Alta

lives, he and Kaleth are still the Heirs. They dare not leave him alive. . . . He remained in Toreth’s pen, but with no hope.

So when the prince himself stumbled into the pen, near to dawn, Kiron at first thought he was a ghost.

He certainly could have been. He was as pale as if he had been drained completely of blood, his eyes were bloodshot and swollen, as red as the eyes of demons. And he stared at Kiron with no sign of recognition.

“Toreth?” Kiron gasped, “Prince?”

Toreth shook himself all over, like a dog. “They would not listen,” he said dully. “I never got past the first words. They told me not to meddle in things I could not understand. They treated me like a boy who has come to complain that a war chariot on the way to battle has broken his toy.”

“So—” Kiron dared to hope. “The Magi don’t know that you know what they are doing?”

Toreth shook his head. “No. Yes. I don’t know,” he said, finally. “I didn’t tell them. I hardly got more than a word or two in. I am disgraced, you see. They brought in my father, and lectured me in front of him. Then they brought in my betrothed, Nofret, and did the same. They cannot take my dragon, or my place in the Jousters, but they have made it clear that a dog in the street will have more chance for advancement from the ranks than I. I am not—quite—being declared a traitor. But I am being held up as an example of how dissension aids the enemy. They cannot cut me from the succession, but—oh, Kiron!—I had not seen them, close up, in more than two years, and now they looked no older than thirty! And the Magi are the same! I did not see a single gray hair among them all!”

So. They have another way to solve this. They can, and will, outlive us.

“At this rate, you will die of old age, and they will still be sitting on the Twin Thrones,” Kiron replied, a cold numbness spreading over him.

Toreth’s head sagged. “We are defeated,” he said. “And I am disgraced and friendless.”

“Ah,” said Gan, putting his head around the doorway, his hair all tousled from sleeping. “So I am no friend, then?”

Toreth started; clearly, he had been so sunk in his misery that he had not heard Gan come behind him. “No!” he protested. “But—surely your parents will not wish you to associate yourself with a known traitor—”

“My parents can take themselves off on a scenic tour of hell before they tell me who my friends will be,” Gan said pleasantly. “And I suspect every lad in the wing will say the same.”

“Besides, most of them won’t have to defy their parents,” Kiron pointed out. “Certainly Lord Ya-tiren has no love for the Magi. Enough of us are commoners that their parents will not care. We followed you before; nothing has changed that I can see.”

Toreth looked like a man who has suddenly been reprieved. “Do you mean that?” he pleaded.

“Of course he means it,” said Oset-re with irritation. “Didn’t we all stay up most of the night to greet you when you returned? Kiron is right, nothing has changed, except the opinions of a few stupid people whose parties you wouldn’t have wanted to attend anyway! Now go to bed, Toreth. We’ll discuss all of this later.”

He withdrew; Gan did the same. Toreth stared at Kiron as if he could not believe what had just happened.

“Go to sleep, Toreth,” Kiron said. “Oset-re is right.”

“But—” Toreth began.

“Go to sleep.”

Toreth stumbled into his chamber at the back of the pen, but at least now he looked less like a walking corpse. Kiron went back to his own pen, tiptoed around Avatre, and settled back into his cot for a little more precious time before he had to get up.

But he had trouble finding sleep again. Too many thoughts were buzzing in his head. Finally he got up, and went to see if Aket-ten might be awake at this early hour. She had always been used to going to the Temple for Dawn Rites—was she still waking that early anyway?

She was.

He found her in the courtyard of her chambers, and with her, Heklatis.

“Toreth came back,” he said as they looked up, and gave them the gist what the prince had said.

Heklatis heaved a sigh of relief. “They looked at him and saw a handsome, muscle-bound fool,” the Healer replied. “Good!”

Aket-ten looked almost faint with relief.

Kiron felt a stab of that same emotion he’d gotten at the thought of anyone else riding Avatre. This time he knew it for what it was.

Jealousy. He was jealous that Aket-ten should be that concerned for Toreth. It shocked and surprised him to the core.

He covered it by going in and sitting down. “I don’t think he’s safe—” he began.

“Neither do I!” Heklatis said firmly. “I will be doing what work I can to safeguard him. This is not over; the Great Ones could still die. There are always accidents, illnesses. Now that they know that he knows—he is not safe. Fortunately, it only takes a little magic, properly used, to defeat greater magic.” He grinned mirthlessly, showing a great many teeth. “And I have the advantage over them. I know how they are schooled; they do not know how I am.”

Kiron took a deep breath. “I came here to ask if the two of you can do something. I want to find a way to remove the Jousters from both armies.”

They both looked at him, as if wondering where in the world that idea came from, and why he would ask them to help with it.

“Both armies? That is no small task you set us,” Heklatis admitted reluctantly, “But I believe I see what your point is. Remove the Jousters, and it is army against army, in which we are equal. Remove the Jousters, and you remove the reason to send storms—which, unless they can concoct some better spell to use against the Tians, also removes the overt reason for the support of the Magi.”

Leaving only the stolen years, which even the Great Ones dare not admit to. If that is not forbidden magic, it is perilous close.

“It was Toreth’s idea that, eventually we could negate the Tian Jousters,” said Kiron. “But I fear that we may not have the time, now. If the Magi dare to use the Eye against dissenters—”

“Then they have grown too powerful, and we should look for other ways to take some of that power from them.” Heklatis nodded. “Well, we can do that. We can also look for ways to armor the Winged Ones against being used. And we can look for allies.” He raised one eyebrow. “The Bedu, do you think?”

Kiron had to shrug. “I do not know. I do not know that anyone knows the Bedu well enough to guess what they will think or do.”

“But they have a use for gold, and they might well feel threatened by our Magi,” Heklatis persisted. “Yes?”

Kiron nodded after a moment. “Yes to both, I think. They have their own magics, and the Magi cannot help but see that as a rivalry, if not a danger.”

“Then Aket-ten and I will pursue the first path together, and I—and eventually you—will pursue the second. Agreed?” asked Heklatis.

Oh, yes, the Magi should be shivering in their beds, Kiron thought cynically. A half-trained Jouster, a Winged Fledgling, and a foreign Healer. We shall defeat them and send them packing and still have time for breakfast!

But, “Agreed,” he said anyway. Because it was that—or despair. And he was not yet ready for despair.

FIFTEEN

KIRON was not ready for despair, but despair followed its own laws, and arrived on tattered wings.

It came on the wind, spreading in a sound that no one in all of Alta had ever heard before, a keening wail of a cry that broke the heart before anyone even knew the cause. It engulfed them, took them, shook them.

The sound struck all three of them like blows of a lance; all three of them gasped as one. Kiron rose, but it was Aket-ten who was halfway to the door before he was halfway to his feet.

The wail led him to the source, hard on her heels, with Heklatis not far behind, to the dragonets’ pens—to Toreth’s pen—

—to where Toreth’s dragon Re-eth-katen stood, blue-black head pointed skyward, silver-blue neck