“Sirenfal!” Linsha cried. She dove off the brass’s shoulder and swam to the head that floated in the water. She prodded and patted the dragon’s nose and rubbed her forehead, but there was no response. The dragon’s light eyes were half-open; they appeared dim and cloudy. There were no bubbles coming from her nostrils.

I’m sorry, came the softest whisper in Linsha’s mind-followed only by silence and an emptiness that tore at Linsha’s heart. The world rocked.

“No!” Linsha screamed. She beat at the dragon’s head with her fist, flailed at the water, and bellowed her rage at the absent gods. “No! Not again! I’ve had it! I can’t lose any more! Do you hear me? Stop it! Stop it! I can’t take any more of this!”

The grief she had kept inside for so many friends suddenly came boiling out in a raging, uncontrolled paroxysm of emotion she vented to the cruelty of the gods in a screaming fit that lasted until she was hoarse. Finally her screams dissolved into deep, wracking sobs. She cried for what seemed uncounted hours, purging the grief she had locked away for Sir Morrec, Sir Remmik, the Knights of the Citadel, the Legionnaires who had been her friends, Captain Mariana, General Dockett and the militia, the centaurs, the people of Scorpion Wadi, Afec, and especially Iyesta and Sirenfal. She thought she had handled the deaths so well, keeping them closed in a dark chest in her mind, staying cold and professional while she needed to be. But this loss of another friend, another dragon, was more than her will power could control. She held onto the dead dragon’s neck and poured her tears into the uncaring sea until she was drained and exhausted.

Callista sat on the dead dragon’s back and stared open-mouthed at her. After a while, when Linsha’s sobs had eased to exhausted, hiccupping spasms, the courtesan gritted her teeth and eased into the water. Holding on to the dragon’s neck ridges, she pulled herself along the neck until she reached Linsha’s side and gently took her arm. She pulled Linsha back to the dragon’s body and helped her climb up out of the water. Both women were chilled and soaked, and they huddled together to stay warm until the wind dried their clothes. Callista gave Linsha the last sips of water from the water bag.

Linsha felt drained and weaker than a kitten. With Callista’s help, she lay down on Sirenfal’s upper wing vane and fell fast into a deep slumber. She slept through the rest of the afternoon, the evening, and well into the night.

She was still deep in sleep when a familiar voice drew her out into a dream.

Linsha, my beautiful one. Come talk to me.

She twisted her head around and saw him standing on the water near the dragon’s wing. Starlight filled his form with pale light and glittered in his blue eyes. He saw her eyes open and gave her his roguish grin.

That’s good. Come out of your sleep. You have cried your tears for all of us, but now you must look to yourself.

“I didn’t cry for you,” she said. “Good gods, Ian! Why do you keep coming to pester me?”

He tried to look affronted but it didn’t work on his spectral face. Pester you? I believe I warned you the last time and helped save your life.

She snorted at him, not willing to admit he was right. “So how do you manage to visit me? I thought Takhisis had all the souls of the dead under her control or something like that.”

Something like that, he agreed.

“Does she know you come to visit a Solamnic Knight?”

Her mind is busy elsewhere.

Linsha slowly pushed herself upright and looked at Ian Durne’s ghost hovering close to Sirenfal’s shoulder. “What do you want this time? I know about Lanther now-and surely there are no draconians out here.”

Green Eyes, don’t you ever appreciate me? He grinned, charming and handsome even beyond the grave.

Her eyes suddenly narrowed as a thought occurred to her. “Tell me, sir knight, did you know Lord Bight was a dragon?”

He laughed. Not until he bit my head off. If I had known that, I would, not have gone after him with just a sword.

“Do you know where he is now?”

Do you mean is he dead? No. Do I know exactly where he is at this moment? No.

Linsha put her head back down and closed her eyes to hide the sudden surge of relief. “Fine. If you’re not going to be any help, you may leave.”

Something cold like mist trailed over her face, and she opened her eyes again to see Ian hovering very close to her. His features were clear and sharp as crystal in the starlight and the look on his face was sad.

I did love you in my own way, he told her softly. But there is another who is far more worthy of you. Stay alive for him. Watch out for the sharks.

Sharks? The word jabbed through Linsha on a shaft of fear. She bolted upright just as Ian’s spirit faded into the night breeze. “Ian, wait!” she called, too late.

Beside her, on Sirenfal’s other wing, Callista jerked awake. “Linsha? Who are you shouting at?”

Dazed, Linsha stared around her and realized that Ian was gone-if he had even been there. She was awake now, trembling in the chilly night, and wishing she were still asleep. Even talking to Ian in a dream was better than sitting on a sinking corpse in a vast sea while her body ached from hunger and her throat burned with thirst. She studied the sea around her hoping to see a dark mass of land, the white phosphorescence in breaking waves on a beach, or even the lights from a ship. All she saw was a tint of light on the eastern horizon foretelling the rising of the sun.

“Ian said to watch out for sharks,” she said.

“Who is Ian and how could he be talking to you now?” the courtesan asked.

Linsha shook her head to clear the cobwebs in her thoughts. “Ian is a better friend as a ghost than he was as a man. I don’t know. Maybe he’s just a phantom of my dreams. But he has a point. Sirenfal’s body will draw predators. We need to be higher.”

“She’s also sinking,” Callista said, a note of fear in her voice. “I don’t know how she stayed afloat this long, but I can see her body is deeper in the water.”

They crept off the wing vanes and sat together on the highest point of Sirenfal’s back, waiting for dawn. They were lucky in one thing-the sea was calm and the sky was clear.

When the sun rose, Linsha saw indeed that the dragon’s body was slowly sinking. Her head and neck were under water and the waves lapped up her sides almost to Linsha’s feet. Dismayed, Linsha racked her brains for a plan, for a course of action, for something that would help. What would she do with Callista when the dragon finally sank? The courtesan said she couldn’t swim, and Linsha knew she could not hold up the younger woman for long.

A shark fin sliced through the water near Sirenfal’s head and vanished underwater before Linsha could cry out.

She heard a sharp intake of breath and Callista’s hand grabbed her arm. “Did you see that?” the courtesan hissed.

They both felt a sharp tug on the corpse. A dark shape flashed by followed by a second and third. Something swirled the water near the dragon’s submerged tail, and Linsha turned to see two more triangular fins cut through the waves close behind.

“They’re all around us!” Callista cried, close to panic.

The corpse twitched and rocked a little as the sharks tugged on the scale-covered flesh. Blood swirled in the water.

And blood, Linsha knew, would attract more sharks. Anger roiled in her mind. She had to sit helplessly by while these beasts of the sea tore the dragon apart. In time they would probably kill her and Callista as well. This was not the way she wanted to die. She had survived wars and battles and duels, plagues and invasions, wounds and spells. Was she to die now in the teeth of some mindless creature that felt nothing but hunger? She would never know what, happened to Crucible or Varia, never see her parents again, never fulfill her vow to save the brass eggs. This was not right! There had to be something she could do to get herself and Callista out of this mess.