Aerie

she would play it until she had to flop down in the sand, panting with exertion. And eventually she did just that, then dozed off suddenly as all young creatures tended to do. Peri took the moment to go looking for something—a bench that could be weighted down with stones, perhaps—that Sutema could jump onto and hold while she flapped her wings, as Peri had seen young birds do on the edge of a nest.

But she had not gotten very far before she ran into a servant who was evidently looking for her.

“There is a person in the kitchens, Jouster, looking for you,” the servant said, looking at her oddly. “She says that she knows you, and seemed surprised that you were not in the kitchen.” The servant sniffed. “We thought at first she was looking for a place herself. Her name, she says, is Letis-ha—”

And at that moment, a harried and slightly overheated looking Letis came hurrying around the corner from the same direction as the servant had come. “Peri!” she exclaimed, catching sight of her younger friend. “I thought that as today was your free day, and mine, too, I would come spend it with you, but these people did not seem to know—and what are you doing out here—”

And at the exact same moment, rounding another corner, came Lord Kiron. “Jouster Peri!” he called. “I wanted to ask you—”

They both stopped short, staring, not at Peri, but at each other. Letis turned white, and put her knuckles to her mouth. “Kiron?” she whispered, eyes as large and wide as any gazelle’s.

Meanwhile Kiron had put one hand on the wall beside him to steady himself. “Mother?” he gasped. “Mother— is that—”

Letis shook her head, hard, and rubbed her eyes. “Kiron?” she faltered. “S-son?”

And in the next moment, oblivious to anyone else, they ran to each other’s arms. Both talking at once, laughing and crying, Peri could only catch snatches of what they were saying.

“. . . look just like your father . . .”

“. . . Ari’s vizier searched, but couldn’t find . . .”

“. . . Iris is with me . . .”

“. . . thought you must be . . .”

“. . . knew you would be . . .”

Finally, Letis pulled a little away from Kiron and actually looked at him. “What are you doing here? This is where the Jousters are. Are you a dragon boy?”

Kiron flushed. “I’m a Jouster, Mother. Actually, I’m Lord of the Jousters. At least for—”

Letis frowned suddenly. “This is no time to be making up—”

“Lord Kiron!” Yet another servant came pounding up. “Lady Aket-ten wishes you to come to the Palace. You are urgently sought for by the Great Queen.”

Kiron cursed. “Of all the times—Mother, this is Peri-en-westet—”

“I—” Peri just knew that Letis was going to say “I know who she is, I came looking for her,” but Kiron didn’t give her the chance.

“She’s one of the Jousters from the new Queen’s Wing. She can tell you all about what is going on. I will be back as soon as ever I can. Don’t leave until I am back.” With that, Kiron set off at a run, the servant that had come to get him trailing along behind.

Letis turned slowly to look at Peri, clearly still in something of a state of shock.

Finally she spoke, her eyes narrowing. “What did he mean, you are a Jouster?”

“You cannot be a Jouster.”

It was about the sixth or seventh time Letis had said this, and Peri was getting rather tired of it.

“Are you saying that Kiron, Lord of the Jousters of the Two Lands, friend to the Great King and Queen, and your son, is a liar?” she finally snapped.

Since she had rarely used even a harsh tone with her friend before this, the anger in her voice took Letis aback. She stepped back a pace, and regarded Peri with narrowed eyes and furrowed brow, an expression which made her crow’s-feet wrinkles even more prominent.

And, in fact, which made her look rather like the evil old mother-in-law of storytellers’ tales.

But she isn’t, Peri reminded herself. It is hardship and suffering that put those marks on her. Not an evil temper.

“You never said you were a Jouster. You said you had work at the Dragon Courts,” Letis finally said.

“And so I do. Being a Jouster-in-training. Would you have believed me if I had told you I was to be a Jouster of the Queen’s Wing?” Peri countered, reining in her own temper.

“You cannot be a Jouster,” Letis said flatly. “This is some foolish whim of the foreign Queen. Women cannot be Jousters, commoners cannot be Jousters, and no Tian will allow an Altan Jouster to exist for very long. Once the nobles of Tia get wind of this, you will find yourself on the street outside the Dragon Courts, and count yourself fortunate if you have not got stripes on your back to boot.” She nodded decisively, convinced by her own arguments.

“Your own common-born Altan son is Lord of the Jousters of the Two Lands, the Queen’s Wing is approved by the Great King as well as the Great Queen, and there are both Altan and Tian Jousters in Aerie at this moment,” Peri countered, with growing irritation. “The wingleader of the Queen’s Wing is Lady Aket-ten, also Altan, also a woman.”

“But not a commoner!” Letis pounced on that like a bird on a beetle.

Peri sighed in exasperation. “Fully half the Jousters of the Two Lands are common-born now,” she retorted. “High birth is no great recommendation for getting a dragon.”

“You will never get a dragon,” said Letis.

“I have a dragon, which I am going to now!” Peri snapped, and turned on her heel to stalk off in the direction of Sutema’s pen. Letis remained where she was for a moment, then ran after her. Peri did not look back. She had never before seen this side of her friend—angry, bitter, and determined to be right even when she was completely wrong.

It made Peri wonder belatedly what sort of mother-in-law she would make.

No matter. Sutema’s pen was not that far, and Letis had kept her arguing for so long that the little dragon was awake and looking for her surrogate mother. With a yelp of joy, she lumbered across the sands to Peri as soon as Peri appeared in the door.

With a yelp of a different sort, Letis leaped backward into the corridor.

Peri paid her no mind, being far too busy reassuring Sutema that all was well, for the dragon was acutely sensitive to mood and had sensed Peri’s irritation. When golden chin was scratched and emerald brow ridges were rubbed, and Sutema was soothed into happy playfulness again and busy with wrestling a bull’s leg bone into submission, only then did Peri turn back to the doorway where Letis stood uncertainly.

“Rather substantial for something that doesn’t exist, don’t you think?” Peri said.

Letis eyed the dragon with apprehension. “They’d take it away from you,” she said weakly.

“Sutema is a she, and they can’t take her away. She is bonded to me. It is how the new Jousting dragons are raised, from the egg or nearly, tame and bonded to one rider.” That was not exactly the truth, but Letis would hardly know that. “She cannot be taken from me.”

Letis eyed the dragon with misgiving. “But women—”

“Make as good a Jouster as a man, if all one is doing is courier work,” Peri said firmly. “This frees men to hunt bandits.”

Letis looked as if she was digesting this. “I cannot like this,” she said sourly. “This is too much rising above your place.”

“Your son is Lord of the Jousters of the Two Lands,” was all Peri said. “And now it is time for me to feed my dragon.”

Letis beat a hasty retreat, and Peri did not see nor hear from her for the rest of the day, although the servants said she had gone to Kiron’s quarters and was waiting there for him.

That was fine with Peri. This was not at all how she had planned for this to go. . . .

Kiron’s head was swimming by the time he got to the Palace. He could hardly believe it. After all this time—

And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been looking for her . . .

Well, admittedly, he hadn’t personally been looking for her. One of the scribes in Ari’s service was, trying to trace her through the various sales of their land. But hers was not an uncommon name, and the war had