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Tate had looked like at the end of his life, I had to agree. The harpoon seemed a bit excessive, however.
    “Where was I?” A long forked tongue ran out of Shardas’s muzzle as he thought.
    “Sorry. You’ve lived in this forest for seven hundred years,” I recited.
    “Ah. Thank you.” He shook his head. “And in that time, we dragons have all but completely withdrawnfrom human interaction, though you seem to be the exception to the rule.”
    “Well, I hadn’t believed that there really was a dragon living in the Carlieff hills until I met Theoradus three weeks ago,” I admitted. I pursed my lips and thought. “Speaking of Gammer Tate, he always used to tell the story of how he had once seen two green dragons flying together above the trees when he was cutting wood. And my mother was from a town just outside the King’s Seat. There was supposedly a red dragon living near there; it used to fly over the town every autumn.” I nodded my head. “Everyone talks about dragons, but I’ve never heard of anyone else ever seeing one face-to-face, let alone talking with it. Him.”
    “Precisely. The stories of maidens being carried off by dragons and rescued by knights have persisted, but for the most part they were never true.
    “We used to be sought out by the truly gifted alchemists, for shed scales or drops of blood to use in their medicines and experiments, but no more.” He heaved a sigh. “My friend was an alchemist. We became acquainted during my third century. He very nearly found a cure for the tumour-sickness that afflicts you humans.”
    “What became of him?” My grandmother had died of the tumour-sickness, and it had been a terrible thing to see.
    “He died of old age on the brink of his breakthrough,” Shardas said sadly. “And I had not enough knowledge of his experiment to finish it.”
    “If you used to be friends with an alchemist, and most of the stories about maidens being carried off really are just stories, then why do you continue to avoid humans?” I cocked my head to the side. “What happened?”
    “King Milun the First came to the throne,” Shardas said heavily.
    “And that was a bad thing?” The teacher of the local school I had attended until the age of twelve had always raved about Milun the Protector, as he was known. In her learned opinion, he was the greatest king Feravel had ever had. “He saved our land from being overrun by the Roulaini.”
    Shardas blew through his nostrils a few times, looking at some point over my shoulder. “Let us merely say that while he was a great king for the humans, he was a disaster for the dragons.”
    “I didn’t know that he ruled over the dragons, too,” I remarked, bemused. “Although, I do remember that some of the dragons fought with him to repel the Roulaini invaders.”
    “He
didn’t
rule over the dragons,” Shardas said in a haughty voice. “And lest I forget myself and let loose a stream of flame that would almost surely singe the hair from your head, I shall not elaborate on what Milun the First did to the dragons. Suffice it to say, after he came to the throne, my people found it prudent to withdraw from human society.”
    “I see,” I said, although I didn’t really. And while Shardas seemed to be kind, I didn’t know how manyquestions I dared ask before he would grow tired of me, or (worse) burn me to ash or eat me.
    “I need to go into my inner chamber and bespeak another dragon,” Shardas said. “You may follow, if you like.”
    Lacking anything better to do, I trailed behind his spiked tail. It would be senseless to run, I realised, since I had no idea where I was or how to get back on the King’s Road.
    Then I stepped into the inner, much larger chamber and all thought of escape left me. My mouth hanging open like the northern bumpkin I was, I gazed around at the most gorgeous sight I had ever seen, tears coming to my eyes at the beauty of it all.
    Glass. Everywhere I looked there was glass. I had had no