Toreth started a bit at that, but said nothing. Kiron held his tongue as well. But the rest of the meal was eaten in a peculiar silence—not uncomfortable, but awkward. The boys were not sure what they were going to hear, but they were fairly sure it wasn’t something that went well with mild flirtation. Which, Kiron thought, was surprisingly perceptive of them. But it seemed as though when they were prevented from flirting, they—or Oset-re and Gan at least—didn’t know what else to say to her.
In a way, Kiron could sympathize. The things they normally chattered about—the dragonets, the plans for training—didn’t fit in with the usual definition of “polite conversation around a young lady.” They had no way of knowing that such things would be as interesting to Aket-ten as any of the boys around the table.
Not that Kiron had any experience with “polite conversation around a young lady.” He hadn’t the breeding or the family background, so he decided that he wasn’t even going to try coming up with witty repartee. He’d just talk to Aket-ten, like he would talk to anyone else, like the two of them had talked when she was still with the Healers.
So he and Toreth filled the void. Toreth passed on news from outside, and he reported what he had learned from the older Jousters about how the fighting was going. There actually wasn’t much Jousting going on, not with those storms continuing to keep Tian dragons out of the sky. So instead of Jousting, the Altan dragon riders were acting as scouts, and disrupting the Tian camps by means of a number of clever attacks. For instance, setting fire to the wagon-loads of fodder for the chariot horses not only frightened the horses and even ran some off the picket lines, but made it necessary to send for more fodder or try and find grazing. And dropping jars full of deadly black scorpions and poisonous adders into the camps was more than just a disruption. For the first time in years, in fact, the Tian lines had been pushed back. Several small villages had been retaken, and the Tians who had arrogantly moved in had fled in confusion. Kiron’s only complaint was that at least half the credit for the recent string of victories had to go to the Magi, who kept Tian dragons grounded. Eventually, Aket-ten—looking as if she wished to stay—excused herself, saying she had to supervise the servants setting up her things.
Between them, Toreth and Kiron probably could have kept that particular conversation going all night. But there were, of course, chores to be done, dragonets to be settled into sleep, before they could gather in Aket-ten’s new quarters. Of all of them, Kiron had perhaps the lightest duty; the babies needed a last extra feeding to sustain them in their sleep, and they were growing so fast that they all had to have their sensitive skin rubbed with oily cloths before they went to sleep, or they might scratch too hard and damage themselves. Avatre needed nothing more than a little extra grooming, and to be told what a glorious dragon she was and that Kiron would be back soon. She settled into her sand with a sigh of pure pleasure, and was fast asleep in moments as the moon rose over the walls of the compound.
So he was the first to present himself at the door to Aket-ten’s courtyard. It hardly merited the title; it couldn’t have been more than fifteen paces in length or width, and boasted a tiny, square pool with a few latas, a single fish, and a square stone box in which a small acacia tree grew, scenting the night air with its blossoms. There was only one bench; Aket-ten was setting out pillows even as he arrived, and lighting lamps and torches around the walls. Somehow he felt relieved that she was not bringing them into any of those rooms. He helped her with the latter, allowing her to go back into one of the rooms for more cushions.
There were no mosaics adorning the pool, only the plainest of white tiles; there were no paintings on the walls. It had, after all, been a courtyard shared by a dozen servants, all crammed on pallets into three of the four rooms around it—the fourth room being the bathing room, of course. But Aket-ten seemed completely pleased with her new domain.
“Are you all right here?” he asked doubtfully.
“I feel safer here than at home,” she replied, “And I wouldn’t trust living with the Fledglings now no matter what the senior Winged Ones promised me.” She sighed, and sat down on a cushion at the edge of the pool, trailing her fingers in the water. “I don’t trust them anymore; I can’t. I think they would give me over to the Magi in a heartbeat. I couldn’t stay with the Healers either; I was in the way. They were quite polite about it, but I was an inconvenience at best, and I didn’t have a great deal in common with them. Healers are—very passionate about what they do, and I just didn’t share that passion. Here I’m at least useful.”
“I believe you would find a way to be useful no matter where you were,” said Toreth, coming in on the end of the statement. “I should warn you, though, Lord Khumun will have our heads if we stay too long here, tonight or any other night.”
“I’ll chase you out before you get yourselves into trouble,” she replied, as the rest straggled in. “I have duties of my own, too—ones I might as well tell you now, because it answers my brother’s question.” She looked around at everyone but Kiron. “No, I did not lose my powers—which were Animal Speech, the Silent Speech with a fellow Winged One, and the Far-Seeing Eye. I did not have the Seer’s Eye, which imparts a view of the future; I did seem to have it at first, but it was the Far-Seeing eye, not the ability to look into the future. I disappointed my teachers in that regard. Frankly—given how things have turned out—I think I am just as glad.”
“Why?” Gan asked, choosing a flat cushion of woven reeds for himself.
“Because I think if I had possessed the Seer’s Eye—no matter how far I went, the Magi would have come looking for me.” She shivered. “I am far less of a threat to them without it—”
“A threat?” her brother gaped at her.
“I’ll get to that in a moment.” She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes for a moment. “First, you should all know that one of my agreed-upon duties here is that I will be employing the Far-Seeing Eye privately for the benefit of Lord Khumun and the Jousters, and I will do so around dawn, because the Winged Ones are occupied with the Dawn Rites then. Which is why I will be getting up just as early as all of you. They do not know that I never lost my powers. I do not wish them to know this, for they would tell the Magi. Lord Khumun knows because Kiron and my father trust him, and he has no love at all for the Magi.”
Gan rubbed the bridge of his nose; he had completely lost his usual air of languid boredom. “So Lord Khumun knows the truth about you. Who else, besides your father and Kiron?”
“The Healers at the Temple of All Gods, which is where I was hiding, rather than going to my aunt,” she said immediately, as Orest continued to gape at her. “You know about the Magi and why I fled, then?”
Toreth nodded. “I think half of us do. My brother is trying to find out exactly what they’re doing with the Fledglings—” he began. She held up her hand.
“Wait a moment, and let me explain to the rest.” Briefly she outlined what had happened to her, and what the Magi had been doing with the rest of the Fledglings. Kiron volunteered what he had witnessed—the Fledglings being taken away looking like sleepwalkers, and returning looking utterly exhausted. “But as for finding out what is going on inside the Tower of Wisdom, don’t bother—I can tell you. The Magi are stealing some form of power from us—from the Fledglings—to fuel the spell that sends the storms down on Tia.” She smiled grimly at their nods; by this time none of them was surprised, and she didn’t look as if she had expected any of them to be so. “Here is what you don’t yet know; when the last chance of sending rain is over, they do not intend to stop.”