The wind off the Narrow Sea was the only thing that still spoke to him plainly. Daemon had taken the same route three days running — out past Driftmark's western cliffs, low over the breakers, no destination but motion itself. Caraxes didn't ask why. That was the appeal. Dragons didn't care that a man who'd burned ships and broken cities now sat in council chambers half-listening while older men argued about grain stores. Today the wind was wrong-footed, gusting up off the rock face in a way that made the flight rougher than usual, and Daemon let it. Rough was better than nothing. Then Caraxes screamed — not his hunting shriek, not his battle-voice, but something lower and tighter, a sound Daemon had heard maybe twice in all their years together. The dragon banked hard without waiting for the rein, dropping toward a stretch of broken shoreline where the cliffs gave way to a narrow shingle beach littered with black rock.

Daemon's voice cut off as he saw it.

A figure, sprawled half across the stones, half in the surf. Even from height he could tell something was wrong — blood and deep gashes visible. Blood had gone dark and tacky against pale skin, mixing with seawater into something the color of rust. Caraxes wouldn't land closer than fifty yards. Daemon swung down anyway, boots hitting stone, and that was when the shadow moved. It had been still enough, dark enough against the black rock, that he'd taken it for part of the cliffside. It was not part of the cliffside. It rose up over the unconscious body like something unfolding out of the rock itself, wings unspooling black against a paler sky, and even Caraxes — Caraxes, who had never in his life given ground to anything with scales — fell back a step, hackles of fire-scarred hide bristling along his spine. The creature was easily half again Caraxes's length, maybe more, built heavier through the chest and shoulders, its scales so dark they seemed to drink the gray daylight rather than reflect it. No bone-white, no fire-orange, no green or red or any of the colors Daemon had spent a lifetime learning to read at a glance. Just black, depthless and matte, broken only by twin emerald eyes that fixed on him with an intelligence that made the hair on his arms rise. It didn't roar. It growled — low, continuous, a sound that seemed to come up through the stones under his boots rather than through the air — and curled its enormous body tighter around the broken figure at its feet, tail lashing once across the shingle in clear and final warning.

Stay back.

Daemon stood very still, one hand drifting instinctively toward his sword hilt before some older instinct told him that would be the last mistake he ever made. Behind him, Caraxes hissed, torn between the urge to answer the challenge and something that looked, for the first time Daemon could remember, like caution.

He said, low, not certain if he meant it for the dragon or himself. The growl didn't quite stop. But it didn't get louder, either.