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“My home cave is the Lavadome,” the Copper said. “For now, it’s also Wistala’s. She has duties here.”
“Let me try to change your mind,” DharSii said.
“If there’s nothing more, Rayg, I will leave.”
Rayg ignored him, staring at Wistala in thought.
The Copper turned tail and began the long climb back to Imperial Rock. He heard Rayg’s quick footsteps behind.
Wistala and DharSii lingered behind.
Wistala couldn’t take her eyes off DharSii. He stood there amidst the fairy lights, looking as though he were standing in a thundershower of fireflies.
“I’d like to know more about your order,” Wistala said.
“It’s a matter of few words, or a great many,” DharSii replied.
“Tell me.” As far as he was concerned, she could listen to him forever.
“The Order was committed to learning from others. Hominids, avians, whatever. All the natural world holds a lesson.”
“That’s true. I learned courage from an old horse,” Wistala said.
“According to the philosophers of Silverhigh, dragons taught others to speak and record their thoughts. But sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t the reverse. There are so many odd words in the dragon vocabulary that are of little use unless you’re dealing with hominid concerns. Terms having to do with architecture, or agriculture. Dragons in their natural state don’t grow food and sniff out shelter more often than they build it. You’d think we’d only have three words for a cave, much as the bears do.”
“When would you like to leave for my home cave?”
“What about the Tyr?” DharSii asked.
“Talking about the past upsets him. That part of our shared past, I should say.”
DharSii planted his feet. “I’d rather talk about the future. Wistala, I’d prefer to have you as a mate.”
Wistala thought she’d imagined his statement. He’d like her to be his mate? “That’s it? I’m a preference? No song, no mating flight, no—”
“You’re a sensible, intelligent dragon. You really want to sit there and listen to me sing about my life? You know the particulars—the important ones, anyway.”
“That’s it,” she repeated, feeling the heat in her words.
DharSii looked puzzled. Perhaps he expected her to quietly agree, then have a long talk about the ideal Protectorate for a home cave. “These old traditions sound better than they live. My bellowing, you flying off and trying to outrace me. It’s silliness. I’m sure two intelligent dragons can come to a reasonable decision.”
Wistala spoke without thinking. “Reason, reason—everything with you is reason. Give me a reason to be your mate!”
DharSii stamped in confusion, looking at her first out of one eye and then the other as if to make sure his visual abilities were functioning properly.
“So we’re not to be mated?”
The Wyrr temperament he’d just praised disappeared. “Not without a proper courtship, no. Furthermore, I have my duties as Queen-Consort. I don’t know where Lavadome traditions stand on such matters.”
“Vent the Lavadome. There are dozens of dragonelles, in the Firemaids and in the hills, for your brother to choose from. Any of them could preside over ceremonies and sniff hatchlings as well as you. I don’t want us to be following old traditions that have outlived their usefulness. Let us start our own.”
“I swore oaths on my honor when I became a Firemaid. I cannot mate without breaking that oath. Nilrasha broke hers and look what happened. They think her capable of murdering a sister dragon.”
DharSii blinked and took a deep breath. She might as well have told him that his teeth needed a polish. Curse him, was he a wind-up toy, built by dwarfs? Didn’t a recognizable emotion exist in that great horned head of his?
“We’ll talk more. Let me see about helping you find this missing piece of the puzzle, or engine, or whatever this is.”
With that, she fled upward, afraid that if she stayed any longer she’d forget those oaths and her duties to a nation of dragons.
