Around her, the canopy of the rainforest rustled and bustled with life. Leaves stirred in the wind. Iridescent insects crawled on bark or flew from twig to leaf. The subtle-coloured lizards and the jewel-toned frogs basked or crawled or simply sat still, pulsing with life. All the living beauty of her forest home surrounded her. Thymara looked out past her curved toenails to the shadowed distance of the swamp that floored her world. She could not see the ground. In the thicker, safer branches below them, the sturdy homes of wealthy people clustered, offering their yellow window light to the gathering night. That, too, was a sort of living beauty.

She had tried to imagine living somewhere else, some city where the houses were built on the ground and the bright hot sunlight touched the earth. A place where the ground was hard and dry, and people grew crops in the earth and rode on horses to travel instead of poling a raft or boat. Bingtown, perhaps, where people kept huge animals to pull wheeled carts for them, and no proper lady would think of climbing a tree let alone spending most of her life in one. Thymara thought of that fabled city and imagined running away to it, but as swiftly as her smile came at the thought, it faded away. Rain Wilders seldom visited Bingtown. Even those of them who were not marked strongly by the Wilds knew that their appearances would attract stares. If Thymara ever went there, she'd have to go cloaked and veiled at all times. Even so, people would stare at her and wonder what she looked like beneath her shrouds. No. That would not be a life to dream about. Strong as her imagination was, Thymara still could not imagine a beautiful or even an ordinary face and body for herself. She had sighed.

And then, it seemed to her, she had simply leaned forward too far. She remembered that first moment with an odd kind of ecstasy. She had spread out her limbs to the wind's rush past her, and almost, almost recalled flying. But then the first branch slapped her face stingingly, and then another thicker branch slammed into her midsection. She curled around it, gasping for air, but flipped past a hold and fell, back first, onto the next lower branch. It caught her across the small of her back, and she would have screamed if she'd had air in her lungs. The branch gave and then sprang up, flinging her into the air.

Instinct saved her life. Her next plummet was through a swathe of finer branches. She clutched at them, hand and foot, as she passed through them, and they sagged down with her, giving her grasping hands time to clamp tight on them. There she clung, mindless but alive, gasping and then panting, and finally weeping hopelessly. She was too frightened to seek for a better hold, too frightened to open her eyes and look for help or open her mouth and cry out.

A lifetime later, her father had found her. He had roped up to reach her, and when finally he could touch her, he had tied her body to his, and then painstakingly cut the thin branches that she would not let go of. Even when they no longer served any purpose, she had held tight to those handfuls of twigs, and continued to clutch them until she fell asleep that night.

At dawn her father had woken her and taken her with him for the day's gathering. That day and every day after, she was always with him. She thought on that now and a chill question rose in her. Had he done so because he thought she had tried to kill herself? Or because he thought her mother had pushed her?

Had her mother pushed her?

She tried to recall that moment before the fall. Had a touch from behind given her momentum? Or only her own despair drawing her down? She couldn't decide. She blinked her eyes and ceased trying to recall the truth. The truth didn't matter. It was a thing that had happened to her, years ago. Let it go.

She felt the branches of her perch give and smelled her father's pipe as he ventured out to join her. She spoke without looking at him. 'Has she said any more about the offer for me?'

'No. But I visited down branch, and Gedder and Sindy asked me what decision you had made. I had suspected your mother would brag to Sindy before she had even spoken to you and me about it. The offer is a bad one, Thymara. It's not for you, and I'm angry that your mother even considered you for it. It's more than dirty and hard; it's dangerous to the point of no return.' Her father was scowling and his words came faster with his cascading anger. 'I'm sure you've heard talk. The Rain Wilds Council has long been weary of pouring resources into feeding the dragons. Tintaglia ceased keeping her end of the bargain long ago, and yet here we are, paying taxes to hire hunters or, worse, bring in sheep and cattle to keep the dragons fed. There is no end in sight to it, either, for all have heard tales of the longevity of dragons and it is obvious to all that these dragons will never be able to feed themselves. When Selden of the Khuprus and Vestrit Traders was present, he kept the Council soothed by promising them that Tintaglia and her new mate must eventually come and help with the problem. And he bullied them a bit by saying that if they neglected the dragons or were deliberately cruel to them, Tintaglia would certainly be angered. Well, Selden has been called away to Bingtown. The Elderlings Reyn and Malta Khuprus have spoken out on the dragons' behalf, but they are not as persuasive as young Selden. The entire city is tired of living with a horde of hungry dragons nearby, and who can blame them?

'But for the first time, the Council heard proposals for dealing with the situation. It was a closed session, but no door is so tight that rumours cannot escape it. One angry member of the Council said that the dragons have no future and that it would be kinder to put them out of their misery. No sooner had Trader Polsk spoken than Trader Lorek rose to denounce him and say that he but hoped to salvage the dragon corpses and sell them off. There have been rumours of the Duke of Chalced offering enormous sums of money for a whole dragon, alive or pickled, it was all one to him, and lesser sums for any part of a dragon. It is well known that Polsk's affairs have suffered lately and that he might be tempted by such offers. There are rumours that already one dragon was lured away from the herd and slaughtered for trophies. All that is known for certain is that one dragon disappeared in the night. One member of the Rain Wild Council claims it was done by Chalcedean spies; others suspect their fellows, but most think the pathetic creature wandered off and died. So Polsk repeated that the dragons seemed in such poor condition that it would be mercy to kill them.

'Trader Lorek asked him if he did not fear that Tintaglia might visit the same sort of "mercy" on Trehaug. So then another Council member pointed out that we have had offers from wealthy nobles and even cities hoping to buy dragons. Surely, he said, that was better and more sensible than killing valuable creatures. They proposed sending out notices to those considered most likely to be able to purchase a dragon, advertising the colours and genders available and rewarding the highest bidders with the dragons of their choosing.

'Dujia, the woman who advises the Council on matters relating to the Tattooed, stood up angrily to protest that. She is among those who can hear the dragons, and so she spoke out strongly saying that creatures that can think and speak as the dragons do are not animals to be sold on an auction block. A few of the other Traders who dispute that the dragons are anything but animals said that she was taking the matter too seriously, that creatures that can only communicate with some people rather than everyone should not be treated as if they are equal to humans. And then, of course, the arguments degenerated. Some demanded to know if that meant speakers of foreign languages were not full humans. Someone else quipped that surely that explained Chalcedeans. That, from what I was told, at least broke the tension, and people began to discuss all sorts of possible solutions to the dragon problem.'