THE DRAGON’S TALE

Bored. I was bored, bored, bored. If I could speak in the human tongues I heard below, I could have made “bored” into a chant. I hated it that I could not speak to humans or animals. I could not even speak mind-to-mind, as Mama Daine does with the beast-People. Many humans called me a mindless animal or even a monster. It made me want to claw them head to toe, though I am not that sort in general. If I could talk to them, they would know I was intelligent and friendly. I could walk among them and explain myself. Instead I had to sit up on this overlook, waiting for my foster parents to introduce me to yet another village full of humans who had never met a dragon before.

I could have stayed in the realms of the gods with Daine and Numair’s human children and their grandparents instead of coming here. I could have spent these long days playing with them and the god animals. I could have even visited my own relatives. Instead I thought that it would be fun to visit Carthak with my foster parents. Thak City and the palaces, new and old, were interesting. Humans create pretty buildings. The Carthakis in particular make splendid mosaics. There were ships to see, statues, fireworks, human magic displays, and the emperor and his empress. I liked the onetime princess Kalasin, who was empress at that time.

Then Emperor Kaddar decided it would be wonderful to travel some of his country with Numair and Daine. Kalasin had to stay in the new palace and govern while Kaddar took to the road. I remained with Daine, Numair, and Kaddar as we journeyed east, where Kaddar stopped at every oasis and town to talk. The village of Imoun looked to be an ordinary stop on that trip. It was a small clump of humans who lived beside the river Louya and the Demai Mountains.

We had arrived halfway through the afternoon. The soldiers helped us set up Daine and Numair’s tent above the camp, on a spot where it overlooked the rest of our tents. When they were done, I walked up to a flat stone outcrop where I could watch the rest of the day unfold. I don’t know why I bothered. It was the same as it had been for the last twenty villages. The soldiers put up the platform, then covered it in carpets and decorated it with pillows and bolsters. The important humans would talk with Kaddar there later. More soldiers placed magical globe lights on posts around the platform, so everyone would be able to see when it got dark. Villagers built fires around the platform to warm the humans once the sun went down.

I never watched the setting-up from close by. Early on I had learned that I was always getting in the way of those who set up the platform and everything around it, even when I tried not to. The guards would complain to Papa Numair about me. The villagers only screamed and ran. Finally Kaddar asked me nicely to stay away. It’s not Kaddar’s fault that his people had never encountered anyone like me.

The soldiers got better. Some of them did. Some of them still treated me like Daine and Numair’s pet, though my humans had explained many times that I was as clever as any two-legger. A few of the soldiers learned for themselves that I did indeed understand what they said.

Although I was brooding, I had not forgotten the world around me. I heard the horse that was climbing to my position. I knew who it was without looking, because I recognized the sound of his breathing. When Spots reached me, I pointed to the line where all of our other horses were tethered. They were happy to stay there, finished with their day’s work. Then I made a fist and shook it at him. I wasn’t angry. I was reminding him of how the horse guards would react when they found that Numair’s very own gelding was gone again. They were lucky that Daine’s pony, Cloud, had refused to come because it had meant a boat trip and Cloud hates those. Cloud and Spots together got into all kinds of mischief.

I don’t care if they are angry, Spots told me. Though I am as mute as a stupid rock with animals, they can talk with me. Daine will defend me. She knows that I like to look around. And who else can keep Numair in the saddle?

He was right. Years ago Spots had learned to counter Numair when he let go of the rein or moved off balance. He was also good at pulling my foster father away from cliff edges and other hazards that Numair tended to find.

Once Spots had been like any other horse, only more patient and sweet tempered than most because Numair was his rider. I barely remember that Spots. Like any creature who lived near my foster mother, Daine, for a long-enough time, he grew more clever, as humans judge such things. Numair calls it “the Daine effect.” Spots began to help my foster parents in their work. He watched me when I was small. That was when we found ways to talk to each other with sounds and gestures.

How long will we be here, do you suppose? Spots asked me. It doesn’t look like a very interesting place.

I shrugged. I didn’t know how many days we were going to stay. No one ever asked what I wanted. Spots nudged me with his nose and stuck his lower lip out.

I glared at him. I was not pouting.

“Kit, I can hear you scratching rock down at our tent.” Daine walked up the slope to us, tying her curling brown hair in a horsetail. “It’s a dreadful noise. I thought you were chewing stones. Oh, Spots, you undid your tether again. You know it makes the horse minders nervous when you do that.” She cocked her head, listening as Spots replied, mind-to-mind. She slung his rein up over his back so he wouldn’t trip on it. “I know Kitten digs at the stone because she’s unhappy.” Daine sat beside me and reached over to pat the rock. I looked. I had gotten so cross, watching the humans prepare for more talking, that I had gouged my claws deep into the rock at my side several times.

“It looks like you’re trying to slice it for bread,” Daine told me.

I gave her my sorry-chirp and leaned against her. I wished so much that I could talk to her in more than noises! Spots stretched around Daine and nuzzled the back of my head.

“You’re bored, aren’t you, poor thing?” asked Daine. “At least Spots can talk to the other horses. Which reminds me,” she said, turning to look at him. “Back to the ranks with you, magical escaping horse. The soldiers fear they’ll be punished if one of the mounts vanishes.”

Spots snorted, but he did walk, slowly, back down to the tethering lines.

I was still shocked by what Daine had said about me. How did she always know how I felt?

“At home you usually have something to busy yourself with,” she said, running her cool fingers over my snout. “We might have left you in the capital, but the only person there who knows you well is Empress Kalasin. She can hardly take you about.”

I whistled my agreement. Kalasin had to rule the Empire.

“We thought we’d see more of the sights, didn’t we?” Daine asked. “But this, Kit, it’s a wonderful thing, for Kaddar to meet with his people. Normally he’d travel with all manner of ceremony, and the local folk would be too frightened to say a word to him. With me and Numair to guard, and only a hundred soldiers instead of a thousand, he’s approachable. They will talk to him and tell him the truth.”

I made my rudest noise. Human truth telling was a mixed quantity at best. There were always untruths and evasions of some kind mixed in.

Daine looked sideways at me. “Oh, all right. As much truth as folk will tell their emperor. It’s a good thing Numair and I are the only ones who speak Kitten. You are not suited to a life of diplomacy.”

I made a lesser rude noise. Dragons do not use diplomacy. We are not good at it.

I heard the new visitors before I saw them. Daine and I looked down. Twenty fluffy-tailed mice had come to meet her. This sort of thing always happened when Daine was about. I loved it.

“Well, look at you!” Daine said, opening the pouch at her belt. She always carried food for small animals with her. “Kit, see how our friends have more red in their fur than the ones we met twenty miles back?” A few of the mice climbed up on Daine, holding on to her shirt or sitting on her shoulders, arms, and legs. She offered them dried raisins and sunflower seeds, inquiring mind-to-mind after their families and winter food supplies. A pair of the braver mice climbed up on me, which made me happy. Too often I remind small prey animals of a snake or a cat. Lately they had been more accepting. Perhaps a bit of Daine’s beast-People kindness had begun to cling to me, reassuring them.

At last the mice said their farewells and ran into the rocks. Daine straightened with a grimace and looked at the sky. Dark was coming. Soldiers were lighting the fires below. The platform was finished. I smelled good things being prepared by the villagers and the emperor’s cooks.

“I’ll make sure a dish is brought to our tent for you,” Daine told me.

I cawed at her. I hated the tent, and Daine knew it!

“We got here too late to take you about and show you to the local folk; you know we did,” Daine said. “And two-leggers always startle more when they see you after dark. I’m sorry. Just stay in the tent for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to the village.”

I knew she was right, but what was there to do in the tent? I gave her my saddest whistle and walked away. I had already gone through everything in Numair’s mage kit and in Daine’s. I had even read all of the books they had brought along.

Humans were so stupid. They likened me to a crocodile or some kind of lizard, though surely they should have known that those creatures did not have silver claws or rudimentary wings, let alone the ability to change color. They also did not stand on their haunches and chirp in a reassuring way, indicating that they would like to be friends. My muzzle was far more delicate than that of a crocodile, and my teeth stayed inside it! I was slender and fine boned. I was only forty-five inches long in those days, and fifteen inches of that was tail. Yet somehow there were always humans who were terrified by the sight of me. To cater to such idiots, I was kept to my foster parents’ tent when there was no time to introduce me in a new place.

It was hard to stay inside. I could hear music and laughter, the welcome that came before the boring speeches. One of the emperor’s soldiers—one of my friends—brought me a bowl of stew. I chirped happily at him: he’d remembered I liked honey-nut pastries and gave two. After he left, I was alone. My boredom soon reached the point at which I might shriek if I didn’t do something. Since Daine only liked me to shriek during combat, I was really doing the right thing for Daine if I took a walk instead.

I wriggled under the back flap of the tent. On that side lay mountains, their ridges and peaks sharp in the light of the half-moon. A small herd of screwhorn antelope was climbing to higher pastures, away from the noise. They were just as visible to my dragon eyes as they would have been with no moon at all.

When I could no longer see the antelope, I concentrated on my scales. I changed color according to my mood; my parents knew that. They did not know that, over the long journey, I had learned to change colors deliberately. I let my magic spread out and around me, collecting the shades of shadowed sand, reddish limestone, black lava rock, gray-green brush, and moonlit air. I drew the colors back into patches over my scales. Then I set out for the village.

I was about to pass through the gate when I heard the very distant sound of young humans whispering together. Since I am always curious, I followed the faint noise around the outside of the wall, away from the meeting of the emperor and his people. Soon the voices were clearer. They belonged to boys, excited ones.

“Look! She’s at it again!”

“She don’t learn.”

“You got rocks? Gimme some.”

Four boys crouched in the shadows around the ruins of a shed. They were barefoot, their clothes mostly patched. I halted, secure in my camouflage, waiting to see what had their attention. The village garbage heap lay in a dip in the ground nine yards or so away from the boys. A young woman was sifting through the heap, collecting pieces of food and stowing them in a basket on her arm, working by feel and scant moonlight. Magic burned at the heart of her, the stuff called the Gift that humans put to use like a servant. Could she not make money with her Gift, as so many mages do, and buy food?

The thinnest of the boys crept forward and threw the first rock. He missed by a foot.

The other three ran up to hurl stones at the woman. One hit her shoulder; another struck her leg; the third missed. She dropped the vegetable she’d been holding, but she made no sound. Instead she knelt and scrabbled to get the vegetable into her basket. The boys threw more stones. All four hit this time. She half-turned, catching them on her shoulders and back. Then she grabbed one and threw it sharply, striking the thinnest boy hard in the belly. While the others took care of him, she scrambled to her feet and ran, ignoring their shouts of anger.

The boys gave chase. I followed on all fours, trying to think of what I could do that would stop them without permanently injuring them. In normal battles no one cares if I split someone’s skull or shatter his bones with a whistle. I can throw fire, but that is just as fatal. These were human children. Daine, Numair, and Kaddar would have been very angry with me if I killed children.

The open ground before us gleamed in the dim moonlight. Here the mountains reached into the flatlands with long, stony black fingers that dug into the pale earth, leaving bays of light-colored dirt and brush between them. The woman ran for the bays, clutching her basket to her chest. The boys were hard on her trail. In addition to calling her vile names, they said that she had no business stealing their garbage. I wished I could ask the woman, or them, what they meant. Perhaps it was some odd local custom. Everywhere else I had been, garbage was made of things humans had no more use for.

Suddenly the race ended. While the woman ran from my sight between two black stone fingers, the boys began to act very strangely. They separated and ran about, skirting areas as if there were obstacles in the way. They never strayed from the open ground between the garbage heap and the rocks.

At last they came together, panting and exhausted. I crouched flat, listening.

“We searched those rocks everywhere, but she vanished!” the thin one said.

“Every time we think we got Afra cornered, she goes into the Maze,” said another, a male with a long scar on his face.

The Maze? I wondered. I had seen no maze, though the boys had moved on the open ground as if they walked such a thing.

“You’d think the rock itself hid her,” grumbled the third boy.

The four of them drew the sign against evil on their chests. “I tole you Afra was a witch,” said the one whose clothes were a little better than the other boys’. “Witches do that. They vanish right in front of you.”

That was pure nonsense. Numair is one of the greatest mages in all the world. He cannot do it unless the spell is already prepared. The female Afra had used no spells at all that I had seen. Her Gift was visible to me, but she had not employed it, nor did she wear any spell charms.

“We have to warn the emperor!” the scarred one said. “Afra might cast a spell against his life!”

The four turds raced away, eager to tell a man guarded by my foster parents that their witch, who was too generous to singe them, was a danger to him. Like most humans, they didn’t realize that an emperor would never venture so far from his palaces unless he was very well guarded. I did think that perhaps the boys had seen Numair and had mistaken him for someone who was silly. Many people do.

I followed Afra into the rocky bays where she had gone to hide. I wanted to learn if she knew of the power that had not only made her escape route invisible to the boys, but made them believe they had walked some kind of maze.

Ten feet from the first stony finger, I walked into magic of a kind I had never encountered before. My experience of magic even at that time was great, yet this was unknown to me. I had not found it in visits to the realms of the gods or to the Dragonlands. Nor had I felt anything like it in all my dealings with humans, Gifted or born with any form of wild magic. Even the spirits of mountains, trees, rivers, and streams had nothing like this.

Numair says that magic is a sense for dragons as much as smell and hearing. The strangeness of this new power made my scales prickle.

I called it “new,” but it was that only to me. Even while the strange force trickled across my face and made my licking tongue quiver, I could tell it was old. It might even have been older than my grandfather Diamondflame, who owns to several thousands of years. Where did this power come from? Who had placed it here?

I took a deep breath. The scent of the power entered my nose and burned, making my eyes water. I tried a smaller breath and thanked the Dragongods that Afra carried rotting food. That stench fought the magic’s scent. I took three steps. That strange power thrust at me, trying to stop me. I whistled at it softly, pushing back with my own air-carried magic. My power balanced against that older one as I walked forward.

Three feet. I slammed into a solid wall of magic that flared a hot white in my eyes. My softer whistle did nothing to that. I was too impatient to work my way up through lesser whistles. I used a mid-level squawk, good for shattering drawbridges. It was enough, too, for this barrier, which melted. I walked on into a third magic that poured down between two rocks, a flash flood that blazed green with red and blue sparks. I had no time to think. I yowled at the top of my lungs, fearing what might happen if I failed.

The flood vanished.

Far in the distance I heard humans cry out, demanding to know what was going on. (I heard them talk later about a leopard.) High in the mountains to the east, beyond the humans’ sense of hearing, I heard a rockslide. I cringed. If Daine shaped her ears to those of an animal that heard well, I was in serious trouble.

When nothing more happened and no humans came, I went on, following my nose. The scent of rotting garbage led me to a cave set in a mass of orange stone, partway up a black rock divide. Its opening was tucked around a bend in the trail, easily missed if no one knew it was there. Flat stones lay before the cave, so no footprints would ever give a dweller away. Light from a lamp or candle shone from its depths. She had to feel safe there.

I poked my head inside.

She gasped, then cried, “Monster! Get out!”

She was quick to find a rock and throw it at me, painfully quick. It struck my head. I ducked out and waited, holding my paws to the nasty bruise on my forehead. After a moment, I shielded myself in protective spells and looked inside. She screamed and threw a blaze of her Gift at me. I backed out again. Her Gift had not touched me, but I understood why she was so frightened and why she needed any food that she could find. Her baby had begun to cry.

It was time to think matters through. Turning what I now knew over in my head, I returned to the imperial camp. I needed to obtain a few things.

I had just come back from my scavenging when I heard Daine and Numair. The long talk was over; they were returning. I smoothed a layer of spells over the items I had procured. When my mage parents looked at my nest of blankets, they would see only the back of the tent behind me, not the other things. It was tricky to work out something that would fool Daine and Numair, but I’d done it.

They would have been glad to help if I had let them know about Afra, but they always helped. I didn’t need that. I wanted to do it by myself, in part because I was bored, in part to prove to them—to myself—that I could. I needed something of my own to do. If I had not tamed Afra by the time we had to leave, I would let my parents know about her.

I curled up in my blankets and pretended to sleep just as they entered our tent. They spoke quietly while preparing for bed. They said that the villagers had told Emperor Kaddar about a number of problems. They were hard for local folk to handle all at once, but their emperor and his companions could take care of them easily, if they cared to do so. Kaddar had walked into the trap. Knowing Kaddar, he had seen the trap and entered it anyway. He and his men would seek a robber gang that operated in the mountain pass five miles to the east. Daine would see to illnesses among the village herds while Numair cleared the river channel of the waterweeds that choked it. I knew we might be there for as long as a week, even two. That would give me more time to work with Afra.

In the morning, when dawn just brushed the mountains and my parents slept, I tied my things in a small bundle. Disguised in the colors of barely lit earth and stone, I returned to the place where the boys had acted as if they were lost in a maze of boulders.

When the first shock of alien magic crackled against mine, I was ready. In the pale light, I saw it only as a blurring of everything that lay beyond. From sandy earth with its patches of scrub brush to the black mountain stone, the strange power remade it into softness. It gave this land a more forgiving face.

When I touched it, the magic ran over my scales. It felt different than it had the night before. This time it was like a thousand tiny hands explored me from crest to tail tip. I banished that thought. Grandfather Diamondflame and Numair would scold me for letting imagination color what I observed. I walked slowly into the magic’s growing resistance, seeing the boys’ tracks from last night and then my own footprints, off to my right.

Next I met the second, more resistant wall. I didn’t see it. I simply walked into it and felt it give a little as I stopped. Again there was something new, like a pause, as if the magic waited to see what I would do. I shook the peculiar thought from my skull. It was a leftover from sixteen years among humans.

I had spent the night considering my encounters with this magic. I did not want to risk using sounds by daylight, for fear of drawing attention. If the villagers got frightened enough, they would call on Kaddar, who would call on my foster father. When Numair found this magic, I would no longer have the riddle to solve for myself. I didn’t doubt that my papa could probably shatter these barriers easily.

Resting a paw against this barrier, I called up the spell I had prepared and blew it forward. The only sound I made was a long, soft hiss. The magic flowed out between my teeth, eating the barrier like acid. It vanished before my spell could devour it all, and I went forward with my bundle.

I was ready for that third defense, the flood of magic, but it never came. Had I exhausted it last night? I wished I knew who had set these protections. Surely whoever it was had died long ago. Perhaps the mage had been an Ysandir, one of the ancient race alive at the same time that human civilization was beginning to grow. That might account for the total strangeness of the magic’s feel. It did not account for Afra’s ability to pass it without effort, however.

With no more barriers to fight, I found a hidden place near the cave where I left my bundle. I reviewed my plan. After last night, I knew I could not rely on the cute tricks that worked with those who knew me best.

First I had to investigate. I wrapped myself in silence, then climbed up into the rocks and over to Afra’s cave. She would not hear my lightest claw scratch or the slide of my scales. Then I positioned myself above the entrance to listen. It was so delightful, where I lay. Unlike the black rock, this orange stone was fine grained and warm, far warmer than it should have been with sunrise just begun. I had an odd fancy that the stone was breathing, which was impossible. Grandfather Diamondflame would have scolded me roundly for so foolish an idea. Yet I could not stop myself from stroking that warm stone like a pet as I listened for what Afra might be doing deep within her cave.

Light smoke flowed up from the entry and over my nose. I sniffed: mint tea. Other smells disguised those of rotten food: garlic, ginger, and onion. I smelled another thing, one I knew from the times after Daine gave birth to my human sister and brother. It was mother’s milk. Afra was nursing her baby. She would not be leaving her hiding place right away.

I backed away from the cave entrance, then halted. I wanted to stay right there, spread over the warm and breathing stone. I didn’t understand. I was no lizard, to doze my life away on any sun-washed rock!

Finally I ordered myself to stop being a fluffbrain, a word Daine often used. I went back to my bundle. From it I chose some of the food I had stolen and carried it to the front of the cave. There I left my offering: a small goat cheese, dates, olives, and several rounds of bread.

Then I returned to my hiding place, sheltered by chilly, normal black rock. I could not hear the sounds inside the cave as well as before, but the black stone did not give me strange ideas, either. I drew my camouflage spell around me, just in case, and waited.

Soon I heard Afra’s footsteps as she came to the cave’s entrance. With my camouflage in place, I eased up to a spot from which I could see her. She stepped into the daylight, sure of the power that hid her retreat in the rocks. She was so confident that she almost crushed my gift before she saw it was there. Then she jumped back into the cave, vanishing into the darkness.

I waited. Soon she returned, crouching in the shelter of the cave’s mouth, peering around like a frightened creature. She had a rock in each hand. Only her head moved. She was listening for any noise.

In the distance I heard the village goats and sheep as their shepherds took them to graze in the lands not hidden by the barriers. A rooster in the village suddenly remembered that he had duties of his own. As he cried his name, other roosters joined in.

Afra’s eyes strayed more and more to the bundle of food. I wondered if her nose was as dead as most humans’ or if she could smell the cheese, at least. I scolded myself for not bringing hot meat. She would have smelled that.

She licked her lips. She could smell the cheese.

Slowly she put down her rocks. She rubbed her hands as her Gift moved into her fingers. She wasn’t able to do magic without some gestures, then. For anything subtle, she would need to write the signs in the air. She would require special herbs, oils, or stones for more. Did she have them? It would be good to know.

She wrote a sign for safety before her face. In the sunlight I could see the color of her Gift at last. I rocked back on my heels. Afra’s sign was shaped in pale blue light, outlined in pale green. I nearly whistled my excitement, then caught myself. None of my human friends except Papa had magic in two colors. Numair’s books spoke of such people, but he said he’d never met anyone else. He would be so glad to meet Afra once I had tamed her!

Had she borrowed her baby’s power? I asked myself. Perhaps this explained how she had passed through the magic that turned the village boys around, but not her.

Afra completed her spell and set it in motion. It fell onto the food, oozing over it. Within a breath it had vanished, sinking into everything. The scales stood on the back of my neck. I hoped it wouldn’t harm the food. Cheese in particular reacts badly to some kinds of magic.

Afra waited, looking all around, still wary. Then she darted forward, seized the food, and ran back into the cave. I guessed that if her spell didn’t react, it proved there was no magic on the bundle. I could not see her, but I could hear as she thrust a handful of something into her mouth and chewed. She continued to eat greedily out of my sight as I slowly took the remainder of my stolen goods from my bundle. Daine and I had cared for many starving creatures, so I feared I knew what came next. I had hoped Afra would have better judgment than to stuff herself right away, but I had been wrong. Carefully, retracting my hind claws so they would make no sound on the stone, I carried my next offering to the cave’s entrance and left it there. Then I ran back to my hiding spot.

I was just in time. Afra raced from the cave, her hand to her mouth. She made it to a pocket of sand in the rocks across from me before she spewed everything she had eaten. I cursed myself silently. I should have given her just a mouthful of food to start. She had been living on garbage, and I had given her a meal of good fruit and cheese.

She stood there, her back to me, after she’d finished the last of her heaves. I could see bone against her skin where it was not covered by her garment. How was she feeding that baby? She must be giving everything to it and keeping nothing for herself.

A blade of pain stabbed me, an un-dragon-like hurt. Diamondflame says that sentiment is weakness. Maybe I have been among humans for too long. Or maybe I can never forget that my birth mother had given everything for me.

Finally Afra straightened, wiping her mouth on her wrist. She knelt and buried her vomit well. I wondered if the magic kept wolves away, if there were wolves in these mountains. I knew there were leopards. Did she use her spells to protect the cave at night, or did the strange magic keep the large killers away, as it did humans?

Afra stumbled back to the cave, unsteady with weakness, and halted when she saw my new gift. She turned. Now she had to know that I had been close, to put that food there, and that maybe I was still close, watching. She scanned the rocks and the ground, searching for any sign of me. I had not left her even my footprints as clues.

It was my first chance to give her a good look. She had the bronze skin of the northern Carthakis, snapping black eyes, and coarse black hair that she tied back with a shred of cloth. She was young and so thin, with strong muscles that stood against her skin. She was trembling, though I could not tell if it was from long weakness or from just vomiting.

Suddenly she bent and took my second gift of food. She hurried into the cave with it.

I relaxed. I had given her two chicken-and-almond turnovers. I had stolen them, like everything else, from the emperor’s cooks. They were mild and should not make her ill if she ate them slowly.

She would need vegetables, fruits, and meat. I would have to find a way to carry more, somehow. In particular, she had also vomited up the cheese. Daine’s midwife had been very strict with her on the subject of milk and cheese for a nursing mother. She said they needed that more than any other food and that goat’s milk was the best.

I wondered if I could steal a goat.

Daine found me before I even reached our tent. “Kitten, where were you?” she cried, running up to me. “I’ve been looking everywhere! We were going to the village, remember?”

I sat up on my hind legs and gave her my cutest wide-eyed look, with a chirp.

Daine glared at me. “None of that, mistress. You’ve been up to something. You can’t fool your ma, remember?”

She was right. It was very discouraging. I settled back on my haunches and looked more seriously at her. I sighed, then clasped my forepaws.

“So you’ll tell me when you can. Will it get you in trouble with these folk?” she asked me.

Afra didn’t live in the village. The boys had chased her away with stones. She did not belong to the village and they did not want her there. I shook my head for Daine. The matter of the goat might be hard to explain, but I hadn’t taken one yet, so I was not lying.

Daine bent down and picked me up. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked as she carried me to the tent.

I shook my head. This was still my discovery.

We had breakfast with Numair before the villagers came for my parents. When we three walked out of our tent, the strangers flinched at the sight of me and drew the Sign on their chests.

Daine stiffened. “This is Skysong, our dragon,” she told them, her voice cold. “When our home was attacked, mages who opened a gate to the Divine Realms drew her mother through just as she was about to give birth.” She was careful not to say that it was their old emperor who had sponsored the attack. “I helped Flamewing deliver her little one, but Flamewing herself died protecting us. She left her child in our care. Kitten—that’s what we call her—is as friendly as can be. She’s saved many lives, human and animal alike.”

“Her face looks like a crocodile’s,” said one of the females, an old and wrinkly one.

Daine drew herself up. Numair settled her with a hand on her shoulder. “Kitten is a dragon,” he said to the old woman. “They are more intelligent than even we humans. She understands every word that you say.”

“Why doesn’t she answer, then?” one of the males wanted to know.

“She is too young,” Numair replied. “You will be centuries in the ground when she is able to talk.”

That caused them to whisper among themselves. I never understood why people would be awed by that, when they were so unpleasant about my looks. Besides, for all they knew, Numair could have been lying. Still, they accepted his word that I would live much longer than they would, which was quite true, unless I was murdered.

“If you wish your animals looked at, you will learn to like Kitten,” Daine told them. “Where I go, she goes. She may even do your creatures more good than I will.”

I didn’t feel like doing good for anyone in the village walls after the way they had treated Afra.

“Well, Master Numair, we’re to take you upriver, if you still wish to go,” the male who’d led these humans said. “No horses, if it please you. The ground’s too rocky along the riverbank as we head into the mountains. Can’t even take a mule that way.”

Poor Spots, I thought. He’s stuck here again. I looked over at the horse lines to see how he did. Most of the soldiers’ mounts were gone, along with the emperor’s favorite riding horse. They were bandit hunting. Spots was talking with one of the horses that hauled the wagons. That would amuse him for a little while. He would escape his tether by midday.

Numair and the men left on foot. The women looked at Daine and me, then seemed to come to a silent agreement. “If you will come with us?” the female who had spoken to Daine asked. We all set forward, the talker on Daine’s left, the other two behind her. I was on Daine’s right. “Two days back Tahat’s chickens got sick. We’ve locked them in their coop, but that will be useless if it is a curse on the village. We think there is a witch hereabouts.”

My ears pricked up. Did they mean Afra? I looked at Daine, and I had to snort. Her lips and nostrils had tightened right up. It would follow that in this village, whose humans had already irritated her by insulting me, she would first be asked to look at chickens. Her grandfather’s chickens, the ones she had grown up knowing, were the nastiest, trickiest birds she had ever met in her life. Now, even though she had met dozens of perfectly decent chickens, she could not bring herself to like them. She was certain that their pleasantness to her was just another chicken trick.

If she had hated geese, I would have been more understanding. Geese have made my life a misery.

While Daine listened to the chickens’ troubles, I let Tahat’s children sneak up on me and poke me with their fingers. When a neighbor boy tried to use a stick, I snatched it from him and hissed. That amused the women who were not watching Daine. They seemed to like me better for it. Tahat, who was too worried about her flock to be afraid of me, even brought me a small dish of milk.

Daine saw that and warmed to her. “It’s no curse, only bird pox,” she said. “You were right to contain them before it spread to the other chickens. I can deal with it.” She looked up at the female who seemed to be the leader. “Will you help me?”

I hardly noticed when one of the older children tugged my tail. There were chickens all over the village. I could hear them. If Daine had to check them for this illness, she would not be paying attention to my activities.

First she had to make friends with the village’s chief mage. While she had some kind of tea with that man, I busied myself by acquiring a few things: a round of cheese, four eggs, a woman’s robe, two lamb sausages, and more fruit. Covered with camouflage spells and keeping to back paths, I carried those things one at a time outside the open gate, where I piled them against the wall. I hid them with still more camouflage, this time a concealment from sight, covered with the seeming of a nest of vipers. I didn’t want the dogs to eat my loot.

Last of all I found an empty grain sack. I rolled it up and carried it outside the gate. First I was careful to wrap the eggs well in the robe. If they broke there, they could be washed out. I knew Afra must have a water source, or she could not have survived in the cave at all.

Once I had filled my sack with all I had taken, I realized I had listened to my ambition instead of my sense. I could not carry it. I was much too small. The path from the gate to our tent, or even partway to the invisible maze where Afra hid, was mostly open ground. If I dragged the sack—I was strong enough to do so, despite my size—folk would see the clear trail that the sack would leave in the dirt.

I whistled my vexation. I had a spell I shaped of breath and will to brush away any marks I left on occasions like this. It did take a great deal of concentration. That was easy enough when I was on horseback with Daine, which was the last time I had needed it. It would be tiring if I had to keep an eye open for humans, hold camouflage magic over my sack and me, and drag that sack. I needed to quickly reach the rocks that were perfectly visible to me and invisible to humans.

Again I had to wonder how Afra had found the cave. Did her dual Gift make it possible for her to see through the old barriers on that piece of land? Was the power that hid the cave hers to begin with?

I shook my head as I tied the sack shut with some cord I had found. If she had used her Gift to create an invisible maze in open scrub, I would have been able to see its colors by daylight. Moreover, I would have been able to shatter all of it with my middling squawk. Also, those boys had acted as if their maze had always been in that place. They were used to it.

Gripping the neck of the sack in my teeth, I wriggled until it lay over my shoulder. There was no one in view inside the gate or outside. I set out, keeping an eye on my surroundings. Far off to my left the soldiers who had stayed to guard the emperor’s camp lazily went about their chores. They had shifted the picketed horses off to a line of trees by the river. I hated to think of my friend Spots cooking in the sun, like I was. No one was following as I struggled away from the gate. The bag slid to and fro as I went forward, so that I half-carried, half-dragged it. I was leaving an unmistakable track.

I halted briefly and took a deep, deep breath, then blew it into my cupped forepaw. I spun it around, blowing steadily, until I had a tornado as tall as I was. I drove it with my will, sending it over the unmistakable drag mark I’d left in my wake. Back and forth I swept it, then around and around, until the dirt no longer showed the trace of my sack. I kept the tornado with me as I trudged across the open ground. It swept over my trail, whisking my marks to nothing, until I crested a small rise in the ground and went down the far side. Once I was out of view of the road, I released my spinning winds. They scattered into the open air.

I collapsed onto the ground, letting go of my camouflage briefly to rest. How could Daine and Numair do more than two pieces of magic at the same time? I was worn out only by two, and by the effort of dragging my burden.

I hated being young. And I would be young so much longer than a human child.

I had to get up. There was too much risk of a human stumbling over me. The Carthaki sun was also a hammer on my scales. I rose, wove my camouflage spell again, and began to drag the sack toward the rocks.

I had gone scarcely a hundred yards, and had reached the point of telling myself that I was a poor excuse for a dragon, when a horse called to me. I turned to look. Spots was on my trail, his tether in his mouth. I released my camouflage, let go of the sack, and trilled a welcome. I was so happy to see him!

He trotted to me. I followed your scent. His slow, practical voice sounded amused in my mind. I knew you would have found a way to get into trouble by now. Let go of that bag. I did as I was bid, with relief. He gripped the neck of the sack and picked it up. It had been big for me. To Spots it wasn’t nearly as heavy as one of Numair’s book-stuffed saddlebags, which he had also carried in this way. Why did you find something to do without bringing me? Spots asked. I always manage the heavy work for you.

I hung my head. Then I made a fist, shook it at him, and pointed back at the camp. I still didn’t want to get him into trouble. Then I touched a claw-tip to my chest and pointed to the walled village.

Yes, that is a great deal of walking for a small dragon, Spots said. He always understood me. And I keep telling you, I will deal with the humans if they want to make trouble for me. It’s time they learned that not all horses can be bullied.

I saw the warlike look in his eye and shook my head. Spots had been getting some strange ideas lately. I squeaked an apology and took his rein in my paw. He nudged me to let me know that he didn’t mind if I led him. Moving much faster now that I had his help with my burden, I took him to the rocks.

When we touched the strange magic of the first barrier, Spots shied and yanked on the rein. His yank threw me into the air. I came down with a thud. Spots put down the sack and nuzzled me in apology. I’m sorry, he told me, guilt in his mind-voice. I didn’t know there was magic here. He gripped the sack again.

I showed him two of my claws.

Two magics, Spots said. How splendid.

I whistled a shield that covered him nose to tail. I loved him because he let me lead him onward into the magic, through the first barrier. He stood firm while I worked spells to get us through the second barrier. Each time he calmly went ahead when I chirped. I had not known until that day how much he trusted me.

Once we were through, we hurried to Afra’s cave. I knew the sound of hooves ringing on stone would frighten her, but it was the fastest way to take the sack right to the cave’s mouth. After we left it there, we retreated to a side trail to wait.

What do you have in there? Spots asked me.

With gestures and poses I explained it was a human female with an infant.

It would be easier to bring Daine or Numair, Spots reminded me. Not that you ever choose the easy path. I prefer to leave humans to humans, myself.

I only sniffed at him. Spots always said he liked his life to be boring, but he was always there when I got up to something.

Eventually the baby began to cry. It cried in loud whoops, then softer ones. I dug my claws into the stone, wishing the noise would stop. Just when I hoped the baby was done, it began to scream. That was when Afra came to take the sack.

She dragged it back into the cave, then called, “Who are you? Why do you help us? If you really wish to be my friend, show yourself!”

Afra didn’t think that last night’s monster was the one who left food for her today. Yet why demand to see me? What good could it do? I looked up at Spots. He shrugged his withers, a human gesture he’d learned. He didn’t know, either.

I didn’t want to chatter or make friends. That baby needed its mother’s milk, and the best way for its mother to make milk was for her to eat food, and to drink milk. That meant I still needed to steal a goat. She was wasting my time. I had only waited to be sure she took the sack at all.

“I know you are still here,” she cried. “I heard your horse. You are quite close by; I listened to the hoofbeats.”

Kraken spit, I thought.

Spots put his muzzle at the center of my back and pushed. Do as she asks. We did not raise you to be rude.

It was an easy thing for him to say. She had not hit him on the head and called him a monster.

I showed him my fist, meaning this would not go well. He nudged me again, until I fell onto all four legs. I glared up at him.

I mean it, Kitten, Spots told me. Go. He shoved my rump forward, nearly driving my muzzle into the dirt.

I ran as much away from him as toward the cave. The stubborn beast followed. He was determined that Afra should see me. Once he took up for someone, there was nothing he would not do for them. That included ordering me about.

Afra saw Spots first because he was taller. Her quick eyes took in his lack of a saddle or rider and his knotted tether. Then she saw me.

“You again!” she cried. She flung her hand out. A twining flare of magic, mixed pale blue and pale green ropes that would burn an ordinary mortal to the ground, sped from her fingers.

Afra’s spell washed over me. It stung, a little. Then it flowed up, meeting the magical barrier overhead in bursts of gold sparkles. I wanted to grip some, but Afra was not done with me.

Brighter two-colored fires lashed from her hand. I could feel their strength—if they hit me, they would hurt. I raised a shield of my own power that would cover Spots and me. Her Gift splashed against it and was sucked into the magic overhead. It blazed gold.

The earth quivered, an anxious horse about to break free of all control. Uh-oh, Spots said. Did you feel that?

I looked at Afra. She was intent on working another spell. The earth shook hard, knocking her down. The stones beside the mouth of the cave trembled. If the shake got harder, there was danger to the cave.

Spots and I raced forward together without needing to check with one another. We were old campaigners; we knew what had to be done. The ground rolled. Spots scrambled for footing as small stones fell and hit Afra. Spots lunged and got a mouthful of her robe as I raced past him into the cave. Afra screamed as a large rock fell behind me, half-blocking the cave’s mouth.

For a moment I could not move. Inside the cave a welcoming warmth enclosed me. It reminded me of how I felt when Daine held me. I thought I heard a whispering song in a strange language I almost knew. Dazed, I touched the cave wall. It was glassy and warm, an assembly of tiny beads. I wanted to stay there forever.

Then the baby screamed. Somehow I forced myself to break that spell of love and safety to walk deeper into the cave. Another shake inspired me to run, my night vision showing me all the dangers. Afra had a small fire going in the chamber she had turned into her home. I buried that in case falling rock scattered hot embers everywhere. The baby lay beside the fire, swaddled and tucked into a carry basket. I whistled a lifting spell until I could wriggle my forepaws into the straps. Then, as another shiver rocked the ground under my feet, I began to run, or rather, to slog.

I never expected a small baby and a straw carry basket to weigh so much. I was frantic to get out before the cave dropped on us, yet I also wanted to stay and be a baby myself, curled up against the mother spirit in the stone. Each time I stopped to catch my breath, I had to force myself to move on. Fortunately, though I did not think so then, the baby’s screams constantly reminded me to keep going. I could not wait to get it off of my back, or sides, wherever it had slipped. By the time we came to the rock that half-covered the entrance, the basket hung off of my neck, yanking me sideways.

Eyeing the rock and the opening it had left, I crawled out of the straps. Grabbing them in my forepaws, I backed into the opening, tugging the basket after me. It was half-out when it stuck. I was squealing curses when Afra said, “I am sorry that I called you a monster. Please—let me get him out.”

I slid off the rock with gratitude and let Afra lift her child into the open. My poor forelegs ached. My back muscles complained. I wanted to go back into that comforting cave, which was deadly folly in an earthquake.

Spots came over to nuzzle me. I looked up at my friend and moaned. He pushed me a little harder with his nose. Don’t complain, he told me. You aren’t bleeding.

Afra had her baby out of the carry basket. She held it, bouncing it as she talked softly. It finally stopped screaming.

The hard ground shakes had also halted, though I could feel the same deep shiver that I had felt yesterday, on the rock over the cave’s mouth.

“We should get to clearer ground,” Afra said. “In case the earthquake returns.”

I nodded.

“There is a place by the spring where I get water. But I cannot leave the food that you brought.” She looked at the opening in the cave entrance, biting her lower lip. Then she placed the baby on the ground beside me. “Watch him, please. If something happens …” She shook her head and ran like a fool to the cave. She wriggled into the opening and was gone.

I squealed in irritation. I could have gone for those things! I looked at Spots, thinking that he could mind the baby.

She asked you to watch him, Spots said. If you go into the cave with her, she will panic, thinking the baby is alone but for a stupid horse.

I had to do as she had told me, since she was beginning to see that I was no monster. I muttered to myself. I knew he was right. He often is.

Spots walked over to the baby and began to nudge him to and fro, rocking him. The baby liked it. He was chuckling, as if a horse rocked him every day. Then he looked at me. I jerked back, thinking he would scream in fear, but he only watched me as he rocked, his eyes big.

Afra returned with my sack. She must have put some of her own things inside, because it was heavier, judging by the way she carried it. She set it down and watched Spots rock her son.

“I don’t suppose you two would hire on as nursemaids?” she asked. “I’ll take Uday now.” She gathered her son up and tucked him into the carry basket, asking him, “Did you like that, Uday? Did you?” He chuckled for her, too. Carefully she settled the basket over her shoulders. While she tightened the straps, Spots made faces for Uday. I gave Spots’ foreleg a push, for showing off.

Afra picked up the heavy sack. She looked at me. “It’s not far, the spring. Would your friend mind if I put this on his back? I know it’s slippery with no saddle, but I can hold it there.”

Spots nodded at her.

Afra looked at him, then at me. “What are you?” she asked. Her lips quivered. Her eyes were wet. She turned to hoist the bag onto Spots’ back. I feared for those eggs inside the robe. They seemed to be doomed.

“I do not weep in the ordinary way of things,” Afra said, her voice defensive. “But it has been so hard, with everyone’s hand turned against me. And now you two come—it was you with the food, before?” She looked at me. Her eyes were dry again. I nodded to her. “Why? What are you, and why are you doing these things?”

I made a cradle of my forearms and rocked them.

“The baby, yes,” Afra said.

Then I ran in place and pretended to be throwing rocks at her. I started to walk around as if I followed a maze, looking confused.

She frowned for a moment. Then her face smoothed. “You saw the boys chase me!” I nodded.

“Well, you’re kindhearted, both of you. Come. The spring’s this way.” She pointed out the path for Spots, soon discovering that if she spoke the directions there was no need to point. That was just as well, because the sack did slide all over his back. She was kept busy just holding it there.

We followed the gully where Spots and I had waited for Afra to take the sack. The path twisted out of view, making a wide curve around the cave’s protecting stone. We entered a small bay where trees grew and a spring bubbled up through the ground to make a pond. One of the three rocky walls of the bay was part of the stone that made the cave, reddish orange and fine grained instead of rough brown-black. Plants sprouted in the cracks in the walls. Birds fluttered to the tops of the trees as we arrived.

Spots let Afra take the sack from him before he trotted over to the water. He sniffed at it. Is the water safe? he asked me. I suppose it is, if she has been drinking it, but it never hurts to be sure.

I tested it with a drop of my magic. The water gleamed and rippled for a moment, proof that it was very good. Spots dipped his head and began to drink. I, too, was thirsty. I gulped until my belly sloshed.

While we slurped, Afra made camp. She set Uday up in his basket so he might watch us, then took everything from the sack. It was as I feared—the eggs were ruined. Afra looked at them, crushed messes in the folds of the robe. She covered her mouth, but I could tell that she was trying not to giggle. Finally she could not help herself. She gave way, and her laughter made Uday chuckle. She was different when she laughed.

Spots brought the soiled robe over to me. We were both shaking our heads over the ruined eggs when Afra picked the robe up. “It’s a shame about the eggs, but you brought me two sausages and a brick of pressed dates. You’re going to make me fat.” She smiled when she said it.

A stream left the pond and flowed out through the rear of our bay of rocks. Afra went to it with the robe. I followed her while Spots cropped the grass that grew around the pond’s edges and watched Uday. Afra knelt beside some rocks in the stream and began to wash the egg from the robe. “I saw this on their headman’s wife,” she told me, scrubbing two handfuls of robe against one another. “If she knew I had it, she would screech the clouds down.” She looked sideways at me. “If I were a better person, I would return it, but the nights are cold.”

I retracted my claws and took an eggy spot of my own, swishing it in the stream to wet it before I tried to scrub the stuff out.

“The horse is odd, but at least he is still a horse. But you … there are no pale blue crocodiles or monitor lizards, and a crocodile would have eaten Uday. You must have come from someplace wonderful,” Afra told me. “Not that my experience of the world is so wide. I have known only the mountain towns and villages.” She traded her clean handful of cloth for a dirty one and looked at me. I was scrubbing as well as I could in the hope that she would tell me her story. “My home is back that way.” She waved her hand toward the east. “My family had the Gift. My mother could charm metal, my father doctored animals. My sister was good at all-around magic. They believed I had no power. Then my woman’s time came, and my Gift with it.”

I nodded. It happened that way in about one person in ten, Numair said. Often it was an unpleasant surprise for the newly Gifted child.

“You have seen my Gift,” Afra said, finding a new place to scrub. I rinsed mine, then found another spot to work on. “No one knew what to do, or how to teach a girl with two-colored magic. They took me to our lord. He gave them three gold pieces for me and told them to go home. That was how I became a slave.”

I reared back on my haunches and hissed. The last emperor, Kaddar’s uncle, had tried to make a slave of Daine once. He had caged and bespelled me. That was why there was a new palace in the capital. They could do little with the old one, once Daine and her friends were through with it.

Afra smiled crookedly. “Oh. You know what it’s like. I bore it at first. They fed me well. But I could not make my magic do as they wished, so they beat me and took the food away.” She began to wring out the robe. We had cleaned it entirely. “I would have done as I was told, if I had known how to control my Gift. I didn’t. After a few beatings and enough lost meals, I’d borne enough. That was how I learned that if I wanted to be free of shackles or ropes badly enough, my magic would do away with them.” She shrugged. “I stole some things and I ran away. I traveled with a caravan for a time, dancing for coins.” She spread the robe on some rocks to dry in the sun and she shook her head. “There was a man traveling with us. Sadly, he had a wife in one of the towns. I did not know that until Uday was growing in my belly.”

I stood, watching her. She spoke well. Perhaps she had learned it at the lord’s house. If I looked at her without the struggle of getting her to eat, or worrying about her magic, if I only thought of her as a human, like Daine’s friends, how old could she be? Her face was not strained with fear or anger as she sat on a rock and looked back at me.

“I joined another caravan, but once my belly was big, I could not dance anymore,” she told me. “You understand every word, by the rivers and springs, you do. I cannot see feelings in the face of a lizard or snake, but I can tell you are sad. Don’t be sad for me. I have whored and stolen, and done both of those among people who had taken pity on me and gave me work.” She pointed toward the village on the other side of the rocks. “Why do you think those boys were so happy to stone me? I got caught at my thieving and thrown out. The villagers had warned me about the maze of stone, but I never even saw it. I found the cave instead. I felt safe there, and that is where I managed to have Uday without bungling things too badly.” She looked at her worn straw sandals. She was about fifteen, I decided. Nearly my age, just a baby. I knew human females are supposed to be old enough to marry and have families by the time they are sixteen, or even fourteen, but that never seemed right.

I could not play any more games with Afra, trying to keep her to myself. When she trusted me enough, I would take her to my parents. They would know what to do. Numair would welcome her for her rare Gift. Daine would welcome her because once she, too, had been a girl on her own. Afra and her baby would be as safe with my foster parents as I was.

“I think I will sleep,” Afra told me suddenly. “I have learned to fight using my Gift, but it tires me. Or maybe it is nursing a baby and fighting with my Gift both.” She walked back to Uday’s carry bag and curled up beside him, without even a blanket. I looked at Spots, thinking that there were extra blankets in Numair and Daine’s tent.

Once Afra slept, Spots and I left her there. Afra could also use one of Daine’s scarves, and perhaps a few other items. They wouldn’t mind, once they knew the entire story. I was sure of that.

Spots hid behind the tent while I packed up the things I had decided to take from Daine and Numair. Once I was ready, I whistled Spots around to the front of the tent. This time I used some of Daine’s scarves and sashes to tie the bundle to his back. He was helpful about kneeling to help me reach everything. I was just finished when we heard a man’s footsteps on the hillside.

It’s one of the horse guards, Spots said. The one who thinks I should stay tied up all of the time. He thinks he knows better than Daine and Numair what to do for me. I am tired of being polite. Will you destroy his rope for me?

All through this trip I had watched Spots struggle with this stupid human, who would not learn that Spots could manage himself. I gladly would have done even more than destroy a rope.

“There you are,” the soldier told Spots, his face hard. “All morning and all through my noontide meal I’ve been lookin’ for you, you cursed contrary beast.” He had his lariat at his side and was swinging the noose easily. “I don’t know how you got away from the lines, but you’ll not do so again!” He flung the noose just as Spots turned out of its path. The noose missed. I shrieked—it was one of my new ones—and noose, line, and coiled rope went all to ash. The soldier swore, hugging his scorched hand to his chest. Then Spots danced up and swung his head hard, right into the man’s chest. The man stumbled, fell, and began to roll down the steep slope to the imperial camp. Spots and I fled, Spots soon getting ahead of me.

When I looked back and could not see the soldier, I whistled up my tornado and swept the hillside. I kept the spinning wind trailing me until I reached Spots. He was waiting patiently for me at the edge of the first barrier spell. I let the tornado go and leaned against my friend’s leg. He still had the bundle.

He nudged me gently. Thank you. I must ask Daine to speak to him again and make certain that he listens this time. The other soldiers have learned, but he is too stupid.

I crooned my understanding and reached out, feeling the barrier. It gave under my paws, making them tingle.

Spots took a step forward. What is this? he asked. His skin twitched all over, but he could move through the magic, whipping his tail as if he were beset by flies. I am no mage, so something has changed this barrier, Kitten.

The second barrier stopped him. It also felt different. It flowed over my outstretched paw like cool soup. I felt no little hands exploring me, and I missed them. Confused, I made a shield for Spots and hissed a spell at the barrier. My breath barely touched it before it vanished.

I followed Spots into the rocks, feeling baffled. These barrier spells were old. Why were they changing now?

Afra was still asleep, but Uday was not. He was amusing himself, playing with magical bubbles that were dark pink, pale green, and bright yellow, all swirling together. Afra’s son’s magic was even stranger than her own. I felt grateful that if she did not know of Uday’s Gift, I would not be the one to tell her. Since her power had brought her such trouble, I could not see her welcoming it for her baby. Maybe Numair would teach her how to be glad of their Gifts.

Spots stayed to guard them. I clambered up onto the orange rock to listen for goats. My luck was in: the herd was grazing not too far away, near the edge of the barrier around the rocks. Swiftly I clambered over that warm, welcoming orange stone to find them. I was soon in the oddest state of mind. Flashes of green, orange, red, blue, and brown fires filled my vision, then faded. The lands before me were shaped the same, but their covering was different. The areas that did not sprout stone were green with trees and brush, and populated with big animals. There was an enormous shaggy cow—why would I imagine a giant cow? There were zebras, too, like King Jonathan and Emperor Kaddar have in their menageries. That was senseless. Zebras could not thrive in these desert lands. Still, I saw the land as green, so perhaps zebras would do well here.

When I ducked to avoid a large imagination bat, I tumbled down a groove in the orange stone. Luckily for me, the groove was long and cushioned with brush that grew in the earth collected there. I was also grateful that no one was there to see me, except for a family of rock hyraxes. They had a good laugh at my expense. I bared my teeth at them, which made them run away. Then I felt small as well as stupid.

At the foot of the stone was open ground where the magical barrier ended. I barely felt the magic’s tingle on my scales as I passed through it. Beyond lay slopes of the black lava rock spotted with brush on its sides. Goats. I was back in the real world, looking for goats.

Pausing on the level ground, I listened for a goat bell and heard one nearby, over the ridge. I trotted over to the black rock and began to climb. Then I halted. The bell was coming closer, and with it, human voices. Hurriedly I drew camouflage colors over myself, blending in with the rock and the scrub. Then I crept forward to listen.

“I don’t want to give up my afternoon’s grazing so this mage can look at the beasts,” I heard a human boy whine. “Make her come out to look at them—” I heard the sound of a slap. “Ow! Ma!”

“She is the emperor’s friend! As well ask His Imperial Majesty to call on you! Gods all above, why did you curse me with a son whose head rattles like a gourd?” a woman cried. The goatherd and his mother climbed down from the pasture on the other side of the rock where I sat. The herd of goats followed them, so obedient I could have sworn they were spelled. Knowing goats as I do, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they knew I wished to steal one, and delighted in twitching their tails as they trotted by, bound for the village gate.

The goatherd turned to make certain that he had them all and choked. “Ma! Ma, look!”

His mother, a good-sized woman in a head cloth and robe, turned, ready to cuff him. Her hand froze in midair. Only long training for and in battle kept me in my place, hoping that I had not made a mistake in my camouflage. No, they were not staring at me, but at the orange stone to my right and at the open ground before it. The goats were baffled and frightened by the humans’ confusion. They began to bleat their fear.

“That wasn’t there before!” the woman said, drawing the Sign on her chest.

The boy did the same. “The rock Maze lay in that open ground. We never saw no orange rock!” He ventured forward, his staff outstretched.

“Careful!” his mother cried. “This is magic; it’s folly to meddle with magic!”

The boy stopped just five yards from me and waved his staff, expecting something. He was not the only one. He should have touched the barrier there, and with each step forward that he took. When he stopped to tap the orange stone, he was six feet inside the barrier of magic I’d walked through each time I came here.

His mother could bear it no more. “Leave it!” she cried. “We’re no mages! That’s what ours are for—yes, and those grand ones the emperor has brought! Get away from there before you’re hurt!”

The goatherd had blossomed more rolling sweat with each step he had taken beyond that five-yard point. I think he expected to walk straight into a cliff and break his toes. When his mother ordered him to come with her, he turned and raced to her side. They and the goats ran for the gate.

I shed my camouflage once they were inside the village walls and climbed down from my place on the black rock. Once on the sandy ground, I walked straight toward the round curve of orange stone. There was no sign whatever of the barrier. I even waved my paws through the air, seeking its power. I’d felt it—somewhat—on my way to find those goats. Where had it gone since then? No one had worked a spell big enough to destroy it. I would have sensed that.

Remembering the next barrier, I ran up the stone, which quivered under my paws: the earth was shuddering. At the top of the formation I braced myself to look at the black lava rocks around the orange, and at the village to the south of my position. Was I visible to anyone who might pass, if the barrier was gone? I had to be, if those humans had seen the orange stone. I camouflaged myself a second time, then moved on, seeking the next barrier as the stone beneath me trembled. I hadn’t even noticed that it was gone when I’d passed this way before, wrapped in strange visions. Why? What had destroyed the barriers?

At last I reached Afra’s clearing. She knelt beside the open bundle that had been on Spots’ back, a small pot of one of Daine’s healing creams in her hand. She put it down when she saw me. There were tearstains on her cheeks. “You go too far! The village mages have not tried to break the magic on this place because they believe there is none, only stones and desert. Now you have taken costly things! If the mages track these things here, who is to say they cannot shatter the spells that hide us?” She wiped sweat from her face with a hand that trembled. “And that you did this now, with the earth dancing again …”

If the village mages could have pierced the illusion of the maze of stone, they would have done so the first time Afra was spotted at their garbage heap. They didn’t even know it was there. Numair was another matter, but now, with the barrier gone, we needed him to come, and Daine, too. Or we needed to go to him and Daine, out through the taller rocks, before the ground opened up under us. Afra could not stay here. The goatherd and his mother had to be spreading the news that the village had land this afternoon that had not existed that morning. People would be coming, if there wasn’t an earthquake first.

I straightened the blankets that had served to bundle up what we had taken and began to put Afra’s belongings in their center.

Kitten, what are you doing? Why are you packing? Spots pawed the ground, nervous. He knew how I behaved if we were safe and if we were not safe.

I hissed at him, the noise I used to mean “trouble,” and pointed back in the direction from which I had come.

Spots snorted in disgust. Why does this happen just as I begin to like a place? He began to help me pack, choosing only the most important things to place on the blankets.

Afra stared at us. “What are you doing now? Are you packing?” She set down the cream. “Please! I’m frightened enough with the ground so restless, but this is the safest place for us to be. There’s no tall stone here to fall over on us. Please stop! I have to be calm for Uday; surely you know that!”

I went over to her and gripped her wrist, then pulled her and pointed in the direction of the path back to the cave—and the imperial camp. I opened my mouth to explain that soon we would have curious villagers entering our sanctuary, but of course all that came out was baby chatter.

“Go back there?” Afra demanded, pulling free of my grip. “That place is surrounded by high rocks and cliffs. We’ll be crushed!”

I shook my head. I was nearly screaming with frustration, cursing my lack of speech. I hunkered down on my hindquarters and placed a group of small stones together, some of them black, some orange. I put the orange ones in the center, as they seemed to be in the true rock formation. Then I drew a circle around them. The line was jagged. Afra was not the only one made edgy by the shaking ground, but we dragons are supposed to control ourselves.

Afra nodded. “The magic, yes.” Spots continued to pack, rolling up the bundle of blankets.

I wiped away the line around the collection of rocks. Then I stabbed a claw into the area where I’d erased my line and glared at Afra.

She wiped sweat from her upper lip. “No. I don’t believe you. The villagers told me that the rock maze has been there ever since their people can remember.” I stabbed the ground again. Afra was still shaking her head when Uday woke and began to cry. “I have to feed my child,” she whispered. She went to him while I threw the rocks into the pond.

I wanted to throw myself in after them—not to drown, only to cool my temper and my nerves. It made me half-mad to be unable to speak at a time like this! I could tell her about Daine and Numair, about how they would be able to help her and the baby! We wouldn’t be dithering here, but on our way to safety!

Should I go get Daine? Spots asked me.

I was about to say yes, but the ground heaved under me. I shook my head and pointed to Afra and Uday, then made running motions with my claws. We had to get them away first.

Spots began to nudge Afra toward the way out of the clearing. Each time she turned away from his nose, back toward the pond, he would turn with her and begin to nudge again. He was very stubborn. I often wished I could tell him that I suspected he had a mule in his ancestry. I had so many jokes I could not tell him.

I walked around the pond to think of something, but all I could think was that we had to go. The water’s surface rippled under the force of the quivering earth. Loose rocks tumbled everywhere. I reached deep into the ground with my power, feeling for the cracks in the earth that might open and swallow us, but I found none. That meant nothing. In Numair’s books I had read that the deadliest faults were miles underground.

When I returned, Afra had taken away everything that Spots had placed on the blankets. She then rolled up the blankets themselves to make a rough circle in the open, away from the rocks, where Uday might crawl in safety, free of his swaddlings.

I did shriek then, and scold. I had left to get myself under control, not to say I had conceded the fight! Spots walked over to my side to let Afra know he agreed with me. His white and brown withers were dark: he, too, was sweating, his fear of the shakes obvious in the way he planted his feet and watched the stone around us. I felt guilty. I had been so busy with my tantrum that I had not even asked my friend how he did.

Afra stood in front of Uday and said, “The barrier has kept me safe for longer than I have known you, strangers. We are safer in this open ground than we will be running through those canyons. Go if you wish, but Uday and I stay here.”

I wanted to weep in frustration. Humans!

We did not leave them. I went to the far side of the pond and whistled cracking spells at the small rocks there, turning them to gravel, until I had myself under control. Then Spots and I gathered dead wood for a fire, lurching to and fro to get the wood that lay on the ground. Uday crowed and raised his arms for me when we came back, which touched me deeply. Afra, about to swaddle him again, gave me a nod, but the look in her eyes was wary.

I’d just started the fire when we heard the dogs. Afra jumped to her feet, then stumbled as the ground gave a hard shake. She looked at me. “They sound so close,” she whispered.

I raised one claw and put it to my muzzle, to silence her. Then I clambered up over the orange boulders to see how near the villagers had come. The stone rocked beneath me for a moment and then settled. I raced forward before it had another spasm. Finally I saw the last rise, the one before the slope to where the barrier had once been.

This time I did not trip down the crack past the rock hyraxes, if they were still there. I crouched and called my magic, letting it rise as fire all around me. When the stone beneath me begin to scorch, I rose onto my hind legs and walked up the last rise.

The villagers stood at the foot of the orange stone. Three mages were in the lead, each with his Gift blazing in his hands, ready for use. Men and women stood around the mages with dogs on leashes. The dogs were barking and yowling. They knew they were supposed to be hunting something. They wanted to be taken off the leash so they could do their jobs. More villagers armed with bows and spears stood behind the leaders and dog handlers. From their reaction as I stood up, they had not expected anyone to meet them.

I went red with rage. When humans say that, they mean their faces go red. When I go red, it is my scales that turn that color, blotting out my normal blue-gold. I let my anger flow into my power, so that the air around me burned scarlet. Some of the villagers began to run. I stood all the way up on my hind feet, stretched my neck out as far as it would go, raised my head, and blew a long plume of spell breath, shaped as a stream of flame.

More people ran then, but they were not the right ones. “It is the witch’s illusion!” cried the chief mage, who had spoken with Daine only that morning. “Now!” He and the other mages threw fist-sized balls of magic at me. They hurt as they struck, though my power devoured them. I screeched a breaking spell, shattering the weapons of those who had stayed to attack. Now most of them ran, too.

“Illusions don’t wield magic,” I heard a mage say.

“Again!” cried the chief mage, not caring.

I did not wait for a second attack. I could endure the hurt. My problem was my own magic. If it devoured more power, it might get too hot for me to bear.

I turned and galloped for Afra’s camp, half-stumbling all the way. The earth, so calm while I had faced the villagers, now shook harder than ever. As I skidded down the last slope, the rock bucked like a stallion, pitching me into the pond. My magic evaporated. The cool water eased the heat that the use of so much power created. I actually rolled there for a moment before I remembered I could not swim.

I scrabbled at the bottom mud, trying to crawl up to the water’s edge. Then two strong hands gripped my forelegs and pulled. I kicked back with my hind legs as Afra dragged me from the mud, water, and clinging strands of weed.

Sitting on the ground, Afra plucked some of it off of my back. “What are these for, if you can’t fly?” she asked, passing a gentle hand over my tiny rudimentary wings.

I shook my head, sprinkling her with more water, and cupped a paw around my ear. She heard the shouts of humans in the distance.

“You were right?” she whispered. “The barrier is truly gone?”

She did not wait for my answer but jumped to her feet and hurried to tie a bundle of her things to Spots’ back. Even though she had not believed me about the barrier when I left, she had been worried enough about the dogs to pack.

She is quick to work when she is frightened, Spots said with approval. She would do well in the army or the Queen’s Riders, if she did not have to worry about Uday. He pitched as the ground shook harder. I looked for Uday. He was swaddled and tucked in his carry basket once more.

The villagers were still coming. From the sound of their arguments, they feared their mages more than they feared being caught under a rock, at least for the moment.

Afra was hoisting Uday’s carry basket onto her shoulders when I heard new voices in the canyons between us and the imperial camp. One male whined that the protection from earthquakes and falling rocks had best be good. Another cursed “that mad, thieving horse” and “that evil little dragon.” The soldier who had tried to stop Spots was coming to reclaim him. At least one mage came with him, as well as more soldiers. Did I not have enough trouble on my scales?

Afra started to lead Spots toward the stream that flowed away from the pond. I grabbed her arm and towed her toward the trail that we had used to come here.

“No,” she whispered, tugging her arm from my grip. “That goes toward the village.”

I took her arm again and pulled harder.

“They’ll kill me,” she snapped. She yanked free.

She would not trust any symbol for mage, even if she knew one. I knew no symbol for emperor. I quickly drew a picture of a crown.

She staggered as the ground shook and clung to Spots’ mane to keep her feet. “A king? Are you mad? We have no kings,” she said, “only an—Oh, no. No, no.” She shook her head, her eyes wild. “The emperor is the judge of all Carthak. He will return me to my master, if he doesn’t execute me for all I’ve stolen!”

We were out of time. The chief mage was the first of the villagers to top the orange stone rise. “Witch!” he cried, pointing. “Thief!”

I got in front of Afra and threw up my best shield as spears of yellow fire sped from his fingers right at her. They struck my power and flew straight into the air. I rose on my hind legs as the other two mages and the remaining villagers joined the chief mage. The dogs were nowhere to be seen. They must have fled for home like sensible creatures.

The mages’ Gifts shimmered and blazed around their hands, the chief mage’s brightest by far. I wriggled my hind feet, seeking good purchase. Then I summoned my own magic, letting it crackle like lightning over my scales. I was almost blind with the rage that comes from using too much power. In my fury, I meant to cook those annoying humans where they stood.

“Kitten!” I heard Daine cry, her voice shocked. “Bad girl!”

I looked over my shoulder and released my magic into the empty air. Daine stood behind me. She looked cross. She and Numair had come with the imperial soldiers I had heard. Numair held a protective shield of magic over all of them, keeping falling rocks from their heads back in the canyon. I could see its white sparks shimmer against its sheer black fire.

Daine looked at me, then at the villagers, her eyebrows knit in a frown. “Kit, you know better than to threaten humans. And I would like to know why these humans are threatening you and your friends!”

Numair surveyed all of us. “Your pardon, my dear, but the magical energies here are making my ears ring,” he said in his usual mild way. “Something very big is about to happen within these stones.”

That made my ears prick. Magic? Earthquakes weren’t magical.

“Perhaps we should all return to the emperor’s camp and finish this discussion?” Numair asked. “I am certain that Kitten did not adopt such a threatening posture without reason.” His Gift flowed out from him to enclose Afra, Uday, Spots, and me, but not the villagers. My foster father had seen we were under attack from them.

Afra started to raise her hand, her magic gathering around her fingers, but I grabbed her wrist. I was fairly certain that, even with her two-colored magic, she would get hurt if she tried to fight Numair.

She stared at me, her eyes wide with fear. “Is that the emperor?” she whispered.

Spots and I shook our heads.

“Stand away!” screamed the village’s chief mage. “This woman is a witch and a thief! She is ours to deal with! Call your monster off!”

Daine’s frown deepened. “Kit’s no more a monster than you,” she called back. “Though just now you’re looking fair monstrous to me.”

No one heard what the mage said next. The orange rock under him bucked and split. He and the other villagers were thrown, as I had been, into the pond. Chunks of rock dropped away from the orange stone. The villagers who escaped the pond tried to run down the canyon where the stream flowed, only to find boulders were blocking the way.

No one wanted to come near us. They stayed on the far side of the pond.

As more orange pieces rolled onto the open ground, darker stone was uncovered. The inner rock was brown, glassy stuff. Once most of the orange stone had fallen away, the brown stone began to jerk and rise. Its ridges shifted as larger, angled pieces appeared out of the mass of rock beyond our view. The assemblage of stone, oddly shaped, even sculpted, kept turning toward us. One piece set itself on the sand next to Daine and Numair.

I was looking at a lizard-like foreleg. It was made of a glossy brown stone filled with a multitude of different-colored fires that blazed in sheets, darts, and ripples under each stone scale.

The center section up above bent in a U as the dragon—it was a dragon—hauled its still-captive hindquarters from their stone casings under the earth. Then it had to pull its tail loose, the tail being trapped in a different section of rock. I saw the foreleg press up. With a roar of shattering stone, the dragon forced its upper body free, then its tail.

Raining gravel and powdered rock, the opal dragon turned. It brought its head around and down to our level, regarding us with glowing crimson eyes. Their pupils, slit just like mine, were the deep green of emeralds. Free now of its prison, it was not so big as I’d thought. Numair was six feet and six inches; the dragon stood that tall at the shoulder. Head to hip it was sixteen feet. The tail I could not measure. This dragon carried it in curled loops on its back. I noticed its other peculiarity right away as well: it had no wings.

It said something that flattened me. I squeaked, in my body or my mind, I don’t know which. I tried to meet its eyes. The dragon spoke again, using very different words and talking slowly. I shook my head in the hope that I could make my ears open up, but my ears were not the problem. The dragon spoke within my skull, expecting me to understand. The language was completely unfamiliar.

Daine raced over and picked me up. “Stop it!” she cried, glaring at the great creature. “She can’t understand you! She’s just a baby!”

I shook her off. I didn’t mean to, but I was trying to understand this being. Was it a relative of mine? Didn’t the dragon ancestors mention kindred of ours, dragons fashioned of stone, flame, and water, at the gathering I had attended when I was nine? I was busy playing with my cousins, but I had listened to some of the stories.

The dragon looked at Daine, then at me. It tried another series of sounds, gentler ones. I heard something familiar, Sleep, and called back with my own mind, Awake?

The dragon flashed a look at the village’s chief mage, who was trying to creep up on it. He shrank away, his hands blazing with his Gift. The dragon stretched its head out on its long neck and blew a puff of air straight at the mage. His Gift vanished from his hands. He gasped and plunged his hands into the pond.

The opal dragon looked at me and spoke within my mind, Child?

Dragon child, I thought to her. I knew this dragon was female. It was in the way that she said “child,” as if she had mothered several. She had loved them and scolded them, watched them grow, tended their hurts, and seen them leave in search of their own lives. Somehow I had learned all that just from the way she had thought that one word to me.

The dragon waved her forepaw at the humans around us. These? Tell.

I explained about Emperor Kaddar’s journey here. How I’d seen the boys stone Afra, and how Afra had led me to the cave in the rocks hidden by magic. I was almost to the end of how I’d tamed Afra with food when the dragon said, That is sufficient for me to learn your speech.

I stared at her.

It has been an age since I last heard the speech of my winged cousins. I had quite forgotten it. The opal dragon eyed the humans. Other things have changed as well. Some note in her voice was different. She was ready to talk to others. She asked, Have you pestiferous creatures gotten any wiser?

The villagers dropped to their knees, crying out or weeping. Their chief mage was the last to kneel. He quivered as if he could not help himself. Afra clung to Spots. I was so proud that she did not kneel.

Spots bared his teeth at the dragon. Try your luck against me, big lizard, he said. I have fought giants and steel-feathered Stormwings. I have faced Kitten’s family. No dragon, not even a stone one, will make me run.

So I see, the dragon replied.

Neither Daine nor Numair had budged, though the emperor’s soldiers were on their knees. My parents, like Spots, had met far larger dragons.

Numair stepped forward. “It depends on how you gauge such things, Great One,” he said quietly, answering her question about humans. “I have met foolish dragons and badgers with great wisdom.”

The dragon regarded him, then Daine. Mages have improved, she said.

“Would you favor us with an explanation?” Numair asked in his polite way. “We had no sense of you, or we would not have disturbed you.”

You did not disturb me, the opal dragon told him. She turned her crimson eyes to Afra. Nor did you, small mother. I layered my protective spells so that none of my kind, who had been plaguing me with questions and requests for ages, would find me. I wanted a nice, long nap. But I set the wards so that any mother or mother-to-be might find sanctuary behind my barriers. I welcomed you in my dreams.

She snaked her long neck around Afra to peer at Uday. A little uncertain, Afra half-turned so the dragon might get a better look at her son. And I am quite charmed by you, small human. Uday crowed in glee, as if he understood.

The dragon straightened so she could eye all of us again. It was this young dragon who caused my waking. When first she entered my barriers, I began to rouse myself from sleep, bringing down my old wards and cracking the shell that time had formed over me. It has been more than two thousand circles around the sun since her kind and mine have spoken. Moreover, she is so young. I feared that you two-legged creatures might have captured her. You have been known to do that.

Her gaze was so stern that the villagers, who had begun to rise, knelt again. The soldiers behind Numair and Daine quailed.

I am no captive! I told her. Daine and Numair—my mind added their images and voices to their names so the opal dragon would know them better—are my parents. They adopted me. My kin allow it. Daine tried to save my dragon mother’s life, and my mother left me with her. I have been managing very well among humans, thank you!

Now the beautiful creature looked down her long muzzle at me. In my day, infant dragons were not so forward, she said, her mind-voice crackling.

I am not like the infant dragons you knew, I replied. You said yourself it’s been more than two thousand years since you spoke with any dragons.

For a moment I thought I heard her sigh. She picked up a slab of orange stone that was three feet thick. My nap lasted far longer than I had intended. I was very bored, and tired.

You could come with us, I said. It wouldn’t be boring if you did.

“Kitten—Skysong—means that it wouldn’t be boring for her,” Numair said. “But surely, after such a nap, it is time you moved around a bit?”

“Numair!” Daine said, tugging on his sleeve. “The people in the city—well, people anywhere! If we have a dragon with us—a big one—if folk see her out and about …”

I slumped. I liked this dragon, for all that she was so much older and a snob. She was beautiful and funny. Daine was right, though. People screamed at the sight of me. What would they do if they saw her?

My children ceased to need me long before my nap. The time I showed you, young dragon, the time when these lands were green and the creatures were larger, was the last time I was happy. Somehow I could feel the dragon spoke to me alone. I cannot—would not—take you from these strange friends, or your two-legged “parents.” But I would be happy to come with you, if you would like.

I squeaked and ran at her and wound between her forelegs. The glassy stone of her body was cool and pliable. She looked at Daine and Numair. The skill of the dragon depends on the stone of our flesh, she said so that everyone could hear. We opal dragons are the mages of ideas, illusion, seeming, and invisibility. That is why my magical protections held for so long.

Suddenly I could feel her, but I could not see her. No one could. Then I could not even feel her. I cheeped, sending my magic out, searching for her. Just as suddenly as she had vanished, she appeared again, beside Afra and Spots. Afra jumped; Uday began to wail. Spots’ ears went back. The villagers decided it was time to run away.

“Now that’s fair wonderful,” Daine said with a smile. “You can hide in plain sight.” She looked at Afra. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“I’m—Afra. This is Uday,” Afra said, keeping an eye on the dragon. “Your little creature, there—she’s been looking after us.” She pointed to me, then Spots. “And the horse—he, too, has cared for us.”

“Kitten is the dragon,” Daine said, coming over to Afra. “Her ma named her Skysong, but she’s got to grow into it. Spots is the horse. He’s Numair’s. I see Kitten found some of my things for you to use. She’s a rare thief.” She hugged Afra’s shoulders, then looked at the dragon. “And your name, Great One?”

The opal dragon looked from Daine to me. Why does this child not speak to you mind-to-mind, as she does to me?

“She is too young. That’s what her family told us,” Daine replied. “It drives her half-mad. I think it’s the only thing she dislikes about living among humans. She needs to talk with us, and she can’t.”

The dragon—my ancestress? my kinswoman?—went to the rocky hollow that had once been her bed and began to sift through the stones, tossing most of them aside. I am Kawit, in the language of my people. Ah. Skysong, eat this.

She turned about and offered me one of her discarded scales. It sparkled in the sun.

But it’s too pretty to eat, I protested.

Eat it, Kawit ordered me.

I obeyed. Daine asked Kawit, “Will you teach me how you did that?”

The scale fizzed and tingled in my mouth, crunching among my teeth. Then it was gone.

I compliment you upon your raising of Skysong thus far, Veralidaine, Kawit said. She is a valiant young one who will do whatever she must to care for her friends. She nodded to Afra.

“How did you know my full name?” asked Daine, startled.

Because it is in all of me, I said. My mother put Daine’s name in all of me, so every dragon, god, and immortal would know who my new mother is. Kawit, would you tell her?

“Oh, my,” Daine said. She sat on a rock.

You have already told her, Kawit replied.

You hear me! I cried, and I ran to my mother. I jumped into her lap. You hear me! Now we can talk and I won’t have to make funny signs or noises! Daine hugged me close. Once we stopped saying private things to each other, I looked at Spots. Can you hear me, too?

As well as if you were one of the beast-People, he replied, nibbling on some weeds. I’m glad you are happy, but we managed perfectly well before.

But now I will understand your jokes. I only used to guess at them, I explained. I looked up at Numair. Papa, Afra has magic in two colors, and Uday in three. Afra needs someplace to be safe and well fed and not enslaved.

“Why are you telling my secrets?” Afra cried, looking around. She hadn’t noticed the villagers’ departure before this. Even the soldiers who had come with Numair and Daine had fled.

“She tells only us,” Numair said kindly. “And we are safe, because Daine and I are both mages. I wish Kitten had brought you to us sooner—”

“I suspect she wanted to look after Afra herself,” Daine told him. “Seeing as how we’d given her nothing to do.”

I felt myself turn pale yellow out of embarrassment. It was dreadful that my parents knew my mind so well.

She has something to do now, Kawit said. I know nothing of this new world. She may be my guide, and my friend. I hope she will be my friend.

I struggled to concentrate, so that only Kawit would hear my reply. I would love to be your friend, I said. If you don’t mind that I am very young.

I like it, Kawit told me. You make me feel younger.

Daine sat me down and went to Afra. “May I see your baby?” she asked. Slowly Afra turned so Daine could lift Uday from his carry basket. “I have two of my own, but they are with their grandparents,” Daine told Afra. “Please come with us. We’ll send the soldiers back for the rest of your things.” Holding Uday, she took Afra by one wrist and drew her toward the trail.

“But the dragon—Skysong—” Afra said, hesitating. “She drew a crown. The emperor is with you?”

“He’s a nice young man,” Numair said, coming to stand beside her. “Kitten said you have two-colored magic? How do you manage to keep one aspect from overpowering the other? My own, which is two colored, has always been integrated, as you see—” He showed her a ball of his black fire so she could look at the white sparkles in it.

Oh, no, I thought. If Numair starts to ask questions now, I will never get my own answered. Papa, when are we going home? I demanded, tugging on the leg of his breeches. He was already walking off with Daine and Afra. Spots trotted ahead of us. Kawit, come! Papa, did you fix the river? Mama, are the chickens going to be all right? Are you going to scold those mages for trying to kill us? Will you tell the soldiers to leave Spots with Kawit and me instead of tying him up all of the time?

That was just a start. I had a great many more things to say.