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“It’s so much more than that, my—old friend,” she said. “Excavation projects need dwarfs. Roads must have surveyors and shorers. Armies to maintain order. They’re rebuilding the old Sailing Market so it can circle in the Inland Ocean once more, as in Hypatia’s glory.”
“I thought the point of the Empire was safety for dragons. You look like you’re about to topple, and you’re young and healthy. What happens with older dragons?”
“Less is expected of them, of course,” she said. “NiVom is brilliant. He thinks of everything.”
“I wish my brother were still Tyr. He had less brilliance and more sense. I don’t remember seeing any starved-looking dragons in his—”
“Hush! Are you flapping mad? Don’t speak of him! Every important dragon from the Sun Empire, and a few from the Dark, is here. The place is thick with griffaran and the Queen’s spies.”
“The birds are stuffing themselves with fruit and nuts, as far as I can tell,” AuRon said. “As for spies, half of the dragons here seem to be slipping on and off one another’s balconies or meeting in hillside glades. They’re going to keep busy reporting who is engaging in a quick tryst with whom. What sort of dragons are these? They’ve got the morals of mead-addled blighters at a spring mating festival.”
“Would you like a look around my sleeping chamber? I assure you, it’s cold and empty.”
“No colder than mine,” AuRon said.
“We could change that.”
“Were we to join, I’d prefer it to be up in the sun and clouds, as proudly mated dragons. I’m not about to join in some dreadful scuffle like a furtive blighter.”
“You know very well that’s impossible, my lord.” Sometimes she used the traditional honorific to poke fun at him when he grew pretentious. “Were I to take someone up, it would be remarkable. Every gossip would try to figure out who it was. Unlike some dragonelles of my acquaintance. It’s more strange if they aren’t cavorting over the city during a celebration, with Imfamnia setting the social tone.”
“Pity,” AuRon said.
“Will you remain long? Perhaps you could return to Dairuss. You could hide in the high pass.”
AuRon looked at the astonishing layout of tools for dragonelle preparation. There were knives and files and hooked cutters for scale, paints and dusts and glues and brushes and rags and mysterious pointed sticks for decorating scale, and vast quantities of a reddish clay.
“What’s all the clay for?”
Some of Natasatch’s good humor returned. “You really are out of date. It’s a wing-skin soother and tightener. A folded wing should look smooth and supple. It’s hard work, standing there with your wings stretched until it hardens. Then you do it again with them folded. Takes the better part of a day.”
Hard to think of his fiercely practical mate transformed into a vanity-ridden frivol. “I don’t suppose I can interest you in forgoing the clay treatment and instead eating a brace of ducks.”
“And spoil my appetite for the party?”
“Is there any way I might attend?” AuRon asked.
“It will look strange if I arrive at the Grand Feast with any but a Firemaid from my uphold. But there are so many dragons invited—I’m sure you can lose yourself in all the comings and goings.”
“I’ve no wish to speak to anyone but you there. But I am famished. I’ve been flying hard these past ten days.”
“Perhaps—perhaps we could find some time together. Again, with all the pairs of dragons at this feast. Stay about the fringes, and for the Four Gifts’ sake, don’t come near me when Imfamnia’s about. I think she suspects you and I communicate in secret.”
She quieted, and switched over to mindspeech. I’m unsettled, AuRon. Imfamnia and NiVom are up to something with this feast.
But what? Whatever would they try, with so many of the leading dragons of their Empire in attendance?
I may not show it, but I’m so glad you’re here. I feel safer with you about.
AuRon warmed at that. He felt the pulse of emotion returned across their mind-link. Very well. I’ll keep to the fringe of the crowd.
“You’ll need to blend in,” she mused aloud, half to him and half to herself.
Now it was his turn to cock his head in astonishment. “That’s my specialty.”
“No, with the Empire throng. Paint and such.”
“You are the expert,” he said, wondering if she had thralls just to run tools back to the worktables while her cosmeticians worked on scale.
