Sky Dragons

SIXTEEN The Battle of Friends

“Shards, Fiona, it may only be soft wood, but I’m still sore there, you know!” Xhinna cried, rubbing her chest where the Weyrwoman had scored—once again—on the front of her padded leather armor. “I’ve got a baby to nurse,” she added in a lower tone, “and he’s not going to like it if I’m wincing because of you.”

“You can always yield,” Fiona said, eyes dancing as she circled the point of her practice blade in the vicinity of Xhinna’s chest. “And you’ve scored as much on me—also nursing!—as I have on you.”

In the near distance, sheltered under the shade of a large canvas awning, Mirressa shook her head at the two women.

“See, your mommies are arguing again,” she said in a singsong voice to the two babies sleeping on either side of her. Her voice carried as she intended and she waved mildly to Xhinna and the Weyrwoman, not at all apologetic.

“On your guard, Weyrwoman!” Xhinna called, raising her blade once more.

Instead, Fiona lowered her blade and raised her free hand in pax, turning away from Xhinna to glance down the long stretch of beach beyond them.

“I still can’t believe it,” Fiona said as Xhinna moved up beside her. Xhinna followed her gaze and nodded in mute agreement.

From where they stood, staring down the length of the coast, there was nothing for two kilometers but dragons, riders … and dragon eggs.

The midday heat baked the sand and blurred the farthest images, but Xhinna knew that there were more than ninety eggs ready to hatch in the next sevenday or less.

Around and over them a full Flight of dragons frolicked—three wings of thirty dragons each. And that was only the Rest Day Flight. Two other Flights were engaged in various activities: hunting, working, providing for the whole of Sky Weyr.

That industry in nearly the same numbers was repeated no less than five more times across the width and breadth of the Western Isle.

“Two thousand fighting dragons,” Fiona said to herself, reaching to grab Xhinna’s hand. “And no one in our time knows about it.”

“Well …”

“None that are saying,” Fiona agreed with a light chuckle. Nerra, Lady Holder of Crom, had been instrumental in helping them provide the Candidates for so many of the new dragons, aided in no small part by Javissa, Aressil, and a whole group of very tight-lipped traders.

Pulled from the wreck of the Plague, twenty-three hundred people had been brought here, to the Western Isle, to rebuild the dragon strength of Pern.

Fiona shook her head in wonderment. “I keep thinking …”

“What?”

Fiona turned to look up at the blue rider. “I just keep thinking that it’s too good to last.”

Xhinna nodded silently. She’d had the same feeling.

Footsteps crunched in the sand, causing them to turn. A small form approached. Jirana. Rider of the first of the “green queens”—queens hatched from green clutches. Two Turns had done little for her height, but her eyes showed an age far greater than her twelve Turns. “It won’t last,” she said. “In half a Turn, at most, we’ll be back in our own time.”

She wore the light robe that was used as both towel and body covering by so many of the Weyr’s beach worshippers—she’d been part of one of several parties speckled up and down the beach who’d mixed their rest with swimming and sunbathing. Now her gaze swept down the sands toward Mirressa, sitting in the shade, and a look of pain twisted her face for a fleeting moment.

Xhinna, who’d been watching, nudged Fiona. The Weyrwoman, rubbing where the blue rider had scored on her in the previous bout, nodded quietly.

Presently, Jirana turned her attention back to them. “How did your practice go?” she asked Fiona. She turned to Xhinna. “Have you managed to disarm her yet?”

“Bruise, yes; disarm, no,” Xhinna replied easily.

“You fight like a girl,” Jirana said, deadpan.

“Take a sword and you’ll see how I fight,” Xhinna challenged.

“I think I’ve seen how you can fight, blue rider,” Jirana returned easily, eyes twinkling.

“Did you want to challenge me, then?” Fiona asked with a grin.

Surprised, Jirana gave her a shocked look and hastily shook her head. “I’d never do that, Weyrwoman.”

A noise from above and a sudden darkening of the sky heralded the arrival of a dragon. The three craned their necks up as a bronze dragon overflew them and banked into a steep turn. K’dan and Lurenth.

“Maybe you should practice anyway,” Fiona said, tossing her blade toward Jirana before racing off to the shaded awning.

Jirana caught the leather-wrapped hilt easily and deftly sliced the air with a brilliant show of skill before lowering the blade to the ground.

“You need to practice more,” she said to Xhinna. “You’ve got to be able to disarm her.”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier if you’d tell me why?” Xhinna asked irritably. The whole set of exercises, the months of sword practice, had all been at Jirana’s urging.

“It might not happen,” Jirana said with the same resigned but wistful tone that Xhinna had come to associate with the youngster’s visions of things yet to come.

Xhinna abruptly dropped her practice blade and grabbed the little queen rider by the shoulders, pulling her into a tight embrace. Pushing back, she raised Jirana’s head with a gentle hand to meet her eyes and said, “You’ve asked me to trust you, little one. Can’t you do the same with me?”

Jirana jerked her head from Xhinna’s grasp and looked down at the ground. In a low voice she explained, “If I tell you, that might make it happen.”

Xhinna sighed; it had not been the first time the girl had said such to her.

“He’s chiding for his mother, yes, he is,” Mirressa said in her singsong voice as she passed little Xelinan up to Xhinna a short time later.

Xhinna’s nose twitched. “And he needs changing,” she added ruefully.

“Only just,” Mirressa said, rising awkwardly from the ground on which she’d sat for the last several hours. She searched the carisak that hung from her side, pulled out a diaper, and handed it over to Xhinna. “When you’re done, would you rinse out the others before bringing them back?”

“If you’ll watch him.”

“Of course!” Mirressa loved babies, and even though she had two herself, she was more than willing to look after any others.

Xhinna smiled at her, laid Xelinan down on the changing towel, quickly unwrapped the soiled bundle, and cleaned him up with practiced ease. As she did, Mirressa prattled on. “Taria’s got R’ney watching Tarena and Taralin. Don’t you think it’s nice that he’s so helpful?”

“I do,” Xhinna agreed with a slow smile. “But if you think after all these months that you’ll get me to tell you who’s the father, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Mirressa sighed. “It’s just that it’d be a help, you know—”

Xhinna stopped her with a quickly raised hand, then just as quickly returned to her task.

“You’ve got the whole island guessing,” Mirressa persisted.

“Good,” Xhinna said, finishing with Xelinan’s diaper and leaning down to plant a big kiss on his beaming face. “It makes a pleasant diversion and reminds everyone that we are all entitled to our secrets.”

“I suppose,” Mirressa allowed. A moment later, as she handed Xhinna the wet-bag, she added, “And is it a secret about tonight’s meeting?”

“Meeting?” Xhinna frowned and shook her head, thrusting the dirty diaper in the wet-bag and closing it quickly. “Tonight?” She shrugged. “I expect it’s for planning. I don’t doubt that K’dan is going to be reorganizing the fighting wings.”

“Is he going to start the greens chewing firestone?”

“I don’t know, Mirressa, he hasn’t told me.”

“But you know everything that goes on!”

“No, I knew everything,” Xhinna corrected her. “Since then, I’ve had a baby and am quite happy to let others handle the bigger problems.”

Mirressa made an unhappy noise.

“Can you watch him while I make a diaper run?” Xhinna asked, lifting Xelinan into her arms while at the same time deftly shrugging the heavy wet-bag onto her shoulder.

“Of course,” Mirressa agreed easily, moving to take the baby from her. “Didn’t I just say I would?” She scrunched up her face. “Or does this mean you plan to make a run of the whole beach?”

“Of course,” Xhinna allowed. “No point in not getting all the diapers I can.”

“You’re a good person, you know.”

It was a messy, stinky job made both more difficult and easier by doing it in the salt water on the ebbing tide. The diapers, so rinsed, would be boiled and properly cleaned when Xhinna brought them back to the burnt plateau, now more often called Meeyu Plateau; rinsing and recycling were more crucial now than ever, now that cloth was in such short supply with the added need to provide diapers and baby clothing.

It was an unanticipated side effect of the widespread realization that here on the Western Isle and now, back in time before the Third Pass, was the best time for the young women who rode blues, greens, and queens to complete their families.

Xhinna was chasing down a diaper that had gotten away from her and was threatening to be carried out to sea when a shadow above her alerted her to the arrival of Taria on green Coranth.

A few moments later, the green rider helped her snag the errant cloth and passed it back to her. “Doing stinky duty again, I see!”

“Someone’s got to do it.”

“And you don’t mind.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Xhinna protested. “But as Mirressa was watching the baby, it seemed a fair trade.”

“Fair trade” was a phrase borrowed from the traders who had grown in importance and meaning as the inhabitants had outgrown Sky Weyr and overflowed throughout the Western Isle. It was all the result of Xhinna’s simple message, left nearly three Turns back at the Red Butte, by the grave of Tenniz, Jirana’s father and the Seer who had glimpsed this strange island future. It seemed more than fitting to Fiona, Lorana, and Xhinna that the dragonriders saved by the vision of the trader be willing to borrow from his people’s customs and his bequests—particularly the strange Sights that his daughter, Jirana, had provided.

“You’re thinking about her again,” Taria said suddenly. “She and her queen were back in the trees just now.”

“Did she send you here?”

Taria’s silence was answer enough. A moment later, she sighed. “Her queen will be old enough soon.”

“That doesn’t worry her,” Xhinna said, recalling a recent conversation with Jirana. “She’ll rise when we’re ready,” Jirana had assured her. Laspanth, the first of six “green queens” was still small for a gold and clearly growing, so perhaps there was no reason to doubt Jirana on this. That hadn’t stopped Fiona from bringing the matter up with Xhinna, nor Xhinna from worrying about it.

“So what does?” Taria asked. Confidentially, she added, “She’s always sending me to you when you get worried about her, you know.”

“Trying to distract me?” Xhinna guessed.

“Hmph!” Taria said. “One, you’re impossible to distract when you’ve your mind on something; and two, if I wanted to distract you, I wouldn’t be talking about it.”

Xhinna chuckled, rinsed another diaper, and placed it back into the bag. She motioned to Taria who, with a wrinkle of her nose, gamely pulled out a few diapers and joined in the cleansing.

The dark-haired rider was right on both counts: Xhinna would not let herself be distracted when she thought something was important; and regardless, no matter how important her thoughts, Taria could always distract her if she really desired.

In the past two Turns their relationship had grown both stronger and freer than Xhinna could possibly have imagined. They no longer needed to be in sight of each other or constantly touching; in fact, they now took joy in being able to recount separate adventures, to revel in the strength of their bonds rather than railing against them.

Xhinna could feel that special connection with Taria, that increased joy in her presence, the knowledge that they were free enough to go their separate ways without fear of hurting each other, and the greater joy that, when they could, they preferred each other’s company above all others. Not that they were exclusive—they couldn’t quite be, because of the nature of their bonds with their dragons. Taria was willing to cheer when Tazith outflew browns to catch other greens; Xhinna was willing to stand in honor as Coranth was caught by another blue. But Xhinna and Taria had learned to adjust and thrive in those situations. What mattered most was what they chose—not what dragon passion compelled.

As it was with them, so it was with the other greens and blues throughout the Western Isle.

“So what is it?” Taria asked, bringing Xhinna’s focus back to the present—and to the pleasant surprise that, in her reverie, she’d finished rinsing the last of the diapers. Taria passed her back her handful and Xhinna put them into the wet-bag, gladly sealing it and trudging out of the surf to the dry shore.

“Something’s bothering her,” Xhinna said grumpily.

“Not her scar?”

“No,” Xhinna said with a quick shake of her head. “You can hardly see that, and it’s not as though she’s worried about the looks she gets from the boys.”

“I like scars,” Taria said slyly, tracing the line of Xhinna’s scar through the shirt on her back.

“Whatever it is,” Xhinna said, accepting the oblique apology for the scar that J’keran’s knife had left, and continuing single-mindedly on the question at hand, “it’s not going to happen for a while.”

“How can you say?”

“Because she’s not that desperate,” Xhinna said. “She’d be angry with me, fighting with me, if this were something coming soon.”

“She could be wrong, you know,” Taria said.

“Well, even if she is, it’s getting me quite fit,” Xhinna replied, grinning as she caught the look of pleasure that spread across her partner’s face. Xhinna shook her head and trudged farther back up the sands. “I’ve got to drop these off and pick up Xelinan.”

“I’ll get Xelinan,” Taria offered.

“Or you could take these,” Xhinna countered.

“Oh, let’s see—cute, adorable boy or bag of smelly diapers? What a hard choice!” Taria said, racing to leap upon Coranth’s neck and urging the green skyward before Xhinna could utter another word. She waved down from above, a wicked grin spreading across her face.

Xhinna chuckled, shaking her head ruefully.

The Meeyu Plateau most clearly showed the industry that had occurred since Fiona, T’mar, and the others had come back in time to join Xhinna in response to the simple polyhedral marker she’d left at Red Butte, inscribed on all three upright sides with the same one word: Come.

She remembered the evening—nearly two Turns ago—when she got Fiona’s description of the events that led them there:

“So, there’s D’gan, all high and mighty right up until his Kaloth collapses from the injection of the dragon sickness cure, and then he starts bellowing and raging all over the place until we could calm him down and get him to his weyr,” Fiona had said as she brought Xhinna up to date on the several days they’d spent back in Telgar Weyr. She shook her head trying to shake her anger out of it. “And then, that last night, acting like he was the Weyrleader …”

“Well, he was,” Xhinna said.

“Half a Turn ago before he and all his dragons were lost between,” Fiona agreed. “But not now.”

“He has over three hundred riders who think otherwise,” Lorana disagreed from where she sat nearby. “And they’re planning on riding Fall with High Reaches today.”

Fiona made a sour face. “You should have heard him go on about the new firestone,” she said. “He practically accused me of sabotage for ordering the old stuff removed, and then one of his bronze riders nearly jumped out of his skin when one of our weyrlings dropped a rock in a bucket of water by accident.” She brightened. “After that, he changed his tune, but he never said anything to me.”

“He’d hoped to ignore us,” Jeila said.

“He might still succeed,” T’mar said. Fiona shot him an angry look and the bronze rider raised his hands defensively.

“He’s got almost more dragons than all the other Weyrs put together,” he pointed out. “We’re all exhausted, and his riders are still in their prime, ready for anything. We really can’t reject his aid.”

“And the blues and greens we brought back would have needed a sevenday at least to learn to chew firestone,” Fiona said in agreement. “So D’gan can ignore us, leave us out of the Fall, and we have nothing to do about it,” she ended bitterly. She sighed and sat back dejectedly in her chair. Xhinna threw her a questioning look.

“And another thing,” Fiona said, gesturing toward Shaneese, who sat nearby. “Remember how the weyrfolk were when we first arrived?”

Xhinna nodded, her stomach clenching in anger. The weyrfolk were used to D’gan: He demanded their instant respect and was not very caring when it came to women.

“Well, Shaneese’s L’rat is now alive and well,” Fiona said, her lips curled in anger, “and he believes that T’mar is a poacher.” She shook her head. “He even told T’mar: ‘As you’ve a woman already, I want mine back.’ ”

“Shaneese tried to deal with it diplomatically,” Jeila said with a sour look, “but that didn’t work.”

“We were like a Weyr within a Weyr,” Fiona said with an expression that was alarming both for its ferocity and its resignation. “When we found your first message, it was nothing to find enough volunteers—”

Xhinna coughed and gave the Weyrwoman a reproving look.

“Really it wasn’t,” T’mar added in agreement. He glanced around the strange plateau and the dragon-filled broom trees in the distance. “We hadn’t quite realized what you’d been planning, I must admit.”

“Well, once we found the second marker—wise of you to set them far apart—we realized just how much we wanted to see our children,” Fiona said, reaching for Lorana, “and our bronzes’ riders.”

“Particularly K’dan,” T’mar opined with a grin. Fiona started a hot retort, but then gave him a second, more probing look and just nodded.

“If only to relieve him of nonstop parental duties,” she agreed. A moment later she returned to her story. “And then D’gan came up to us, saying that there was a Fall at High Reaches and wanting to know how many of our riders could haul firestone for his fighting dragons.”

She changed her voice to a mocking imitation of the old Telgar Weyrleader: “ ‘I don’t allow shirkers in my Weyr.’ ”

“Uh oh!” Xhinna said.

“I told him: ‘This is my Weyr, bronze rider’ and he said, ‘We’ve no need for impertinence’ and then, can you believe it? He turned to T’mar and said, ‘If you can’t control your women—and you have far too many of them if you ask me—’ ”

“He didn’t!” Xhinna and Taria exclaimed in unison.

Fiona nodded solemnly and then looked up at them, eyes blazing, but it was Jeila who, with awe in her voice, said, “And then she said, ‘Enough. You will be silent now.’ ”

H’nez, Jeila, and T’mar all broke into laughter.

“I thought he was going to burst, the way his eyes bulged,” Jeila continued. “Shards, I didn’t think he could even speak, but just as he was about to, all three of our queens bellowed as one. The old queen called back, but she didn’t sound like she was angry, only resigned.” She glanced toward

Fiona, continuing, “So the Weyrwoman said—”

“ ‘We’re leaving. We’ll be back when we’re needed,’ ” Fiona said. “And then, would you believe, our old Mekiar comes along and says—” She turned to the old potter to let him speak.

“Well …” Mekiar, glad to be invited to participate, smiled as he said, “I merely said, ‘Would you perhaps need a potter where you’re going?’ ”

“But—” Xhinna gestured at all the riders from other Weyrs. All the young weyrlings who’d grown up with her and Tazith, Taria, and Coranth were arrayed there, including all four queens and all the bronzes.

“The story’s not done yet,” Fiona said. “So when we went to leave, D’gan tried to block us, but the queens put an end to that.”

“He didn’t give up, did he?” Taria asked. She’d known him from her childhood at Telgar Weyr.

“Oh, no!” Fiona exclaimed. “It wasn’t until the others”—she waved a hand at the non-Telgar riders—“arrived that things were finally sorted.” Her smile dimpled. “You see, I thought that if we were going to do this, we should be certain not to do it by halves.”

“But what of the other Weyrs?” Taria objected. “Surely they didn’t—”

“Ah, but they did!” Jeila said with a laugh. “In fact—” and she waved a hand for Fiona to finish the story.

“Lorana spoke with them,” Fiona said. “You should have seen the look on D’gan’s face when he saw them. And then I told him, ‘The others are a parting gift, as it were.’ ”

“Others?” Xhinna asked.

“That’s just what D’gan said!” Jeila laughed. “Because when he looked up he saw not only all our Eastern weyrlings and riders but—” and again she waved to Fiona to finish.

“Not only Tullea on her Minith, but Sonia of High Reaches on Lyrinth, Cisca of Fort on Melirth, and Dalia of Ista on Bidenth all gliding in for a landing—and all looking as though they were going to have more than a few words with Telgar’s old Weyrleader.”

“And now we’re here!” Jeila said in conclusion, smiling all around.

“Of course, there is one catch,” T’mar said somberly.

Xhinna and the others of Sky Weyr had given him all their attention then, ready to hear what came next, but it was K’dan who spoke up instead: “We can’t fail.”

And they hadn’t. There were enough dragons and more to repopulate all the Weyrs of Pern. In half a Turn or less, they’d be able to return home, triumphant, ready to fight Thread.

The hectic days of scouting, building, and struggling to establish all the extra dragons and riders across the Western Isle were over. The days of mating flight after mating flight—with the horrifying specter of battles between mating queens and mating greens—were nearly done, and besides, Xhinna and her riders had learned how to distract and separate amorous dragons safely.

Soon it would be all over, they’d go back, and Pern would be safe.

So why was it she was so worried? And if it was just that she felt things had gone too well for too long, then why was Jirana still acting so oddly?

SEVENTEEN Journey to Starlight

Zirenth says you should join them, Tazith told Xhinna as they wheeled around toward a landing.

Zirenth? T’mar?

He is in the stone, Tazith replied. Xhinna’s lips twitched at her blue’s title for the first housing that had been built on the reclaimed Meeyu Plateau. Bare rock, with a few smaller piles of sand, made the whole area look like a blight on the otherwise green plain that stretched out under the watch of the Sky Weyr’s broom trees.

Scouring the plateau of all life and soil had been R’ney’s solution to the problem of tunnel snakes, superceded by the brilliant plan of uniting Mrreows and dragon eggs to spot and counter any assaults on the unhatched dragonets. Almost as a sop to R’ney, two dragons had clutched on the sandpiles, but most preferred the comfort of the long, sandy beaches.

The upside of gouging the earth down to the rock and letting the torrential rains churn the ground into mud had been runoff that included a large amount of gold dust. The gold dust, in turn, had been used to surreptitiously purchase those items that could not be found or made on the Western Isle by the industrious riders and weyrfolk.

The bare rock, augmented by sands and stout iron, had been the primary home for the baby Meeyus and adult Mrreows that helped guard the defenseless dragon eggs from the depredations of the ever-hungry tunnel snakes. The Mrreows and the Meeyus preferred any of the six-limbed creatures of Pern as their prey, so enlisting them to protect the dragons had its drawbacks—particularly as the Mrreows grew older and less controllable by either human or dragon.

The solution had been to retire the intractable beasts to one of the many smaller islands that dotted the oceans surrounding the great Eastern and Western Isles of Pern. Xhinna’s own Scruff had been one of the first to be so placed, and a pang of sorrow went through her even as she realized it was prompted by the sight and smell of the cages and the noise of the latest litter of little Meeyus.

Jirana and the other Green-queens—as the green queen riders had come to be known—were gathered around, chatting among themselves and instructing a group of younger helpers in the care and feeding of the cute but noisy beasts. Xhinna made a note to speak with Jirana about this—the beasts wouldn’t be needed for guard duty once the last of the clutches had Hatched, and it would be an unkindness to break the hearts of yet another generation of youngsters who would have to leave the Mrreows behind when they finally abandoned the Western Isle.

T’mar? Xhinna wondered. What did he want? And what, she thought guiltily, did I do wrong?

He says to say that you did nothing wrong, Tazith said just then, as if the Southriver Weyrleader had been touching her mind just as easily as her blue dragon could.

To comfortably house and support all the dragons and riders, it had been decided in the first month after the arrival of Fiona and the other 126 dragons to spread out throughout the Western Isle. In addition to Sky Weyr—the name had stuck, despite all of Xhinna’s protests—they created five additional Weyrs: Midriver, Southriver, Southern, Western, and Northern.

Fiona’s desire to spend time with her children and K’dan had grown from inclination into permanence. While T’mar had taken the lead in everything, he was too good a leader not to involve everyone, and so it was mutually decided that H’nez and C’tov, as the next two most experienced wingleaders, would be the temporary Weyrleaders of the Northern and Southern Weyrs. X’lerin, ever tactful, offered to relinquish his leadership at Sky Weyr to K’dan and, as a consequence, was assigned to start Midriver Weyr—an assignment made permanent when his Kivith flew Indeera’s queen Morurth when she rose. There was no established Weyrleader at the Western Weyr, which was ably run by the Weyrwoman, Garra, with T’mar aiding as needed in the leadership that W’vin and his brown Jorth provided to the adult riders.

Xhinna’s wing was not, to her surprise, disbanded. In fact, both the queen and bronze weyrling riders insisted on staying with her at Sky Weyr in spite of the lure of better positions elsewhere. But at Xhinna’s insistence and in defiance of Fiona—who had been delighted with the notion of a blue wingleader—the young bronze riders themselves had rotated through the leadership of the fledgling wing, able to lean on the assistance of both Xhinna and R’ney as wingseconds.

The queens and their riders, naturally, had become the business of Fiona as Weyrwoman, but with Taria’s connivance, Xhinna had found herself compelled to take on much of that, as well, as Fiona had, in a very unconvincing tone, apologized for being too busy with her other duties.

So some things had changed—and many hadn’t.

Danirry had been elevated to wingsecond, third in command of what was still known as Xhinna’s wing, when the work had become too much for the combined efforts of Xhinna, R’ney, and whichever bronze rider had the position.

“Actually, you brought it on yourself,” Jepara had remarked when Xhinna had once let the strain show. Jepara, like Danirry, was a secret source of pride for Xhinna: The young queen rider had matured a lot and was often found at the forefront of Weyr activity. When Xhinna had groaned at her, Jepara had laughed, quoting, “ ‘What’s the reward for a job well done?’ ”

Xhinna’s groan had become louder before she muttered, “I’ll get you for that.”

Xhinna was sorry that Jepara’s Sarurth would probably not rise before they returned to the Northern Continent.

Now she pulled herself out of her musings as she heard voices in the first of the rooms of the Stone Hold. She nodded to those working under the wide awnings spread from each side of the stone building and made her way into the entrance, following T’mar’s voice.

“You sent for me?” Xhinna asked as she entered the room that most often served as the Sky Weyr council room.

“I did,” T’mar said, rising from his chair on the opposite side of the table that filled the center of the room and extending his hand toward her. Xhinna took it in a quick grasp. With his other hand, T’mar gestured her toward a seat.

Xhinna nodded to the others in the room, not surprised at the sight of X’lerin, H’nez, C’tov, K’dan, and Fiona. With T’mar present, she had expected nothing more than a full council of the Weyrleaders. They often met—that was no surprise. That they wanted her, however, was.

“I understand you’ve been thrashing the Weyrwoman again,” T’mar began in a bantering tone.

“I’m only trying to keep her fit, Weyrleader,” Xhinna had said in the same tone. “Far be it for me to say that she’s getting out of shape—”

“Ha!” Fiona cried.

“No, indeed not,” K’dan agreed blandly.

“And who was it stopped our bout today?” Fiona asked with no rancor in her tone.

The others chuckled, and then T’mar leaned forward in the manner that Xhinna had come to recognize as his “getting down to business” posture.

“Getting down to business,” T’mar said, predictably, “we’re wondering if we can add to your duties.”

“Weyrleader?” she said, glancing toward K’dan. His dragon was only now starting to flame—at half a Turn under three, perhaps a bit too soon—but his authority as Weyrleader had been firmly established from the moment T’mar had first thrust it upon him. As T’mar had said at the time, “If ever there’s a person able to lead this lot, it’s you.”

K’dan, to Xhinna’s surprise, had seriously suggested her instead, but when she’d thrown her wholehearted support behind T’mar, the harper had smoothly bowed to the inevitable—which Xhinna had thought not only right but very diplomatic of him, given that Fiona would have added her voice to the argument if he hadn’t. And no one resisted Fiona for long.

A flash of thought crossed Xhinna’s mind—did Jirana want Xhinna to learn how to resist Fiona? She shook the thought away even as K’dan said, “Actually, it was my idea.”

“And if we let the men keep talking, we’ll all die before they get to it,” Fiona said in exasperation. “What they’re trying not to ask, is whether you’d be willing to start flying watch for us.”

“Watch?”

“Thread’s due soon,” T’mar said. “We don’t know when, and we don’t know where—on these isles—it will fall.”

“We need to establish the pattern, so we can predict the Falls,” K’dan put in.

“And,” H’nez added, clearly following an earlier conversation, “we don’t know if the first Falls will be dust like they were for us back home.”

“I see,” Xhinna said. “But why me?”

“That is my fault,” Fiona confessed, waving a hand at the Weyrleaders. “I told them that you’d jump at the chance to go back to the Dawn Sisters.” She leaned forward in her chair, her eyes never leaving Xhinna’s face as she added triumphantly, “And I’m right, aren’t I?”

“The Dawn Sisters?” Taria repeated that evening as they gathered their food and found a cool place amongst the eggs in which to eat.

“What about the Dawn Sisters?” Jepara demanded, following behind them with a plate of her own.

“Dawn Sisters?” Mirressa echoed as she joined the others.

“Wait a moment!” Jepara demanded, holding up a hand. “Let’s get the whole wing here, and then you can talk.”

“It’s not our wing, Weyrwoman,” Meeya declared sternly. “Fiona—”

“Gave us back to Xhinna,” Jepara reminded her. “If you recall, she said—”

“ ‘You can learn a lot from her,’ ” Meeya quoted. Of all the riders, she had the best memory after Fiona. In fact, she had spent all her spare time with K’dan and Fiona learning Ballads and writing Records. She had a good voice and was often in demand, singing solo or duet with the harper.

“So,” Jepara said, glancing around to assure herself that the whole extended wing was present, “teach.”

“Wingleader?” Xhinna said.

“I’d like to know myself,” M’gel, Turenth’s rider, allowed. He was one of the youngest of the fourteen bronze riders who had Impressed the only eggs to survive the Great Clutch of Eastern Weyr, but he was neither apologetic about his age nor jealous of the temporary rank he’d assumed. That was why, when the bronze riders had all completed their two-month duties, he had been selected as the first to take another month-long round.

Xhinna held up a restraining hand to indicate that she was sorting out her thoughts, but Taria said, “Eat first, talk later!”

When Xhinna started to protest, Taria reminded her, “You’ve a feeding coming up, and who knows how soon.”

Xhinna nodded and bent her head to her plate, chewing slowly after the first growled warning from Jepara and thinking while she swallowed.

What K’dan had said made sense. Of all the wings in Western, Xhinna’s was the oldest and most familiar with the landmarks of the island. Xhinna herself had been to the Dawn Sisters nearly five Turns earlier when the Telgar riders had retraced Lorana’s reasoning to discover the Great Isles.

From the position of the Dawn Sisters, it was thought, it should be possible to track the fall of Thread and give early warning if the Isles were threatened.

“Okay, now talk!” Jepara demanded as Xhinna cleared the last of her plate.

“She might want seconds,” Taria muttered.

“I’ll get them for her after,” Jepara promised, leaning closer to Xhinna. “Just tell us.”

Xhinna shared a quick look with Taria—the queen rider looked so much like one of the beaming-faced weyrchildren they’d minded so many Turns before—and then she began, “We need to look for Thread.”

“Of course,” Jepara said dismissively. “So what?”

“They want us all to go to the Dawn Sisters?” Meeya broke in.

Xhinna shook her head. “No, just us,” she said, waving toward the other blue and green riders.

“What?” Jepara cried, glancing to her fellow queen riders for support. “Why not us?”

“Because we can lose greens and blues, not queens,” Alimma replied. For all that she tried to sound bitter about it, Xhinna could hear the excitement in the young rider’s voice.

“No! No, not by the Egg of Faranth!” Jepara cried. “We ride with you.”

“You’ll have to take that up with Fiona,” Xhinna said.

Jepara shot her a startled look. “Didn’t you ask her?”

Xhinna shook her head. “The matter didn’t come up.”

Jepara harrumphed and rose to her feet. “Well, then, I’ll bring it up right now!”

As she stormed off, Taria and Alimma rose behind her, saying in chorus, “This I’ve got to see.”

“Two Marks says she wins,” Xhinna ventured calmly.

All eyes turned toward her. “Against Fiona?”

Xhinna nodded slowly. She glanced around at the remainder of the wing—about half had trailed after Jepara. She raised her plate and asked pleadingly, “Anyone going for more?”

M’gel offered, saying, as he scampered over to the cooking fires, “Call me when she comes back.”

Fortunately, he was back and Xhinna had finished her seconds before they heard a triumphant shout and the sound of people racing back to their gathering.

“She won!” Taria said to Xhinna in amazement.

Xhinna smiled, laid her plate to one side, and held out a hand, palm up. “Pay up.”

“The first Threadfall was over Benden Weyr and Bitra Hold on the first day of the new Turn,” K’dan said as he, M’gel, R’ney, Danirry, Xhinna, and Fiona were clustered around the Council table in the stone hall early the next morning.

“So we’ve got about a bit under a month,” Fiona said. Colfet had been called upon to use his navigational skills in reading the night sky to verify that they currently were in the seventh day of the last month of the Turn, the five hundred and seventh Turn since Landing.

“We know that Thread falls on a seventy-five day cycle,” K’dan continued. “So if we can match the Fall here with a Fall back home, we’ll be able to predict all the other Falls.”

“Well, only after we’ve mapped the Falls here,” Fiona corrected.

“True,” K’dan agreed. “Which is why we decided that sending watchers up to the Dawn Sisters was the best idea.”

“I don’t understand,” M’gel said.

“Are you saying, Weyrleader, that we use the location to spy Threadfalls and then use the difference in time to check for similar falls over the Great Isles?” R’ney asked.

“Yes,” K’dan said, rewarding the brown rider with a grin.

“But because of the time difference, Thread falling over Benden could be matched by Thread falling here the day before!” Danirry exclaimed with a horrified look.

“Which is why we’ll need to send our watchers up in pairs,” Fiona said.

“Two pairs,” Xhinna corrected.

The Weyrwoman motioned for her to explain, so Xhinna said, “We’ll need one pair to watch on this side of Pern, another pair for the other side.”

“Why pairs?” K’dan asked, his eyes narrowing.

“We’re going to be up so high, we have to worry about our air,” Xhinna said. “So we’ll need—”

“We’ll need more dragons,” Danirry interrupted, her brows puckered in thought. Before anyone could respond, she held up a hand begging for attention. “We’ll need to switch off quickly—say every ten minutes or so, and we’ll need, as Xhinna said, two pairs of watchers. And we’ll need a twenty-four-hour watch.

“Until we try,” she continued, “we won’t know how long we can keep sending up pairs before we have to rest them—”

“Certainly no more than six hours,” K’dan said. “As long as a Fall.”

“I’d say less than that,” R’ney said. “We want the riders and dragons to be alert; we don’t know if we can even spot Thread at that height—”

“And we can’t time it to find out, either,” Fiona interjected with a rueful look. “We’re too near the knot in time for us to try.”

The knot between had been created when Fiona and the others from the Eastern Isle had jumped forward in time—only to find themselves trapped with the old dragonriders of Telgar Weyr in a trap or “knot” of fear. Lorana had broken the knot but it still existed between at that point in time, as Xhinna had discovered when she’d tried to jump forward to Telgar Weyr nearly three turns past. X’lerin and the other riders had volunteered to take the risky jump back in time to aid Xhinna. They had succeeded and discovered that the trap only snared those jumping forward in time through the time when the original “knot” was formed.

Everyone agreed that the simplest way to avoid the “knot” was to wait until they were past the time when the knot had been formed.

And that meant that they still had to wait. There was a risk in going between at all—that they might choose to go exactly when the “knot” had formed—but that risk was much less when going between places than it was going between times.

“Let’s start with one hour and see how things work then,” Xhinna suggested. “I’d prefer to be more cautious than foolhardy.”

“But with that, you’d want …” Danirry’s eyes took on an abstracted look at she worked the numbers in her head. “Ninety-six,” she said firmly.

K’dan glanced at Fiona. “We’ll have to ask the other Weyrs, then.”

“But the bronzes could—” M’gel began in protest.

Fiona raised a hand to cut him off. “I think I’d prefer to have your bronzes full-grown rather than half-frozen.”

M’gel sat back in his chair, reluctant to press his position further.

“There will be plenty for us to do soon enough,” K’dan said. “And in the meantime, the best we can do is pretty good.”

K’dan’s Lurenth was no older than M’gel’s Turenth, and he imposed upon his dragon the same restrictions he’d imposed on all the others, following the advice of T’mar and the other more experienced riders in allowing the younger bronzes to mature as much as possible before beginning their strenuous training.

“If Thread falls here, Weyrleader, we may not have a choice,” Danirry said.

“I know,” K’dan agreed. “Which is why we’re going to start drilling all the dragons who have two Turns or more with firestone.”

“Firestone?” Xhinna exclaimed, thinking of Taria and her green.

“Yes,” K’dan said. “We don’t have as much as we’d like, so we’ll be sparing, but T’mar has suggested that we’ll want to be sure that each Weyr is able to defend itself. And for that we’ll need more than the older dragons we have.”

“Well, I suppose it’s about time we had the greens chewing firestone,” Fiona said. “Another set of mating flights and we couldn’t find enough Candidates to match on all Pern.”

Xhinna flicked her eyes away so that the Weyrwoman wouldn’t guess her thoughts—for it was clear to her that Fiona was miffed that the greens had so outproduced the queens, going so far even as to produce six queens on their own. But there was no denying the truth in what Fiona had said—they were now at a point where another round of clutching would leave Western unable to support the increased dragon and human populations.

In addition to the original 128 older dragons, there were another 1,558 who had two or more Turns of age.

“We’ll start with the oldest wings and work down to the young ones,” K’dan said.

“So in addition to everything else, we’ll be training with firestone?” M’gel asked.

“Yes,” Fiona said. She turned to K’dan, who nodded in agreement to her unspoken question. A moment later a loud, long rustle of wings outside announced the arrival of a large number of dragons. K’dan and Fiona rose, heading to greet the newcomers, gesturing for the others to follow.

Outside were the rest of their wing.

“Can I have the bronzes over here?” K’dan said, indicating a spot to his right. Perplexed, the wing split, with the fourteen bronze riders moving to one side. K’dan waited until there was silence and then a moment longer, as though sad at what he was going to say. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to break up this wing.”

The hiss of surprise came from every mouth.

“It’s time,” Fiona said. She turned to Xhinna and smiled. “While we all know that blues aren’t supposed to lead wings, we’ve seen too many bad examples of the results of following Tradition too closely.” She looked toward M’gel as she added, “This is not to say that the current leadership is wanting in any way. But I’m sure it comes as no surprise to any of you when I say that the Weyrwoman and I were willing to let this wing continue in its present form because we recognized that most of its leadership came not from those riding bronzes but—”

“A blue!” Danirry cried exultantly, patting Xhinna’s shoulder hard.

“Indeed,” K’dan agreed, giving the wingsecond a quelling look.

“But you said last night that the queens—,” M’gel protested, looking at Fiona.

“The queens can continue with Xhinna,” K’dan said, cutting the bronze rider’s protest short. He grinned at M’gel. “But we need you—” He waved a hand at the collected bronze riders. “—to take charge of your own wings.”

“They need you to learn to flame,” Xhinna said, raising her voice to carry over the growing sounds of protest.

“Flaming?” J’sarte asked, intrigued.

“Thread will come soon,” K’dan said. “And we’re going to need wings prepared to fight it.”

“But … what about Xhinna?” M’gel asked, turning a troubled glance toward the blue rider.

“And R’ney, and Danirry!” J’sarte added.

“We’ve got a special task for them,” K’dan said. “They’ll be training with firestone, too, but for the moment we’re going to keep that much of the Sky wing intact.” He smiled at Xhinna, R’ney, and Danirry before turning back to the bronzes. “In the meantime, wingleaders, perhaps you’d care to join me in council?”

“Except Xhinna, of course,” Fiona said, as the bronze riders eagerly filed through the doorway after K’dan.

K’dan paused in the doorway and turned back, smiling. “Of course, Wingleader Xhinna will need to plan the details of her wing.”

Xhinna opened her mouth to protest. She’d given up the position once already and had no desire to add to her duties, but Fiona caught her eye and waggled a finger at her.

“No good deed goes unrewarded,” Danirry remarked in an aside to Xhinna.

“Don’t think about trying to wiggle out of it,” R’ney added just as firmly.

Xhinna nodded in resignation, but her eyes sought out Taria’s. The green rider met them with her own dark eyes and held her gaze for a long moment before her lips curved up in a smile.

Coranth says that Taria won’t let you out of doing diapers, Tazith relayed. Xhinna’s blue eyes danced and she returned Taria’s grin with a small smile.

Wingleader.

“You’re going to be getting some help in this,” Fiona said. Above them the sky darkened as a group of dragons burst overhead from between.

Xhinna glanced up in surprise to see Talenth, Fiona’s queen. Lorana was astride her, and behind her were the six green queens as well as two distinct wings of blues, greens, and browns. The queens landed first, as was their right, and Jirana came bounding over, followed by the five other young girls who had Impressed the green queens. They were all fit and tan, as was to be expected from their days spent lying under the sun guarding the Hatching Grounds against tunnel snakes. The girls were all near Jirana’s age—much younger than normal for a Candidate—but they had all formed the strange connection with their queens before the Hatching. It was their ability to hear the unhatched queens that protected the sands from the depradations of tunnel snakes, aided by the growing population of Meeyus and older Mrreows.

“But what about the eggs?” Danirry asked as she noticed Jirana.

“We’ve got that covered,” Jirana assured her.

Xhinna turned thoughtfully to Fiona. How had the Weyrwoman known how many were needed?

“You were talking with Terin, weren’t you?” Xhinna asked.

“Danirry’s not the only one good with sums,” Fiona said, smiling in acknowledgment.

Lorana was trailed by someone whom Xhinna couldn’t immediately identify and then—“Seban!”

“I thought having an old hand around to advise you wouldn’t be amiss,” Fiona said as the ex-dragonrider waved in reply.

“I know we’ve blues and greens to spare, but I’m still surprised that we don’t have more browns or bronzes,” said Avarra, the blue rider sent from X’lerin’s Midriver Weyr, who was leading their twenty-four blues and greens.

“Well, as you say, we have them to spare,” R’ney, one of the few brown riders in their wing, allowed a little smugly.

“I try never to argue with Weyrleaders,” Xhinna said.

Jerilli, the blue leader of the Northern contingent sent by H’nez, nodded vigorously.

The three wingleaders and their nine wingseconds were all gathered under one of the outside awnings hung off the stone hall, the rest of the dragonriders having gone to the beach to help with the egg guard.

Jirana and the other young queen riders were seated cross-legged in a ring away from the table, while Lorana and the Sky queen riders were seated behind Xhinna.

“Anyway,” Xhinna said, “what I think we should do first is set up the watch order. After that, we’ll make a quick visit to the Dawn Sisters so that we can instruct the riders of our wings.”

“I pity the wing that’s got the night shift,” Avarra said.

“Oh, let me guess,” R’ney muttered under his breath even as Xhinna said, “That would be mine.”

Danirry, who’d heard the brown rider’s quiet words, smirked at him and shook her head, looking at her wingleader resignedly. “Like you could bet differently.”

“That’s all very nice, but what are we to do?” Jepara demanded.

“No one knows how long a dragon can stay up by the Dawn Sisters,” Lorana said. “I’ve an idea, as Minith and I tried first, but we’re not certain.”

“I see,” Jepara said, apparently unable to unleash her usually biting tongue on the older, revered ex-dragonrider.

“We’re going to need you and your queens to keep an eye on us,” Xhinna said.

“That’s it?” Jepara exclaimed, clearly expecting more.

“And rescue us, if need be,” Danirry added, looking glum.

“Rescue—” Jepara began, but she stopped as understanding blossomed on her face. She turned to Xhinna. “So this is dangerous?”

“Very,” Lorana said. “We need the queens to keep watch, to guard the greens and blues on watch.”

“It’s like guarding the eggs, only harder,” little Devon piped up. She was just a sevenday younger than Jirana—much to the other’s disgust at losing her position as the youngest queen rider on Pern. Even so, she had been the first to be picked by Jirana when she and Xhinna had gone on Search for riders for the green queens. Now, nearly three Turns later, she and Jirana were nearing adolescence, while Kiminy, the eldest by two Turns, was beginning to giggle at the looks given her by the younger bronze riders.

Xhinna had had little chance to see any of them since their Impression, but they’d all seemed pleasant, sweet, and just a little different—marked, as it were, by their strange queens with whom they could communicate before they were Hatched.

“They don’t have the Sight, too, do they?” Xhinna had asked Jirana after the five had all Impressed exactly as the young trader girl had predicted.

“I don’t think so,” Jirana had said, giving the question her full attention and adding with a shrug, “They might.”

Xhinna now turned to Jirana, saying, “I want you and the other young queens to be certain that you don’t try to catch us. Leave that to the bigger queens.”

Jirana nodded. Around her, the others nodded just as solemnly, except the older Kiminy, who winked at Xhinna.

“But we’ll be able to go up to the Dawn Sisters, right?” dark-haired Elodie asked.

“Yes,” Lorana said. “You need to be able to see where you’re watching.”

“Between you and Jepara’s queens, we’ll have to ask you to take two-hour watches—”

“But even with the green queens, that’s only eleven of us!” Jepara objected. Before anyone could reply, another queen burst into the sky overhead and dropped with appalling speed to the ground below, her wings cupping at the very last moment. Her rider scrambled off and rushed over, crying, “Sorry I’m late, I had a broken arm to mend!”

“Bekka?” Jepara called in astonishment.

“Is that a problem?” the sturdy healer demanded, her eyes flashing.

“You’ll take the dawn shift, then,” Jepara declared, “seeing as you were late.”

“I was—” Bekka’s hot protest died as she caught a look from Lorana. “That’s fine.” A moment later she added, reflectively, “I’m usually up by then doing my rounds.”

“You’ll have your second do them,” Jepara ordered. “You’ll need your full attention for this.”

“When did your queen rise?” Bekka demanded hotly. She and the other queen rider had locked horns on so many occasions that Xhinna had feared they would finally come to blows, but so far, their arguments had always dissipated just short of that. After a while, Xhinna decided that their bickering was just their way of being friendly to each other. She’d seen them stick up for each other’s best interest countless times in the past two Turns, but it still seemed to her a strange way of expressing affection.

“Before yours, certainly!” Jepara snapped back.

“Enough,” Xhinna growled, cutting her eyes to the horrified looks of the other blue and queen riders. “Bekka—that would be great. I think Jepara has just volunteered to precede you—”

“I did not!” Jepara snapped. Xhinna lowered her head toward her with raised brows and the queen rider sighed, saying to Bekka, “Don’t expect any klah.”

“You’d probably spit in it,” Bekka shot back.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Jepara said, smiling sweetly.

“Children,” Xhinna said to the two of them, earning her a pair of dark looks—both of them were as near her age as made no difference.

“Are you sure you’d like them watching out for you?” Avarra asked in a choked voice.

“Absolutely,” Xhinna said. “I’d trust them with my life.”

“I can take the watch before Jepara,” Jirana offered.

“No, take the watch with Bekka,” Jepara said, turning toward the younger rider with an affectionate look. Her gaze fell on the other young queen riders and she added, “Maybe Devon will watch with me.”

The youngest queen rider beamed in agreement.

In short order the watches were set, Lorana noting them down on a slate for K’dan’s later confirmation.

“So, when can we go up?” Jepara asked when the last dispositions were made.

“Food first, then flying,” Bekka said authoritatively.

“Then, let’s eat!” Jepara said, springing to her feet.

Bekka coughed significantly and nodded toward Xhinna and Lorana. Jepara gave her a quizzical look and then blushed. “I mean, if that’s all right with you?”

Xhinna had to force herself to school her expression as she replied, “Of course.”

As the others filtered away, Lorana waited behind until only she and Xhinna were left. Then the ex-queenrider leaned over and said, “When were you going to tell them that they’ll have to wait until dawn?”

“After they’ve eaten and are feeling sleepy,” Xhinna told her. Lorana’s eyes widened in surprise and she gave the blue rider a wide smile. “I thought I’d have them practice afterward at altitude, to get their dragons used to holding air, the way you told me.”

“I see,” Lorana said approvingly.

“Would you like a ride to the High Kitchen?” Xhinna said, rising as she spied R’ney, Taria, and Danirry waiting patiently by their dragons.

“No, I think I’ll stay here and have a word with Fiona,” Lorana said, waving a hand at her. “You go on.”

Xhinna and Taria sat at the large table in what they’d come to call the High Kitchen. “Here they come,” Taria murmured.

In the Turns since they’d come to Sky Weyr, they’d learned that while spring and summer were often mild and pleasant, fall and winter were not the nicest seasons for tree dwellers. Fortunately, they had learned the lesson early and had discovered that some broom trees were more accommodating than others. So the original kitchen area had been superceded by a much larger, fully enclosed area in X’lerin’s broom tree—the one that the Weyrleader and his bronze Kivith had occupied. Softer pinus wood had been used to lay a floor and erect walls and ceilings for the large room. After that, several more rooms had been constructed in other broom trees, providing winter quarters that were later expanded to house most of the Weyr.

The High Kitchen provided sufficient seating for no more than a full wing at best, so Xhinna had arranged for the various wings to eat in shifts. Tonight she had invited the wingleaders, queen riders, and wingseconds to eat first, as they would immediately after be going up to the Dawn Sisters.

Taria had managed to insinuate herself into the group with accepting nods from both R’ney and Danirry, and then had insisted that Xhinna eat quickly, predicting that the other two female blue riders would seek her out.

Sure enough, both Jerilli and Avarra were already making their way toward Xhinna.

“May we sit with you?” Avarra asked.

“Of course,” R’ney said, moving closer to Taria and elbowing her to make more room. “Danirry, move away from the wingleader—you get to see her every day.”

Danirry favored him with a look that was a cross between a glare and a grin, but dutifully moved away.

Xhinna was just as unsurprised as Taria at their desire to sit with her—slightly more than half of all the new green riders and just a bit more than one in three blue riders were women, a tremendous break with Weyr tradition brought about mostly because of the dearth of able-bodied males of suitable Searching age.

Xhinna susupected that Nerra might have slightly “stacked the deck,” as R’ney had once described it, assiduously succoring girls by getting them into her orphanage, but whether or not that was true, she doubted that the Lady Holder’s discrimination would matter much in the long term. Able-bodied men and lads had been drafted first into the recovery after the Plague, and all too often women had been left to shift for themselves, with the tragic result that many young girls had been left homeless and starving.

Soon, rigid, inflexible old-timers like D’gan were going to be confronted with the new reality. Given both Fiona’s and Nerra’s harsh words, Xhinna was rather hoping she’d have the chance to see his reaction firsthand, although she was the first to bet against his “dying of apoplexy at the mere sight,” as Fiona had so cheerfully predicted.

There was an equally vigorous discussion of the possible reaction of Weyrwoman Tullea to the new organizations. There, Xhinna was in agreement with Fiona’s prediction that the tetchy Benden Weyrwoman would be at least secretly and maybe even openly ecstatic.

The betting was spread more evenly upon the reactions of various Lord Holders, Fiona covering all wagers against her father having a negative reaction. She seemed surprised to have no takers, but having played several games of chance with Fiona, Xhinna was reasonably sure that the blond Weyrwoman was bluffing.

Avarra pursed her lips in a thin line, glanced toward R’ney, and then said to Xhinna, “We were hoping to talk with you alone.”

“No,” Xhinna said, surprised to hear the word echoed by R’ney and Danirry. “I trust my wing.”

Avarra’s look grew darker and she cut her eyes toward Jerilli.

“We were hoping that you would talk with T’mar,” Jerilli said finally, filling in the other’s silence.

“About what?”

“About this assignment!” Avarra said angrily, tamping down her volume so only the first word carried throughout the room. She leaned closer toward Xhinna, continuing at just above a whisper. “Aren’t you as mad about it as we are?”

“Mad?” Xhinna repeated in a normal tone of voice. “Why should I be?”

“It’s beneath you, that’s why!” Avarra said. “We should be part of a fighting wing, not sent off on some silly ‘errand’ like we were mere weyrlings.”

Xhinna looked in surprise at the other woman and then glanced to Jerilli to see the same expression on her face.

“I’m sure if you really feel that way, you’ve only to tell X’lerin and he’ll have you back in an instant,” Danirry said. “In fact, why don’t I have Kiarith tell him …”

“Danirry!” Xhinna snapped at the blue rider. She turned to Avarra and Jerilli. “Didn’t H’nez send you here?”

“Yes,” Jerilli said, the hurt in her voice obvious. “I’d hoped—”

“Excuse me, may I join you?” an older man’s voice interjected.

“Seban!” Xhinna cried in delight as she identified him. “Certainly! You can sit opposite me.” She motioned for Taria to make room.

Seban sat and nodded to Avarra and Jerilli before saying in a pleasant tone, “I’m afraid I couldn’t help hearing some of what was said.”

Both of the blue riders looked slightly green at this because they’d had several prior encounters with the ex-dragonrider, either as Weyrlingmaster or general troubleshooter and occasional rider of various dragons, most particularly Xhinna’s own Tazith.

Seban had accepted Xhinna’s request with mixed emotions, and she was certain that he’d never completely conquered them, but still he rode when she asked—and he did the same favor for many others, especially those who, like Xhinna, were too great with child to safely fly for a while. He’d even taken Tazith on a few mating flights that Xhinna had been unable to attend for one reason or another. He was admired, respected, and revered throughout the Western Isle.

“Seban,” Avarra said in protest, “it’s just not fair—”

“Fair doesn’t enter into it,” R’ney interrupted. Seban raised a calming hand, and with the added weight of a glare from Xhinna, the brown rider subsided, nodding an apology to the ex-dragonrider.

“It’s not a question of fair, dragonrider,” Seban said, “but it is a question of honor.”

“Honor?” Jerilli repeated hopefully. “So you see—”

“The three wings chosen to protect Pern are all led by women,” Seban continued.

“Protect?” Avarra protested, her eyebrows rising high, “how can you—”

“How many dragons are there here on the Western Isle, do you know?” Seban asked.

“Nearly two thousand,” Jerilli said, glancing to Avarra for confirmation.

“And what would they eat if Thread destroys the island?” Seban asked.

Jerilli’s brow puckered.

“This is very lush land,” Xhinna said. “We don’t know how quickly a burrow would spread, but we do know that, once established, there are no natural boundaries from one shore to the next.”

“We had to fire several valleys at Southern Boll because of burrows,” Seban reminded them.

“And they lost a valley at Bitra,” Xhinna said, recalling Fiona’s account of the Threadfall that was still in their future.

“That was after our time,” Jerilli confessed. She, like all the other new riders on the Western Isle, had been rescued from the time between the last of the Plague and the start of the Third Pass. She glanced at Xhinna. “None of us have seen Threadfall, though—”

“I have,” Xhinna interrupted. She glanced over to R’ney, her eyes burning with a sense of urgency, as she continued, “Back at Eastern—”

“When you brought us back in time to here,” R’ney recalled, turning to Taria.

“That was near to this time,” Taria said, eyes wide. She looked at Xhinna. “We should tell Fiona—”

“I already have,” Xhinna said. She turned back to Avarra and Jerilli. “So, do you understand the need?”

“But up at the Dawn Sisters?” Avarra asked, still protesting.

“It’s a good place to start,” Xhinna said. She smiled at the other two blue riders. “Do you understand now that your Weyrleaders entrusted you—and your riders—with a great burden?”

Jerilli slowly nodded. “Sorry we were such fools.”

“I know X’lerin pretty well,” Xhinna reminded her. “After all, he was the first to make me wingleader.”

Jerilli’s mouth fell into an “O” of recollection. Xhinna turned to Avarra, adding, “And I know H’nez reasonably well. Certainly well enough to know that he’d never appoint a fool to lead a wing.” She raised an eyebrow. “Do you still want to protest?”

“No,” Jerilli said, going quite red. “I think I want to hide.”

“Don’t do that!” R’ney told her. She looked over at him. “Wingleaders are supposed to make mistakes,” he continued, glancing toward Danirry as his face expanded into a grin, and the two continued in unison: “That’s why they have wingseconds—”

Xhinna joined in: “—to correct them!”

EIGHTEEN A Fall Through Nothing

As expected, the riders were tired and a bit sleepy after their rich meal, so although they grumbled, they were rather relieved to learn that they wouldn’t be expected to go all the way to the Dawn Sisters on their first flight.

“Remember, the Dawn Sisters are always following the dawn,” Xhinna said to her riders as they gathered into their assigned pairs. “We’ll start with the first watch at dawn over Eastern’s farthest shore.”

She held her arms above her head to quell the expected uproar.

“The first group will pass off the watch to the next group, and so on until we’ve followed the Dawn Sisters all the way around Pern,” Xhinna continued.

“But we’ll only see dawn, then!” Avarra said.

“Yes,” Lorana said, moving to stand by Xhinna. “The group that gets dawn at Benden needs to pay special attention. The same for the Telgar group and the High Reaches group.”

“Why High Reaches, why not Fort?”

“Because the Isles are more in line with High Reaches than with Fort,” Xhinna explained. “What we’ll do next is we’ll keep coordinated watches over Benden, Telgar, and High Reaches—from our height, we’re certain to spot any Threadfall that occurs during daylight.”

“So the groups will let the Dawn Sisters pass out of sight?” Jerilli said.

“Yes, we’ll set it up so that each of the three groups over the Northern Continent watches for eight hours—split into eight pairs each—and we’ll set up a twenty-four-hour watch here, plus we’ll have an all-day guard set at the easternmost tip of the Eastern Isle in case Thread comes at night.”

“And if Thread does come at night?” someone asked. “We’ve no watch-whers here.”

“T’mar and the other Weyrleaders are working on that,” Lorana told them.

“Our mission is to find the Thread when it falls on the Northern Continent at the same time as it’s falling here,” Xhinna told them.

“Why can’t we go up now?” Jirana asked, her question receiving enthusiastic murmurs.

“Because to go to the Dawn Sisters now would require us to time it,” Xhinna told them. “And that we can no longer do.”

“What?” came a stunned chorus.

“It’s too dangerous,” Xhinna said. “We’re too near the time when D’gan and Fiona—”

“Oh!” Jirana exclaimed, her voice matched by sounds of understanding from the rest.

“We’d get trapped—”

“But Lorana would save us—”

“Only if she could find us,” Danirry reminded them. “And she only barely found Fiona.”

Her words prompted a thoughtful silence among the riders.

“Which is why it’s vital to get good images from the riders already in place,” Xhinna said. “In the meantime, I’d like us to practice going as high as we can—beyond where we can breathe.”

“What?”

“It’s been done before,” Xhinna said, raising her voice to quell the protests. “Lorana did it when she went to the Dawn Sisters.”

All heads turned to the ex-dragonrider. Lorana smiled.

“Minith and I took extra air with us,” she said. Seeing the puzzled looks of the others, she explained, “When you go between your dragon brings a bubble of air around it.”

“How will we know when we’re out of air?” Avarra asked.

“Well, some of you might not know Weyrleader T’mar too well, but those of you who do will not be surprised to hear that he’s come up with an experiment he’d like us to try,” Xhinna told them. “It’ll be important and it will fill the rest of our day—”

“Then the sooner you tell us, the sooner we can get on with it,” Jepara interjected.

“We’ll go up in our assigned pairs with the assigned queens keeping watch, but we’ll each bring a sack of firestone—”

“Firestone!”

“Some of our dragons haven’t chewed firestone yet!”

“Which is also part of T’mar’s plan,” Xhinna said, raising her voice once more to be heard. “We’ll start low and get everyone flaming, then we’ll go above the usual levels to see how well and long we can flame there, too. Slowly, we’ll work our way up to the point where the stars come out—”

“The stars!” Jirana cried excitedly. “Xhinna, please, please, can we get up there, too?”

“Maybe at the end, little one, when we can have others watch for you—”

“What are we watching for?” Jerilli asked.

“We’re watching for when we run out of breathable air,” Xhinna said.

“It’s not as easy as you might guess,” Bekka chimed in before either Jepara or anyone else could object. “For some, it’s rather like being drunk; for others it’s quite different.”

“Color starts to go from your sight and you get really sleepy,” Lorana recalled. “That’s the danger: not recognizing the signs in time.”

“And that’s why we go in pairs and we have a queen keeping tabs,” Xhinna said. She glanced toward Avarra. “No matter what some may think, we haven’t enough blues and greens to be losing any.” She turned toward Seban and said to the ex-dragonrider, “Seban, I’d like you to ride with me on Tazith.”

Seban’s eyes brightened and he nodded.

“You could come with me, Daddy,” Bekka offered shyly.

“I’d like that very much,” Seban told her.

“Lady Lorana, would you care for a view from the back of a magnificent brown?” R’ney asked with a regal bow toward the ex-dragonrider. Lorana accepted with a polite nod.

“I’ve already arranged for us to draw firestone,” Xhinna said. “We’ll each take a sack.” She gestured toward the other stone building at the far end of the Meeyu Plateau. “I’ve got a detail of weyrlings standing by.”

“We get our firestone and then what?” Avarra asked.

“We’ll meet on the beach, southside below the last clutch of eggs,” Xhinna said. “K’dan has offered to help instruct in chewing and flaming before we take to the skies.”

“Can we get all this done before dark?” Jerilli wondered.

“If not, we’ll flame on through the dark,” Xhinna replied. “In fact, T’mar has another experiment—”

“Why are we not surprised?” Avarra muttered, getting a laugh from the others.

“There’s a notion that the good air, as it gets colder, gets lower to the ground—”

“Everyone knows that!” Avarra protested.

“—the question is how low,” Xhinna continued, ignoring the interruption. “K’dan will start with the wingleaders and wingseconds, then we’ll train the rest of the flight.”

There were unhappy murmurs from the queen riders who would, by necessity, be excluded from teaching their queens to chew firestone lest they become sterile. Xhinna smiled at Lorana, who took her cue and told them, “While K’dan is teaching them to flame, brown rider R’ney and I will be teaching the queens how to use the agenothree throwers.”

The queen’s wing flew low, near the ground to catch any Thread that the higher-flying fighting wings might miss. Because queens couldn’t chew firestone and remain fertile, the queen riders used agenothree throwers. The throwers were bulky back-mounted cylinders filled with the agenothree acid and rigged with nozzles that directed the acid spray to burn Thread out of the sky.

“Excellent!” Bekka and Jepara cried in unison.

It took over an hour to get all the dragons in the three wings flaming efficiently. By then they’d consumed slightly more than a quarter of the sack of firestone they’d each been issued.

Xhinna, relaying through Tazith, had the wings separate into their working pairs. With the queens divvied up amongst the groups, they rose to the very highest levels at which dragons normally flew. Xhinna ordered them to confirm that their dragons could still flame and all had the chance to find out how difficult it was for their dragons to climb higher—R’ney’s brown and all the larger queens found they could still climb feebly, but the blues and greens were at their limit.

Then, with Lorana relaying, they went between to emerge a thousand meters farther up, the dragons flapping their wings frantically.

Stop, Lorana’s voice echoed calmly through the group. Slowly, one by one, the dragons stopped flapping—and discovered that they were falling no faster than when they had been flapping. Flame.

With some surprise, the dragons discovered that they could still flame, which calmed them.

Again they went between and up another thousand meters. When they’d climbed four thousand meters above their normal height—nearly seven thousand meters above the ground—the dragons found they couldn’t flame and their riders complained of the cold.

Back! Lorana sent, accompanied by the image of the warm sands of the beach.

The blessed warmth engulfed them and Xhinna took a deep breath, only to let it out in a rush.

Where’s Mirressa? Tazith, where’s Valcanth?

I see her! Lorana’s mental voice called, and before Xhinna could react, R’ney’s brown Rowerth, Bekka’s Pinorth, and Jepara’s Sarurth were all arcing skyward heading toward—

—a small dark shape, limply plummeting from the sky above them.

The two queens and one brown were suddenly joined by a burst of brilliant bronze dragons moving toward them, forming a large canopy beneath the dot, which resolved into the shape of a small green with a rider flopping about—Xhinna was glad that she’d insisted on full fighting straps for everyone.

The queens and the brown edged under the falling shape and the bronzes made a stairway beneath them. The green was caught by the queens and the brown, then passed from one pair of bronzes to the next until finally the limp pair were reverently lowered to the soft sand.

Xhinna and Seban were off of Tazith’s back and rushing across the sands to the limp green and her rider before anyone else could move.

“Mirressa! Mirressa!” Xhinna shouted. Oh, don’t be dead! she cried to herself. Please don’t be dead! She pulled her belt knife and started to hack at the straps that tied the motionless form onto her green’s neck.

“She’s not breathing!” Seban shouted. How could he know that? Xhinna wondered dimly even as she pulled the green rider off her mount—and then she realized: Seban was talking about green Valcanth.

Lorana! Fiona! Help Valcanth! Xhinna cried, knowing that Tazith would relay her plea without urging.

“I’m here!” a small voice piped up. It was Jirana, racing up to join them.

What could one little—Xhinna cut the thought off as she saw the cold, pale, blue skin of Mirressa. “No!”

She pulled Mirressa down and laid her on the ground.

“No time, now, Xhinna, you’ve got to breathe for her,” someone else ordered. Taria. And suddenly she was beside her. “You know what to do.” Taria turned over her shoulder to shout, “Someone get a board, something we can put under her!”

“I’m here.”

Xhinna hardly heard Bekka’s voice. She was already leaning forward, opening Mirressa’s mouth, and ensuring that she hadn’t swallowed her tongue. She leaned down and gave Mirressa two quick breaths as she’d been taught, then turned aside, gasping in breath for the both of them and listening to the air coming out of Mirressa’s still body.

“Stand aside, we’ve got the board!” a strong male voice cried. Recognizing M’gel, Xhinna stood and moved back. A crowd had gathered. She turned to see Lorana and Jirana standing by Valcanth’s head, their eyes closed, their bodies taut, expressions strained.

Tazith! Xhinna called. Valcanth must breathe! She reached out to the rest of her wing. Help Valcanth breathe!

She moved over to Lorana and stood behind her and Jirana. For one startled moment, she noticed that the two were breathing in unison and then she closed her eyes, reached out, and joined in. She felt others come join her, bound in by the will of their dragons, even as she felt Taria position herself with Mirressa.

And slowly, the cold, still shape of the dragon changed. A twitch, a judder, and then—

“She’s breathing!” Jirana’s cry was marked by sobs and a heaving chest. “She’s breathing!”

“They’re both breathing!” Taria exclaimed.

Xhinna opened her eyes just in time to see Lorana rushing toward the green’s head. Valcanth’s eyelids were fluttering.

You’re fine, Lorana assured the dragon. Mirressa is fine. You’ll both do fine.

Xhinna’s attention returned to the small form in front of her: Jirana, shoulders shaking miserably, bawling quietly to herself. Xhinna moved around to kneel before the small queen rider.

Quietly she said, “You knew, didn’t you?” She gestured toward Mirressa. “You knew that was going to happen.”

Jirana’s brown eyes opened and met Xhinna’s dark blue ones. Xhinna pulled the girl tight against her. “It’s over,” she said soothingly, “you did it, it’s over.”

“You can’t tell anyone,” Jirana whispered into Xhinna’s hair. “It’s the Sight.”

Xhinna stiffened as she heard the words. Jirana added, “It’s not over. It’s going to get worse.”

Xhinna pulled back and, with all the tenderness of a big sister, kissed Jirana’s tears away before hugging her once more and whispering back, “Thank you for trusting me.”

Jirana sniffed and slowly got herself back under control. With one final grateful nod, she pulled away from Xhinna, saying, “I’m all right now.”

Xhinna gave her a half-smile and stood up. “Of course you are.”

“Okay, now explain it again,” Lorana said calmly to Mirressa after they’d fortified the green rider with warm klah and food.

“I was cold,” Mirressa said. “And Valcanth was cold, too, and then—all of a sudden—I was toasty warm, all dreamy and nice. And we were falling, but it didn’t matter because we were so warm—”

“Did your cheeks tingle?” Lorana asked.

Mirressa’s brows puckered and her hands rose involuntarily to her face. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.”

“That’s the danger,” Bekka said, turning to face the rest of the gathered wings. “The danger is that this creeps up unnoticed and then—” She gestured to Mirressa.

“So the moment you feel the slightest bit strange,” Lorana said, pointing a finger to the ground, “come back down.”

“But—” Avarra started in protest.

“No matter what, come down,” Lorana told her. “We can’t afford to lose you.”

“But what if coming down means missing Thread?” Avarra blurted.

“We can always send up replacements,” Xhinna said. “We lose less time sending up a replacement early than trying to catch a falling dragon.”

“Shards, that’s too true!” Jepara murmured from where she sat next to Mirressa. Mirressa looked up at her and made a face, but Jepara, to Xhinna’s surprise, merely shushed the green rider and stroked her hair while, on the other side of her, Meeya patted the green rider’s shoulder.

“We should have seen it,” Devon said with a frown. “We should have noticed—”

“We were all coming back,” Xhinna said. “We only noticed when we started to count heads.”

“Something you do instinctively,” Lorana said, casting an approving look at her.

“I should have seen it,” Danirry said in a very small voice. “I’m sorry, Mirressa, I should have noticed—”

“You were a dragonlength away, how could you?” Mirressa replied. “No, I should have realized—”

“The thing is, this will be different for everyone,” Bekka said, cutting across the growing recriminations. She turned to Lorana and Xhinna. “What we really need to do is set it up so that everyone gets a chance to know what it feels like for them.”

“You want to risk every one of us?” Avarra cried in surprise. She was backed by a tumult of agreeing murmurs.

“It’s the only way to know for certain,” Bekka retorted firmly. She gestured toward Mirressa. “Unless you want to hope we’ll catch you when we’re not even looking.”

Jerilli protested, “How can we hope to take watch when—”

“I think we’ll do what Bekka says,” Xhinna said.

“If only we could do it without all the risk,” Avarra said. “If only we could find out while still here on the ground.”

“You can,” Jirana piped up. “Just hold your breath.”

“What?” several riders cried.

“No offense, little rider,” Avarra said, careful to remain respectful of a queen rider, “but—”

“She’s right,” Bekka said. She held up a hand. “Oh, it won’t be quite the same, but it would give you an idea, a starting point as it were.”

“I wish we’d thought of it sooner,” Lorana said. Then she shrugged. “They do say that the burnt hand learns best about fire.”

She turned to Xhinna, passing the job on to her.

Xhinna smiled at her in acknowledgment, took a deep breath, and then said, “Here’s what we’ll do: We’ll break into our pairs and each will hold their breath until they can’t, while the other will count the time. We’ll mark it and switch off.” She turned to Mirressa. “You and Danirry will sit this out, I’ll have you two recording—”

“But—” Danirry started in protest only to be cut off by Xhinna’s look. “Very well.”

It took close to an hour for everyone to complete the drill satisfactorily and mark the times. At Avarra’s suggestion, they tried twice.

The longest anyone could hold their breath was just a bit more than a slow count of seventy—an honor split between R’ney and Avarra. The young queen riders insisted on being included and had the shortest times, being still in their growth, while the smaller riders, surprisingly, had mixed results. Xhinna was pleased with her count of sixty-seven and worried by Taria’s count of fifty-three.

“Okay, now it’s time to learn Lorana’s trick,” Xhinna said when she and the other two wingleaders were satisfied.

“I don’t know if it’s a trick, really,” Lorana said. “It’s easiest to try if we go up way high.”

“So Lorana, if you can give us the right coordinates, the wingleaders and wingseconds will go up,” Xhinna said. “And when you think we’ve been there too long, have us come back.”

The other green, blue, brown, and queen riders could not hide their disappointment, so Xhinna told them, “While we’re up, break into your groups, and when Lorana comes back we’ll take turns bringing you up, as well.”

The groans subsided. Xhinna glanced to Lorana, who gestured to R’ney, and the two mounted his brown Rowerth. As Xhinna clambered up onto Tazith, she motioned for Danirry to mount her blue Kiarith.

“May I come?” Seban asked. Xhinna thought for a moment and nodded. “Certainly!” To the others she said, “Don’t forget to tighten your straps!”

In moments, the nine dragons were airborne, and then, taking the image from Lorana, they winked out, between.

Xhinna gasped at the sight that filled her eyes when they came out of between. Stars. Brilliant, glowing stars. She swiveled her head and saw in the distance a bright red orb: the Red Star.

Look down, Lorana told her, and she swiveled her head to look through the gap between her left arm and her left leg.

It’s beautiful! Xhinna exclaimed as she saw the brown and green shades of the Great Isles so very far below. She looked to her right and thought she could spy a smudge on the horizon—High Reaches Tip or perhaps even Tillek, she wasn’t sure. Blue, laced with thin, white streaky clouds, marked the ocean, which filled most of her view. She was just beginning to try to make out the patch that would be Sky Weyr’s Meeyu Plateau when—

Come back! Lorana’s voice was full and firm. There was no disobeying it.

And then they were back in the sky above the beaches, warm and pummeled by a chorus of voices—human and dragon.

After that Xhinna went aloft three more times, first with Taria, then with a reluctant Mirressa and Danirry, and finally with Bekka and Jirana, all while the other wings rotated wingseconds, wingleaders, and riders up to the starry height above beautiful Pern.

“I never thought it would be so beautiful,” Jirana remarked when they were once again on the ground. The sun was setting and it was getting very cold on the beach where they’d gathered. In the distance, north of them, fires had been lit to warm the eggs against the cold and light the night against tunnel snakes. She turned to her little queen and absently rubbed the queen’s eye ridges as she continued, “I’ve only seen it when—”

“I know,” Xhinna said. Quickly she corrected herself, “At least, I can imagine.”

Jirana seemed ready to argue, then shook her head, sighing.

“You’ve got friends, you know,” Xhinna said. “We’re sisters because of Fiona—”

“Losing friends is what’s hard,” Jirana said miserably.

“Little one,” Xhinna replied, moving an open hand toward the youngster, “there’s no point in mourning them before they’re gone.”

Jirana raised a hand to meet Xhinna’s, fingers touching fingers, as she whispered, “You’ll see.”

Xhinna shivered.

“She’s not your child—why don’t you bring it up with Javissa?” Taria said later that night as they were settling their babies into bed.

“Because I offered my support, not her mother’s,” Xhinna replied.

Taria turned from the small bed where she’d laid Tarena and gave Xhinna a small smile. “Then, as you said, don’t mourn before it’s time.”

“She must be awfully lonely …”

“How can she be? She’s got the whole Weyr watching over her, five queen riders who positively adore her, and every Weyrleader hanging off her very words!” Taria shook her head. “It’s a wonder she’s not more spoiled than she is.” Xhinna gave her a sharp look, but Taria just smiled. “And you, my dear, are among the worst!”

“Really?” Xhinna said, examining her feelings critically. She hadn’t thought she’d doted on the youngster overmuch, but perhaps …

“And I’m next in line,” Taria said, chuckling. She fluffed the final pillow, eyed the sleeping room carefully, turned the glow, and gestured for Xhinna to precede her. “Now,” she said quietly as she moved along the thick branches that marked the hallway from one room to another, “we’re going to need to sleep—you’ve got an early start, remember.”

Taria’s soft breathing was comfort enough to lull Xhinna quickly off to sleep. She had slept for several hours, she was certain, when she woke and spied a pair of small eyes peering from the entrance. Through long practice, she extended a hand from underneath the covers and beckoned the child to join them. Naturally, it was only a matter of moments before the bed was filled with cold, squiggly children. Taria surfaced long enough to roll an eye at Xhinna’s lack of discipline, and then she was asleep once more, while Xhinna reveled in the squirmy warm bodies that were a small portion of her children.

“You’ve too many babies,” Taria had said when Xhinna had broached the notion of getting pregnant again after Xelinan’s birth. In reply to Xhinna’s surprised look, Taria had explained, “Not only ours, but all the blues and greens.”

There was truth in Taria’s words, for the tight-knit group of blue and green riders that inhabited Sky Weyr, as well as many from the other Weyrs, had all asked Xhinna to stand in their place if, in the Turns to come, anything should happen to leave their babies without parents. Neither Xhinna nor Taria could deny these heartfelt requests, no more than could the others so honored. Xelinan had many fathers, including K’dan, T’mar, R’ney, X’lerin, Colfet, Seban, and all the bronze riders among the weyrlings that Xhinna had brought to the Sky Weyr more than two Turns before. The children played together and were watched together by various honorary parents and real parents, and it was a relief to know that, in the worst of cases, the children would all still have the love and support that they’d need.

It also meant that all the children were well-adjusted and cheerful, not so reliant on any one parent that the loss would be tragic to them.

It really was one of the greatest gifts Taria had given her—to be able to build and grow a family that was freely shared and fully loved.

Which was why, Xhinna thought as she tried to drift back to sleep, Jirana’s sorrow so upset her. Not just for the strange green queen rider, but also for what it meant for her extended family.

It’s going to get worse. Jirana had never been wrong.

NINETEEN A Flame in the Void

“Xhinna.”

The voice that woke her was quiet and male. J’riz. Xhinna’s nose twitched as the scent of warm klah wafted her way.

“Shh,” she said, nodding toward sleeping Taria and the bumps that were various children. She shooed him out of the room as she slipped out from under the covers in what she hoped was a deft and draft-free move.

“Ugh!” Taria muttered, accompanied by various anxious sounds from the babies. She popped open a bleary eye as Xhinna turned back toward her, her expression full of apology, and closed it again with an accepting nod.

Relieved, Xhinna crept out of their room, took the mug of klah from J’riz with a thankful nod, and sent him off on the rest of his morning rounds.

She dressed quickly and made her way over to the Healer’s Quarters to find Mirressa already there, talking anxiously to Bekka.

“I can’t watch after the babies and you both, Mirressa,” Bekka was grumbling as Xhinna entered. “You’ll have to get Aressil or Javissa—”

“But—” Mirressa protested.

“Actually,” Xhinna interposed smoothly, “I’ve already arranged with Fiona.”

Mirressa’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and she started to protest, but Xhinna cut her off. “It’s not as though she doesn’t owe us, after all.”

“But—”

“You, in particular,” Xhinna cut across the green rider’s incipient objection.

“She’s right, and you know it,” Bekka said. She smiled at the green rider, adding, “And why do you think she’s used you so unmercifully to sit her brood if she didn’t intend return payment?”

Mirressa’s objections died on her lips as she digested Bekka’s words.

“And it’s not as if she won’t pester my mother or Aressil or Colfet or any one of a dozen others to help at it,” J’riz added with a grin.

“He’s right,” Xhinna said to the green rider. “Now, come on, we’ve got work to do.”

“It’s still dark out,” Mirressa said.

“It’s lightening, and we’ve got to catch the Dawn Sisters over Eastern, not here,” Xhinna reminded her.

Mirressa sucked her lower lip worriedly.

“Go on!” Bekka said, shooing both of them out of her office. “There’s firestone waiting at the top of the trees.”

Xhinna looked at her in surprise.

“I made the boy get it,” Bekka said, nodding toward J’riz, who tried his best to look put upon. With any other person, J’riz’s brilliant green eyes and miserable look would have at least won an “Ahhh!” of sympathy, but Bekka merely swatted him on the arm. “Guide them up—I don’t need their broken necks to deal with on top of everything else.”

“As you say, Weyrwoman,” J’riz returned with a low and overly obsequious bow. Bekka snarled at him and he took off like a wounded Meeyu, Xhinna and Mirressa trailing behind, neither of them taken in by the act.

At the top of the broom trees the weather was less forgiving and as the morning breeze picked up, moist with the threat of later rain, Xhinna was glad that she’d chosen her warmest riding gear.

She and Mirressa picked up their firestone sacks, waved farewell to J’riz, and called their dragons to them.

“We’re going to Eastern first,” Xhinna said just before they mounted. “We’ll fly straight to the near coast to warm up, then between to Eastern’s far coast. When we get there, we’ll do a quick check with Lorana and then go up to the Dawn Sisters.”

Mirressa nodded. Xhinna leaned forward to pat her on the arm. “Are you ready?”

Mirressa took a deep breath. “Yes.”

The flight between the islands was a good thirty minutes and in that time the night brightened considerably.

As Xhinna had hoped, the dawn and the Dawn Sisters were still a short ways off the Eastern Isle’s east coast when the two dragons emerged from between. Xhinna had them slowly circle to recover from the cold and then contacted Lorana, who arrived on Talenth and gave them the image of their destination. And then, each taking a deep gulp of air, Xhinna and Mirressa took their dragons between.

Eastern Isle lay far below. The gleaming shapes of the three brilliant spacefaring ships that so many Turns before had brought humankind to Pern floated nearby as silent sentinels to the dawn they followed.

Xhinna urged Tazith closer to Mirressa and her Valcanth, caught the green rider’s attention, and received her assurance that she was all right. Satisfied, Xhinna turned first to peer at the nearest ship and then looked down at the beautiful blue-and-green orb that was their home.

Mirressa says she can see High Reaches Tip, Tazith relayed. Xhinna bent over the other side of his neck to crane down. Spotting the dark smudge that was the far tip of the Northern Continent—home—she waved back to Mirressa in agreement. Then she returned to the other side, studying the terrain below and glancing about for any sign of Thread.

It’s time. Talenth’s voice was clear, and Xhinna knew that all the dragonriders could hear it.

The next group? Xhinna asked. As if in answer, another pair of dragons—Alimma’s blue Amanth and Aliyal’s green Leyanth—popped into sight. They were surrounded by a thin nimbus—the air that Lorana had said they’d bring with them.

Alimma waved. Xhinna waved back, gestured to Mirressa, and then ordered Tazith to return.

Back once more above Eastern, Mirressa laughed and waved to Xhinna and Lorana both.

She says that wasn’t too bad, Tazith relayed.

Tell her she can go back, Xhinna said. I’m going to stay on.

Mirressa waved in acknowledgment, and then she and her green Valcanth were gone between. Instinctively, Xhinna checked with Bekka to be sure that dragon and rider had returned safely.

She’s making breakfast, came the relayed reply, devoid of any intonation from having passed through two different dragon minds. Xhinna smiled.

Cliova and J’valin appeared and dutifully relieved Alimma and Aliyal; just as quickly, they were relieved by R’ney and Taria, and so on until the entire wing had been up to the Dawn Sisters.

By then the dawn had moved back to the Western Isle, and Xhinna and Lorana had moved with it.

Avarra and her wing arrived in time to take up the sunward chase just as Jepara insisted that Lorana take a break. Xhinna could see the reluctance in the older woman’s eyes, but Jepara wouldn’t back down and at last Lorana relented.

“She’s really quite dedicated,” Xhinna said as she and Lorana made their way into the Kitchen Hall. Seeing the look in the older woman’s eyes, she added with a chuckle, “And you’re keeping an eye on things anyway.”

“I was,” Lorana admitted, placing a couple of warm rolls beside the redfruit on her plate. “She’s got the images just right, so I’ll not worry.”

“That is, until the next queen takes over,” Xhinna guessed. Lorana admitted as much with a twitch of her shoulders. Xhinna gestured toward the table where Mirressa and some others of her wing were seated. “Would you like to join us?”

Lorana acceded, and shortly they were joined by Weyrwoman Fiona and Weyrleader K’dan. The large table filled up as R’ney, Danirry, Cliova, Alimma, Aliyal, and the others all returned.

It was Mirressa who said it best, her shining eyes trained on Lorana: “Thank you! I have never seen anything so amazing!”

“It’s nice to see what we’re fighting for, isn’t it?” Fiona commented.

The others were talking excitedly about all the features they’d seen, comparing notes on the colors and sights that the moving dawn had brought them.

“I think we should stay up longer next time,” Danirry said during a lull in the conversation. Fiona glanced at Lorana and Xhinna.

“I think it’s too early,” Xhinna said. “Let’s wait until we’ve got the full orbit done, then we’ll see.”

“I think you’re right,” Lorana agreed. She was about to say something more when Jirana rushed up, forcing open a spot between Xhinna and Taria.

“When can I go up?” the little queen rider demanded. “All the queens want to know!”

“Even Bekka?”

Jirana rolled her eyes. “Who do you think sent me?”

“Isn’t J’riz going up now?” Xhinna asked, glancing toward Lorana, who nodded. J’riz was paired with J’valin, rider of blue Nerinath.

“Would there be any chance Bekka would take up another when she goes?” Seban asked.

“If she doesn’t, I’ll take you myself,” Fiona said.

“Bekka’s Pinorth is up to it,” K’dan said. The queen had a tendency—in common with her rider—of over-exerting herself; K’dan made a point of keeping tabs on her.

“Well, then,” K’dan said, gesturing to Jirana and Fiona. “When you’re finished, with Lorana’s agreement, we’ll all take a look.”

They arrived near the Dawn Sisters when they were midway across the Western Isle, nearly over Midriver Weyr, although they couldn’t make it out through the vast expanse of green growth and brown earth beneath them—more green than brown.

Xhinna waved to the surprised riders of Avarra’s wing who had expected to be alone on this watch, while Lorana quickly relayed explanations for their intrusion. Xhinna caught snatches of conversations relayed to her by Tazith, but she was more interested in staring at the view below, trailing her eyes east and west to the extreme edges of the sun’s light, trying to absorb the huge expanse of the vista.

Eight hours, Tazith said. When he caught Xhinna’s surprise, the blue added, K’dan says that we’re seeing about eight hours of sunlight.

All too soon it was time to return. Xhinna waved at the watch riders, and then they went between once more, and back to Sky Weyr.

At the start of the next watch, Xhinna and Mirressa got their image from the last pair of Jerilli’s wing and went up to the Dawn Sisters. Each assured herself that the other was not suffering from oxygen starvation, and then they took quick scans of the new horizon until finally it was time for them to hand off to the next pair.

Three hours later, they repeated the effort, this time seeing a smudge on the western horizon that must have been Benden’s shoreline.

When they went up again, they were right over the mountains that surrounded the Weyr itself.

They can’t see us, can they? Mirressa relayed through her Valcanth to Xhinna.

The Dawn Sisters are bright lights in the sky, Xhinna relayed back by way of answer.

And then, once more, it was time to return earthward.

Back at Sky Weyr, the two dragonriders warmed themselves with klah before Xhinna checked in with her other riders and the two other wingleaders. The initial excitement was waning, but it had renewed at the sight of their home continent.

“We need to start keeping an eye out for Thread,” Xhinna said to Avarra and Jerilli later as the watch riders took post with the dawn over Telgar Weyr.

“I thought we had a month at least,” Avarra protested.

“We can’t be certain,” Xhinna said. “We know that there were dustfalls before the Fall over Benden, Bitra, and Tillek.”

Jerilli furrowed her brows. “Thread fell at three different places?”

Xhinna shook her head. “The fall over Benden continued to Bitra. The fall over Tillek was separate.”

Xhinna could tell that the blue rider was confused. “I’ve asked K’dan if he could draw us a map.”

“Ah, so that’s why he was up with us earlier!” Avarra exclaimed. She quickly explained that the Weyrleader had joined her watch for a while over Benden and was even now up with the Dawn Sisters over Telgar.

Lorana is with him, Tazith added in unbidden anticipation of Xhinna’s thoughts.

Thank you! she replied warmly. Lorana and K’dan were both gifted at drawing, although the ex-queenrider seemed to have more flair than the new Weyrleader.

“So when we’ve followed the Dawn Sisters back here, what next?” Avarra asked.

“Then we start our proper watch,” Xhinna told her. “We’ll need a watch stationary over Benden from sunrise to sunset, the same for Telgar and High Reaches—”

“That should let us see everything there,” Jerilli agreed.

“And we’ll keep the same length of watch here over the Great Isles.”

“We’ll have fourteen hours over the Northern Continent, but only eleven over our own,” Jerilli noted. When Avarra grunted in confusion, Jerilli explained, “We only get eight hours of sunlight in one place; there’s six hours’ difference between Benden and High Reaches, whereas we’ve only got three at best between the easternmost of Eastern and the westernmost of Western.”

“Oh, I see,” Avarra said a bit doubtfully. She glanced at Xhinna. “So how do we manage that?”

“I’m open for suggestions,” Xhinna said, throwing her hands wide.

“No, you’re not,” Jerilli countered with a chuckle. “You’ve already got something in mind and you’d prefer us to come up with it on our own.”

“You’ve been taking lessons from the Weyrwoman, haven’t you?” Avarra asked.

“Actually, I think it’s just general wingleader deviousness,” Jerilli said. Avarra gave her a look, so she said, “Don’t you do the same with your people?”

“I’m still pretty new at this,” Avarra said diffidently. She turned to Xhinna. “So, you have a plan?”

“I think it’s simple enough,” Jerilli said. “We’ve got three hours of slack on this side, so we double or triple up.”

“That’s pretty much what I was thinking,” Xhinna agreed. “I was also thinking that we should stay up longer—”

“How long?”

“How do you feel about five minutes?”

“Nervous,” Avarra admitted.

“If we set it up right, we could have overlaps,” Jerilli said. “That would give us more than one pair at any one moment, and the newer pair could ensure that the older pair was still safe.”

“I’d prefer three minutes and do that as well,” Avarra said.

“I think starting with three minutes makes sense,” Xhinna said.

“Very well,” Jerilli said, “we’ll start with three minutes.”

“The biggest problem is to keep everyone from getting bored,” Xhinna said.

Jerilli gave her an astonished look. “What? Looking at home from so high up?”

“It’s always the same!” Jerilli complained when they met in the evening six days later. “I’m practically wishing something would happen.”

The three wings had performed brilliantly, picking up the new schedule without a hitch and sticking to it steadfastly, despite the difference in time zones and the stress of being up in the lifeless cold near the twinkling stars.

“Why don’t we switch around, so people are looking at different places?” Avarra suggested.

“Because if we do that, we lose the advantage of having people trained to spot differences in the terrain they know so well,” Xhinna replied.

Avarra pinched her lips together in disappointment.

“We can continue with flaming,” Jerilli said.

“We’ve been doing that,” Avarra snapped. She shot the other wingleader an apologetic look immediately, but her words hung in the air.

“I think we’re doing all that we can,” Xhinna said. She raised a hand as the other two started to protest. “I know that the work seems dull now—”

“And it’ll be near a month before we first see Thread—” Jerilli interjected sourly.

“Actually, not true,” Xhinna corrected, raising a hand to forestall Jerilli’s protests. “We know that dustfall was seen over Fort two days before Turn’s End—”

“Great, so we’ve only nineteen more days to—”

Thread! Thread! Thread falls over Bitra!

The three riders were out of the room and into the air in an instant, grateful for the sacks of firestone that were still tied to the neck of their dragons.

Tazith, tell K’dan that we’re going to investigate, Xhinna told her dragon as they rose into the evening air. Tell the wing to join me at the Dawn Sisters. She paused for a moment. Have you got the image?

In response, Tazith took them between. They burst out in the early morning sky high over Benden, next to the watch riders who were still close to the Dawn Sisters.

Xhinna quickly found Bitra. There, dark smudges seemed to mar the landscape. She looked around, saw the rest of her wing form around her, and called to her blue, Take us there!

They came out in the sky high above Bitra. The air was cold, and the pocket of evening air that Tazith had brought with them from over Sky Weyr shone at its edges with small ice crystals frozen by the colder Bitra air.

Without urging, the blue turned his head to her and Xhinna found herself fumbling as she opened a firestone sack and fed him chunks. She knew, without looking, that behind her the rest of her wing was doing the same.

Far, far above Bitra, the dragons prepared for what they had been born and bred to do: flame and kill Thread.

No flame! Tazith cried as his first belch brought forth only the merest flicker of light.

Lower, lower! Fall with it! Danirry’s Kiarith relayed.

Do it, Xhinna agreed.

They fell, twenty-five dragons in unison, following the small oblongs through the thin atmosphere.

R’ney is worried about our air, Tazith relayed after they’d fallen for thousands of meters.

Look! Look at the Thread! Coranth relayed.

Xhinna looked at the Thread, so tantalizingly close, deadly, threatening. The clumps were changing, glowing with a heat of their own and—extending, growing, streaming into—

Thread! Tazith bellowed, bursting forth with another belch of firestone—this time it lit and the streaming Thread in front of him caught fire, crisped, and charred into nothingness.

Behind her, Xhinna suddenly heard the triumphant bellows of the dragons, heard the roar of flame, and the fantastic sound of Thread charring, burning, turning into lifeless dust.

Avarra, Jerilli! Xhinna called. Where Tazith had found them was suddenly empty as they went between and Xhinna knew that the two other wings were en route to join them. And then, to her left she saw Jerilli, waving and crying with joy; to her right, Avarra was diving toward a clump of Thread and flaming at it even as it started to stream from a small ball into its normal, long, thread-like shape.

They flew until there was no more Thread, until there was only dust, until Xhinna and the others had exhausted their sacks of firestone.

Back, Xhinna called to the exhausted riders and dragons. Back to the Weyr.

Moments later, there was nothing over Bitra to indicate that the Sky Dragons had ever been present, except for small shards of ash that were presently borne upward and away by the morning breeze.

“We caught it just as it was Threading!” Davissa exclaimed jubilantly, rushing to grab Xhinna in a bear hug. Xhinna had barely a moment to catch her breath before the two of them were engulfed in huge, strong arms and lifted off their feet.

“We did it, we did it!” R’ney’s voice boomed in Xhinna’s ears.

“Put us down, put us down!” she begged, banging on R’ney’s arm ineffectually and laughing all the while. No sooner had the brown rider complied than Xhinna found herself embraced once more, this time by the two exuberant blue riders.

“You know what this means—,” she said to them, only to hear K’dan reply, “It means that perhaps you should report to the Weyrleader.”

Instantly the circle broke and Xhinna turned to meet the bronze rider’s eyes.

“Oh, come on, it’s not like it’s necessary,” Fiona said, moving by K’dan’s side. “Danirry’s Kiarith reported to everyone, and you knew that Xhinna and her—ahem—consorts were going to fight the Thread.”

“It worked! It worked just like I thought it would!” Danirry crowed exultantly, causing everyone to turn toward her with wide eyes. “Flaming Thread!”

“Uh, dear …,” R’ney prompted.

At this, Danirry seemed to realize that she’d left a few important words out—a habit of hers that her fellow blues and greens had come to accept, but which was foreign to most others.

“I’m sorry, Weyrleader,” Danirry said. “It’s just that I was sure we could flame the Thread up high, just as it blossomed—”

“Blossomed?” Fiona cut in, her face going pale at the revolting image.

“Spooled, then, if you will,” Danirry corrected with a quick shrug.

“Please explain, blue rider, and assume that we’ve never heard what you’re talking about before,” Fiona said.

“Because we haven’t,” R’ney added, reaching forward to poke the blue rider affectionately on the shoulder. “Once again, dear heart, you forget what you haven’t told us.”

“Oh,” Danirry said, only slightly repentant. She collected herself, glanced in the direction of K’dan and Fiona, and then said, “Well, it’s just that I thought that—well, Thread burns, right?”

K’dan nodded slowly.

“And it grows; it eats things,” Danirry continued. “So it’s something that lives and needs air.” She glanced around, her eyes darting quickly toward K’dan and Fiona before coming to rest on Xhinna as she took a deep breath. “So I figure that it lives. And if it lives, then while it’s in the cold of space it must be dead—”

“Dead?” K’dan repeated, his brows furrowed.

“Asleep, like a seed out of the ground,” Danirry said. “Inert, if you will.”

“I see,” K’dan said.

“So when it falls, something has to wake it, as it were, or it would still be a seed when it hit the soil, wouldn’t it?” Danirry said.

“We’re with you,” R’ney said encouragingly.

“So I figured that when it woke up would be when it was at its most vulnerable, when it would be smallest and easiest to destroy,” Danirry continued. She looked K’dan full in the eyes as she concluded, “Just when it was spooling out into Thread. Just when there was enough air to slow it down, enough air that we could flame it into dust.”

“By the First Egg!” Fiona swore in awe. She glanced to K’dan.

“It worked?” K’dan asked.

“Perfectly,” Xhinna said, moving to Danirry’s side and hugging the blue rider’s shoulders. She glanced toward Avarra and Jerilli. “Not a dragon or rider injured, and no Thread reached the ground.”

“We could kill it before it ever got near enough to threaten Pern,” Fiona said, looking up hopefully to the Sky Weyrleader.

“Yes,” K’dan said abstractedly.

“You’re worried about the timing, aren’t you, Weyrleader?” Danirry asked in the silence that fell.

“Thread fell over Bitra?” T’mar asked as he and the other Weyrleaders—along with Danirry, R’ney, and the three blue wingleaders—gathered later that evening in the stone hall of Sky Weyr. “So early?”

“What matters more is where will it fall next,” Fiona said. She looked at K’dan.

“From what we’ve determined, this Fall is preceded by the Fall over Benden and Keroon,” K’dan said. He laid out a map of the Northern Continent; it was marked with long, thin swaths running northeast to southwest. He pointed at one, then flicked his finger to another. “After which, there’ll be a Fall over Nerat and Upper Crom, and then—”

“But our first Fall came over Benden and Igen, and not until the new Turn!” H’nez protested.

“There were three dustfalls before that,” T’mar recalled. “One at Fort, one at High Reaches Tip, one at Southern Tillek.”

“What if—” Danirry began. Then, realizing the august company surrounding her, she cut herself off abruptly.

“Please,” K’dan said, gesturing for her to continue.

“I was just thinking, Weyrleaders,” Danirry said, blushing lightly, “what if those dust Falls were because—well, because we’d flown them?”

“What?” “How?” “When?” The cries echoed around the stone room.

“And the other Falls?” T’mar asked. “If K’dan’s right, there are …” He gestured for K’dan to fill in the number, but it was Fiona who said, “Five more Falls between now and that first dustfall.” T’mar nodded his thanks, then continued, “Are you suggesting we flew them all ourselves?”

“Why not?” Avarra said, glancing toward H’nez before continuing, “We had no casualties, not so much as a dragon scratched. If we keep doing that, Thread has no chance against us!”

Outside, a chorus of bugles from the greens and blues of the three wings shook the air.

“You’ll need the queens to catch you,” a small voice spoke up from the doorway as silence fell. It was Jirana.

“I think that’s an excellent idea!” Fiona said, nodding so fiercely at K’dan and the other Weyrleaders that they all, wisely, kept silent.

“We still will need to keep watch,” K’dan said. “We don’t know when Thread will fall here, after all.”

“It would not be wise to trust both the watch and these Falls to just three wings,” H’nez said.

“Well, we’ve got wings to spare,” Terin spoke up, nodding at C’tov, the nominal Weyrleader of her Southern Weyr. She glanced expectantly at T’mar, who stood as Weyrleader of both the Southriver and Western Weyrs.

T’mar smiled. “Let me talk with Garra and Jassi,” he said. “I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to free a wing each.”

“Keep the bronzes for catching,” Jirana said. The others looked at her and she blushed. “I’m sorry, I meant to—”

“You meant to do exactly what you did,” Fiona said, smiling and wagging a finger at the young queen rider. She turned to T’mar, who frowned at the girl before nodding to the Weyrwoman and saying resignedly, “She’s right. It makes more sense to have the blues and greens up high, and the browns and bronzes down low to catch—”

“Because there’s no way a blue can catch a bronze,” C’tov said with a chuckle and an apologetic waggle of his eyebrows to the blue riders present.

Xhinna said to R’ney, “While I’d hate to lose your services fighting Thread, I can think of no one I’d prefer to have catching us if we were to fall.”

R’ney frowned, then nodded. “Put that way, Wingleader, I accept.”

“Flightleader?” Xhinna exclaimed when Fiona and K’dan sprang their latest surprise on her the next morning in the High Kitchen.

“Well, ‘Weyrleader’ seems perhaps a bit much,” K’dan told her, barely able to keep the grin off his face.

“Although Flightleader is an insult, because you’ll be in charge of two Flights,” Fiona added. She turned to K’dan, suggesting, “Over-leader?”

“No,” Xhinna said, raising her hands in horror. She knew how persuasive Fiona could be, particularly with the Weyrleader. Well, actually, pretty much with all the Weyrleaders. It was absolutely necessary to nip this in the bud. “No, anything but that!”

“So, Flightleader it is,” Fiona said triumphantly.

“Still,” K’dan began, clearly enjoying himself, “it’s not quite right, because you’ll be in charge of six wings.”

“Flightleader will do fine,” Xhinna muttered. Shaking her head, she looked across the table at the two of them. Settling her gaze on Fiona, she accused, “You set me up for this.”

“Well, of course,” Fiona agreed easily. “Although far be it from me to suggest that perhaps you actually earned it—”

“No, that would be my job,” K’dan inserted. He grinned at Xhinna. “You’ve got all the qualifications. And, you’ll note, the other Weyrleaders all saw fit to send their best—”

“And not a bronze among them,” Xhinna noted tartly.

“Well, that’s not fair,” Fiona said, her light tone evaporating. “Jirana makes too much sense with her notion of catching falling dragons—”

“If it’s practical,” Xhinna cut in.

“Well, it worked for you,” Fiona said, forcing Xhinna to remember Turns back to when she and Tazith had made their abortive attempt to jump forward in time, only to be rescued by X’lerin and his wing. “And it worked for me,” the Weyrwoman continued, “and it worked for T’mar. But, admittedly, we had a whole Weyr ready to help, so I think, all things considered, it really is better to stick with blues and greens on these Sky Wings—”

“Sky Wings?” Xhinna interrupted.

“Well, I don’t think Space Wings makes much sense,” Fiona continued, thoroughly enjoying herself, “as you’re not really up in space for all that long, after all.”

“Sky Wings,” Xhinna repeated with a long sigh of resignation. She was rewarded with chuckles from the Weyrwoman and Weyrleader, which was what she’d intended.

“And we’ll base them here, at Sky Weyr,” K’dan said. When Xhinna shot him a startled look, he waved it aside. “T’mar agrees. That’s partly because you’ve managed to convince so many queen riders to stay here—”

“Not that we’re complaining,” Fiona interrupted, another smile blossoming on her lips. “Even Talenth has decided to take it as a compliment.”

“Anyway,” K’dan continued, ignoring Fiona’s outburst, “the extra queens make it that much easier to build catching wings—”

“Catching wings?” Xhinna repeated.

“I like the sound of that!” Fiona said.

“You’re taking charge of them, aren’t you?” Xhinna begged.

Fiona chuckled and waved away Xhinna’s worry. “Of course,” she said. “Although I’m not so foolish as to separate Jirana from the rest of her charges.”

“But without the green queens, how—”

“How will we guard the Hatching Grounds?” Fiona guessed. “J’keran and his guard will do the bulk of the work, but Jirana has assured me that her queens are keeping constantly in touch with the eggs.”

K’dan shook his head in renewed awe at the strange arrangement that existed between unhatched eggs and the green queens. It had been, over the past several Turns, the cause of many late-night conversations throughout the six Weyrs of the Western Isle.

Xhinna thought about the other queen riders and pursed her lips in a small frown. “You’ll need—”

“To win over your Jepara?” Fiona guessed, smiling once again as she took in Xhinna’s astonished look. Taking pity, she explained, “Well, it wasn’t hard to guess that that would be your next consideration.”

“I don’t think there’ll be any problem in that,” K’dan said, nodding toward the distance. Xhinna turned to see Jepara making her way toward them, a tray in her hands. Xhinna smiled and waved at the queen rider, who smiled back and quickly joined them.

“We were just talking about you,” Fiona said as Jepara sat. The gold rider nodded, unperturbed.

“I’d heard about the other wings,” Jepara said, nodding toward Xhinna. “I gather we’re going to be given more duties?”

“I’m going to form the queen’s wing,” Fiona said. “I’d like you to be my wingsecond.”

“What about Jirana?”

“She’ll be my other wingsecond, responsible for the green queens,” Fiona said, ignoring the look of distate that flashed across Jepara’s face. “But as your wing will have the larger dragons, I’m expecting you and the browns and bronzes—”

“Bronzes?” Jepara interrupted, her voice filled with anticipation.

“J’sarte and the others with dragons his age,” Fiona said. She raised a hand to forestall Jepara, adding, “They’ll have their normal duties, but in an emergency, I’m expecting you to incorporate them into any ‘catching’ we may have to perform.”

“We’re also assigning some of the younger greens and blues—those old enough to fly for short periods—to your exercises,” K’dan added. “They’ll be attached to the various wings, so the bronzes will be able to direct them as you need.”

“Need?”

“Well, you’ve got to practice catching,” Fiona said. “So I figured we could have them stand in. It’d be good exercise for them, as well.”

Jepara nodded, her expression thoughtful. Xhinna wanted to stay, but she’d finished her breakfast and she could feel the looks of R’ney, Danirry, and the rest of her wing on her. Rising, she nodded to Fiona and K’dan, and smiled at Jepara. “I must go.”

“Fly safe,” K’dan said. Fiona echoed him, but Jepara merely waved dismissively, and Xhinna suppressed a chuckle, delighted by the ease with which Fiona had ensnared the difficult queen rider’s attention.

“Catching wings,” Fiona murmured approvingly and then, with a cry that startled everyone she shouted, “Sky wings! Skyleader!”

Xhinna raced out before Fiona could formally pin the appellation on her.

Xhinna was glad she did not make assignments of the new wings until she’d met with their leaders. She had a quick talk with them, outlining their duties and the problems of high sky flight before inviting Avarra and Jerilli to join them for a more in-depth conversation.

Reflecting on the numerous times she and Jirana had ridden in Search, she knew that the odds were more than even that any blue or green rider would be female. The older riders, in a distinct but revered minority, found the change both difficult and pleasing.

“At least I don’t have to look at your old scarred face all the time!” was a common refrain among some of them. Several had been skeptical initially, believing that women wouldn’t be up to the rigors of riding a fighting dragon, but Xhinna had been at the forefront of dismantling that concern. Still, she found herself having to fight the fear that these new wingleaders and their wings had been assigned to her because they weren’t considered good enough to fight in “proper” wings.

When she thought about it, though, she realized that if fighting Thread at the heights worked as well as it had the first time, it would be these six wings that would bear the brunt of fighting Thread for the foreseeable future—not the “proper” wings flying in the thicker, warmer air near the ground. So it would be up to Xhinna to be sure that these wings could meet the challenge.

All the faces were familiar to her. They looked at her expectantly and almost with awe. She’d Searched them; she’d assured them as young girls and women that they could become dragonriders, that there was a hope for them far beyond the dank confines of their dying cotholds and fallow fields. She, Jirana, Taria, and a few others had been the ones to warn them for the first time about between, to bring them forward in time from the end of the Plague years to the lush Western Isle where they had begun new lives.

Warmed by this realization, Xhinna smiled at them.

“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but we’re here to save Pern,” she said, plunging into a recounting of the past several days leading up to the high-altitude battle with Thread.

“So we find the Thread, fall with it until it streams, and burn it out of the sky?” Maleena, the Southriver wingleader, summarized when Xhinna had finished.

“Precisely,” Xhinna said emphatically.

“But—up that high, how do we breathe?” Kalee of Southern Weyr asked.

“That is the problem and why we’re only flying blues and greens up high,” Xhinna said. “The blues and greens are the only ones small enough that the others can safely catch them if they run out of air.”

“I’ve got two browns for wingseconds,” Torra of Western Weyr said. “They’re good flyers; I hate to lose them.”

“You won’t,” Xhinna told her firmly. “One of my wingseconds flies a brown, too.”

“So what does he do?”

“Well, this last Threadfall he flew with us,” Xhinna admitted. “But now, we’ll have the browns form up with the queens and bronzes as catchers.”

“Queens and bronzes?” someone asked, the exact moment someone else echoed, “Catchers?”

“We’re going to start your wings the way we started the others,” Xhinna said as she told Tazith to send in Avarra and Jerilli. “We’ll start by training you on flying higher, then on flying up to the Dawn Sisters—”

“When do we get to fight Thread?” Maleena asked. “We’d started firestone training, but—”

“You won’t stop,” Xhinna told her. “In fact, we’ve accelerated it—” She paused as Avarra and Jerilli entered. “—and we’re working on new tactics.” She waved for the other two wingleaders to take seats and was pleased when they chose to sit supportively on either side of her. Xhinna introduced them briefly and then continued, “I was just saying how we’re going to accelerate our firestone training—”

“I’ve got a plan here,” Avarra said, tapping a slate protruding from the carisak hanging off her shoulder. Xhinna started to say something, but the other interrupted, adding, “And before you ask, I worked it through with Danirry and R’ney already.”

Xhinna nodded. “I was thinking that we could pair each new wing with one of the older wings—”

“That’s inefficient,” Avarra said. “It makes more sense if you take your wing and train them.” She glanced to Jerilli, who nodded. “We can continue the space watch while you’re training them, and then we can start rotating their wings up through the space watch while training with the resting wings.”

Xhinna raised an eyebrow and turned to Jerilli, who nodded.

“Well,” Xhinna said a bit bemusedly, “it appears we’ve got everything all figured out!”

“Not quite,” Avarra said. Xhinna turned to her. “Apparently Jepara and Jirana want to be involved in the altitude training.” She glanced at the other wingleader and rose to her feet, gesturing for Jerilli to precede her. “So, while we’re working ourselves to the bone, we’ll leave you to handle that little thing!”

The three new wingleaders laughed at the dismayed expression on Xhinna’s face.

In the end, it was not as much a “little thing” as Avarra had so blithely surmised, nor was it as big a thing as Xhinna had feared. Partly that was because R’ney and Danirry had already discussed the situation and had several solutions in mind, and partly because, for all her prickliness, Jepara was too eager to be doing something useful to be difficult for long.

Jirana was a different matter, and by the end of the day Xhinna found herself exasperated at the way the girl shadowed her throughout all the exercises.

When they finally returned for the evening meal, Xhinna was ready to tear strips out of the youngster and bore down on her at the High Kitchen with just that intent.

“Jirana,” she began sternly as she seated herself opposite the young queen rider—and then she stopped. The other five green queen riders were all at the same table, all chewing slowly and looking not just tired, but subdued. When she noticed that while they cast nervous glances toward her, they reserved their most worried looks for Jirana, she changed her tone and her words in a heartbeat. “What is it, little one?”

“Nothing,” Jirana replied morosely. Xhinna made a derisive noise and the dark-haired, dark-eyed trader girl looked up at her, shaking her head. “Nothing you can change.”

Instead of returning to her dinner, Jirana kept her eyes on Xhinna, tracing every line in her face, scrutinizing her as though trying to drink a permanent image through her eyes to store in her brain—an image to keep when the original was lost.

Xhinna was stunned by the implications. She reached forward to touch Jirana’s hand, but the girl jerked it back as if stung—or touched by a cold spirit.

Xhinna realized that she could think of nothing to say to someone who had seen her death somewhere in the future. She looked away, her lips going tight, then looked down at her plate. In the distance she heard some babies cry and thought of her Xelinan, and then of Taria, of Tarena, of Taralin, of all the babies that she wouldn’t—

“No,” she said firmly, bringing her eyes back up to meet Jirana’s. The queen rider looked back at her in mild surprise. Commandingly, Xhinna said to her, “Finish your dinner.”

Jirana’s eyes flashed for a moment, but she complied, eating quickly and silently.

“Done?” Xhinna asked when Jirana put down her fork. The girl nodded and Xhinna rose. “Come on, then.”

The other young queen riders looked at Jirana, afraid to offer support, desperate to help.

“I’m going to talk to her alone,” Xhinna told them, trying to make her tone light. They didn’t seem very relieved at her words; Xhinna sighed and gestured for Jirana to follow her.

Outside, she led the girl up to the tops of the broom trees. In the dead of winter, cold breezes blew that cut through the warmth of wher-hide jackets and scarves built to withstand the cold of between, but the air was fresh, brisk—alive.

Xhinna found a spot that still had thick leaves and sat cross-legged. She beckoned Jirana to sit in front of her and the youngster complied, scooting her back against Xhinna’s chest tightly for both warmth and contact. Xhinna reached up and ran her splayed fingers through the girl’s fine, dark hair. Jirana leaned back contentedly.

It had been a special thing that had grown up between them in the past couple of Turns: that Xhinna and Jirana would trade turns combing knots out of each other’s hair although, in truth, as Jirana had the longer hair it was more Xhinna who did the combing and Jirana who did the luxuriating. But for Xhinna it was like really having the little sister she’d always wished for—a relationship entirely different from the one she had with Taria. There was a strange comfort in it, the warmth of a shared ritual, a hidden joke, a chance to love and be loving in the way that only sisters could.

“I’m going to die,” Xhinna said, leaning forward so that her soft words carried to Jirana’s ear.

The girl jerked and then leaned back again as Xhinna continued stroking her hair.

“Yes.” The word was whipped away by the evening winds, but not before Xhinna heard it.

“You’re going to die,” Xhinna said, her lips close to Jirana’s left ear.

“Someday,” Jirana agreed.

“I’m not dead yet,” Xhinna said. Jirana jerked out of her hands and turned to stare at her. Xhinna smiled. “Don’t kill me ahead of time.”

With a sob, Jirana turned around and thrust herself against Xhinna, wrapping her arms tightly around her and crying uncontrollably.

“I wish it were me!” she said when she finally found enough air to speak.

“And I wish it weren’t,” Xhinna replied firmly.

Jirana’s brows came together in confusion.

“I’d love to live to see you old. I’d love to see your children, your loves, to see your queen’s clutches,” Xhinna said. “But I’d much rather not see all that than have you miss it.”

“I want you with me,” Jirana said. She bit her lip and beat against Xhinna’s chest feebly with her fists. “It’s not fair! It’s not fair! It’s not fair!”

She collapsed against Xhinna again, muttering into her chest, “And it hurts so much.”

“Would it hurt less if you could share it with someone?” Xhinna asked, cupping her arms around the young rider’s back and rocking slowly back and forth.

“It’d just hurt them, too,” Jirana muttered despairingly.

“If anything happens to me, you talk to Seban,” Xhinna said. Jirana looked up at her. “He’s been through so much—he’ll hear you. You can share with him.”

“I’d much prefer to talk to you,” Jirana insisted.

“And I, you,” Xhinna agreed. “And so, now, is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

“I could be wrong,” Jirana said in a small voice. “I hope I’m wrong.”

Xhinna wasn’t sure how much credence to put in the young Seer’s hopes. Thus far, she’d been right about everything.

In the end, Xhinna decided to take her own advice and said nothing about the incident to Taria or anyone else. From the looks of the five young green-queen riders, she guessed that they suspected something of what was up but did not know for certain.

K’dan, however, approached her late the next day, looking troubled.

“I’d like you to double the watch,” he told her without preamble. He explained that he and Fiona had been arguing over the frequency of the Falls. Given that no Thread had fallen on the Northern Continent until the dustfalls first seen at the start of the next Turn, there might be nothing to worry about. Then he added, “But …”

“ ‘Better safe than sorry,’ ” Xhinna quoted, grinning at him and raising a hand in a salute. “As you wish, Weyrleader.”

And so she’d reorganized the watch, so that her wing flew mid-morning over Benden and mid-evening over the Eastern Isle. Maleena, Kalee, and Torra were disappointed with the changes but Xhinna felt that they could easily be left in Jepara’s extremely capable hands.

“By the end of this week, at the most, you’ll be ready to join us,” Xhinna had promised them. Only one of their riders had succumbed to the lack of air the way Mirressa had, and the blue and his rider had been quickly recovered by R’ney, Jepara, and the other queens—much to their satisfaction. The promise mollified them all, except for Torra, who seemed to have greater empathy than most and had noticed the worried way Jirana had been following Xhinna with her eyes.

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” Torra had asked in a moment when she’d managed to get Xhinna out of earshot. “Jirana’s really worried about you.”

“I know,” Xhinna had replied. “I’ll be careful. I’ve lots to live for.”

Torra opened her mouth, but could find nothing more to say.

Xhinna was just getting ready to return from her position in the evening sky over Benden Weyr when she spotted it—a dark smudge, spots …

Thread! she cried. Tazith bellowed, turning his head toward her even as she loosened the opening of the nearest firestone sack. Feeding him chunks of firestone, she commanded him to fall upon the Thread, ordering the rest of her wing and the wings of Jerilli and Avarra to join her.

They fell from the dark nothing of space through the freezing cold of the thin, unbreathable air until they were approaching the smudges of Thread and then—

Tazith flamed. In an instant, flames erupted to her left and right and suddenly the sky was full of flaming dragons.

Thread! Thread falls over Eastern!

Who? Xhinna thought in surprise, and then her face crumpled into horror as she thought of the unguarded Eastern Isle, lush and—

Tazith, go! she shouted. Rouse the Weyrs!

In an instant they were between, and then Xhinna was in the air over the Eastern Isle, searching frantically for Thread. She found it, and Tazith started flaming unthinkingly. They dived, rose, dived again, always keeping to the highest heights, the great blue’s lungs laboring to heave in enough air to breathe, Xhinna gasping with him, unable to tell if it were her need or her sympathetic imitation of his need and—

Maleena, Torra, to me! Xhinna called, adding, Tazith, tell Avarra to lead the Fall over Benden.

I have, Tazith relayed as he turned to her for more firestone. Lurenth says that the Weyrs are flying over Eastern.

Xhinna had a sudden memory of flashing light in the distance the day she had brought K’dan and the other weyrlings back in time from the Eastern Isle to Western—that had been today! The lights had been dragons flaming!

She shook the thought from her mind as Tazith relayed Avarra’s answer to her, and she led her wing in the assault against the fresh-streaming Thread.

She lost all track of time. Suddenly she and Tazith were hovering in the high, thin air, and Xhinna realized that she was shivering uncontrollably.

Come down! A voice called to them and Xhinna found herself obeying, returning to the Sky Weyr. She smiled as she made out the shape of a little girl standing at the top of the Kitchen Hall’s broom tree: Jirana.

“Drink this up, put this on,” Jirana said, peremptorily handing Xhinna a mug of hot klah and a blanket the moment the blue rider hit the top branches of the broom tree. “And when you’re done, I’ve warm mash for Tazith.” She waved a hand at the blue commandingly, shouting, “And you’re to eat it all, no excuses!”

Tazith rumbled in reluctant compliance. Jirana, seeing that Xhinna was taking care of herself, hefted a steaming bucket and hauled it over to the blue’s muzzle. “Eat it all! You’re practically frozen!”

Xhinna found herself shivering in the blanket and sank to her haunches, then sat cross-legged, twitching the blanket more tightly around her as she sipped the marvelously warm liquid.

“The others?” she asked when her teeth stopped chattering. The sound of wings and riders landing half-answered her question, with Jirana saying, “You were the worst; they’re being taken care of.”

Xhinna looked around. Aside from her wing they were alone. “Where’s Fiona?”

Jirana paced back to Tazith and stood in front of Xhinna, considering her words.

“Where is everyone?”

“There were burrows,” Jirana told her simply. “They’ve lost a quarter of Eastern Isle. They’re building a fire-break.”

“What?” Xhinna said, starting to rise only to be waved back down.

“They’ll have it under control,” Jirana said. “It was worse than they’d thought. The burrows spread quicker than they normally do—the soil here is too rich.”

“And Avarra? Jerilli? The others?”

“They’re coming back now,” Jirana said as another figure joined them: Taria. Xhinna patted the ground beside her, and the weary green rider collapsed, leaning against her and murmuring gratefully when Xhinna spread the blanket inclusively over her shoulders.

Xhinna recalled her duties and checked in with Tazith. Have R’ney and Danirry report in.

Even as she thought that, she recalled the frantic moments that had just passed and—

“Danirry?” Xhinna said.

“We couldn’t catch her,” Jirana said, the tremble in her voice suddenly loud in Xhinna’s ears. Why hadn’t she heard it before? Why hadn’t she noticed that the girl was crying?

“We tried,” Jirana said, lowering herself to her knees in front of Xhinna. “We tried. Laspanth and I almost caught her but—but we couldn’t—she slid off and we—”

“We lost her,” another voice added from the darkness in stone-cold tones. It was Jepara. She came up through the passage from the High Kitchen and sat next to Jirana, looking at Xhinna, her eyes spangled with tears. “I’m sorry, Xhinna, we tried but—we weren’t enough, we weren’t fast enough and—”

“Where is she?” Xhinna asked softly, trying to concentrate beyond the sound of Taria’s crying.

“She fell into the sea,” Jirana said. “We couldn’t find her.” She turned to Jepara. “They dived into the water, but they couldn’t find her.” She was silent for a moment and then offered in solace, “I don’t think they felt any pain. They were out of air—they’d fainted and they didn’t even know what had happened.”

Xhinna wrapped a hand around Taria’s and clasped it tight. The green rider clenched her hand in return.

Xhinna looked at Jirana, saw the red-rimmed eyes in the dim evening light, saw the darker look in them, and realized—Jirana had known.

Worse, in the young queen rider’s eyes she could plainly see the future. Without words, Jirana’s sad, miserable expression told her: You’re next.

TWENTY Farewell to a Dreamer

“Now we know the worst,” T’mar said as the Weyrleaders gathered in the Council Room of Sky Weyr’s stone hall early the next morning.

“True,” K’dan agreed, “but we also can now plot our Falls, and there’s good news in that.”

“Good news?” H’nez echoed skeptically. He gestured eastward. “One burrow and we nearly lost a whole island! What happens if a burrow strikes here?”

“We’ll have to be certain that none does,” T’mar said with a wave of his hand. He nodded to K’dan. “Your Sky wings worked admirably. Why can’t we use them?”

“We could,” K’dan agreed. “But the dangers of fighting Thread so high were amply demonstrated—”

“One rider is not a great loss,” H’nez said.

“One experienced rider,” K’dan countered. “In two Falls, we’ve lost one—”

“That’s much better than we’ve seen in any Fall on the Northern Continent,” C’tov reminded him. He waved a hand at K’dan in sympathy. “Any loss is hard, and by all accounts, your Danirry was a marvelous and talented person but—”

“I know,” K’dan said. He shook himself and continued, “But now that we know when the Falls will come here, perhaps we don’t need the Sky wings anymore.”

“What?” C’tov said.

“We were lucky,” K’dan said.

“I’m not sure I could say that after fighting that burrow in Eastern,” H’nez replied.

“It took nearly three full Weyrs to even start to control that mess,” X’lerin said, shaking his head in awe.

“If we’d caught it sooner, it wouldn’t have been so much trouble,” K’dan said.

“I don’t know,” T’mar replied. “That burrow was faster and rooted in deeper than we’ve ever seen them—we were lucky to lose only as much as we did.”

“And that was nearly a quarter of the whole island,” H’nez said. He was still amazed. “It was so fast!”

“We were hampered by nightfall, by not knowing what was happening,” K’dan countered. “But now that we know, we’ll be better prepared—”

“Better yet, if we can use the Skies,” C’tov observed.

“K’dan, you said we were lucky?” T’mar said, redirecting the conversation.

“Yes,” K’dan said, tapping a parchment in front of him. The tanners of the Weyrs weren’t quite as good at the craft of making skins usable for writing as others back on the Northern Continent, but it sufficed for simple drawings. “From what we recall, with these two Falls we can predict that we’ll have another Fall—this time over the southern end of both islands, twenty-six days from now.”

“That long?”

“That accurate?”

“Actually, the Fall should come at about three in the morning, our time,” K’dan said. “It will match the Falls over Benden Weyr, Bitra, and Igen Weyr—the first Fall that was flown by Benden and Telgar.”

“So we have time to plan and prepare,” T’mar said, nodding thoughtfully. The others looked relieved.

“And then?” H’nez prompted. “When’s our next Fall?”

“Nine days and nine hours later, we’ll have a Fall that brushes the southern end of our Eastern Isle,” K’dan said. “That’s the same time as the Fall over Igen and Ista’s tip.”

“How long?”

“It starts, if we’re right, just about halfway over the Southern bay and peters out over the sea far to the west.”

“Thread falls from northeast to southwest,” T’mar reminded them. He glanced at K’dan. “So, not a full Fall, then?”

K’dan nodded. “Probably two or three hours at most.”

“Better than six,” H’nez muttered approvingly. He cocked an eye at K’dan. “And then?”

“We’ve a break for fifteen days and fifteen hours, and then we’ll have the same Fall we just fought all over again,” K’dan said, pursing his lips tightly.

“Nine and nine, fifteen and fifteen?” C’tov asked.

“Each Fall comes three days and three hours after the last one,” K’dan said. “These islands are so small that more Falls miss than hit.”

“But back home?” T’mar asked. No matter that they’d been on the Western Isle nearly three Turns, the Northern Continent was still home to all.

K’dan frowned, trying to think. “After Benden and Keroon, it would be Nerat and Upper Crom—but it didn’t happen.”

H’nez gave him a questioning look and the Sky Weyrleader explained, “The first signs of Thread were the dustfalls over Fort, High Reaches Tip, and Southern Tillek—there was no mention of dustfall over Nerat or Crom.” He shrugged. “Probably the dustfall was dispersed by high winds, so no one noticed it. It’s winter; the weather is usually too cold for Thread—colder up on high, as we now know.”

“So, the Sky wings—you think we should disband them?” H’nez asked K’dan.

“Two queens couldn’t catch one blue,” K’dan said. “Six wings are now completely demoralized, their riders shaken.” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “They’ve learned a lot about flying high and the dangers of thin air. Let them go back to their Weyrs, split them up so that they can spread the knowledge and forget the pain.”

H’nez shook his head doubtfully. “Dragons and riders will die, K’dan, no matter how much we wish otherwise.”

“I know,” K’dan said. “But to have them freeze to death or die by asphyxiation?” He shook his head. “That’s not honorable.”

Fiona says you’re to sleep, Tazith said as soon as Xhinna’s eyelids fluttered open. You’re to rest until you’re cranky, she said.

Xhinna’s lips twitched: It sounded like her blue was quoting the Weyrwoman directly.

She was surrounded by warmth. Taria was there and smaller bodies and—

Xhinna jumped out of the bed with an angry bellow. She threw on robes and cinched them tight against the cold morning air before racing out of their quarters, leaving a bewildered Taria behind.

Where’s R’ney? Xhinna demanded of her blue. Tazith replied equitably with an image, and Xhinna stalked off. She found the brown rider sleeping in an alcove of the walled dormitory. When she moved slowly over to him, she noticed small eyes looking up at her and heard a thin gasp, almost a mew of despair.

Xhinna slipped under the covers, slid up tight next to R’ney, and pulled little Davinna between them, cuddling and shushing the distraught baby.

“She wanted her mother,” R’ney murmured, awakened by the shifting of bodies. “I think she wants milk.” In a very small voice he added, “I can’t give her any.”

Xhinna shushed him softly and pulled the baby to her. She’d been ready to wean Xelinan, but she’d held off and was grateful now that she could ease the baby’s discomfort.

Davinna was fussy, but soon enough she fell back asleep, content at the warmth of Xhinna’s body and the sound of R’ney’s gentle breathing.

R’ney surfaced again long enough to ask, “What are you doing here?”

“I promised,” Xhinna said. “I promised her I’d look after hers and her heart’s.”

“You’re a good one, the best,” R’ney said, reaching a hand to brush her cheek.

“Sleep,” she ordered, moving his hand back to his chest. R’ney, exhausted by grief and the hard fight the day before, needed no more urging.

Hours later, Xhinna was surprised by a muffled noise of surprise and woke to see Mirressa looking down at her.

“I came for the baby,” the green rider said. “I figured—”

“I only had a little,” Xhinna said, grabbing little Davinna and passing her out from under the covers to Mirressa’s waiting hands. “She’ll probably want more.”

“She’s got a whole wing,” Mirressa said, biting her lips to keep back her tears. And then, forcefully, she said, “You know it: She’s got a whole wing!”

“ ‘Always and forever,’ ” Xhinna said, quoting the vow she’d given Danirry on the birth of Davinna.

Mirressa gulped in agreement and rushed off before her grief erupted over the fussy child in her arms.

“Where’s the baby?” R’ney asked a few moments later.

“Mirressa has her,” Xhinna replied. She was surprised when R’ney kept moving, trying to force himself past her. “She’s okay, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried, I need to get up, there’s work to be done,” R’ney said. He gave her a quizzical look. “Why aren’t you up?”

“Fiona told us to rest,” Xhinna said.

“ ‘Rest when you’re dead,’ ” R’ney said, quoting the old dragonriders jest. “If you’re not going to get up, let me pass so I can get up.”

Xhinna thought for a moment and then got up. She cocked an eyebrow at her remaining wingsecond and said, “Are you going to be all right?”

“As soon as I get some breakfast,” R’ney allowed. “What about you?”

“I’m going to check on Taria and the babies,” Xhinna said. She nodded back toward his bunk. “I want you sleeping in our quarters from now on.” She caught the mulish look on his face and corrected herself. “I at least want you to consider it home and leave Davinna with us. We’ve got enough little ones that one more won’t matter.”

“She matters to me,” R’ney said feelingly.

“Of course,” Xhinna told him. “And you know I didn’t mean it that way.” She met his eyes. “But if you could, I think it’d be best if you stayed with me and Taria.”

R’ney squinted. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’d take it as a personal favor,” Xhinna told him honestly.

R’ney held her gaze for a moment longer before reluctantly yielding in the contest of wills. “I’ll think about it.”

Xhinna’s wing gathered slowly at one table in the High Kitchen, late for breakfast. Mirressa and Taria came together, Mirressa giving R’ney a brief smile before assuring him, “Javissa’s watching the babies. Fiona’s with her.”

“And the baby?”

Mirressa smiled. “She’s asleep.” Mirressa cast a wistful eye on the food spread on the table and R’ney busied himself making sure that the nursing mother had her fill. Xhinna was also hungrier than usual, filling her plate three times before settling back, content.

R’ney picked at his food until J’valin and Mirressa chided him, and then, to stop their nagging, the brown rider emptied his plate twice before announcing loudly that he was full.

A silence descended on the group and Xhinna tried to think what to say to relieve it. Finally, in irritation, she rose from the table and strode out of the hall.

She and Tazith flew out far beyond the usual bounds of the Weyr and landed in a field and she searched it, looking for something to mark the blue rider’s passing but found nothing and, in disgust, flew back to the Meeyu Plateau. When she saw R’ney’s Rowerth down in the slight valley below, she told Tazith to land beside him.

She found R’ney near the sluiceway that he and Danirry had built. She stood there for several moments, mute, trying to think of something to say. Finally, “She saved Pern, you know.”

R’ney turned to her, silent.

“You did, too,” Xhinna said. She gestured to the sluiceway. “The gold helped save us. We used it to rebuild where nothing else would work.”

R’ney nodded silently. It was a discovery Turns old now, the realization that the gold dust could be used to finance the rebuilding that would be needed to support the return of the Western dragons to the Northern Continent. It wasn’t enough to have two thousand dragons—they had to be fed, too. Without the gold to encourage the growth of herds, there would be too few herdbeasts for the dragons’ needs. And the gold had already helped those desperate to rebuild and recover from the Plague that had killed so many. That it had gone more to Crom, Igen, Keroon, and Telgar had as much to do with who had been sending it as with where it was needed.

“And she saved us again last night,” Xhinna continued. It had been Danirry who had warned about the Thread falling over the Eastern Isle—her warning had been her last words.

“I know,” R’ney said, the words coming raw out of his throat.

“More people will die to save Pern,” Xhinna told him.

Again, R’ney nodded. At last he turned to her. “Your little one, the trader girl, she told you, didn’t she?”

“No,” Xhinna said. “But I think she knew.”

“And she thinks you’re next, doesn’t she?”

Xhinna said nothing, but prodded by the look in his eyes, she nodded once, curtly.

“Must be hard.”

“No, not really.”

“Not you,” R’ney said. “Jirana. Bearing all that weight on her own.”

They stood together, silent, their eyes darting around the clearing until finally, R’ney said, “You know, she doesn’t need anything.”

Xhinna looked over at him, surprised.

“Danirry,” R’ney said to clarify. He nodded at the sluice and the mud and then pointed to the Meeyu Plateau. “We can’t forget her, not even if we try.”

“I’ll miss her,” Xhinna confessed. She remembered the young, painfully thin girl she had first met at Crom Hold, and recalled how strong that girl had grown in the Turns since. She had saved Pern—twice. Surely that was worth more than any memorial.

“I’ll miss you,” R’ney said, meeting her eyes and then looking away into the distance.

“As I told Jirana,” Xhinna replied testily, “I’m not gone yet.”

Xhinna’s hope to make Danirry’s remembrance a simple affair for her wing only didn’t survive its first encounter with Jepara and, judging by the raised eyebrows from Fiona later, wouldn’t have lasted any longer if the obstreperous queen rider hadn’t been the first to find Xhinna.

“No, no, no—you can’t!” Jepara insisted, her voice rising with each word.

“It’s the wing’s affair,” Xhinna said, taken aback.

“Did she not belong to the Weyr, too?” Jepara demanded, pressing on before Xhinna could reply to ask, “And wasn’t she one of the first new riders to Impress? And didn’t she suggest sluicing for gold?” Xhinna was given just enough time to nod before Jepara stormed on, “And shouldn’t we all have the chance to thank and honor her for all she’s done for us?”

“She wouldn’t want a big fuss,” Xhinna protested.

“She’s not here!” Jepara said. “Her wishes don’t count!”

Xhinna stared at her in surprise, and Jepara moved closer, holding her hands out entreatingly. “It’s our chance to say good-bye to her.” Jepara closed her eyes tightly and when she opened them again, the corners were wet with the tears that she’d only half-suppressed. “We’re going to lose more before this Pass is over, Xhinna. Do you really want to start this way?”

“What do you suggest?” Xhinna asked, coming as close as she could to admitting how little energy she had after the strain of the past several days.

Jepara leaned down to look deep into Xhinna’s eyes and then, reaching a hand to touch her wrist, said quietly, “How about you let me organize this? As one of her Weyrwomen?”

Xhinna nodded silently.

And so now, as the sun matched the point at which Danirry’s final lifesaving cry had been uttered, the six Weyrs were all gathered, their wings arrayed in Flights and the Flights stacked on top of each other as the queens of all flew out to sea, their path lit by the dragons of all five Weyrleaders.

In the center of the V formation a single bright light—a torch to mark the lost rider and dragon—was seen, falling to the sea and sizzling out as it hit the water.

Then, in a brilliant burst of light, all the oldest dragons breathed fire into the air.

And then it was dark, quiet, and cold.

Weyr by Weyr they departed for their homes, until only the Sky wings remained stubbornly behind.

Rest well, blue rider, Xhinna thought, knowing her words would be echoed by Tazith to all the dragons surrounding them. You’ve earned it.

TWENTY-ONE Feast for the Fallen

“K’dan approved it,” J’keran said as he greeted the returning Sky riders with a cask of special brew. Fiona had told Xhinna to have them land on the Meeyu Plateau, and Xhinna was surprised to see their path illuminated by a huge bonfire that had not been there when they’d left. J’keran waved at the cask, adding, “Guaranteed to do the job and no more.”

Xhinna nodded gratefully to the brown rider.

K’dan moved forward, his prized gitar hung over his shoulder. “Tonight I am here as harper.” He nodded into the distance, and Xhinna was surprised to see X’lerin step out of the shadows.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and raised her opposite hand to cover it—from the angle, she knew it was R’ney’s hand. Taria moved in to her other side and wrapped an arm around Xhinna’s waist.

“Weyrleader,” Xhinna said, nodding to X’lerin. “Will you drink with us?”

“My pleasure,” X’lerin said. He nodded to J’keran to do the honors, and in moments the cask was broached and mugs filled. X’lerin took a quick sip, choked, and passed the mug to Xhinna. “Wingleader.”

Xhinna took a quick sip and was surprised as fire roared down to her belly. She passed the cup up to R’ney, who took his sip, then coughed, “It’s smooth!” before passing it over to Taria.

“The children—” Taria started to protest.

“Tonight, the Weyr looks after its children,” K’dan called out loudly. “Isn’t that so, Weyrleader?”

“It is,” X’lerin replied with a firm nod and a gesture to J’keran, who was steadily filling up more mugs and passing them around. “And harper, have you a proper song for the occasion?”

“I think I do,” K’dan said, looking mournfully at J’keran, who laughed and said, “Never let it be said Sky Weyr would parch its harper!” He passed a full mug to K’dan, who took a quick gulp, coughed, and looked at the mug with eyes wide, before setting it down carefully beside him and bringing his gitar around to his front.

“Drummer, beat,” he began in a loud, clear voice. He looked around the group waiting with a hand ready for the next chord.

“Piper, blow,” Taria responded in clear rich tones.

“Harper, strike,” K’dan sang out. He eyed the crowd.

“And soldier, go,” R’ney’s tearful voice rang out.

Xhinna felt all eyes on her and she stepped forward and nodded to K’dan. It took her two tries to get the words past her heart-stopped throat:

“Free the flame and sear the grasses.”

And then the entire plateau shook as all the riders sang out:

“Till the dawning Red Star passes.”

Xhinna reached for the next mug and drained it in one gulp. K’dan waited a moment before launching into a rollicking tune that had all of them singing and laughing and stepping together.

After that, Xhinna lost all track of time.

She awoke in a strange place and it took her a long while to realize that it was one of the stone hall rooms, filled with soft mattresses, pillows, quilts, and snoring riders. She tried to move, but a small arm pushed her back.

“You did not—” Xhinna began loudly as she recognized the arm and then, as the protest from her ears registered achingly on her brain, she reduced her voice to a whisper. “You did not spend the night here.”

“Shh,” Jirana told her muzzily, shaking her head in a motion that could either have been negation or irritation.

The young queen rider’s advice was easy to take, as Xhinna’s head told her that whatever K’dan had decided, J’keran’s drink was far, far stronger than any she’d ever tasted.

I’m bringing klah. The voice seemed to speak quietly in her head. Xhinna looked around and then turned as a path of light split the dark of the room and someone entered. Lorana.

Jirana slowly got to her knees and then helped Xhinna up. Together the two of them made their way to Lorana and out into the morning light. Xhinna was just about to drop the curtain back when a hand intercepted it and Jepara, her eyes beaming, joined them.

Lorana led them to another interior room, the Council Room, also thankfully darkened.

Xhinna smelled not only hot klah but warm rolls and fresh butter. Her stomach flipped briefly, but then settled down again, eager for sustenance.

They sat around the table, eating and drinking quietly until Xhinna felt well enough to question Jirana. She did so with a single raised eyebrow and a demanding look.

“I had one sip,” Jirana said defensively. She made a sour face. “Yuck! I don’t know why anyone would drink that stuff.”

“And your mother knows?” Xhinna demanded.

“Lorana does,” Jirana said. “And I’m old enough—”

“You’ve only—”

“I’ve nearly thirteen Turns,” Jirana cut across. “Not that I intend to drink myself silly like J’keran or—” She glanced significantly at Xhinna and then over to Jepara, but said nothing.

“Children drink wine mixed with water just after they’re weaned,” Jepara said on Jirana’s behalf.

“That was not wine,” Xhinna said.

“You’re ignoring the point,” Jirana said, grabbing another roll and applying a very liberal amount of butter before tearing into it. After she swallowed, she said, “I’d permission, I was responsible, and—”

“You appointed yourself my keeper,” Xhinna said.

Jirana, to her surprise, grinned. “Actually, I was in charge of your drink.”

Xhinna’s eyes went wide and she turned to Jepara who tried, quite unsuccessfully, to look innocent. “And you were the shoulder to lean on?”

“I was one of your carcass bearers,” Jepara said, smiling sweetly. She nodded to Jirana. “Her orders were to be certain that your cup was never empty.” The older queen rider smirked in positive delight as she added, “She was quite dutiful.”

“R’ney?”

“K’dan,” Jepara said.

“Taria?”

“Me,” Lorana said.

“A queen or bronze for every member of your wing,” Jepara told her. “Of course, we had to double up some, but it was not as hard as you’d think.”

“And our duties?” Xhinna asked.

“Completed where necessary, or deferred,” Lorana said. She leaned forward. “After all you’ve done, it was only fitting.”

“We won’t be doing this for every fallen rider?”

“I don’t know, it certainly seems like a good idea,” Jepara said, her eyes dancing mischievously.

Xhinna was speechless. Jirana refilled her mug and passed it back to her. “More klah?”

It took the wing the better part of the day to recover from the evening’s revelry, and when they did, their mood was dour.

In summer and spring, the broom trees provided a marvelous shelter and home. In the midst of winter, they were not so accommodating, and only the large wooden walls carefully attached to the many platforms that had been built below the treetops provided the needed shelter. Building the walls and setting them up took time and effort, so winter shelter was necessarily very confining and scarce.

The stone hall on the burnt plateau—Meeyu Plateau—provided relief, but it was actually easier to expand the platforms beneath the broom trees than to carefully construct or expand the fitted stone hall.

“How much longer until we can return?” Alimma asked querulously as the wing gathered at one long table for dinner in the High Kitchen.

“We’ve yet to mark Turn’s end,” R’ney said, “so we’ve got eight months—nearly nine here yet.”

“We’re still so far back in time that Lorana hasn’t yet discovered the cure,” Mirressa added. “We can’t possibly go back until after that at the earliest.”

“That’s when D’gan and Telgar were lost between,” Taria said. She pursed her lips. “Will we hear that again, here?”

“I don’t know,” Xhinna said, making a note to bring it up with K’dan when she could.

“That’s when Lorana lost her queen, isn’t it?” Jirana spoke up unexpectedly beside them. R’ney raised an eyebrow at the young gold rider, but moved down the bench, motioning for her to join them.

“And Seban will lose his blue Serth,” Xhinna added, glancing around for the blue rider and wondering why she hadn’t seen him recently.

“And so many others,” Taria agreed sadly. Her eyes took on a distant look and she grew so quiet that Xhinna shot her a troubled look. Taria noticed it and said apologetically, “It’s just that I remember when D’gan went. His son, D’lin, went for help and … no one ever found him.”

“Was he lost between?” R’ney wondered. The others shrugged. “Wasn’t he found when D’gan was rescued?”

“No,” Taria said. The others looked at her, so she explained, “I asked Lorana.” She made a sad face. “He was a nice lad; I’d hoped he’d been saved.”

“Must have been hard on D’gan,” R’ney said.

Xhinna found herself nodding. It was a moment before she realized that silence had descended around her and still another before a cough alerted her to the arrival of a newcomer.

It was Jepara. Xhinna looked up at her.

“So what’s the plan, Sky leader?” Jepara asked, nodding toward Jirana. “My small ears have gone quiet.”

Xhinna gave her a blank look. To her surprise, Jepara scooped up Jirana, took her seat, and placed the younger rider in her lap before leaning forward conspiratorially.

“I’ve seen the charts,” Jepara told them.

“And?”

“And Thread should fall at Nerat and Upper Crom tomorrow morning,” Jepara said. R’ney, Taria, and the others all glanced questioningly at Xhinna, who nodded reluctantly.

“But K’dan says that no Fall, not even dust, was reported,” Xhinna said.

“Would it hurt to be certain?” Taria asked. Xhinna felt a tense agreement from the rest of the riders.

“It would be better if we had Lorana—” Xhinna broke off as she caught a jerky movement opposite the table. She eyed Jirana and Jepara both very carefully. “We’d need someone to give us a good image.”

“That can be arranged,” Jepara said with a wave of her hand.

“And firestone,” Xhinna added.

“That you can get on your own just for the asking,” Jepara said. “Especially if you make it clear that you’ll be practicing with bronzes and browns.”

“And queens?” Xhinna asked, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

“Well, at least two,” Jepara agreed. “Although I’d heard that Meeya is getting antsy to do more flying, and perhaps Hannah, Karrina, and Latara.”

“Just look?” Xhinna asked, trying to match Jepara’s innocent tone.

“And where’s the harm in that?” Jepara wondered.

“I can’t see any,” Taria replied, turning to R’ney and asking, “Can you?”

“It’d do us some good,” R’ney replied. He raised an eyebrow at Xhinna. “What do you think?”

Xhinna couldn’t figure out why Taria acted so smug later that night, or why Jirana seemed so unworried when they gathered in the morning until Jepara said, “You’re staying here, of course.”

The queen rider cut off her outburst with a hand. “You must know that K’dan will be keeping his eye on you.”

“And he won’t notice that you and all the rest of the wing are missing?”

“Of course not!”

Xhinna gave her a skeptical look.

“Most of us will be here, training with you, practicing flaming just as he’d want,” R’ney said, taking pity on his wingleader.

“And the missing ones will be dropping practice Thread?” Xhinna guessed.

“Exactly,” Taria said. “It’s just that some of the Thread droppers will need to gather the long willow leaves we use, and others will be up high, and in all that—”

“No one will notice a pair of missing dragons,” Jirana said, smiling happily up at Xhinna.

“Well,” Xhinna said, glancing warningly toward R’ney, “it’s said that a wise wingleader leaves the hard work to her seconds.”

“And we all know you’re wise,” Jepara said in a tone that was just shy of taunting.

Xhinna frowned, then looked around. “We’re a wingsecond short—”

“Ah,” R’ney said, shifting his stance in a way that showed his discomfort with the topic.

Xhinna hated pressing the issue, but felt she had to. “Under the circumstances, it’d be better if we were at our full strength.” She turned her head toward J’valin, rider of blue Nerinath. His dragon was half a Turn younger than R’ney’s brown Rowerth, but he was well grown.

“I was wondering,” interjected a tenor voice as a figure emerged from the knot of riders, “if perhaps you’d be willing to let me …” It was J’keran.

“He’s got experience,” Jepara said, moving close to pitch her words for Xhinna’s ears only.

Certainly he had experience—he’d fought Thread for nearly half a Turn, had nearly killed Xhinna in a drunken rage, and had taken Taria and her Coranth off to live as outlaws even to the point of trying to steal Candidates for Coranth’s clutch.

His life was forfeit to her and she’d given it to the Weyr and, more specifically, to Jirana, whose Mrreow-claw injuries had nearly killed her. Since then, J’keran had slowly transformed from the young girl’s guard to the guard of all the Hatching Grounds for all six Weyrs—and he took his duty very seriously. Since that day when Jirana had touched her queen Laspanth still in the shell and guided the dragonriders to destroy all the ravaging tunnel snakes, not a single egg had been lost. Much—perhaps most—due to J’keran.

Xhinna could sense R’ney’s outrage and Taria’s … challenge—it was not contempt—as clearly as though both were dragons. She understood R’ney’s feelings and spent a few moments coming to grips with Taria’s odd emotions before nodding to the man who stood before her, projecting strength, honesty, and—unless she missed her guess—pure, unadulterated terror.

“Your duty’s done,” Xhinna told him. “You have earned back your honor and your life.” Her eyes strayed to Jirana, who was bouncing on her feet, her throat moving with unspoken words, her eyes silently urging Xhinna on. “If the Weyrwoman is satisfied—”

“More than satisfied!” Jirana cried jubilantly.

“Then, with the Weyrleader’s permission,” Xhinna told J’keran, “I’d be honored to have you fly with us.”

Xhinna felt Taria’s fingers clasp around hers. Xhinna reached around and hugged her, then stood away, watching J’keran’s reaction. She saw his eyes widen and then she nodded to him.

J’keran’s brown Perinth was a fine mount, well grown, well loved, well trained, and proven in countless Falls and mating flights. Xhinna accepted that Perinth might outfly her blue Tazith, that Taria might smile once more at his attention, but she wasn’t upset. Her bonds with Taria, born in youth and first love, were too strong now after Turns together for anyone to sever them.

“We’ll need your Perinth to train with Sarurth, Laspanth, and Rowerth,” Xhinna told him. J’keran nodded, encouraged by the beaming smile from Jirana. “But what about your guard duties?”

“I’ll retain them, if I may,” J’keran said. He raised a hand as he added, “There’s only the one last Hatching, and that will be in a matter of weeks.” He gave her a sad, wistful look that she understood too well—the greens had all chewed firestone and never again could he or Xhinna hope that there might be weyrlings sired by their dragons. “Besides,” he added, nodding toward Jirana, “we’ve arranged a good watch.”

“Very well,” Xhinna said, “you’ll train with the catchers. J’valin and Cliova will take first watch, followed by—”

“If it pleases you, Wingleader,” R’ney cut across her words with a diffident look, “we’ve got that figured out already. What’s needed now is to get on with the flaming before someone starts asking awkward questions.”

Xhinna responded with a flurry of orders and a dismissive wave at the group of catchers.

In short order, she and Tazith were airborne over Eastern Isle, not far from the abandoned camp she’d fled nearly three Turns before.

Lorana says they’re on station, Tazith relayed as Xhinna and three others waited for any sign of the green willow practice Thread they were supposed to be flaming.

Ten minutes later, she was bored and switched, having Tazith climb high to take on a round of practice-Thread flinging. They had just reached their position and were settling on an even path when—

Thread! Thread falls at Nerat! Mirressa’s green Valcanth cried as the image from high in the dark blue sky came to Xhinna.

Tell them to follow it, Xhinna said, then have the catchers move into position and have the wing—

Lorana says we need to stay with the catchers, Tazith interrupted.

With a stubborn cry, Xhinna ordered Tazith to close up with the queens and the browns who flew as catchers.

They came out from between just as the other dragons bugled in distress and bunched close together.

Mirressa! Xhinna cried, seeing her and her green dragon tumbling toward them. Xhinna had just an instant to wonder who was trailing the Thread when the answer came to her and she cried: Go, Tazith!

Between again and back, high, high over the eastern edge of the Nerat peninsula—still lush and green even in midwinter.

Find it! Xhinna urged her blue as she strained her eyes for the telltale smudge of Thread. Her teeth were chattering, and she shivered from the multiple trips between and multiple returns to the high cold, airless spaces way above where dragons normally flew and flamed.

And then she saw it—a line of what looked like large pebbles or stones but dirtier. Tazith rumbled in agreement and turned his head for more firestone. Even as the small balls started to glow and spread into the long, thin wisps that were Thread, she and Tazith were diving on it, flaming. Tell the others!

They come, Tazith said. A moment later, he and Xhinna were surprised when he opened his huge jaws and no flame burst forth. Warm, the blue said to her.

Xhinna blinked in surprise. Her teeth weren’t chattering anymore. She was warm, as if she were resting in a hot tub after a long day’s flying and flaming. Idly she wondered why the air was so warm. And why didn’t Tazith’s flame burst around the Thread?

It was getting dark, too. The colors were going gray and darkness was closing around from behind her. But she was warm, Tazith was warm. It was nice being warm.

And then the darkness closed in.

TWENTY-TWO The Kiss of Hope

Someone was crying. They’d been crying a long time because they were in that awful, horrible heaving stage where they could barely breathe and when they did, all they could do was sob once more.

It was cold. The ground was cold. She was freezing.

Someone was kissing her.

“Breathe!” she heard someone beg. “Breathe, please breathe!”

Whoever was kissing her was doing a poor job. Xhinna tried to respond and then—

“Ewwww! Yuk!” another voice cried and the lips were gone as the voice spat, “Ptah, yuk! She tried to kiss me!”

“Move away!” another voice, the one that had ordered her to breathe, said irritably, and then there were lips on hers once more, lips that she knew, and suddenly Xhinna realized that she was alive, lying on cold, hard stone, and that the first kisser had been—

“Lift me up,” she whispered as she broke the kiss and met Taria’s tear-stained eyes. She reached for and found Taria’s hand and Taria clenched it tightly. She saw resistance rise in Taria’s eyes, but shook her head just enough to communicate her need. The green rider nodded just as lightly, then tightened her grip on Xhinna’s arm and helped her to sit up, moving quickly to come around behind her, propping her back up with her knees.

“Ptah, ptui, ptui!” Jepara said, still trying disgustedly to remove the last vestiges of her life-giving kiss from her lips. She eyed Xhinna and said darkly, “Don’t ever expect me to do that again!”

Xhinna heard a gasp and looked up to see Jirana launching herself at her.

“You’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive!” Jirana cried at the top of her lungs, grabbing Xhinna tightly around the middle and kissing her madly with relief. Jirana pulled back, her face crumpling as she said, “You were blue, you were dead. I saw it.”

“And now you’ve seen me breathing the life back into her,” Jepara said sourly. She looked down at Xhinna and ordered, “Don’t ever make me have to do that again!”

“Thread?” Xhinna asked, finding it hard to breathe and even harder to speak.

Jirana shook her head in exasperation, then threw herself back to her feet and started dancing around once more, crying, “She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive!”

“The Thread’s gone,” Taria said. “The rest of the wing managed it.”

“We caught you just after Mirressa,” J’keran’s deep voice said from the distance.

“Mirressa?”

“She’s well,” Lorana said, moving into Xhinna’s line of vision and smiling down at her. “She recovered quickly once we got her on the ground.”

“Which we’d no sooner done than Jirana was screaming about you and how you were dead—” R’ney called from the distance. Xhinna guessed that he was tending to Mirressa.

“And you were,” Jirana said, moving back into view, no longer dancing. She knelt down before Xhinna and grabbed her hand. “I saw it. You were dead.”

“Well, not anymore,” Jepara said briskly, moving to stand behind the younger queen rider. “And from now on, a little more telling and a little less dwelling, young lady!”

Jirana leaned her head back to rest against Jepara’s stomach and met the eyes of the Weyrwoman looking sternly down at her.

“But I can’t!” Jirana complained. She lowered her head and looked to Xhinna, then Lorana. “I can’t break time.”

“No,” Jepara said, “but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer in silence.” The gold rider dropped down behind Jirana and wrapped her arms around her, leaning in close but speaking clearly enough for everyone to hear. “A burden shared is a burden lessened.”

“Are you part of Sky?” Taria chimed in. Jirana looked her way and nodded once, firmly. “Then you talk to us.”

“But—”

“We’ll keep your secrets, little one,” Xhinna said, annoyed that her voice was still so wispy. Jirana’s eyes strayed to hers. A spark of understanding passed between them, and Xhinna’s lips quirked. She raised a finger and beckoned the trader girl close enough to whisper, “If it worries you, try me first.”