They hurried to get into the air again, fighting time. The laden clouds that had piled up north of the Cleft had escaped, over or around the mountain barrier at the Cleft, and flooded the south half of the Vales. They were an ominous, flat-bottomed expanse heavy with promised snow.
“We shall have to go low and slow getting home. Thank your egg—sorry, figure of speech—thank your mother we’re at the river. All we have to do is follow it home.”
They took off into snow.
It was slow going, against the wind, and even Vithleen tired on this final lap. Her wings seemed to need to gather themselves between each beat. Or perhaps she just had to put more effort into it with the wind and snow in her face. Both flew with their eyes scrunched up, not seeing much but snow and the lakeshore.
“If it gets much worse we shall land,” Vithleen said. “I have to see the lake. Too many cliffs to risk it.”
“You’re the one who has to cope with it.”
“Again? Your words . . . I’m just not getting them.”
“Your decision!”
She’d seen far worse storms, from the safety of the Lodge, fortunately. The blowing snow confused everything. She wondered how much daylight was left; all she could do was guess at the location of the sun. Ileth kept watching the shoreline, looking for landmarks.
A flat cliff loomed up in their path. Vithleen didn’t seem to be turning; perhaps she wanted to fly close to it so the snow wouldn’t be in her face for a few moments, but—
“Vithleen!”
Ileth yanked her dragon whistle out of her bracing vest and shoved the cold metal end in her mouth.
TWEEEEEEE!
The dragon startled, tipped her wings, and closed the left one a little so it just brushed the cliff with an audible scrape.
“I’m more tired than I thought,” Vithleen said. “I was lost in fatigue.” She rattled her griff hard and shook her head. “I’m glad one of us was paying attention. Good for us we’re close. That’s Heartbreak Cliff.”
They were well over the Skylake, almost home.
She had heard more than one girl in the Manor talk dramatically about leaping off Heartbreak Cliff when discussing their (mostly imaginary) romantic successes and failures, but as far as she knew no one had actually done so; it was just a silly expression. This was the first Ileth had seen of it except as a distant break on the horizon at the south end of the Skylake. Had Vithleen struck it head-on it might have been changed to the Dragonbreak. Ileth’s first viewing had nearly been her last!
Plowed her dragon into Heartbreak Cliff on her first flight, they’d be saying years from now, retelling old stories of lost dragoneers. Imagine the wild stories that would grow up around that! Ileth giggled. The illness and fatigue and the close call must be making her mad . . .
The wing-brush with disaster gave Vithleen energy, it seemed; she lengthened her neck and the pace of her wingbeats picked up. She put on a little more altitude. Ileth made out a lighter spot in the snow; it must be the glow of the lighthouse atop the Beehive. Home.
In another moment or two they were over the forested stretch of land south of Vyenn, the trees looking odd and foreshortened from above, and then at last they saw the lighthouse atop the Beehive. Its light, though blazing brightly as ever, was next to useless in a snowstorm. The Serpentine looked vast and strange with snow on it, seen from above Vyenn.
Vithleen didn’t want to risk a landing at the Beehive end of the Long Bridge, it seemed, because she swung around over the up end of the Serpentine. Ileth made out the little red door where she’d sat, what seemed like years ago now. It looked like a piece of a dollhouse.
After surveying the landscape, the dragon set down on the main gravel path, crunching snow and gravel as she came in with the Pillar Rocks looming just ahead. Snow made the Beehive beyond an immense, gray shadow.
“Stars, it’s good to be home,” Vithleen said, folding her wings. She stretched like a cat, low in front, which made Ileth’s dismount (she remembered even in her illness and exhaustion to use the off side) easier.
A member of the Guard in a heavy gray coat with a decorative pip on his fore-and-aft-rigged cap ran up to her. He held his hat on with the storm. Ileth didn’t recognize him.
Ileth used the words she’d been rehearsing since they’d left the Antonine Falls.
“Novice Ileth, reporting with mail,” she said, saluting as she’d seen the Guards at the fortress in Asposis do. She had no idea if that was the proper form, but it seemed to suffice.
“Thank you . . . novice?” the officer of the watch said, peering at her keenly. His eyes widened as he finally put the face together with the strange, snow-covered flying rig. “At changeover they said there was a mix-up with Vithleen and to keep an eye out for her coming in from any direction, but . . . a novice?”
“May I see to m-my dragon, sir?” Ileth asked.
“Certainly,” he said, snapping into formalities with ease. He directed another apprentice pulling guard duty to take the satchel to the Master in Charge.
“Look after your dragon, dra—er, novice,” he said.
It was fun to trip someone else’s tongue up!
She realized he was waiting for another salute. “Yes, sir,” she said, bringing her hand up again.
“I thought there was something amiss,” Vithleen said, as they walked toward the Beehive. “So you’re just a novice?”
“I was directed to you. I think someone wrote the wrong name down someplace. Or nobody recognized me in this getup.”
“It looks like, oh, what is his name? I have a hard time keeping track of humans. The tall one, Catherix’s man. His old getup.”
“The Borderlander, we call him.”
“I doubt anyone’s mistaking you for him. He’s twice your size.”
“Not that much!”
“I’m too tired to argue,” she said. She huffed out a snort. “Why does it feel so much colder on the ground? Ugh, let’s hurry. You rode me; you can get this saddle off and put some salve on if we ever make it to the warming room.”
The warming room would have to wait, though. She was told upon entering the Beehive that Master Caseen wanted to see her as soon as she returned. A team of grooms under a wingman she didn’t know by name came up to take care of Vithleen.
She reminded them to use plenty of salve.
For once, Master Caseen did not seem aggravated by her. He was amused. But not right off. When she was summoned to his office he stood up and placed his fists on his desk.
“Ileth, I am beginning to be of the opinion that I have to hold your hand or things go wing-over and tail first. Every time you walk out of my office and I can finally have my supper, you seem to get in trouble before it’s even digested properly.”
She felt her mouth go dry. Vithleen had promised she’d give a good account of their flight, but there was no way for that to reach the Master’s ears yet. “Am I . . . am I—”
“No, your name is still not crossed off the ledger,” Caseen chuckled, dropping the blood-and-thunder face. “We had a good laugh about it, imagining what must have been going through your mind when you set down in the Cleft. We figured Vithleen would return for a new rider and set out the next day.”
Ileth massaged her sore fingers. “She wanted to hurry a-a-along her route, I-I think. She didn’t like the look of the weather to the—to the north.”