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‘There is not enough there to save her,’ Mercor said. ‘No matter what you do with it.’ Then he turned and walked away from them, up the wide steps and into the baths. Sylve looked shocked.

The words seemed not to register with Malta. ‘I can scarcely feel her,’ she said, and Leftrin knew she did not refer to the hand she laid lightly on the dragon’s face. ‘She has grown so much since I last saw her,’ she added, and for a moment, she sounded almost like a doting parent. She stroked Tintaglia’s face, and then pushed at the dragon’s lip. Leftrin drew closer to watch, as did the gathered Elderlings. The lifted lip bared reciprocating rows of pointed teeth, neatly meshed together.

‘There is room between them, I think, if I pour it slowly,’ Malta said. She spoke very quietly as if she and the dragon were the only creatures in the whole world. She tipped the flask and the Silver spiralled out in a slender, gleaming thread. It did not flow swiftly, as water would have, but cautiously, as if it lowered itself to the dragon’s mouth. It touched her teeth, pooled briefly along her gum and then seemed to find the entry it sought. It vanished between her teeth. No last drop fell from the flask; it had poured like a spooled thread unwinding and so it vanished, too.

The night seemed darker with the Silver gone from sight. The ghost light of the Elderling city gleamed softly all around them. The keepers stood, waiting and listening. After a long, chill time, murmurs began. ‘I expected a miracle.’

‘I think she is too far gone.’

‘She should have poured it on the wound, perhaps.’

‘Mercor warned us there wasn’t enough,’ Sylve said miserably, and hid her face in her hands.

Reyn had been crouching beside Malta, their child in his arms. He stood up slowly and lifted his voice. ‘We would be alone with our dragon and our child, if you do not mind,’ he said. He did not speak loudly, but his words seemed to carry. Finished, he sank back down to the cobblestones beside his wife.

In ones and twos, the keepers drifted away. Sedric tugged gently at Carson’s arm. ‘We should go,’ he said softly.

Leftrin glanced over at them. ‘You should,’ he agreed gently. ‘There’s nothing else any of us can do here. And death is a private thing.’

Carson nodded, plainly reluctant to leave. Sedric stepped forward. He unfastened the catch of his cloak, lifted it, and swirled it around Malta, Reyn and their child. ‘Sa grant you strength,’ he said, and then stepped quickly away, shaking his head.

Leftrin looked around the square. He was the last. He stepped forward, thinking to ask them if they were sure, if there was anything he might bring or do for them. Then he thought better of it. He turned and walked slowly away from the dragon. Away from the Elderlings and their dying child. He felt as if loneliness filled in the space he left behind him. Loneliness and heartbreak.

He pulled his old coat tighter around himself. It was not a time to be alone. The city whispered all around him but he didn’t want to hear it. Long ago, the city had died, and now he suspected he knew why. A cataclysm might have shattered it and sent some of the Elderlings fleeing. But when the Silver had run out, then the end had been inevitable.

He thought of the youngsters he had brought up the river. He had not meant to come to care about them. Just fulfil a contract, have a bit of an adventure in the process, maybe draw a chart that would carry his name into history. And then return to running freight on the river on his beloved liveship. He hadn’t wanted his life to change this much.

Alise.

Well, perhaps he had. He sighed, feeling selfish that while others paid a serious price, he had gained a woman who loved him. A woman who was giving up everything to be with him. Hest had made it real for him today. So tall and grand a man, dressed so finely, speaking so genteelly. He had begged her to come back to him.

And she had turned her back on all that, for him.

She was waiting for him now, back on his liveship. He walked faster.

...

Day the 14th of the Plough Moon

Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders


From Erek, of Trehaug

To Kerig Sweetwater, Master of the Bird Keepers’ Guild, Bingtown


Kerig, it is with great relief that I have received your message. Detozi has also felt great anxiety and fear that our actions would be interpreted as disloyal to the Guild or perhaps even indicative of being traitors to the Guild.

I am glad to say that Two-toes has gained weight and that the colour to his hackle and bib has brightened. His foot was badly cut from hanging, but he has recovered warmth and movement in his toes. If he does not recover sufficiently to carry messages, I suggest that he is still of great breeding value and should be retained in the capacity. As you suggest, I will ask permission to continue to care for him until his recovery is complete. In any case, a live bird that was listed as dead is definitely a part of a much larger mystery!

Detozi and I will together take the sealed message, along with your letter, to Master Godon and ask that he present it unopened to the full circle of Master Bird-Handlers here in Trehaug for them to open and study.

I am extremely grateful to have this serious business taken out of my hands.


Your former apprentice,

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Well

‘Please. I can’t sleep. Go walking with me. Please.’

Thymara blinked her eyes. Rapskal’s gaze was pale blue in the dimly lit room. In a bed on the other side of the room, Tats was snoring softly. Without speaking of it, she and Tats had resolved that they would not leave Rapskal on his own. Not tonight. Tats had claimed one of the larger rooms in the dormitory above the dragon baths, one with multiple beds in it. Carson had given them the nod for that. Some of the other keepers had drawn lots for guard duty for their ‘guests’. They had been confined for the night to the dining room. They’d been allowed to bathe and given bedding and most of them seemed to have accepted their fates. A few had complained and one Jamaillian merchant had wailed and ranted about being treated like a ‘criminal, and forced to lie down alongside “filth”’. Carson had drawn a lot for the first watch and Sedric had stayed with him, with Relpda to keep them company. Privately, she doubted that any of their ‘guests’ would attempt to leave with a dragon snoring across the entryway.

She and Tats had herded Rapskal away and up to one of the unoccupied sleeping rooms. Weary as they were, there had been much to discuss. There they had sat, listening to Rapskal unwind his story of the dragon attack on the ships. The longer he talked, the less he sounded like Tellator and the more like his old self.

Rapskal had always been a talker, always the one who could go on and on about any topic. Tats had dozed off before she had. She had listened to him tell his story, listened to him brag of how brave Heeby had been and how glorious the dragons had looked in flight. She had waited in vain for him to say that he was horrified at how many men had died. The old Rapskal would have done so. Instead, he simply seemed to accept it as how a battle went. When she mentioned it, he asked her incredulously, ‘Would you have rather that more dragons died? Poor Tintaglia lies in the Square of the Dragons! By morning, all that will be left of her is her memories and her flesh. The eggs inside her that should have become serpents, our next generation of dragons, die with her tonight! Have you thought of that, Thymara? I must look at that and wonder how I would feel if it were my Heeby lying there. What if it were Sintara?’

‘Sintara,’ she said quietly, and wondered how she would feel. A spark of anger in her heart surprised her. In a distant corner of her mind, her dragon spoke softly. You would be devastated. And furious. Just as they are.

I would, she admitted. She pulled her mind free of the dragon’s. But what would she do if something befell her dragon? What happened to an Elderling when her dragon died?

They die, too. Not right away, but sooner than if the dragon had lived.

She pushed Sintara from her mind again. She didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to think about what would become of Malta and Reyn and their baby. ‘Our dragons are back in Kelsingra now, alive and well. It’s over, Rapskal.’

‘It’s not over,’ he insisted, and she heard a tinge of Tellator’s stubbornness in his voice.

‘It is,’ she replied. ‘Our dragons are here in Kelsingra and safe. They never need leave here again. The man who led the attackers here, that Chalcedean noble, is dead. And that corrupt Trader promised he would reveal everyone who plotted against the dragons. They will be punished. So. It’s over.’

Rapskal shook his head. They were both sitting on his bed. Tats still snored on the bed on the other side of the room. Thymara leaned back on the wall. She was ready to fall asleep but wanted Rapskal to sleep before she did. She could outlast him. She hoped.

Rapskal crossed his arms on his chest. ‘The dragons can’t and won’t stay here for ever. It’s not in their nature, and you, as a hunter, must know that they can’t. They need to move seasonally, to find new prey and give the animal populations a chance to rebuild. Even if we had the herds and flocks here that they need, they were never content to be resident here year round. And they must leave when it’s time to go lay their eggs.’

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