“I’ve got the Sight, Grandfather,” Jirana said in a voice mixed with pride and terror. “I got it early because the need was great.”
“You did, did you?” Azeez asked. “And what did you see, little one?”
“I saw you here,” she said in a slightly defensive tone. Her voice dropped as she added, “And I saw other things that I can’t talk about yet.”
“That’s hard, little one,” Azeez said, scooping her head with his big hand and pulling it against his shoulder comfortingly. “That’s hard.”
Jirana pushed back against his hand so she could look up into his eyes. “Not all of it. I’m going to get a queen and her name will be Laspanth and she’ll be the best queen on all Pern.”
“Well, that does sound nice,” Azeez admitted. “Your father always said that there was good with the bad.”
“And I don’t die until I’m really, really old,” Jirana said. In a smaller voice, she added, “It’s not so bad, don’t worry.”
“How many Turns have you now?” Azeez asked, slipping her away from him to examine her face carefully. “You should only have seven, but you look—”
“I have ten!” Jirana exclaimed. “I’m just small for my age.” She smiled at him. “I’m going to be the youngest ever to Impress a queen.”
“Why are you here, little one?” Azeez asked. He glanced beyond her to Xhinna, still perched on Tazith with the four girls from Crom.
“To Search,” Jirana told him, sounding surprised that he hadn’t guessed. “We’re here for—”
“Me!” a boy’s voice cried. A boy slightly taller than Jirana raced into view. “Me, pick me, have the dragon pick me, Jirana!” He paused as he caught sight of her. “What happened to you? You’re so big!”
“I’ve ten Turns now,” Jirana told him proudly. “So I’m older than you.” She shook her head as she continued, “And it’s not you, anyway, it’s—”
“Me!” the boy cried again. “I know it is.”
“Jasser—” Azeez began.
“It’s me,” Jasser insisted. “I know it.” He looked up accusingly at Jirana. “You came back for me, you know it.”
“Jasser!” a girl’s voice cried. “Mother says if you’re not back this instant—”
“Aliyal, it’s Jirana! She’s come back and she’s older—she’s come back because she loves me!”
“I do not!” Jirana said, squirming out of her grandfather’s arms and turning to stand in front of the boy. “You’ve got red hair and no trader’s got that.”
“Jirana!” Azeez growled.
“I wouldn’t say anything bad about red hair,” Xhinna called warningly.
“Aliyal, we came for you! We ride in Search,” Jirana said, dodging around Jasser and racing to leap into the arms of a young willowy teen whose red hair shone even in the gloom.
She is the one, Tazith confirmed.
“Green Coranth has clutched and we need Candidates,” Jirana told the teen, gesturing to the women on Tazith’s neck. “There’ll be blues and greens, mostly.”
“Search?” Aliyal repeated in surprise. “But—the greens?”
“Or blues,” Xhinna said from her perch on Tazith.
Aliyal’s face broke into a huge, hopeful smile as she turned to Azeez and said, “Oh, could I?”
I can carry eight—they’re small, Tazith told Xhinna.
Only seven, Xhinna told him, surprised that he’d got the number wrong; he was usually spot on with such things. Tazith flicked his wings from his sides and ruffled up a light dust from the ground below.
“Mother, can I go, too?” Jasser spoke up. “You know Aliyal will need me.”
A woman came bustling out of the dray and stopped suddenly, taking in the tableau of dragon, riders, and Jirana. “Oh!”
“Aressil—” Azeez began consolingly.
“Is this what you want, child?” the dark-haired woman asked, glancing at her daughter with Jirana still in her arms. “You’re of age—it’s your decision.”
“Don’t go without me!” Jasser cried. “You need me to comb your hair.”
“I can comb her hair,” Jirana snipped.
Jasser stuck his tongue out at her. “You’ll get it all tangled.”
“Jasser, I need you here,” Aressil said, moving toward the boy.
“I won’t stay,” Jasser declared, pulling away from his mother. “I’ll run away and find her, you know I will.”
“You’re not coming,” Jirana said. “I didn’t see you.”
“That’s because you’re blind!” Jasser shot back. “If you saw Aliyal, then you must know I’d be there. I can’t leave her: She needs me.”
Xhinna glanced at the mother and saw from Aressil’s expression that, as she’d guessed, the reverse was probably true and it was Jasser who needed his sister more.
Aressil moved closer to Tazith, looking up at Xhinna and asking wistfully, “There isn’t room for two more, is there?”
“Oh,” Jirana said with sudden insight, glancing up at Aressil. “You don’t want to lose them both.”
From their perch on Tazith, the Crom girls heard the entire conversation.
“If we left our things, could Tazith carry them all?” Mirressa suddenly asked.
Yes, the blue told Xhinna. He must have answered Mirressa directly, for the girl quickly unfastened her carisak from its straps and threw it to the ground.
“My stuff isn’t as important to me as her children must be to her,” Mirressa said. Alimma sighed, and two other carisaks fell to the ground a moment later.
Tazith warbled in a tone that Xhinna recognized as amusement, even as it startled the others. Their things are light; I can manage.
“Aressil, you can come with us,” Xhinna called. “We’ll make room.” To the girls she said, “Tazith says that he can manage the carisaks, too—they’re light enough.” To Azeez, she added, “Could you hand them back?”
And so it was arranged, the carisaks returned along with two hastily assembled light carisaks for Aressil and Aliyal, even as Jirana complained, “But that’s not what I saw!”
“You don’t see everything, you know,” Jasser taunted from his place behind her. Xhinna had put the lightest in the front to ease the burden on Tazith’s shoulder muscles. The straps were strained, and her position was awkward with her legs spread wide.
Tazith took a long run before pushing himself up into the air and, with only two beats of his wings, took them between.
NINE
A Knife in the Dark
“They’ve barely next to nothing,” Taria complained the night that Xhinna returned with her Candidates. “And that little one—she really has seventeen Turns? She looks like she won’t last a sevenday.”
“She’ll do fine, Tazith said so,” Xhinna told her comfortingly, working hard to maintain a calm and even tone. Taria had made her annoyance with the new weyrfolk obvious in the disdainful look with which she greeted them—her expression made it obvious that, as far as she was concerned, they were all girls, there weren’t enough of them, and they seemed so woebegone—and things had gone downhill from there. “And we’ll make up what they lack from our stores or our own supplies. I’m pretty sure some of my older clothes will fit them easily.”
“You don’t have any old clothes—you left them all at Eastern,” Taria snapped.
“J’keran has volunteered—”
“J’keran?” Taria interrupted. “He isn’t going to time it, is he?”
Xhinna was momentarily taken aback by Taria’s sharp reaction. Finally, she said, “I think he’s already gone, along with W’vin and V’lex.”