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Her reconnaissance had opened her eyes to how greatly the world had changed since her kind had last soared.

The whole edge of this continent had sunk.

The mountain range that had once towered over the long sand beaches of the coast were now the tops of a long stretch of islands.

The richly fertile inland plains that had once teemed with herds of prey, both wild and domesticated, were now a wide swamp of rainforest. The steaming inland sea, once landlocked, now seeped to the ocean as a multitude of rivers threading through a vast grassland.

Nothing was as it should be. She should not be surprised that her own kin did not know her.

Humans had multiplied like fleas on a dying rabbit.

Their dirty, smoky settlements littered the world.

She had glimpsed their tiny island settlements and their harbour towns as she had searched for serpents.

She had flown high over Bingtown on a star-swept night and seen it as a dark blot freckled with light.

Trehaug was no more than a series of squirrels’ nests connected by spiderwebs.

She felt a grudging admiration for humanity’s ability to engineer a home for itself wherever it pleased even as she rather despised creatures so helpless they could not cope with the natural world without artificial structures.

At least the Elderlings had built with splendour.

When she thought of their graceful architecture, of those majestic, welcoming cities now tumbled into rubble or standing as echoing ruins, she was appalled that the Elderlings had perished, and humans inherited the earth.

She had left humanity’s hovels behind her.

If she must live alone, she would live near Kelsingra.

Game was plentiful there, and the land firm enough to land upon without sinking to her knees.

Should she desire shelter from the elements, the ancient structures of the Elderlings would provide it.

She had many years ahead of her. She might as well spend them where there was at least a memory of splendour.

As she flew through the steady downpour, she watched the banks of the river for game. She had small hope of finding anything alive. The river ran pale and acid since the last quake, deadly to anything not scaled.

Far upriver of Trehaug, she spotted the struggling serpent.

At first, she thought it was a log being rolled downstream by the river’s current.

She blinked and shook rainwater from her eyes, and stared again.

As the scent of serpent reached her, she dropped down from the heights to make sense of what she saw.

The river was shallow, a rushing flow of milky water over rough stone.

This, too, was a divergence from her memory.

Once this river had offered a fine deep channel that led far inland to cities such as Kelsingra and the farming communities and barter towns beyond it.

Not only serpents but great ships had navigated it with ease.

Now the battered blue serpent struggled feebly against the current in waters that did not even cover it.

She circled twice before she could find a stretch of river where she could land safely.

Then she waded downriver, hastening to the pitiful spectacle of the stranded serpent.

Up close, its condition was wrenching. It had been trapped here for some time.

The sun had burnt its back, and its struggles against the stony bed of the river had left its hide in rags.

Once its protective scaled skin was torn, the river water had eaten deep sores into its flesh.

So beaten was it that she could not even tell its sex.

It reminded her of a spawned-out salmon, exhausted and washed into the shallows to die.

‘Welcome home,’ she said, without sarcasm or bitterness. The serpent regarded her with one rolling eye, and then suddenly redoubled its efforts to flail its way upstream. It fled from her. There was no mistaking its panic, nor the death stench upon it.

‘Gently, gently, finned one. I have not come to harm you, but to aid you if I can. Let me push you into deeper water. Your skin needs wetting.’ She spoke softly, putting music and kindness into her words.

The serpent stopped struggling, but more from exhaustion than calm.

Its eyes still darted this way and that, seeking an escape its body was too weary to attempt.

Tintaglia tried again. ‘I am here to welcome you and guide you home. Can you speak? Can you understand me?’

For reply, the serpent lifted its head out of the water. It made a feeble attempt to erect its mane, but no venom welled. ‘Go away,’ it hissed at her. ‘Kill you,’ it threatened.

‘You are not making sense. I am here to help you. Remember? When you come up the river to cocoon, dragons welcome you and aid you. I will show you the best sand to use to make your cast. My saliva in your cocoon will bestow the memories of our kind. Do not fear me. It is not too late. Winter is upon us, but I will guard you well for the cold months. When summer comes, I will scratch away the leaves and mud that have covered you. The sun will touch your cocoon, and it will melt. You shall become a lovely dragon. You will be a Lord of the Three Realms. I promise you this.’

It lidded its dull eyes, then opened them slowly. She could see the distrust war with desperation. ‘Deeper water,’ the serpent pleaded.

‘Yes,’ Tintaglia agreed. She lifted her head and glanced about.

But there was no deeper water, not unless she dragged the poor creature downstream, and there it would find no food, nor anywhere to make its cocoon.

The city of Trehaug marked the first cocooning ground.

It had been swallowed by the rising water level.

There had been another, not that much farther upstream.

But the river had shifted in its wide bed, and ran shallow and stony past the once-rich banks of silver-banded sandy mud.

How was she to help the serpent reach there?

Once there, how to get mud, water and serpent together, so that the serpent could ingest the liquefied muck to secrete its cocoon?

The serpent lifted its weary head and gave a low trumpet of despair.

Tintaglia felt driven to act. She had lifted and carried two humans effortlessly, but the serpent was near her equal in weight.

When she attempted to drag it into a slightly deeper channel of water near the river’s bank, her talons scored its softened flesh and sank deep into its open wounds.

The creature screamed and thrashed wildly.

Its lashing tail knocked Tintaglia staggering.

She caught her balance by dropping to all fours.

As she did so, her groping foot encountered something smooth, hard, and rounded in the bed of the river.

It turned and cracked under her weight. Obeying a sudden impulse, she hooked her claws under it and dragged it up to the surface.

A skull. A serpent’s skull. The acid water of the river had etched the heavy bone to brittleness; it fragmented in her claws.

She searched the shallows with heartsick certainty.

Here were three thick spine bones, still clinging together.

Another skull there. She clawed the bottom and came up with ribs and a jawbone, in various stages of decomposition.

Some still had bits of cartilage clinging to their joints; others were polished smooth or eaten porous.

The bones of her race were here. Those who had managed to recall this much of their migration route had met this final obstacle and perished here.

The hapless serpent lay on its side now, wheezing its pain. The few drops of toxin it could muster ran from its mane into its own eyes. Tintaglia stalked over and stood looking down on it. The creature briefly lidded its great eyes. Then it gasped out a single word.

‘Please.’

Tintaglia threw back her head and gave shattering voice to her anger and hatred of the moment.

She let the fury run free in her, let it cloud her mind and eyes to a scarlet haze.

Then she granted its request. Her powerful jaws seized the serpent’s neck just below its toxin-dripping mane.

With a single savage bite, she severed its spine.

A quivering ran through it and the tip of its tail slashed and spattered the water.

She stood over it as it finished dying. Its eyes spun slowly a final time.

Its jaws open and shut spasmodically. Finally, it was still.

The taste of the serpent’s blood was sharp and poignant in her jaws.

Its pale toxins stung her tongue. In that instant, she knew his lifetime.

Momentarily, she was him, and she trembled with exhaustion and pain.

Permeating all was confusion. As Tintaglia regained herself, the utter futility of the serpent’s life left her shaken.

Time after time, his body had responded to the signs that told him to migrate and change.

She could not tell how often the pathetic creature had left the rich feeding grounds of the south and migrated north.