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Tallu made a brief gesture and one of the servants moved, slipping out of the building. I had no doubt they were going to find Naî.

“She is not a desert dragon. She is from the north. The journey has been hard on her.” I walked to the door flap, holding it open. “I will introduce you and see if she wishes to meet you.”

I should have known better than to think Naî would miss out on an opportunity to show off. Zoigei and his people had barely left the tent when it began to snow. White drifted down out of the sky, melting as soon as it touched the still-warm sand.

The goblin looked up, his eyes widening, the dour expression dropping off his face for the first time since he had arrived. His mouth opened just slightly, revealing rows of fangs.

Shaking his head, he held out a hand, snow landing on his gray palm. He licked it, eyes going wide.

Naî swooped above us, her wings ruffling the tents. The imperials were unaffected, too used to her theatrics. The goblins shivered, their spikes going up and then flat against their arms, which was lucky because I knew that if they had attacked, General Saxu’s men would feel obliged to answer.

She dove down, landing heavily enough that I could feel the vibrations in the sand. We walked through the row of buildings, finding her just outside the camp. In the moonlight, with the blue of the hidden waters in the sky, she looked every bit the dragon. It was only my practiced eye that saw that the sheen of her scales was dull and that she had lost some of the tuffs of feathery-fur that grew between them.

Both she and Tallu were struggling, and I breathed out evenly, keeping my fist from clenching as I imagined a hundred different ways to get her back to the Northern Kingdom.

“You truly do have a dragon,” Zoigei said. “The animalia said the last of the One Dragon’s children died when the emperor of the Southern Imperium crushed her eggs and set a bounty on the dragons. Where did you find her?”

“My father did, in the far north. Her mother is dead, and this was the only egg that survived the Imperium’s purge,” I said.

“The far north,” Zoigei said. “The last of the dragons, and, like you, she has become a pet of the Imperium.”

I am no one’s pet, Naî said, her voice rising in irritation. One might as well say that you are no goblin because the animalia have gifted you with armaments.

Zoigei snapped his head toward her, his eyes open wide. “You speak.”

You speak, Naî said, her tone mocking. I was told you wished to meet with me.

“I have seen many things as a member of the tribe guarding the hidden waters. But I have not seen a dragon. If we are to die fighting General Bemishu, I wanted to see the creature closest to the One Dragon.” Zoigei approached Naî, keeping his weight on his back leg, ready to retreat the moment she snapped at him.

“What are the hidden waters?” I asked. “We tried to approach from the air, but we couldn’t reach them.”

“I will show you. We can take your dragon.” Zoigei showed no other reaction, but I was certain it was merely an excuse to ride on the back of a dragon. Even though she’d spoken, he could not conceive of Naî’s refusing to allow him on her back.

I began to follow him, but Asahi stepped in front of me. Still facing Zoigei, Asahi turned his head so that he was speaking to me. “Your Highness, His Imperial Majesty requested that you not leave camp until he is ready.”

“A pet must never be long without his leash,” Zoigei commented, then, to the translator, “Do not translate that.”

Dutifully, the translator kept the words to himself. Still I had heard them, and was grateful that Zoigei had not been foolish enough to say them in Imperial. If he had, I was sure Asahi would have defended my honor. For someone who had, I was nearly certain, hated me the first few weeks of our acquaintance, Asahi was only too defensive of my relationship with Tallu and my position in the Imperium. Even now, I knew he would have taken on this mountain of a goblin just to prove how much Tallu cared for me.

I walked up to Naî with much less caution, putting my hand on her neck, feeling how dry her scales were. They were barely cool to the touch, which worried me. What happened when a creature of ice got too warm?

“Naî, this is Zoigei. He belongs to one of the tribes here. He says there are animalia,” I said.

Naî barely opened her eyes, and the mere twitch of her gaze was enough to express her disbelief.

“When the rest of the camp is ready, I will introduce you to them. I’m sure they will be grateful to meet a child of the One Dragon,” Zoigei said.

I will see these creatures who call themselves animalia, Naî said. And if they prove as false as I believe, I will eat them.

“You speak very much like them,” Zoigei said. He smiled, showing off his fangs again.

He seemed content to stay watching her, and I glanced around camp, but nothing seemed to need my attention. Servants and soldiers alike were readying us to move, but since we had been changing location so often, they were incredibly efficient at it.

In no more than an hour, when the stars had barely moved their position, the elephants were loaded, and the soldiers ready to march. Tallu had mounted one of the elephants, although I could tell he was unhappy about it. Neither General Saxu nor Sagam was willing to budge on the issue.

I was torn between wanting to walk and not wanting to leave Tallu alone, especially with that expression of unhappiness on his face. In the end, Naî decided for me, declaring I needed to walk beside her or she might eat the liars who claimed the animalia lived.

“You must have something on your side. Perhaps the magic of the One Dragon,” Zoigei said. “No other imperials have made it this far.”