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“HeBellereth, suppose NiVom asserted an old claim to the Tyrship.”
“In that case, white dragons will be even rarer, Tyr,” HeBellereth said. “I’ve little patience for renegades.”
The Copper relaxed. A little. “He may turn out to be no more a villain than that DharSii.”
“How long will you stay in Hypatia?” HeBellereth asked. “The Lavadome has no ruler while you and the Queen are away.”
He looked at Yefkoa. The dragonelle looked away, stricken.
“Long enough to burn my dead mate, I expect.”
It was a long, exhausting flight, lengthened by having to go to ground and wait out a thunderstorm. He was tempted to test his artificial wing-joint against the winds, but the griffaran guard practically dragged him to earth, where they knitted him a shelter out of pine branches laced by the effort of their beaks.
He arrived at Hypat thin and hungry, but would take no food until he learned the fate of his mate.
“She still breathes, my brother,” Ayafeeia said, as she led him up the hill toward a ruined temple with a great piece of canvas stretched between the broken columns.
“The remaining Directors of Hypatia are more willing to hear your words now, Tyr.”
“Tell them the worst of the danger is past. Ghioz has been humbled.”
He found Nilrasha stretched out in a ring of rubble. A trio of blood-fat bats snored, hanging like bulging sausages in a broken crevice. Essea reclined near her, next to a pot bubbling with what smelled like liver soup. Essea’s flanks were crisscrossed with sword wounds, and she had grease-covered burns about her sii and wings.
He observed the bound-up, blood-black stump of Nilrasha’s wing with horror.
“Nilrasha, what has happened?” he said, shocked too stupid to say anything else.
“I appear to have got my share of Firemaids killed again,” she croaked.
“Will you . . . will you live?” She was cut up all about the neck and face, and there were deep scars all along her flanks.
She rolled her head and lifted her snout. The drakka attending to his mate gasped. “Her head’s up!” one whispered to her gaping sister.
“The sun is lovely, my lord. It reminds me of Anaea, except here the air smells of the sea.”
Word passed back. “The Queen’s head’s up!”
Ayafeeia blinked in the sunshine. “That’s all she needed. A glimpse of her mate. Perked her right up.”
“The Ironriders tested their blades against my scale as I lay in the ruins, pinned,” she said. “They would have cut my hearts out if I hadn’t chewed through my wing.”
“A proper punishment for disobeying your Tyr’s orders,” the Copper said, his voice choked and harsh. But he found himself rubbing his snout against hers the next moment.
They chatted with mind-pictures for a few moments, quietly catching up on each other’s experiences, but he was still Tyr, among dragons who’d fought bravely and deserved recognition. A Tyr who thought only of his mate was no Tyr at all.
“I must learn more about the situation here,” he told Nilrasha. “I will return as soon as I may.”
“I will just be asleep anyway. But bring me some silver, if you see any plate about. I’m absolutely famished for silver.”
The Copper joined his chief Firemaid, and heard her account of the battle.
“By the way, Ayafeeia, your sister slipped off again. NiVom begged mercy, and I granted it. I’d have that DharSii fellow back too, if we could just find him.”
“Wistala knows more about him than she gives away, I think,” Ayafeeia said.
He had no reason to be embarrassed at his sister’s name.
“Speaking of relations, how is my sister?” the Copper asked.
