Dragonheart

“What are you offering in exchange?” Jaythen demanded.

“The queen is not for me,” Fiona said to Arella. To Jaythen she said, “I’m offering you a permanent hold of your own, a place where you will be welcomed and honored by all.”

Arella leaned back hard against the wall behind her, her eyes closed, an expression of hope lighting her face.

“Who are you to make such offers?” Jaythen demanded angrily, jabbing a thumb toward Arella. “Who are you to raise her hopes so high?”

“I am Fiona, Talenth’s rider,” Fiona declared, raising her head and voice in pride, “Weyrwoman.”

“Weyrwoman?” Arella repeated, opening her eyes and leaning forward even as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. “We know all the Weyrs. Which Weyr claims one so young as you as its Weyrwoman?”

“Anyway, that’s a Weyr in the future,” Jaythen added dismissively. “Your promises can’t be kept until then.”

“I am Weyrwoman of Igen Weyr, here and now,” Fiona told them. “Igen has been abandoned!” Jaythen exclaimed. “How can you — ”

“We came back in time,” Fiona cut across him angrily. “Our injured riders and dragons and our weyrlings, even our youngest. We’re here now to recover and mature. We’ll stay here until the youngest weyrlings are ready to fight Thread.”

“That’ll take Turns!”

“Yes,” Fiona agreed. “And through all those Turns, I  will be and am Weyrwoman of Igen Weyr.”

“So if the egg wouldn’t be for you,” Jaythen said, returning to her offer, “then who?”

“I think it’s dangerous to know too much of the future,” Fiona said. “But I’m pretty sure that you’d approve of her. Anyway,” she continued, and then stopped.

“What?” Arella prompted.

Fiona sat still for a moment, debating whether she should tell them. Finally, she nodded to herself. “You must keep this a secret, all right?”

Jaythen and Arella eyed her suspiciously, neither agreeing nor objecting.

“I only saw the queen when they flew Thread at night,” Fiona said.

Arella turned to Jaythen, eyes glowing. “I told you! I told you they would fly against Thread!”

“You swear this, on your honor?” Jaythen asked Fiona.

“Of course!”

Something seemed to ease inside him, as though his heart had started beating more strongly, and his expression grew less guarded and more hopeful.

“Who flew the queen?” Arella asked.

“Nu — the woman to whom I want to give this egg,” Fiona replied.

“That’s the second time you started with ‘Nu,’ ” Arella observed slyly. “You can’t mean that miner girl.”

“She’s already got a green; do you expect her to bond with another?” Jaythen demanded.

“The person I know has been bonded with a gold for all my memory,” Fiona answered honestly.

“This queen egg will hatch soon,” Arella said. “And if we don’t find her someone with whom to bond, she’ll — ”

“Be lost between, ” Fiona finished.

“We think that some watch-whers go wild and live by themselves,” Jaythen told her, shaking his head. “But not golds. Aleesa says that a gold must have a person.”

“So, future girl,” Jaythen surmise grimly, “you’ve come to bargain with something Aleesa won’t want, in hopes of delivering a queen egg to someone who already has a watch-wher of her own — are you sure you don’t want to amend some of your tale?”

Fiona glanced at Arella and saw the same look on her face as on Jaythen’s — and neither looked promising.

“This will happen, I know it,” she swore firmly even as she wondered if, somehow, the future came about in an entirely different way — one that didn’t involve her or Igen Weyr. And if that was so, how would the weyrlings be fed or supplies for the wounded be found? Desperately, she asked, “Can I talk to Aleesa? Please?”

Arella glanced to see Jaythen’s reaction and, when he shook his head, sighed and repeated the motion.

“My mother is old and tired,” Arella said. “What you offer is nothing she’d want to hear and I won’t have you upsetting her.”

Jaythen rose, gesturing toward the cave’s exit. “It’s best if you leave now.”

Tears of rage and disappointment threatened to overwhelm Fiona. She sat there, shaking her head. “No,” she murmured to herself. “No, it has  to be this way!”

With the speed of a tunnel snake, Jaythen whipped around, wrapped his hand tightly around her arm, and yanked her off the floor. “No, it doesn’t,  holder girl!” he shouted, propelling her toward the exit.

Fiona turned back, determined not to leave only to find herself twirled tightly against his chest, a gleam of metal suddenly visible down by her neck, just below her line of sight.

“Don’t think I won’t!” Jaythen whispered in her ear, his words filled with a desperation and a longing that seemed like madness to Fiona.

“Jaythen!” Arella screamed. The room was suddenly full of children, all peering wide-eyed at the scenario.

“She comes here and makes promises she can’t keep and then thinks to defy us!” Jaythen yelled, his words deafening in Fiona’s ear. He twitched and Fiona felt a sharp pain at her throat, as Jaythen pressed his blade tightly against her skin. Fiona gasped.

Talenth!  she cried.

“Jaythen, you can’t, she’s a dragonrider!” Arella cried imploringly.

“Dragonrider!” Jaythen spat out the word. “And what have they done for us? Sent us packing, disdained and denied us at every chance, or used us like pawns for their own ends.” He eased his knife back for a moment, then pressed in again tightly, as he added, “Killing this one — even if she is a rider — would only be a partial payment for all the wrongs they’ve done us these Turns past.”

A sudden raucous bugling and crying erupted all around them, echoing deafeningly.

“Jaythen, if you kill me, more than one will die,” Fiona found herself saying. “More than all who live here, more than all who are now in Igen — maybe all Pern.”

She paused, her blood pounding in her veins even as she forced herself to speak calmly, quietly, using all of the power that Cisca had cautioned her against, saying, “Put the knife down.”

“You’d best do it now,” an elderly voice said harshly from behind them. “Or by the First Egg, I’ll send your Jaysk between  forever.” Aleesa.

The clatter of the knife as it fell on the stone floor was so strange to Fiona’s hearing that it took her a moment to understand what it meant. Gently, slowly, she raised her hand and pushed Jaythen’s away from her throat, moving to the opposite side of him as she did.

“You’d best run now, girl,” Aleesa said. “And forget that you ever learned the way here.”

Fiona shook her head stubbornly. “I can’t do that.” She found herself looking at a frail old lady who reminded her eerily of Melanwy — it was the eyes, she thought. There was only the slightest hold on life left in them, as though she’d already taken her last ride between.

“Please, we need your help,” Fiona begged, adding when it looked like the old woman was going to deny her, “We can help you, too.”

Aleesa laughed, a dry, heaving, cackle that was totally without mirth. “How can you  help me ?”

“Not you,” Fiona replied. She gestured to the others in the room. “Them. The watch-whers and wherhandlers.”

Aleesa eyed her consideringly for several moments, then nodded slowly.

“Aleesk woke me,” she said. “She said she’d heard the dragon, the voice that Mikal mentioned when his mind was wandering on its last path.”

She smiled knowingly at Fiona, slowly raising a finger and wagging it at her. “He told me something else, in