T’rennor’s Kisorth blooded two kills and then was in the sky. Tazith took off after her and had the lead, but brown Jorth burst into the sky, gaining and overtaking Tazith with his stronger wings. J’per’s Ginoth appeared and also gave chase. Sarinth clawed her way high into the sky, bellowing taunts at the two browns and the blue below her. She dived on them, and the browns lumbered aside, but Tazith lurched in and caught her—and then another dragon wrapped paws around him, pulled him free, and threw him away.
Tazith cried more in frustration than in pain—the claws had been sheathed. He struggled to regain his position even as Sarinth cried a taunt at him, and the browns resumed the chase. Tazith bellowed in anger.
Why had J’keran’s Perinth interfered? It was not his flight, he should not—and then Ginoth caught the green Kisorth and Xhinna’s thoughts left her as the emotions of the mating swept over her and all the weyrfolk.
Come on back, Tazith, Xhinna thought to her blue. You were great!
Tazith, disgruntled, wearily began his flight back to the Weyr.
“Someone has been raiding our stores,” Javissa said later when she came to report on the stocks to Xhinna.
“Taria’s pregnant,” Xhinna said. “They probably came to feed their dragons and took what else they needed.”
“So?”
“We’ll let it pass,” Xhinna said. “This means at least that they’re alive and surviving.” She had a haunting image of a gaunt, pale Taria dressed in rags, her belly distended with child and hunger. “I’d prefer they take what they need from us, rather than starve.”
“But without their hunting, we’ve as many mouths to feed but two fewer to provide,” Javissa said.
“We’ll make do,” Xhinna told her peremptorily. “Anyway, you forget Alimma and the others.”
“You’re right, we’ve twelve new mouths to feed—five hatchlings and seven humans, when you include Aressil and Jasser.”
“Seven new workers, then,” Xhinna said.
“You leave Danirry here with me,” Javissa said with sudden ferocity. “She’s too thin to work hard and needs to eat more.”
Xhinna grinned at the change in the woman’s demeanor. “I can’t keep her here by herself,” she said, “or she’ll feel singled out and the others will think she’s privileged.”
“Well … then give me Mirressa, too,” Javissa said. “She’s got more meat on her, but she also needs a mother’s touch.”
“I’ll let you have them for a sevenday, then we’ll rotate,” Xhinna offered. “I’ll take Aressil.”
“And do what with her?”
“I thought that she might help R’ney with his wild schemes.”
“She’d be good at that,” Javissa agreed. “And we’ve got to find a place for those eggs—a good one—before Sarinth lays them.”
“Yes,” Xhinna said with a tone of forbearance. She smiled at Javissa. “Anything else, Mother?”
“You’re to stay here in the Weyr,” Javissa said. “And keep Jirana by you at all times, or Bekka will confine you back to quarters.”
Xhinna fumed at that restriction; she’d planned to go to the old sands and then to the burnt plateau to talk with R’ney.
“Don’t go fractious on me, child,” Javissa said, “I’ve had it all with J’riz and now Jirana.” She shook her head. “Don’t think, wingleader and all, that you can get anything by me, or that I won’t tan your bottom if you do.”
“Tazith might have something to say about that,” Xhinna replied softly, taking Javissa’s threat with a grain of salt.
“He’s a smart dragon,” Javissa said thoughtfully. “He’d probably catch you and hold you down until I was done.”
You should listen to her, Tazith said.
“Well,” Xhinna said, knowing when to make the best of a situation, “if I’m here, then maybe Danirry and Mirressa won’t feel singled out.”
“Then it’s settled.”
“But certain headwomen should think twice before taking on airs,” Xhinna warned.
A smile grew on Javissa’s face and her eyes twinkled devilishly. “And what makes you think I didn’t?”
The downside of the arrangement turned out to be proximity to Danirry. The blue rider followed Xhinna around like a lovesick child. Mirressa was only slightly less difficult. She was so biddable that Xhinna could not imagine her ever saying “no” to anyone. Friendliness and loyalty were one thing, downright subservience was entirely another, and Xhinna started planning on how to help Mirressa into a more healthy relationship with the others around her—before someone like J’keran plied her with drink and addled her wits.
The worst of it with Danirry was that Xhinna couldn’t quite settle her own feelings about the new rider. Her sense told her that at some point, Danirry would feel compelled to become her lover, that she might grow out of it in the future—the other woman was still too traumatized to consider relationships anything but fleeting. Xhinna suspected that part of Danirry’s recovery involved her first being attracted by Xhinna and her position of power, and then pulling away as she became her own person and owner of her heart, body, and spirit.
Thin and small as Danirry was from malnourishment, Xhinna thought she looked like a younger version of herself—or Taria. Hence the attraction and also the fear.
Xhinna had known when she’d first accepted this group of women that she was treading a difficult path. Being known as the first weyrlings of a green’s clutch and the first fighting riders to train under a female wingleader, they would be judged, their every failure seen as a sign that even if women might ride dragons, they could not lead dragons against Thread. And the judgments upon them would fall tenfold upon Xhinna.
“Good enough with those others have trained,” she could imagine the older riders saying of her, “but not really up for it where it counts.” They’d nod knowingly and one would say, “Aye, a gold or even a green is a woman’s mount. A blue’s unnatural.”
These women, under her leadership, would prove them wrong—and it was up to her to make it so, whatever the price.
So, what was the right price to pay for Danirry’s self-esteem?
And how much of this is about her and how much about me? Xhinna asked herself harshly. She began to see how easy it would be to abuse her power, to convince herself that she was only acting in the interests of the Weyr.
These were the sorts of questions she usually brought to Taria. Together they would talk them over for hours until by some strange fusion of words and gestures, they would arrive at an unspoken conclusion.
So what would Taria say? Xhinna wondered as she asked Rowerth to have R’ney come meet her. The answer came to her instantly: She would say I love you; you will do what’s right.
That was her old Taria. What would the new one say?
When R’ney arrived, Danirry had attached herself to Xhinna as her official supporter and stabilizer. Bekka, the mischievious fool, had actually had the gall to tell Danirry to make sure Xhinna was all right, a charge the young woman took on with near ecstatic dedication. She’d even helped Xhinna to the necessary, a ploy that the wingleader had adopted both out of need and hope that perhaps Danirry’s poorly hidden ardor would abate when she realized that her wingleader was human—and female—after all.