He decided to trust Wistala’s incognito mate. “I need a change of conversation, DharSii.”

“I am sympathetic to the inclination,” DharSii said.

At dinner that night the Copper decided to make his move.

“I’m terribly out of condition,” he said. “I was swimming the other day.”

“I thought your odor had improved,” NaStirath said.

“I could hardly climb out of the water.”

“The heat,” Aethleethia said, tossing her hatchlings another shred of meat. They promptly fell on it and the big one, CuDasthene, ripped it away from the others so they were left with only a mouthful. “It relaxes one so. I must nap through the afternoon if I spend the morning bathing.”

“I would have liked to see this hall full of dragons,” the Copper said.

Scabia sighed. “Full? Not even I have ever seen it full, but once, when I was not much older than these fireless squirmers here, there were enough dragons so that they seemed one continuous wall of scale about me. Safe—I can’t remember when I felt so safe.”

“Perhaps we should invite some other dragons here,” the Copper said.

“What, for a party?” NaStirath asked.

“No, to stay with us.”

Scabia picked a bone from her teeth, snapped it, and used the sharp end to clean her teeth. “There are no others. None worth having.”

“You have said that many times before,” DharSii said. “Since then, Wistala joined us, with her two brothers. They’re worth having.”

NaStirath chuckled low in his throat. “Well, I think we can both agree she is, anyway.”

“NaStirath, you really are tiresome,” his mate said.

“I’ve heard of some dragons at a tower on the Inland Ocean.”

“I know them,” DharSii said. “You can hardly call them dragons anymore. They’ve been serving men for three generations now. The first were allies. Their children were paid subservients. This generation—you can hardly call them servants. The next generation will be slaves. Well-fed, carefully groomed and cleaned slaves, but still slaves.”

“All the more reason—,” the Copper began.

“Crusades! Tyr RuGaard, do you know why this hall is so empty? Dragons with fancy ideas about altering the world. The world is what it is, we are what we are, and the less we try to alter the course of the world, the better we’ll do.”

“I was only thinking out loud,” the Copper said. “Please forgive me if I’ve brought back painful memories.” He hated playing the supplicant. But then, wasn’t that his rightful place? He was living on charity in another’s home.

“You are used to the company of dozens, or hundreds,” Aethleethia said. “With us, it is always the same three or four faces. Why shouldn’t you go visit some new dragons?”

“Be prepared for disappointment,” DharSii said.

“I would like the exercise—and the challenge,” the Copper said.

“If you go, I fear you will never return,” Scabia said. “Something in my hearts’ beating tells me this.”

“Perhaps I should remain,” the Copper said. “Your wisdom seems worth listening to. The idea of a long flight was an idle fancy, perhaps.”

“My fantasies are a good deal more idle,” NaStirath said.

Scabia nodded, tossed away the bone toothpick. A blighter rushed to retrieve it.

Had he overplayed the gambit?

“I am old and cautious, Tyr RuGaard,” Scabia said. “Perhaps a challenge would do you good. You’ve been gloomy for years. The prospect of action seems to be bringing you out of it.”

Perhaps not.

“You do know, RuGaard, that some of the dragons—I think I heard you called them hag-riders—who took over the Lavadome in your predecessor’s reign, were trained there? It is an old outpost of the Wizard of the Isle of Ice. It’s the last stronghold of the Dragonriders.”

“If it’s the last, they may welcome another dragon about the place. Are there any other objections?” the Copper asked.

The dragons were all silent. “Then I think I will visit this dragon tower.”

He spent a week in practice flights. First, he stayed over the water. The rising heat from the lake helped him with air currents. After two days of that, and heartier eating each night, he felt well enough to circle the interior of the Sadda-Vale.

He kept his eyes scanning for Wistala. He thought he smelled her at the southern end on the air, but the trail led nowhere.

Once, at night, he tried following DharSii, but the striped dragon flew hard and well, faster than he could fly with his patched-together and mostly frozen joint. DharSii flew into the thick night mists and disappeared.

There was some mystery here. DharSii would never harm Wistala—of that he was certain—nor would he betray the other dragons of the Sadda-Vale. So it wasn’t treachery.

The Copper, with his years in the Lavadome, was used to considering any phenomenon as a threat. Were they keeping some secret from Scabia? Perhaps Wistala was ready for another clutch of eggs and they were hiding her from Scabia. But why wouldn’t she welcome more hatchlings? Now that her daughter had her eggs . . . No, it could not be that. Though Wistala was a dragonelle of strange ideas. Perhaps she’d want her hatchlings to be free of Scabia’s ideas.

What were they hiding, and from whom?

He felt his body waking to the activity and his mind—he was feeling again. Even the pain of his exile, from the knowledge that he’d sworn to be permanently separated from the one of his kind who’d always loved him without reserve, could be felt and reckoned with. Pain taught. Pain strengthened.

It was during one of his training flights—he fought his way to the highest altitude he could stand, where it was much easier to ride the wind—that he at last marked Wistala returning to Scabia’s hall.

He dipped his wings and descended side-to-side in a series of sweeping motions. He didn’t have the flexibility or the trust in the wing joint to do a true dive.

On his last swoop he passed just above and behind Wistala. His shadow flicked across her back. She turned and dove, closing her vulnerable wings and lashed up with her tail. It caught him across the neck, and he saw some of his loose scale fall glittering in the sun.

Then, evidently recognizing him, she opened her wings again and circled around behind. With three powerful beats—Wistala was one of the strongest females he’d ever known—she was beside him.

“Brother,” she called. “I’m so sorry!”

“Let’s land, by the bathing rocks there.” He gestured with his good sii.

They alighted and Wistala brought her head close to his.

“Just a little weak scale is all. You’re hardly bleeding.”

“Your tail felt like a thunderbolt. I’m glad my neck isn’t broken.”

“I said I was sorry. I’m not used to you flying. DharSii told me he’d worked on your joint.”

“Impolite of me to come down on you from behind. I should have called, but my wind isn’t what it was. I’m out of condition.”

“An aerial chase is a good way to get yourself back in training, I suppose. You should just warn the chasee. I thought I was in for a fight and I reacted by instinct.”

“If it were an aerial combat, I wouldn’t last long,” the Copper said. “My fire isn’t reliable, I can only make wide turns and can’t dive at all, and I’m slow.”

“All the more reason to remain safely here. Your scale is dreadful, you know. You should improve your diet and wait a season.”

“If it is so safe here, why did you startle so?”

She shifted her saa back and forth and her tail tucked down. Like DharSii, Wistala wasn’t much of a liar, and when she fought down the truth it showed in her feet. “Old habits only slumber. They do not die, brother.”

“I make for the dragon tower. DharSii said you’d been there.”

“Briefly, while searching for others of our kind, before I arrived here. It is not a place to inspire much hope for the future of our race. The dragons there are saddle-bred.”

“So DharSii says.”

“I can’t imagine what you intend to accomplish.”

“A change of scenery and some fresh conversation, at the very least. I just hope the dragons there have not joined the Empire. I would hate to break the terms of my exile.”

“You are now of the Sadda-Vale, and therefore my responsibility,” Scabia said. “I shall give you something you may find useful in your journey.”

She extended a wing toward the blighter runs and four came forward, each bearing an ornate silver object about the size of a dragon-egg on a carrying-canvas held between them.

DharSii and the others craned their necks to see what Scabia’s servants had produced. Her daughter let out an appreciative breath. “So lovely!”

The Copper couldn’t make out what it was, other than some kind of decor. He’d been expecting, perhaps, a harness or similar bearing-frame such as the fliers of the Aerial Host put across their backs for carrying dried meats and honeycomb.