Тодд Маккефри: Dragonheart

“ . . . he’s so demanding, always saying, ‘Do it three times, then you’ll know!’ ” she exclaimed, shaking her head and suddenly wishing she hadn’t. The room started spinning. Zenor was instantly at her side, deftly removing the glass from her hand and steadying her, offering her a drink from a glass of water and talking soothingly all the while.

When she recovered, she shrugged off Zenor’s suggestion that she get some rest. She had to tell him something, she was certain, but she couldn’t think what. It took him a while to realize that something was troubling her but the moment he did, he peered directly into her eyes and asked her quietly, “Are you in love with him?”

“Kindan?” Fiona asked in response. “Or T’mar?”

“Or both?”

“A Lady Holder doesn’t — ” Fiona responded instantly, her face set in a frown.

“A Weyrwoman can, ” Zenor told her kindly.

“But he has Lorana!” Fiona objected.

“And you would never come between him and the one he loves,” Zenor observed respectfully. “But you don’t have to tear your heart apart to save his, no more than you have to avoid kissing T’mar.”

“Why would I want to kiss T’mar?” Fiona had asked, suddenly feeling very tired and very confused.

“I wouldn’t know,” Zenor admitted with a slight shake of his head. He rubbed the back of his neck wearily. “Perhaps I was seeing things where they weren’t.” He gestured to Terin. “I think we should get her to a proper bed before she gets a crick in her neck.”

Fiona turned to gaze down at her friend, stroking her dark hair fondly. “She is such a good one.”

“She is at that,” Zenor agreed, rising as he extended an arm toward Fiona. With some effort, she found her feet and helped Terin to hers, and somehow they found their bed and slipped into it.

It was no surprise to Fiona to find that she had slept in her clothes, nor that Terin’s breath was foul. She suspected hers was just as bad and turned her head away to spare the young headwoman from it.

They returned to the Weyr much later than Fiona had expected, both somewhat relieved and somewhat subdued by their night’s festivities, seen off by a weary Zenor and a warm and wakeful Nuella.

“Don’t forget that you have a home here,” Nuella said, hugging each of them in turn.

“Next time, we’ll let you change the baby,” Zenor added with a grin.

“Deal,” Terin replied, rubbing her temples wearily, “as long as you don’t serve us any wine.”

“You might think now that you’ll never drink again,” Zenor warned her. “But I suspect you’ll be wrong.”

“Oh,” Terin replied, “I might drink again. Just never that much.”

Now, as Talenth was challenged by the watch dragon, Fiona felt a sense of relief to be back at Igen. Her questions and worries were not all resolved, but she felt certain that they would not overwhelm her.

T’mar greeted them with a mixture of relief and concern: glad to have them back but worried about their demeanor. “I take it you were not served Benden white.”

“How did you guess?” Terin wondered.

“You wouldn’t have such awful hangovers this late in the day,” T’mar replied with a humorous snort.

“Silstra was told that she wasn’t serving the Weyrwoman,” Terin replied, glancing over to Fiona with a grin.

“I’m glad to hear that,” T’mar said. “I’d hate to think that the Weyrwoman of Igen was being served second-class wine.”

“The Weyrwoman of Igen is not sure she wants to be served any wine for a long time,” Fiona told him.

“I understand,” T’mar said with feeling. “All the same, I’m glad that you two had some time to yourselves, away from all this . . .” He gestured to the gathering riders, groping for the right word.

“Maleness?” Fiona suggested.

“I was going for exuberance,” T’mar said, “but I think you’ve got the better word for it.” He paused a moment before adding solicitously, “Is it a great strain for you two?”

“Being the only women who came from our time?” Fiona asked in clarification. At T’mar’s reluctant nod, she continued, “Yes, it is. A strain and a temptation, too.”

T’mar sighed. “I was afraid that it would come to that at some point.”

“But do you think that you could have managed without us?”

T’mar pondered the question for only a moment before shaking his head resolutely. “No.”

“So,” Fiona continued, “that being the case, we shall just have to persevere, shan’t we?”

“You’re old enough, and Talenth is old enough, that you two could go back to Fort Weyr — ”

“Oh, no!” Fiona cut across him. “I’m Igen’s Weyrwoman, wingleader, and I will stay until we all go back!”

Wisely, T’mar said nothing in reply.

But if T’mar said nothing, he made up for it in his actions over the next several months. There wasn’t a day when the dragonriders weren’t drilling: flaming or practicing formations or practicing formations and flaming or practicing formations, flaming, and going between all at the same time. He drove everyone to exhaustion. Tempers flared, but no blows were exchanged until the beginning of the third month since Fiona’s visit to the wherhold.

Fiona and Terin, for their part, had found themselves often at the Wherhold — one of them was there at least one night every sevenday. Terin and Fiona both had experience changing Nalla’s diapers, feeding her, and wiping spittle and other bodily fluids off of her and themselves when things went wrong. Partly this was a consequence of Terin’s insistence that they provide Nuella and Zenor with time to themselves. Privately, Fiona was pretty certain that Zenor and Nuella had no lack of volunteers from among the remaining holders — after all, for all their humility, they were the Lord and Lady of the wherhold, and even if they found it strange, the rest of the holders from Silstra on down felt it not only their duty but their honor to treat them with the respect and deference that would be given any Lord Holder.

Terin’s services were more than simple repayment of a kindness: They were part of a trade she’d arranged with Zenor and Nuella — to help her find and fashion a suitable gold ring. Terin kept silent on her intent with the ring, but Fiona was willing to bet, in the silence of her mind at least, that the ring would be sized to fit a young man’s hand — probably that of a certain bronze rider. So it was a double shock when the riders returned that evening to land in the Weyr Bowl to see F’jian leap from his bronze Ladirth, race over to J’gerd’s brown Winurth, and bodily drag the brown rider down to the ground.

“How dare you!” F’jian shouted as he slammed J’gerd to the ground.

From her seat on the queen’s ledge beside Fiona, Terin let out a shriek.

“Hold!” Fiona cried, her voice echoing loudly around the Weyr, her power of command surging as she reached out to Talenth and, in an instant, stilled both riders and dragons as though they’d been frozen in the wastes.

T’mar raced over to the two as they stood grappled but unmoving, cast a mixed look of admiration and — fear? — toward Fiona, then gestured for her to release them.

Fiona did nothing of the sort, instead racing from her perch on her ledge to stand beside T’mar, gazing at the two riders as they stood breathing raggedly, fighting against her control.

Let them go, a voice urged her. Fiona glanced around in surprise for the source and found no one — all eyes were locked on the two riders. With a hiss, she released her hold on the two even as J’keran and J’nos reached for the two riders and drew them apart.