City of Dragons: Volume Three of the Rain Wilds Chronicles (38 page)

Leftrin shook his head. “It’s all they can do to keep pace with us now. And when darkness falls, they’ll be blinded. They’ll have to tie up for the night. We won’t.”

“You think Tarman can find his way up the river in the dark?”

Leftrin grinned at him. “I have no doubt of it.”

“A
nd so we’re away on another adventure,” Malta said. Her voice shook. She cleared her throat, pretending that it had been something else, but Reyn put his arm around her.

“Perhaps we are, my dear. But this time, we are together. All three of us.”

Tillamon made a small sound as she lifted the canvas flap and angled under it to join them. “Four, if you’ll count me,” she said. She was smiling widely, and there was a light in her eyes that Malta could not understand.

“You’re not frightened?” she asked her sister-in-law. “We’ve no idea where we are going or how far. Captain Leftrin says there will be hardship and cold in the days to come. We’re leaving our home behind for Sa knows how long. But you’re smiling?”

Tillamon laughed out loud and tossed back her veil. When was the last time anyone had seen that smile? It made the row of dangling growths along her jawline jiggle. “Of course I’m frightened! And I’ve no idea what we are heading into. But Malta, I’m alive! I’m moving out into the world, on my own. And from what Reyn told me, I’m headed toward a city and a little colony of people where I’ll no longer have to wear a veil or hear muttered remarks as I pass. Leaving my home behind? Perhaps I’m leaving my mother, but I think she’ll understand. And I feel as if I’m headed toward my home rather than leaving it behind.”

She settled herself on the deck beside Ephron’s box-bed and tenderly smiled down on the waking baby as he stirred. “May I hold him?” she asked eagerly.

T
he sun was hastening toward the hill line as Heeby carried them back across the river. The wind was pushing clouds to fill up the evening sky, and the damp breeze swished past Thymara’s face, but only her cheeks burned with cold. Even her feet and calves, clad in the scaly Elderling shoes, remained warm. And the fabric of her footwear seemed to help her cling more tightly to Heeby’s sleek sides. She held tight to the sides of Rapskal’s Elderling garment, their backpack of looted artifacts sandwiched between them. She bowed her head against the wind’s rough kiss, putting her brow against Rapskal’s back. She thrust her fear down and focused her eyes and her thoughts on the comforts that they were bringing to their fellows. She doubted that every keeper would find a gown or tunic or trousers to fit, but enough would benefit that their worn clothing could be shared generously with the ones who could not find Elderling garb to cover them. Tonight, everyone would be a bit more comfortable, thanks to her and Rapskal.

As if he could read her mind, Rapskal called over his shoulder, “You know that Alise isn’t going to like this. She’s going to say that we should have left everything exactly as it was, for her to record before we moved it. She may even try to make us put it all back where it was.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Thymara promised him confidently. Despite the difference in their ages, she and Alise were friends. She had felt awkward around the older woman at first, but Alise’s admiration for her hunting and fishing skills had won her over. Thymara was not sure how she would react to the pristine Elderling goods that they were bringing back now. She did not think Alise would agree that sharing them with the keepers would be the best use of them. But she herself wore an Elderling garment from the ruins of Trehaug. Surely she would not be hypocritical enough to forbid the same comfort to the keepers.

“They’re waiting for us!” Rapskal spoke loudly over the wind. “Look!”

She lifted her head and peered down through squinting eyes. Yes, keepers were gathering on the riverbank, and even a few of the dragons were strolling down. Golden Mercor was already there. His head was lifted and he peered up at them. “They must have been worried about us!” she called to Rapskal.

“Silly of them. We can take care of ourselves,” he declared grandly. She felt a rippling of unease to hear him set them apart from the others. He seemed to think that something had changed, something important. Had it? Did he take last night as some sort of declaration from her that she had chosen him? Had she?

No,
she answered herself emphatically. She had mated with him, but that was all. It had been an impulsive thing she had done, not a commitment to him. Not a long-term decision.

As they circled the gathered keepers and Heeby trumpeted triumphantly as she began a long glide to the ground, Thymara wondered if he understood that as clearly as she did.

T
ats stared up at the circling red dragon. The rain and wind tried to blind him, but he squinted his eyes and decided he had not been deceived. Something had changed about Heeby. Her wings seemed more proportional, her flying more sure. And she glittered and gleamed even in the low light of the overcast day. As they came closer, he could discern the two riders on her back. Relief vied with jealousy. Thymara was safe, but she was with Rapskal. Then a stray ray of sunlight struck them, and the riders glittered as brilliantly as the dragon they bestrode.

“What is that they’re wearing?” he wondered aloud.

“Where is Sintara? Why isn’t she returning with them?” Alise had joined him and the other watchers and answered his query with one of her own.

“Sintara hunts.” This statement came from Mercor. The golden dragon and his keeper, Sylve, looked up at the sky. “She has found her wings and her strength. Now that she can hunt for herself, she will not depend on Thymara so much.”

“Which means Thymara can help feed the rest of us,” blue-black Kalo commented sternly.

“You have a keeper, and your keeper is a hunter. You should have no need for extra attention.” Sestican angled himself into the group. He was not as large as Kalo, but he often seemed intent on provoking the larger male. Tats broke in before Kalo could respond, “We keepers all do the best we can to provide meat for all of you.”

“And yet we are always hungry.” Kalo’s gaze did not leave the scarlet dragon. Heeby was closer now, circling lower before landing. Her landings were always exciting. Tats suspected they were more the product of trial and error than any clear ancestral memory of how a dragon should land. And this time was no exception. She looped low, flying into the wind to slow herself. She had chosen a long strip of open riverbank, and everyone well knew to stay out of her way. She opened her wings wide and leaned back. Her legs had been tucked so neatly against her body and in line with her tail; now she suddenly splayed them out. Her hind feet touched the ground, she ran a few staggering steps and then dropped down on her front feet and slid to a halt, her tail lashing for purchase. Rapskal took it all with aplomb, but Thymara clutched tight to him, her face hidden on his back. The moment that they were still, she began her slide down Heeby’s shoulder.

With all his heart, Tats wanted to dash forward and catch her in his arms. But he did not. He was not sure that she would have welcomed such an action.

“They’re wearing Elderling garb!” The words burst from Alise in wonder mingled with horror. As Rapskal slid down to join Thymara, Tats heard cries of wonder and a scattering of laughter from the other keepers. The bright colors were ludicrous on a man; that was Tats’s first scornful reaction. But then as Rapskal made a showy bow to all of them, they suddenly seemed not only appropriate to his tall and slender form, but elegant as well. They were clothes fit for an Elderling, as colorful as Rapskal himself had become. And had he become more scarlet since last Tats had seen him?

He transferred his gaze to Thymara and knew that his initial impression was correct. Overnight, she had changed, and it was not just the gown she wore. The bluish tone of the scaling on her face was now indigo traced with silver. She was looking around the circle of welcome, and when her gaze came to Tats, their eyes met. And he knew. She looked away from him.

There was a roaring in his ears and a minute trembling ran through him. He felt that he swayed in the wind like a tree about to crash to the earth. He knew, and yet it did not seem possible that it could be true. She had given herself to Rapskal. All the years they had known each other, the accumulated closeness of friendship, and his desperate courtship of her in the last few months, it had all meant nothing to her. She had chosen Rapskal over him. He tried to veer his thoughts away from imagining their bodies tangled together. He did not want to wonder if she had kissed Rapskal first, did not want to imagine that they had been flung together in passion or, worse, come together in slow and delicious delays.

Heeby moved off, ignoring the gathered keepers and the other dragons to go down to the river and drink, but Tats stood where he was, staring and numb, unmoving, as the other keepers swept forward to engulf the pair in questions.

“What happened in the city last night?”

“Was it a fire in the streets? We saw lights everywhere!”

“Where is Sintara? Can she truly fly now?”

“Why didn’t Sintara return?”

“Where did you get those clothes?”

The questions rained down on them, and Rapskal and Thymara were both talking at once. Tats watched Thymara open a bundle she had carried between them and began to pull out tunics and gowns and trousers and shoes. No one seemed to notice that the rain was getting harder and the wind was rising. Thymara was handing out the garments as swiftly as she could shake them out, and keepers were exclaiming in excitement and joy. All was exhilaration until Alise suddenly lifted her voice and shouted, “STOP! Stop tugging them about and handling them so roughly! Put them down this instant!” The excited gabble died away, and all eyes turned to the Bingtown woman as she abruptly advanced on the huddle of keepers. There were bright red spots of anger on her cheeks, and her voice shook with fury as she asked, “Thymara and Rapskal, what were you thinking to take things from the city? I must know exactly where you found them, and we have to measure them, and . . .”

“Alise. Please.” Thymara’s voice was lower pitched and almost calm. “I know what the city means to you. I know you want to know its every secret, and that you think we must not disturb so much as the dust on the floors until you have written about it. I understand that—”

“You can’t possibly understand.” Alise’s voice was strained as she controlled herself. “You’re half a child still, with no experience of the world save the forest you grew up in. If you’d lived in Bingtown, if you had seen the stream of Elderling treasures and artifacts that passed through the market, to be scattered and lost in the wide world . . . Wondrous things, treated as novelties to be enjoyed only by the very wealthy and collectors. Half the time, the people who ended up owning those things cared nothing for where they came from, only that they could astonish others with a new possession.”

Thymara stood silent against the onslaught of words. Her face remained impervious. Tats saw that rattle Alise, heard a small shaking in her voice as she spoke on in the silence.

“I’ve studied the Elderlings for years, working with the scattered bits that the ravagers and scavengers left for the scholars to try to interpret. Time after time, I’ve been frustrated with a few pages from a manuscript, a section of a long tapestry that obviously celebrated an important event, or a few tools that, if I had known where they were found, I might discover their purpose. We have a chance, and I fear it will be a very brief chance, before the hordes will descend on Kelsingra and reduce it to stripped stone and rubble. Will you start to destroy it before they even get here? Care you nothing for your heritage?”

A silence followed her words. Tats felt empty.
This is a day for things to break
, he thought.
My heart. The fellowship of the folk who had come here together. We all move apart from one another today.

Alise spoke to the keepers from a shared history, one in which his people barely mattered. He had no Rain Wild ancestry to claim. That he was becoming as scaled as the rest of them and taking on the attributes of an Elderling body was due to the affection of his dragon. Alise’s words reminded him that he’d come to this expedition as an outsider, the sole keeper who had not been marked heavily by the Rain Wilds. He felt he had no right to speak, and then a new pang smote him as he wondered if that was why Thymara had chosen Rapskal over him. Was that shared background more important to her than their years of companionship?

“No one will destroy Kelsingra,” Rapskal said suddenly. He had been so silent that Tats had thought he was hiding from Alise’s disapproval by pushing Thymara to the fore. But now, when he spoke, he sounded so certain that even Alise was silenced by his words. “We won’t let them,” he added. “Because it
is
our heritage. Kelsingra is an Elderling city. Yes. But it isn’t a dead thing to be studied. Leaving the city as it is now would be as big a neglect as tearing it apart to try to discover its secrets. Alise, you only have to be open to the city to know that it does not want to keep secrets from you. Everything you want to know, it is willing to tell you. It wants to share itself with you. The city is alive and waiting for us to return to it. The presence of the dragons woke it. I do not know what Sintara did that Heeby had not done before; perhaps she recalls more of the city and how it is supposed to function than my Heeby does. Perhaps she recalled for the city what it needed to know to awaken. I cannot say for sure. But the city did awaken and it waits for us.