Alta

he could not even guess.

“As soon as she can move, I’m taking her to the empty pen at the end,” she said, in a voice that brooked no argument. “And then I’m moving my things there. She needs me.”

She glared defiance at him, but he was not about to argue with her. Not in this mood. He just nodded, and backed his way out. At this point, he didn’t care what she did, as long as she got that terrible wailing to stop, and kept the dragonet from starving herself to death. Another rider could be found eventually, and then he would argue that it was not appropriate for a young lady to be housed among so many young men.

Later. Not now.

Besides, somehow he had to get the others going, to establish a semblance of normality. More than ever, they had to get on their feet, get going, get back to business, and prove themselves. The Magi would be watching them now, sure that Toreth had cultivated a hotbed of dissent here, and waiting for the chance to make them fail. Therefore, they had to succeed, and yet at the same time, they had to deceive the Magi into thinking that they were insignificant, harmless. Toreth would have wanted that.

Throughout the sixty days of mourning, as the prince’s body was prepared for burial with all the care due a Prince and Heir, that phrase kept coming up among the boys that were left. Spoken, or unspoken, it was always there. Toreth would have wanted this.

The wing got back into the air, back into practice, pushing themselves and their dragons as never before, because Toreth would have wanted that. Heklatis worked feverishly, making their own personal amulets into magic sinks, imbued with every sort of protection that his imagination and the powers of his own mind and body could muster, because Toreth would have wanted his wingmates protected against the evil that the Magi could summon. Aket-ten devoted herself to the welfare of the dragon that she renamed “Re-eth-ke”—“the shining sun-spirit”— because Toreth would not have wanted his dragon to pine herself to death. And within twenty days, Aket-ten was garbed in a kilt and a breast wrap, flying that dragon, first in simple exercise, then in support of the training games, then in the training games and combat practice again. She was not much good at the targeting, except with the sling, but no one could outfly her. And somehow, Lord Khumun never brought forth another boy for Re-eth-ke, and it never seemed terribly urgent to Kiron that he find a substitute—

Truth to tell, he didn’t think he could bear to look at Re-eth-ke and see another boy in her saddle. Seeing Aket-ten there didn’t hurt; in a way, it was only right that after nursing the dragon back from its depression, she have the same freedom of the skies as the rest of them. He could see it in her face—when she was on the ground, there were anxiety lines there, the haunting flicker of fear that never left her, and the constant nag of worry that at any moment, the Magi might come for her. Up in the sky, all that left her. How could he take that from her? There might have been problems with a young woman in the midst of so many young men, but she never acted like a young “woman.” She might have flirted mildly with them before—she did nothing of the sort now. She acted like one of the wing, with the same earnest determination as any of them, and a complete lack of anything that could be considered flirtation.

So, by the time that Toreth’s funerary shrine was done, and his mummified body placed in it, and his spirit released to cross the Star-Bridge, Aket-ten had become a part of the wing, and never a murmur against her.

Not even from the senior Jousters. The Dry season aged toward winter, but everything seemed disjointed and wrong, somehow. The senior Jousters went out; some came back, some did not. Lord Khumun never ordered Kiron’s wing out at all. In a way, that was a relief; in a way, it felt as if the Lord of the Jousters had abandoned them.

At last the body was mummified, the shrine was complete, and with a shock, Kiron realized with a shock that it was time to say a final farewell. They all went to the funeral rites—and it was only at that moment that the anger he had felt before Toreth’s death finally awoke again. Because the rites were—perfunctory.

In fact, it felt like an extension of Toreth’s disgrace, as if his own parents believed that the cobra had really been a sign of the gods’ displeasure. When they all arrived at the dock to take the funeral barge to the City of the Dead, Kiron had to look twice to recognize that they did have the right barge, and not one for some insignificant shopkeeper. The barge was small, the decoration sparse, the flowers—well, the only flowers were those brought by the wing. The offerings for the gods were the only things that were there in profusion, in overabundance, in fact, as if Toreth’s parents were trying desperately to bribe the gods into a good humor.

There was no escort of professional mourners. Toreth’s own parents did not attend. There was only Kaleth, looking like five kinds of death himself, to represent the family, and the wing, to represent his friends.

The voyage took place in utter silence. There were no chants, no dirges. When they all disembarked at the City of the Dead, there was only a decorated cart hauled by a single ox to greet them, with the mason and the painter. Kiron half-expected the shrine to have been shorted as well, but there, at least, the job had been done handsomely. . . .

Then again, perhaps Toreth’s parents feared that he would haunt them otherwise.

The shrine, a masonry construction about the size of a room, was carved and painted all over with the prayers for the dead. Inside it should have already been stocked with abshati figures and offerings and everything that Toreth would need in the afterlife, sealed in several chambers. Only one chamber remained unsealed; the one for his coffin, before which further offerings could be made over time.

If any were—

We will, he thought fiercely. And I don’t care who knows that we’re doing so.

The Priest and Priestess of Enefis, the God of the Dead, hurried through the rites until Kaleth stepped forward, forcibly took the regalia from the priest, and a moment later, Aket-ten confronted the priestess who gave hers over without a murmur. And instead of the Priest and Priestess, they finished the rites, properly, and only when all was complete to the last detail, did they return the sacred implements to their rightful wielders. Everyone knew the rites, of course, and anyone could perform them—

—but to have to step in to do the job properly when there was a Priest and Priestess there was a sign that something was badly out of kilter.

The body bearers installed the mummy in its niche with what seemed to Kiron to be unseemly haste. Only the mason, who sealed the body in, and the painter, who painted Toreth’s likeness on the freshly plastered wall, did their jobs with dignity and grace. And only the wing and Kaleth stayed to watch it done.

When even the painter and the mason were gone, Kaleth turned to stumble away—and Kiron, moved by only Toreth would have wanted this put out a hand and caught Kaleth’s shoulder.

“Come back with us,” he said, to Kaleth’s frozen face. “Don’t go—to your parents’ house. Come home with us.”

“What?” the young man—prince no longer—asked harshly. “And try to take his place? Pretend I’m not afraid of heights, pretend that I am fit to be a warrior when I know I’m not, try to get his dragon to accept me, and try to—”

“No,” Kiron said simply. “Come back with us, be yourself, and make a home with us. Do you not think we like you for yourself, and wish your company? Aket-ten tends to Re-eth-ke. She saved Re-eth-ke’s life by comforting her, she trains Re-eth-ke now, and I would not let you take the dragon from her now, even if you wanted her. We don’t want a replacement for Toreth, we want Kaleth, our friend, who needs someone to share his grief with, just as we do. Come and be yourself, with us, who are your friends.”

He didn’t know where those words had come from, but they must have been the right ones, for something within Kaleth visibly broke. His face crumpled, and he began to weep, as if for the last sixty days he had kept his own grief pent behind a dam.

Gan took one side of him, and Orest the other, and they helped him along. Kiron hurried his steps and went on ahead, to make certain that all of Toreth’s things had been taken from the empty pen, and it was bare of everything but the essentials. Kaleth had seldom come here; mostly they had met in Kiron’s pen. There would be no memories in that place for him, and likely he would never know that it had been Toreth’s unless someone told him.

The pen was empty, the sand clean and smooth, the room held only the cot and some linen. Even Toreth’s colors had been painted over on the door outside the room. Re-eth-ke had new colors now, scarlet and white, chosen by Aket-ten.

Kiron found an unoccupied slave and sent him in search of the things that Kaleth would need for his comfort.