Тодд Маккефри: Dragonheart

“We will visit you,” Azeez replied, his expression strangely smug. “Tenniz has seen it.”

Fiona found her lips curving upward in the first happy expression she’d had in a sevenday. “I’ll look forward to it!”

She gave him one final hug and turned away, racing toward Talenth.

At her orders, wing by wing, the healed dragons and riders of Fort Weyr rose and took their positions above the Star Stones, ready to return to their future, their duty, and their fate.

Fiona spared a moment for one final wave to the traders, then took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and told her queen, Let’s go, Talenth!

Above the Star Stones, the dragons blinked between, leaving only the wind and stars to guard the silent, empty Weyr.

Fort Weyr, AL 508.2.2

“We’re here,” Fiona said calmly to Terin perched in front of her as they burst into the skies above Fort Weyr. She signaled to T’mar and the bronze leader spread the word to the rest of the flight. Wing by wing the recovered convalescents of Fort Weyr and the now full-grown weyrlings wheeled and made a triumphant descent into the Weyr Bowl to be greeted by the startled and gleeful cries of their weyrmates. From the Kitchen Cavern a stream of riders and weyrfolk rushed out to greet them, their voices rising and carrying clearly from the Bowl into the air around Fiona.

She waited quietly as she watched K’lior rush to T’mar and grab him in a gleeful bear hug, saw the bronze wingleader give his report, saw K’lior’s reaction as he noticed T’mar’s bone-weariness, stifled a similar twinge of her own, and saw the riders and dragons disperse to their weyrs to rest up and recover from the strangeness of their three-Turn sojourn.

“There’s Xhinna!” Terin called over her shoulder, pointing down to a forlorn figure coming from Fiona’s weyr and scanning the skies above her anxiously. “Wait until she finds out I’m as old as she is!”

Fiona twitched at the words and the worries they aroused in her. Xhinna was a distant memory, a treasured friend buried in a mountain of moments they had not and would never share.

Fiona was suddenly aware that Terin had turned her head to face her. “What is it?”

Fiona shook her head slowly, unable to find the words. Somehow, Terin guessed; she looked into Fiona’s eyes and told her, “No matter what the future, you will always be the Weyrwoman to me!”

Fiona smiled gratefully and, buoyed by those words, took Talenth down, back to her Weyr — and her home.

I am very pleased once more to acknowledge Shelly Shapiro, ace editor at Del Rey, for her patience, encouragement, perseverance, and grit. I would also like to acknowledge, also once again, the marvelous Martha Trachtenberg for her brilliant copyediting. I would like to thank Judith Welsh, my editor at Transworld, for her keen insights and constant encouragement.

Donald Maass has been my literary agent since the very beginning, when he put me through a grueling two-hour phone interview when I first considered writing Dragonsblood. He continues to hold me to everhigher standards.

Of course, none of this would be possible without Mum: Anne McCaffrey — love you!

Needless to say, any errors, omissions, or just strange ol’ words are mine, all mine, and no one else’s.