She kicked her hind feet experimentally, but felt no contact. Her smaller forelegs scrabbled uselessly at air. Her folded wing was partially pinned under her. She struggled, trying to use her wing to roll herself over, but the muscles did not answer her. Finally it was her lashing tail that propelled her onto her belly. She scrabbled to get her hind legs under her and then to surge upright. Sticky clay covered half her body. Anger fought with shame that any of her fellows had seen her in such a distressing position. She shuddered her hide, trying to rid it of the clinging mud as she glared all around herself.

Only  two other dragons had looked her way. As she recovered her footing and stared menacingly at them, they lost interest in her and diverted to another sprawled figure on the ground. That dragon had ceased moving. For a brief time the twain regarded him quizzically and then, comfortable that he was dead, they bent their heads to the feast. Sintara took two steps toward them and then halted, confused. Her instincts bade her go and feed. There was meat there, meat that could make her stronger, and in the meat there were memories. If she devoured him, she would gain strength for her body and the priceless experiences of a different dragon's lineage. She could not be dissuaded because she herself had come so close to being that meat. All the more reason to feed and grow stronger.

It was the right of the strong to feed on the weaker.

But which was she?

She lurched a step on her unevenly muscled legs, and then halted. She willed her wings to open. Only the good one unfurled. She felt the other twitch. She turned her head on her long neck, thinking to groom her wing into a better position. She stared. That was her wing, that stunted thing? It looked like a hairless deer hide draped over a winter-kill's bones. It was not a dragon's wing. It would never take her weight, never lift her in flight. She nudged at it with her nose, scarcely believing it could be part of her body. Her warm breath touched the flimsy, useless thing. She drew her nose back from it, horrified at the wrongness of it. Her mind spun, trying to make sense of it. She was Sintara, a dragon, a queen dragon, born to rule the skies. This deformity could not be a part of her. She riffled through her memories, pushing back and back, trying to find some thought, some recall of an ancestor who had had to deal with a disaster such as this. There were none.

She looked again at the two feasters. Little was left of the weakling who had died. Some red glazed ribs, a sodden pile of entrails, and a section of tail. The weak had gone to sustain the strong. One of the feeding dragons became aware of her. He lifted his bloody red muzzle to bare his teeth and arch his crimson neck. 'Ranculos!' he named himself, and with his name, he threatened her. His silver eyes seemed to shoot sparks at her.

She should have withdrawn. She was crippled, a weakling. But the way he bared his teeth at her woke something in her. He had no right to challenge her. None at all. 'Sintara!' she hissed back at him. 'Sintara!'

She took a step toward him and the remains of the carcass, and then a gust of wind slapped against her back. She spun about, lowering her head defensively, but it was Tintaglia returning, laden with new meat. The doe she dropped landed almost at Sintara's feet. It was a very fresh kill, its eyes still clear and brown, and the blood still running from the deep wounds on its back. Sintara forgot Ranculos and the pitiful remains he guarded. She sprang toward the fallen doe.

She had once more forgotten her uneven strength. She landed badly but this time, she caught herself in a crouch before she fell. With a lunge, she spread her forelegs over the kill. 'Sintara!' she hissed. She hunched over the dead doe and roared a warning to any who would challenge her. It came out shrill and squawkish. Another humiliation. No matter. She had the meat, she and no other. She bent her head and savaged the doe, tearing angrily at its soft belly. Blood, meat and intestines filled her jaws, comforting her. She clamped down on the carcass and worried it, as if to kill it again. When the flesh tore free, she threw her head back and gulped the mouthful down. Meat and blood. She lowered her head and tore another mouthful free. She fed. She would live.

Day the 1st of the Greening Moon

Year the 7th of the Reign of the Most Noble and Magnificent

Satrap Cosgo

Year the 1st of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown to Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

Detozi,

Please release a flock of at least twenty-five of my birds even if you currently have no messages for them to carry. 'Message traffic to Trehaug was so heavy with Traders anxious to say they will attend the dragon-hatch that my flocks are sorely depleted of carriers. Erek

CHAPTER THREE

An Advantageous Offer

'Alise. You have a guest.'

Alise lifted her eyes slowly. Her sketching charcoal hovered over the heavy paper on her desk. 'Now?' she asked reluctantly.

Her mother sighed. 'Yes. Now. As in the "now" that I have been telling you to expect all day. You knew that Hest Finbok was coming. You have known it since his last visit, last week at this same hour. Alise, his courtship honours you and our family. You should always receive him graciously. Yet whenever he calls, I have to come and ferret you out of hiding. I wish you would remember that when a young man comes to call on you, it is only polite to treat him respectfully.'

Alise set down her charcoal. Her mother winced as she wiped her smudged fingers clean on a dainty kerchief embroidered with Sevian lace. It was a tiny act of vindictiveness. The kerchief had been a gift from Hest. 'Not to mention that we must all remember that he is my only suitor, and therefore my only chance of wedding.' Her comment was almost too soft for her mother to hear. With a sigh, she added, 'I'm coming, Mother. And I will be gracious.'

Her mother was silent for a moment. 'That is wise of you,' she said finally, adding in a voice that was cool but still gentle, 'I am relieved to see that you have finally stopped sulking.'

Alise could not tell if her mother was stating something she believed was true or was demanding that she accede to a dictation of deportment. She closed her eyes for an instant. Today, to the north, in the depths of the Rain Wilds, the dragons were emerging from their cases. Well, she amended to herself, today was the day appointed by Tintaglia for the leaves and debris to be swept away from them, so that the sunlight might touch them and stir them to wakefulness. Perhaps even now, as she sat at her tidy little desk in her pale room, surrounded by her tattered scrolls and feeble efforts at notes and sketching, dragons were tearing and shouldering their way out of the cocoons.

For a moment, she could imagine the whole scene: the verdant riverbank warmed by summer sunshine, the brilliantly-hued dragons trumpeting joyously as they emerged into daylight. The Rain Wild Traders were probably heralding the hatching with all sorts of festivities. She imagined a dais decorated with garlands of exotic flowers. There would be speeches of welcome to the emerging dragons, song and feasting. No doubt each dragon would parade before the dais, be joyously introduced, and then would open wide its glittering wings and lift off into the sky. These would be the first dragons to hatch in Sa knew how many years. Dragons had come back into the world . . . and here she was, trapped in Bingtown, shackled to a docile existence and subject to a courtship that baffled and annoyed her.

Disappointment suddenly smothered her. She had dreamed of making the trip to witness the dragons' hatching since she had first heard of the serpents encasing themselves. Alise had begged it of her father, and when he had said it might be improper for her to travel on her own, she had flattered and bribed her younger brother's wife until she had persuaded Alise's younger brother to promise to accompany her. She had secretly sold off items from her hope chest to amass the passage money she needed and pretended to her parents that she had been saving from the small monthly allowance they gave her. The precious billet for the trip was still wedged in the corner of her vanity mirror. For weeks, she had seen it every day, a stiff rectangle of cream-coloured paper scribbled over with a clerk's spidery handwriting attesting that she had paid full price for two round trips. That bit of paper had represented a promise to herself. It had meant that she would see what she had read of; she would witness an event that would, that must change the course of history. She would sketch the scene and she would write of it authoritatively, tying all she witnessed to her years of scholarly research. Then everyone would have to recognize her knowledge and ability and concede that although she might be self-educated on the matter she was certainly far more than an eccentric old maid obsessed with dragons and their Elderling companions. She was a scholar.