Jirana was with her mother, who’d been staying with Colfet more and more.
All of which meant that Xhinna was left to huddle under her blankets cursing the brilliance of her plan that had everyone in the camp warm and snug except her.
She thought of creeping over to R’ney, but the brown rider was exhausted from another day of surveying with Danirry on Tazith, performing the searches that Xhinna was still too weak to do herself. Xhinna was glad to see Danirry coming out of her shell around R’ney; clearly she felt safe with him, and the effect was that she was slowly recovering from her trauma, learning that some men, at least, could be trusted not to take advantage of her. But all that came at a price for R’ney: The brown rider had little free time in which to engage in his own interests. As it was, he spent all his spare time with Rowerth, oiling and feeding the brown, leaving him to the care of the queen weyrlings only when he had to be away. Xhinna thought that, as with Danirry, R’ney was putting his dragon’s needs entirely before his own, and she worried that the strain was beginning to tell. All of which meant that she couldn’t bother R’ney.
She shivered. She was just too fardling cold. She thought of crawling in with Jepara, apologizing but begging the very real need for warmth. No, she thought grumpily as she scrunched further down under her blankets, if the eggs could handle the cold sands on the beach, then she could—
“That’s it!” Xhinna cried, throwing off her covers and pulling on her robe. “R’ney, that’s it!”
Heedless of her earlier decision, she rushed over to where the brown rider slept. “R’ney, I’ve got it!”
R’ney, however, was not alone, and realizing that, Xhinna felt herself blush mightitly.
“What?” R’ney asked.
The body next to him quivered and a head popped out. Danirry. Her mouth made a big O of surprise when she caught sight of Xhinna, and she said, in a small voice, “I was cold.”
Xhinna smiled and clambered in on the other side of R’ney, elbowing him over to get into the warmest spot.
“Shards, you’re freezing!” he yelped when her foot connected with his.
“And so was that egg!” Xhinna said, grabbing for his pillow and laying her head on it, feeling warm and suddenly very satisfied.
“What egg?”
“The one of Coranth’s, the one that was dead,” Xhinna said, closing her eyes and letting the delicious warmth creep all over her. She could have kissed R’ney when he wrapped an arm around her and drew her closer. “The sands aren’t hot,” she explained as she snuggled happily against R’ney’s flat chest.
“And the eggs froze,” he said with awe and sorrow in his voice.
“ ’s right,” Xhinna said. “We’ll plan in the morning.”
And in moments, to R’ney’s amusement, the young wingleader was gently snoring.
“So what’s the plan?” R’ney asked as he nudged Xhinna awake at first light. “What do we need to build?”
Beyond him, Danirry murmured in her sleep, objecting to the distraction.
“Plan?” Xhinna asked sleepily, wondering if perhaps Danirry didn’t have the right of things and that they should wait to rise until the sun warmed them—and then she sat bolt upright. “The eggs—we need to keep them warm.”
“Oh,” R’ney said.
“The fire-lizard eggs had to be kept near a hearth, didn’t they?” Danirry asked, propping her head up on one arm.
“And the Hatching Grounds are always warm—hot even,” Xhinna said, remembering how she’d crept onto the sands so long ago in the vain hope of Impressing the queen egg that had held Fiona’s Talenth.
“But how did the eggs freeze?” Danirry asked. “The sands were so hot during the day.”
“During the day,” R’ney said. “But at night …” Without warning, he threw the blankets off all of them.
Xhinna screamed as loudly as Danirry at the sudden cold and slapped at R’ney, who gave her an unrepentant look. Danirry clawed for her blankets and pulled them over her, uncovering Xhinna’s feet.
“And it rained several times, too,” R’ney said.
“Don’t even think of getting water just to show us,” Xhinna growled.
“Of course not,” R’ney said as he rose from the bed, carefully tucking Danirry back in and kissing her cheek in apology. Sardonically, he told Xhinna, “I might freeze my wingleader, but I’ve grown out of wetting my own bed.”
Xhinna rose and found her slippers as R’ney wrapped her robe around her shoulders. Thrusting her arms gratefully into the sleeves, she smiled and then nodded toward the eating area.
“Why don’t you see if there’s warm klah and, if not, rouse the guards,” she said.
“I will if it’s really going to take you that long to get dressed,” R’ney said.
“It will.” Xhinna planned to wrap a large blanket around herself and change within its warmth. She missed the warmth of the Weyr, the comforts of a well-established kitchen, of walls to keep out the wind. Living in the trees had gotten beyond charming and had moved into seedy.
“When are you going to build us proper Weyrs?” she grumbled to R’ney. A large part of his surveying was dedicated to that problem.
“I’ve got your Skies—”
“My Skies?”
“The blues and the greens,” R’ney said. “They’ve taken to calling themselves ‘Skies.’ ”
Xhinna shook the word off, motioning for him to continue, determined to talk with Alimma or V’lex when she could. “So the ‘Skies’…?”
“The Skies are scouting for quarry sites as well as proper Hatching Grounds,” R’ney told her. “And W’vin and some of the others will ferry the first dozen herdbeasts to that island we found once they’ve caught them.”
“It’s a fair ways to go for food,” Xhinna complained, even as a rope twitched beside them and she began to pull it up. At the end was a large bucket holding a pitcher of warm klah, courtesy of the fire guards. She could smell the scent of baking rolls rising from the ovens. Xhinna leaned over and shouted into the darkness below, “When your relief arrives, come on up and join us!”
“Will do,” Bekka called back cheerfully. With Mirressa training with the blues, Xhinna had decided to turn vice into virtue and set Bekka and J’riz together on the dawn watch. After one or two groggy days, they learned to go to sleep earlier, finding bedding places on the branches not too far from the tops of the broom trees and waking in time for the last of the night and the first rays of morning. Bekka had even figured how they could see the Dawn Sisters, her personal talisman and guiding light. “They’re a lot like me,” Bekka had said when Xhinna had teased her about it. “They’re up with the sun, bright and shiny. Besides, they led Lorana here.”
Xhinna turned back to R’ney. “So, when you find the right sort of rock, what then?”
“Then we’ll start the foundation for our hold.”
“Not Weyr?”
“I suspect many of the dragons will sleep elsewhere,” R’ney said. “So I think it should be a hold.”
“And how big?”
“Well, we’ll need rooms for Bekka’s classes, storerooms, workrooms, a laundry room, a washroom with baths and the necessary, a kitchen, and a dormitory,” R’ney said. He shook his head. “We can’t afford to make individual quarters.”
“It seems extravagant, given that we’ll be leaving all this,” Xhinna said.
“Which is why we’re avoiding any unnecessary building, as much as we can,” R’ney said. “As we don’t have to worry about Thread, we’re planning on building awnings around the main structure. As we expand, we’ll put our quarters outside, do most of our cooking outside, and do our hardest work under canvas.”