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AuRon’s mind was once again ahead of his voice. “Naf, the leader of—I must warn him.”
Anxious, he looked to his sister. “Is there a faster way out of this place?”
“I confess—” Wistala said.
“To fly in which direction?” the Copper asked.
“North.”
“You can climb out one of the griffaran holes,” the Copper said. “Above the river ring. Not the easiest path, but the shortest.”
“Or there’s the wind tunnel,” Nilrasha said. “You could fly out of that. This time of year the wind blows outward.”
“But I wouldn’t advise it,” the Copper said. “Better to follow the griffaran.”
AuRon looked at the feathered menaces looming all around. “Perhaps not.”
“Ayafeeia, show him to the wind tunnel. It’s his neck. Take some food before you quit us, AuRon. You’ll need it as ballast in the tunnel.”
With that, he turned and began speaking to a human servant wearing soft leather and furs.
Wistala embraced AuRon. “Come back, brother. I’ve a great deal to tell you.”
“Perhaps. I have a mate and hatchlings of my own, far off in the north. Her name is Natasatch. She was a captive dragon as we might have been. I’ve been too far away from the home cave. It’s in a place called the Isle of Ice.”
“I know it from maps. Strange, I once passed close to it but was warned off by men mounted on dragons.”
“They’re gone now,” AuRon said.
“In any case, Father would be overjoyed at that news. That’s all he wanted for us. To have some hatchlings in peace and safety.”
“Peace and safety,” AuRon said. “If only the dwarves sold those, the world would be a better place.”
“I see you still like to tease.”
“I thought it philosophy. Well, I wish you would join us.”
“Perhaps,” Wistala replied. “But if there’s hope for dragons in the world, I believe it lies here, in the Lavadome. Yet I fear for my friends in Hypatia, with the news we’ve had today.”
“I’ve met some of them. At an inn with a strange sign.”
Wistala’s eyes widened. “You’ve been there?”
“You’re right. They do fear the coming war. We were born into a hard generation, Wistala.”
“We still have much to do, it seems. Well, I will not delay you,” she said. “Our reunion is one worthy of a song or two, I expect. Good-bye again, AuRon.”
He looked at Ayafeeia. “I am ready to fly, if you are ready to guide.”
“You’re quick to depart us,” Ayafeeia said. “Would you not prefer to resolve matters here first, with your brother and sister?”>No dragon stirred. “I am not a hatchling,” the Copper continued, “maimed by my hatching, starved in sight of my own egg shelf, taken and broken by iron rods in the hard hands of dwarves. I am fortunate, today, in having the luxury of choices.”
“Father’s gold drove you to your choice more than the rods of the dwarves,” AuRon said.
Ayafeeia spoke up. “It does not matter. In the Lavadome, whatever you were as a hatchling, or as a drake, is never mentioned again if you enter the Drakwatch or Firemaidens and grow into an honorable set of wings. The outcast is equal to the scion of the Imperial Line. My mate-brother RuGaard went into the Drakwatch and served, shed blood in battle, and rose to the position of Upholder. With that record I couldn’t care less for the details of what came before. Wistala, settle down. You’ve no need to bristle so. There’ll be no fighting. Or if there is”—she glanced up at the alert griffaran, leaning down and ready to drop—“it won’t last long.”
Wistala hardly heard her. She couldn’t take her eyes off the jewel AuRon wore about his neck. It emitted a soft glow of a peculiar white shade, something between the pale luminescence of reflected moon off the snows of the north and the glitter of starlight.
“So did you come all this way just to accuse me of murder, AuRon?” the Copper asked. “Or is there a message from the Red Queen?”
