NINETEEN
A Flame in the Void
“Xhinna.”
The voice that woke her was quiet and male. J’riz. Xhinna’s nose twitched as the scent of warm klah wafted her way.
“Shh,” she said, nodding toward sleeping Taria and the bumps that were various children. She shooed him out of the room as she slipped out from under the covers in what she hoped was a deft and draft-free move.
“Ugh!” Taria muttered, accompanied by various anxious sounds from the babies. She popped open a bleary eye as Xhinna turned back toward her, her expression full of apology, and closed it again with an accepting nod.
Relieved, Xhinna crept out of their room, took the mug of klah from J’riz with a thankful nod, and sent him off on the rest of his morning rounds.
She dressed quickly and made her way over to the Healer’s Quarters to find Mirressa already there, talking anxiously to Bekka.
“I can’t watch after the babies and you both, Mirressa,” Bekka was grumbling as Xhinna entered. “You’ll have to get Aressil or Javissa—”
“But—” Mirressa protested.
“Actually,” Xhinna interposed smoothly, “I’ve already arranged with Fiona.”
Mirressa’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and she started to protest, but Xhinna cut her off. “It’s not as though she doesn’t owe us, after all.”
“But—”
“You, in particular,” Xhinna cut across the green rider’s incipient objection.
“She’s right, and you know it,” Bekka said. She smiled at the green rider, adding, “And why do you think she’s used you so unmercifully to sit her brood if she didn’t intend return payment?”
Mirressa’s objections died on her lips as she digested Bekka’s words.
“And it’s not as if she won’t pester my mother or Aressil or Colfet or any one of a dozen others to help at it,” J’riz added with a grin.
“He’s right,” Xhinna said to the green rider. “Now, come on, we’ve got work to do.”
“It’s still dark out,” Mirressa said.
“It’s lightening, and we’ve got to catch the Dawn Sisters over Eastern, not here,” Xhinna reminded her.
Mirressa sucked her lower lip worriedly.
“Go on!” Bekka said, shooing both of them out of her office. “There’s firestone waiting at the top of the trees.”
Xhinna looked at her in surprise.
“I made the boy get it,” Bekka said, nodding toward J’riz, who tried his best to look put upon. With any other person, J’riz’s brilliant green eyes and miserable look would have at least won an “Ahhh!” of sympathy, but Bekka merely swatted him on the arm. “Guide them up—I don’t need their broken necks to deal with on top of everything else.”
“As you say, Weyrwoman,” J’riz returned with a low and overly obsequious bow. Bekka snarled at him and he took off like a wounded Meeyu, Xhinna and Mirressa trailing behind, neither of them taken in by the act.
At the top of the broom trees the weather was less forgiving and as the morning breeze picked up, moist with the threat of later rain, Xhinna was glad that she’d chosen her warmest riding gear.
She and Mirressa picked up their firestone sacks, waved farewell to J’riz, and called their dragons to them.
“We’re going to Eastern first,” Xhinna said just before they mounted. “We’ll fly straight to the near coast to warm up, then between to Eastern’s far coast. When we get there, we’ll do a quick check with Lorana and then go up to the Dawn Sisters.”
Mirressa nodded. Xhinna leaned forward to pat her on the arm. “Are you ready?”
Mirressa took a deep breath. “Yes.”
The flight between the islands was a good thirty minutes and in that time the night brightened considerably.
As Xhinna had hoped, the dawn and the Dawn Sisters were still a short ways off the Eastern Isle’s east coast when the two dragons emerged from between. Xhinna had them slowly circle to recover from the cold and then contacted Lorana, who arrived on Talenth and gave them the image of their destination. And then, each taking a deep gulp of air, Xhinna and Mirressa took their dragons between.
Eastern Isle lay far below. The gleaming shapes of the three brilliant spacefaring ships that so many Turns before had brought humankind to Pern floated nearby as silent sentinels to the dawn they followed.
Xhinna urged Tazith closer to Mirressa and her Valcanth, caught the green rider’s attention, and received her assurance that she was all right. Satisfied, Xhinna turned first to peer at the nearest ship and then looked down at the beautiful blue-and-green orb that was their home.
Mirressa says she can see High Reaches Tip, Tazith relayed. Xhinna bent over the other side of his neck to crane down. Spotting the dark smudge that was the far tip of the Northern Continent—home—she waved back to Mirressa in agreement. Then she returned to the other side, studying the terrain below and glancing about for any sign of Thread.
It’s time. Talenth’s voice was clear, and Xhinna knew that all the dragonriders could hear it.
The next group? Xhinna asked. As if in answer, another pair of dragons—Alimma’s blue Amanth and Aliyal’s green Leyanth—popped into sight. They were surrounded by a thin nimbus—the air that Lorana had said they’d bring with them.
Alimma waved. Xhinna waved back, gestured to Mirressa, and then ordered Tazith to return.
Back once more above Eastern, Mirressa laughed and waved to Xhinna and Lorana both.
She says that wasn’t too bad, Tazith relayed.
Tell her she can go back, Xhinna said. I’m going to stay on.
Mirressa waved in acknowledgment, and then she and her green Valcanth were gone between. Instinctively, Xhinna checked with Bekka to be sure that dragon and rider had returned safely.
She’s making breakfast, came the relayed reply, devoid of any intonation from having passed through two different dragon minds. Xhinna smiled.
Cliova and J’valin appeared and dutifully relieved Alimma and Aliyal; just as quickly, they were relieved by R’ney and Taria, and so on until the entire wing had been up to the Dawn Sisters.
By then the dawn had moved back to the Western Isle, and Xhinna and Lorana had moved with it.
Avarra and her wing arrived in time to take up the sunward chase just as Jepara insisted that Lorana take a break. Xhinna could see the reluctance in the older woman’s eyes, but Jepara wouldn’t back down and at last Lorana relented.
“She’s really quite dedicated,” Xhinna said as she and Lorana made their way into the Kitchen Hall. Seeing the look in the older woman’s eyes, she added with a chuckle, “And you’re keeping an eye on things anyway.”
“I was,” Lorana admitted, placing a couple of warm rolls beside the redfruit on her plate. “She’s got the images just right, so I’ll not worry.”
“That is, until the next queen takes over,” Xhinna guessed. Lorana admitted as much with a twitch of her shoulders. Xhinna gestured toward the table where Mirressa and some others of her wing were seated. “Would you like to join us?”
Lorana acceded, and shortly they were joined by Weyrwoman Fiona and Weyrleader K’dan. The large table filled up as R’ney, Danirry, Cliova, Alimma, Aliyal, and the others all returned.
It was Mirressa who said it best, her shining eyes trained on Lorana: “Thank you! I have never seen anything so amazing!”
“It’s nice to see what we’re fighting for, isn’t it?” Fiona commented.