But eating other humans? Icefyre was right. They were only meat. She moved along the shore of the pool and chose a body that was fresh enough to still be leaking blood. She sheared him in two, her tongue writhing at the feel of cloth and leather, and then chewed him a few times before consigning him to the powerful crushing muscles at the back of her throat.

The body went down. Meat was meat, she decided, and she was hungry after the battle.

Icefyre ate where he was, wading a few steps and then stretching his neck out to reach for more dead. There was no lack of them. Tintaglia was more selective. He was right about how quickly humans spoiled. Some already stank of decay. She looked for those who had died most recently, nosing aside the ones who were stiffening.

She was working her way through a pile of bodies when one gave a low cry and tried to crawl away from her. He was not large, and venom had eaten part of his legs away. He dragged himself along, whimpering, and when Icefyre, attracted by the sounds, approached, the boy found his tongue.

“Please!” he cried, his voice breaking back to a child’s squeak on the word. “Please, let me live! We did not wish to attack you, my father and me. They made us! The Duke’s men took my father’s heir-son and my mother and my two sisters. They said that if we did not join the hunt for you, they would burn them all. That my father’s name would die with him, and our family line would be no more than dust. So we had to come. We didn’t want to harm you, most beautiful ones. Most clever dragons.”

“It’s a bit late to try to charm us with praise,” Icefyre observed with amusement.

“Who took your family?” Tintaglia was curious. The bone was showing in the boy’s leg. He wouldn’t survive.