“Go left. It looks more traveled. Tats, my home was not as wonderful as you thought it was. My mother hated me. I shamed her.”
“I think. . well, I’m not sure she hated you. I think maybe the neighbors made her ashamed of wanting to love you. But even if she did hate you, she never left you. Or threw you out.” He sounded almost stubborn in his insistence.
“Except that first time when she gave me to the midwife to expose,” Thymara pointed out bitterly. “My father was the one who brought me back and said he was going to give me a chance. He forced me on her.”
Tats was unconvinced. “And I think that’s what really shamed her. Not what you were but that she hadn’t stood up to the midwife and said she was keeping you, claws and all.”
“Maybe,” Thymara replied. She didn’t want to think about it. Useless to think about it now, so far away from it in both time and place. It wasn’t as if she could go and ask her mother what she had felt. She knew her father had loved her, and she’d always hold that knowledge close. But she also knew he had agreed with the rules that said she must never have a lover or a husband, never produce a child. Every time she thought of crossing that boundary, she felt she was betraying him and what he had taught her. He had loved her. He’d given her rules to keep her safe. Could she be wiser than he was in this matter?
It seemed as if it should be her decision. Actually, yes, it was her decision. But if she decided her father was wrong, if she decided she was free to take a mate, did that somehow damage her love for him? His love for her? She knew, without doubt, that he would disapprove of her even considering such a thing.
And even at this distance, his disapproval stung. Perhaps more so because she was so far from home and alone. What would he expect of her? Would he be disappointed if he knew how much kissing and touching she’d indulged in with Tats?
He would. She shook her head, and Tats glanced back at her. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
But as she said it, she became aware of a rhythmic pounding. Something was running, with no effort at stealth, coming up the trail behind them.
“What is that?” Tats asked and then glanced at the trees nearby. She knew what he was thinking. If they had to take refuge, climbing a tree might be their best hope.
“Two legs,” she said abruptly, surprising even herself that she had deduced that from the sounds.
An instant later, Rapskal came into view. “There you are!” he shouted merrily. “Heeby said you were nearby.”
He was grinning, full of joy at finding them. Full of pleasure in life itself, as he always was. Thymara could seldom look at Rapskal without returning that smile. He’d changed a great deal since they had left Trehaug. The boyishness of his face had been planed away by hardship and the approach of manhood. He’d shot up, taller than anyone should grow in a matter of months. Like her, he had been born marked by the Rain Wilds. But since their expedition had begun, he’d grown lean and lithe. His scaling was unmistakably scarlet now to complement Heeby’s hide. His eyes had always been unusual, a very pale blue. But now the lambent blue glow that some Rain Wilders acquired with age gleamed constantly in them, and the soft blue sometimes had the hard silver bite of steel. Instead of becoming more dragonlike, the features of his face were chiseled to classical humanity: he had a straight nose and flat cheeks, and his jaw had asserted itself in the last couple of months.
He met her gaze, pleased at her stare. She dropped her eyes. When had his face become so compelling?
“We were trying to hunt,” Tats responded irritably to Rapskal’s greeting. “But between you and your dragon, I suspect anything edible will have been scared out of the area.”
The smile faded slightly from Rapskal’s face. “I’m sorry,” he responded sincerely. “I just wasn’t thinking. Heeby was so glad to find so much food, and it feels so good when she’s happy and has a full belly. It made me want to be with my friends.”
“Yes, well, Fente isn’t so fortunate. Nor Sintara. We’ve got to hunt to feed our dragons. And if Thymara had brought down that deer, instead of Heeby crashing on it, we would have had enough to give both of them a decent meal.”
Rapskal set his jaw and sounded defensive as he insisted, “Heeby didn’t know you were nearby until after she’d killed her meat. She wasn’t trying to take it from you.”
“I know,” Tats replied grumpily. “But all the same, between the two of you we’ve wasted half the day.”
“I’m sorry.” Rapskal’s voice had gone stiff. “I said that already.”
“It’s all right,” Thymara said hastily. It was unlike Rapskal to become prickly. “I know that you and Heeby didn’t mean to spoil our hunt.” She gave Tats a rebuking look. Fente was just as willful as Sintara. He should know that there would not have been anything Rapskal could have done to stop Heeby from taking the deer, even if he’d known they were stalking the same prey. The lost meat was not the main source of Tats’s irritation.
“Well, there’s a way that you can make it up,” Tats declared. “When Heeby’s finished, maybe she can make a second kill. One for our dragons.”
Rapskal stared at him. “When Heeby has eaten, she’ll need to sleep. And then finish off whatever is left of the meat. And, well, dragons don’t hunt or make kills for other dragons. It’s just not. . just not something she’d ever do.” At the stern look on Tats’s face, he added, “You know, the real problem is that your dragons don’t fly. If they would fly, they could make their own kills and I’m sure they’d love it as much as Heeby does. You need to teach them to fly.”
Tats stared at him. Sparks of anger lit his eyes. “Thanks for telling me the obvious, Rapskal. My dragon can’t fly.” He rolled his eyes in exasperation. “That’s a real insight into the problem. So useful to know. Now, I need to go hunting.” He turned abruptly and stalked off.
Thymara watched him go, openmouthed. “Tats!” she called. “Wait! You know we aren’t supposed to hunt alone!” Then she turned back to Rapskal. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what made him so angry.”
“Yes, you do,” he cheerily called her on her lie. He caught up her hand and held it as he spoke on. “And so do I. But it doesn’t matter. You were the one I wanted to talk to anyway. Thymara, when Heeby wakes up from her gorge, do you want to go to Kelsingra? There’s something there I want to show you. Something amazing.”
“What?”
He shook his head, his face full of mischief. “It’s us. That’s all I’m going to tell you. It’s us. You and me. And I can’t explain it; I just have to take you there. Please?” He was bouncing on his toes as he spoke, incredibly pleased with himself. His grin was wide, and she had to return his smile even as she reluctantly shook her head.
Kelsingra. Temptation burned hot. He would have to ask Heeby to fly her over. Riding on a dragon! Up in the air over the river. It was a terrifying yet fascinating thought.
But Kelsingra? She was not as certain about that part.
She’d been to the Elderling city exactly once and only for a few hours. The problem had been the river crossing. The river was rain-full now, swift and deep. It wandered in its wide riverbed during the summer, but now it filled it from bank to bank. A wide curve in the river meant that the current swept most swiftly and deeply right past the broken docks of ancient Kelsingra. Since they’d arrived the
But the young keepers had been unable to wait that long. Thymara and a handful of the other keepers had made the crossing once in two of the ship’s boats. It had demanded a full morning of strenuous rowing to cross the river. Even so, they had been pushed far downstream of the city’s broken stone docks and had to make their tedious way back. They’d arrived in late afternoon with only a few hours of rainy daylight left in which to explore the massive city of wide streets and tall buildings.
Thymara had always lived in a forest. That had been a strange thing to realize. She’d always thought of Trehaug as a city, a grand city at that, the largest in the Rain Wilds. But it wasn’t.
Kelsingra was a real city. The hike from the outskirts to the old city dock, portaging their boats, had proved that to her. They had left their small boats stacked there and ventured into the city. The streets were paved with stone and were incredibly wide and empty of life. The buildings were made of immense blocks of black stone, much
