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But the beast wasn’t simply powerful or beautiful or even terrifying. There was an otherworldliness to it, a sense of mystery and magic that had Kit’s blood pounding in his veins. He felt alive again watching it, even as every instinct he had screamed “run away, run away!”

It was death personified, and he knew it, and didn’t care.

“They start out rather dull colored as babes,” Gillian whispered as the great beast flew off to join the others. “But that changes as they age and their true color emerges. As well as their frills.”

“Frills?” Kit asked hoarsely.

“That’s what we call the additional touches that some of them have, which are personal to each. Great embellishments around the neck like ruffs made out of flesh, which they can raise or lower as a sign of excitement or warning; huge barbs on the tail, how many and what kind varying from dragon to dragon; ridges down the back like that one has—some have many, some have none, and they also vary in size and style. I’ve never seen two exactly the same.”

Kit nodded and tried to speak, to thank her for the information, but found that he could not. Especially when several more of the creatures glided closer, as if to welcome or challenge the green one. He wasn’t sure which it was, as there was much circling and lashing of tails, although the blows never quite seemed to land.

But the power that their antics stirred up could be felt from where he crouched, and not only because of the wind of those great wings. But because of something else, something that came with it. It felt to him like the energy that the higher-level master vampires shed, only more so, like hot rain.

But it was hard to complain with such a sight before his eyes.

The first new arrival was a striking crimson, with a sunset belly that looked like it had been colored by a careless painter. Some of the orange tint surrounding an oval of pure yellow had splattered upwards onto the surrounding scales, giving it an ombre look. It had orange eyes as well, and huge, black curled horns erupting from its head, and the power it shed was strong enough to literally be painful.

The green’s power was more muted, but even more pervasive, like a flood that covered everything around it instead of hitting in bursts like the other. It didn’t burn the skin; it etched it. Kit thought he would know the creature in the dark now, as if it had marked him for its own.

But it was the final arrival who was the most powerful of all, and the most beautiful. Royal purple was a color so rare that most people outside of the queen’s court had probably never seen it, and not just because she had forbidden anyone except close family members from wearing it. But because the dyes used to make it were extremely dear.

But Kit had seen it, and the most extravagantly dressed peacock of a courtier paled in comparison to the third creature’s scales. Purest dark amethyst they were, thick and dark but shading to lavender on the belly and in large swipes of the same shade about the eyes. And on delicate fins of almost transparent flesh that ran down its back in place of scales.

They weren’t armor; this creature didn’t need any more armor. They were purely decorative and rippled lushly. And lightened to almost transparency at the edges where the skin became gossamer fine, like the softest of silks.

They stood in stark contrast to the heavily muscled body, and the power radiating off of it, the latter of which matched the brilliant gold of its eyes. They were like the sun, scorching him whenever he looked at them. And yet he did look, his own eyes feasting as if they could never get enough.

“I had to show you this,” Gillian said softly. “I couldn’t let you leave without seeing it.”

Kit tried to speak, to thank her, but again, the words wouldn’t come. For one who was always so glib, he found himself literally speechless. But he felt her hand clench on his shoulder, and knew that she understood.

“There’s a better viewing spot,” she told him, as the three creatures finished their strange greeting and flew off together. “If you dare?”

He didn’t understand what she meant until she pointed down. He leaned over the edge of the perilously steep cliffside, the wind causing all of the fluttering bits of his tattered clothes to stream outward like pennants, or like the deliberately eye-catching outfit of a fool, dancing a jig at court. All he needed was bells on his knees, Kit thought briefly, right before he spied what Gillian was talking about.

And reared back, looking at her in a combination of disbelief and horror.

She laughed—the madwoman actually laughed—and took his hand again. And Kit thought that he must be mad, too, because he followed her. Around the great stone that he’d been clinging to, a monolith taller than his head, and through a trail between the rocks barely wide enough for a human body, and only then when he turned sideways in places.

A flight of stairs—old, rough, too-shallow things that were obviously meant for smaller feet than his—led downward, in between more towering stones. The rock closed over his head after a time, leaving him following Gillian through a dimly lit tunnel. The only light came from behind them and from occasional cracks in the stone, letting in a narrow cascade of daylight that seemed almost blinding by comparison.

The brief flashes of sunlight confused the eyes more than it helped them, but Gillian was sure footed, and Kit’s vision adjusted soon enough, allowing him to follow her over the uneven ground. The cracks in the rocks began to remind him of the arrow slits in old castles, allowing a limited view. And what a view it was.

The surrounding mountains were lush, with snow on the peaks shading to evergreens below and finally cascading into a carpet of autumn colors below that, like a lady’s swirling skirts. There was no sign of habitation, however, least none that he could see, despite the fact that the waterfalls, rich soil, and rushing river could have supported many thousands. But it seemed that the masters of this land guarded their territory jealously, and Kit, for one, did not feel like challenging them.

But there was evidence of people having been here for ages, nonetheless. For he spied carvings in the stone, some deep gashes, others mere scratches. But they were everywhere, and varied from what looked like ritualistic symbols higher up, to childish drawings done at knee height, and all with the same theme: dragons.

“How long have people been coming here?” he asked, and Gillian shot him a look over her shoulder.

“As long as the dragons have.”

And then, just like before, when the view changed, it did so savagely. A turn round a bend suddenly ended in a great wash of light, dazzling him. And, once his eyes adjusted yet again, gave way to an up-close view of the precarious perch that he’d glimpsed from above: a shelf of rock not two yards wide, and with nothing underneath their feet but air.

It was a perfect observation point, being above and cattycornered to the opening in the rock that the dragon must have come out of. And sheltered from the wind that had whipped around them up top by other protruding crags and ledges. Here, his eyes didn’t water and his hair and clothes didn’t blow.

There was nothing but cold, crystal-clear air and a view that stretched for miles.

Gillian reached into a hollow in the rock just inside the door and pulled out a bunch of large, mostly flat, square pillows encased in reed mat coverings. They were old, frayed, and a little musty, smelling mainly of the wool they were stuffed with. But she spread them out over the cold stone nonetheless, and added a thick, woolen blanket on top.