter 23 - Snow

Chapter 24 - A Memory of Flames

Chapter 25 - Cinders and Ashes

Chapter 26 - Awakening

Chapter 27 - The Burned Man

Chapter 28 - Nadira

Chapter 29 - The Hunters and the Hunted

Chapter 30 - The Wordmaster

Chapter 31 - Queen Aliphera's Garden

Chapter 32 - The Adamantine Guard

Chapter 33 - The Alchemist and the Dragon

Chapter 34 - Jehal's Cure

Chapter 35 - Kemir

Chapter 36 - The Dragon-Queen

Chapter 37 - An Accommodation

Chapter 38 - The Mirror Lakes

The Dragon-King's Tithe

Chapter 39 - Parting

Chapter 40 - Arts of War

Chapter 41 - Kings and Queens

Chapter 42 - Poison and Lies

Chapter 43 - A Crack in the Stone

Chapter 44 - Semian

Chapter 45 - The Valeford Track

Chapter 46 - Ash

Chapter 47 - Alliance and Betrayal

Chapter 48 - The Eyrie of the Alchemists

Chapter 49 - The Dragon-Priests

Chapter 50 - Rebirth

Returning the Cinders

Chapter 51 - The Alchemists

Chapter 52 - First Light

Chapter 53 - The Fire Within

Chapter 54 - The Two Speakers

Chapter 55 - Undone

Chapter 56 - The Caves

Chapter 57 - Turning the Knife

Chapter 58 - Patience

Chapter 59 - The Assassin

Chapter 60 - The Embers

Chapter 61 - Disintegration

Chapter 62 - River Treasure

Chapter 63 - Fangs of the Viper

Chapter 64 - Smoke and Poison

Chapter 65 - The Night of the Knives

Chapter 66 - Jostan

Chapter 67 - The Balcony

Chapter 68 - The Glacier

Epilogue - The Perfect White

 

 

Prologue - Jehal

 

Prince Jehal felt the dragon take to the air. Curled up inside a saddlebag, he couldn't see a thing. But that didn't matter. He could see it in his mind, exactly and precisely. He felt every stride as the dragon accelerated. He knew exactly when the dragon would make one last bound and unfurl its wings. He felt himself grow heavier as the dragon rose up into the air.

The bag smelled slightly of rotten meat. Jehal wriggled and stretched as best he could, trying to make himself more comfortable in the tiny space. He forced himself to breathe slowly, suppressing the edge of panic that threatened to blossom inside him. Small spaces had never agreed with him, and the smell made him uneasy. It made him wonder what the bag had been used for before. Carrying dragon snacks was the obvious answer.

Is that me? Am I the snack of the day today?

The absurdity of the thought calmed him. Queen Aliphera was as shrewd as anyone, but she was also besotted. Jehal had come to know what that looked like, even in a dragon-queen.

The dragon stopped climbing and began to glide. Officially, Jehal was indisposed. A great deal of effort had gone into his illness, every bit of it spent so that he and Queen Aliphera could be alone and unobserved. All he had to do now was stay hidden until the queen found an excuse to fly away from her riders, her dragon-knights. Months of work and then days of waiting for exactly the right weather, all for half an hour of absolute privacy.

He clenched his fists. One of his feet had cramped. He wriggled his toes. When that didn't work, he tried to rearrange himself so his feet were underneath the rest of him. That didn't work either, but by the time he gave up trying, the cramp had gone away anyway. Eventually, he fell asleep.

 

 

*

 

 

He woke up to see grey sky pouring in above him. Every muscle in his legs was shouting at him, demanding to be stretched. He yawned, stood up and grinned at what he saw. They were high in the sky, skimming the base of the clouds. Aliphera liked to do that.

Jehal looked around, scanning the horizon, but there were no other dragons in sight. Finally, he looked at Aliphera. She was still half strapped into her saddle, but she was looking back at him, grinning. Her eyes were very wide. They'd flirted with each other for months, in little ways, little stinging touches where no one else would see.

Jehal grinned back. Anticipation, that was the key. And now she had him alone at last.

'You look a little dishevelled, Prince Jehal.'

Carefully, Jehal hauled himself out of his saddlebag. He crawled the few feet towards her, mindful of the thousand or so feet of empty space between him and the ground. It would be stupid to get this far only to plunge to his death.

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