Dragonheart

secret.”

She turned to Arella, her attention focused on her so tightly that it was as though neither Jaythen, nor Fiona, nor any of the others existed. “Do what she says,” she ordered her daughter. “Do whatever she asks, take whatever she offers.”

Arella gave her a long, troubled look, which Aleesa met unwaveringly. Finally, Arella nodded in acquiescence.

“So we just give in?” Jaythen asked warily, glaring over Fiona to Aleesa. “Again we let the dragonriders do as they please?”

“No,” Aleesa told him forcefully, pointing her finger straight at Fiona, “you’ll do what she  says.” When Jaythen drew breath to argue, she cut him off with a chopping motion. “You know better than to raise a hand to a woman, or did you forget why we helped Kindan?”

“You helped me  that day,” Fiona said, forcing her voice to be calm and controlled, turning around and raising her eyes up to the older man. “If Kindan hadn’t defeated Vaxoram, none would have survived at Fort Hold .”

“Or here,” Arella said. “If it weren’t for Kindan standing up for a woman’s right to follow her dreams, there would have been no one to remember us, no dragonriders  to come to our aid.”

Jaythen let out a low, wordless growl.

“Nothing can change, Jaythen,” Fiona said to him imploringly, “if you will not allow for change in your mind.”

“Things change,” Jaythen said, shaking his head. “They get worse every new dawn.”

Fiona stared at him in utter bafflement for a moment, then looked at Arella. “Does he speak for all of you?”

“No,” Arella said. “But his words ring true.”

“Then let it be different,” Fiona declared. She reached a hand to Jaythen. “Make a difference. Choose to change things and make things better instead of worse.”

“Shards, you’re worse than Kindan!” Arella exclaimed.

Fiona shook her head in resignation. “This I know,” she said, catching Arella’s eyes. “I know that there will be a wherhold, in my time, somewhere near Plains Hold. And I know that Nuella will be the leader.”

“Nuella rides a green,” Arella said, shaking her head but sounding wistful.

“I don’t think she does anymore, or for not much longer,” Fiona replied sadly. “I don’t know what happened, a cave-in or snakebite or both, only that she lost Nuelsk.”

“So what is her watch-wher called?” Aleesa asked, eyeing Fiona carefully.

“Nuellask,” Fiona replied.

Aleesa mulled her response over silently for several moments as if debating with herself. Finally, she said to Fiona, “You speak of the future. I will tell you of the past. When Mikal passed away, he said several things, some of which sounded feverish.” She shook her head in reverence for the man and the memories. “I didn’t understand his last word because I thought it was two words, like a question, but he spoke it like a statement.”

“Nuellask,” Fiona guessed. “They say there are some who can travel to the future without a dragon or watch-wher.”

Aleesa heaved with dry, wheezing laughter. “They say!” she repeated, smiling and pointing at Fiona. “You know more than you let on, little weyrling. You know someone, but you don’t want to say who.”

“Craft secret,” Fiona admitted. She tossed her head up in apology. “If it were my craft, I would feel differently, but as it is not, I will respect their wishes.”

“Ha!” Aleesa snorted. “You have just declared them traders!” She smiled triumphantly as she observed the look on Fiona’s face. “I’ve a good idea who, even, but keep your secret, youngling.” She turned to Arella. “I like this one — she’s got nerve and she’s not afraid to use it.” Her gaze returned to Fiona. “Just be careful, weyrling, that you don’t stick your neck under any more knives.”

Fiona found herself rubbing her neck unconsciously, her eyes darting toward Jaythen and then to the knife still on the ground. Would she have talked him out of it if Aleesa hadn’t appeared? She wasn’t certain, but she thought so. Fiona swallowed as the import of her thoughts struck home. She could see how she’d be willing to risk all again, risk without thinking, simply because she was certain  that she wouldn’t fail.

“Ah!” Aleesa chuckled, her eyes taking in Fiona’s reaction. “You do  learn!”

“I’m stubborn and will fight for what I believe,” Fiona admitted. “But I am willing to listen, willing to reconsider.”

“Except in this,” Aleesa guessed.

“No, even in this,” Fiona replied. “Only in this, I have knowledge of what will be that compels me.”

“You know what will be but not how  it will become,” Arella guessed, her lips pursed thoughtfully.

“I think I have the right idea of how it will become,” Fiona persisted.

“And that,  my little weyrling, is your danger,” Aleesa told her, nodding firmly.

Fiona felt her face growing hot with embarrassment but she said nothing; there was nothing to say.

Aleesa seemed to sag where she stood; then with a small noise, she turned and started back into the cavern from which she’d appeared, saying faintly, “I am tired. I go to rest.”

Respectfully the others waited until the noise of her slow movements faded into silence. Then, Arella turned back to Fiona.

“What do you need?”

“If she won’t take the egg, weyrling, then our deal is done and we’re through with you,” Jaythen declared when Fiona had gone over her plan with them.

“Agreed.”

“And if you can’t get the wherhold, what then?” Arella asked.

“What would you like instead?” Fiona asked unconcernedly. She knew  they would get the wherhold. She didn’t know quite when or how, but she knew that the wherhandlers would get the wherhold. What worried her was that, try as she might, she could remember no mention of Jaythen or Arella in all the conversations she’d heard about the place.

Arella shrugged, undecided. “Something just as good?”

“The best we can find,” Fiona countered. “I only saw one place on the charts where there was gold.”

Arella snorted in reply. “I doubt we’d need the gold ourselves.”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Jaythen corrected her.

Trying to stifle a yawn, Fiona wracked her brains for anything else that needed resolving.

“You’ve nerves, I’ll grant you that,” Jaythen said, eyeing her approvingly. “But they’ve caught up with you now and you’ll be useless until you’ve slept.”

Fiona wondered if that was all the apology she would ever get from the wherhandler and decided, with another yawn, that at this particular moment she didn’t care.

“Come on,” Arella said, rising from her cross-legged position on the floor, “we’ll find you a place to sleep.” With a look of warning, she added, “I’m afraid it’ll probably be in a room full of squirming children and they’ll think nothing of using you as their pillow.”

Fiona smiled. “I think I’d like that, actually.”

Moments later, Fiona was the center of attention for a group of sleepy-eyed children.

Wake me if Aleesk stirs,  Fiona reminded Talenth drowsily.

I will,  Talenth promised, sounding tired but intrigued.

Not long after that, with a smile on her lips, Fiona drifted off to sleep in the warmth of massed bodies.

It seemed to Fiona that she had slept for hours but it was still pitch black when she opened her eyes to Talenth’s urgent call: Fiona!

Aleesk?  Fiona responded, moving carefully around the children, snagging her shoes as she left and slipping into them just outside the room.

She is outside,  Talenth told her. Her rider is with her.

It’s their time,  Fiona replied with a dread certainty. Aleesa had reminded her too