‘Shut up, Rapskal!’ she snarled at him, proving him very wrong. She stormed off into the darkness, leaving them both gawking after her. Behind her, she heard Tats berating Rapskal and his protests of innocence. Rapskal? Even Rapskal? Hot tears squeezed from her eyes and left salt tracks on her lightly-scaled cheeks. Her face burned. Was she blushing? Could she still blush or was it the flush of anger?

She’d been blind to all of it. Blind and stupid and trusting, simple as a child. It was so mortifying. She’d had some doltish idea that because she secretly cared for Tats, he felt the same for her. She’d known she was condemned by what she was to leading a life bereft of human passion. Had she believed that he would deny himself simply because he knew he couldn’t have her? Idiot.

And Rapskal? She was suddenly outraged in so many ways she almost choked. How could Jerd do that with simple, unassuming Rapskal? Somehow what she had led him to do spoiled him for Thymara. His sassy optimism and endless good nature seemed something else now. She thought suddenly of how he slept beside her each night, sometimes warm against her back. She had thought it a childish affection. Now a squeak of indignation escaped her. What had he been dreaming on those nights? What did the others think of their closeness? Did they imagine that she and Rapskal were tangling their bodies at night as Jerd and Greft did?

Did Tats think such a thing of her?

A fresh wave of outrage flooded her. She looked at the fire and knew, despite her wet clothes and empty belly, she would not join her fellows there tonight. Nor would she allow Rapskal to sleep anywhere near her. She whirled about suddenly and went back to her beached boat. She’d take her blanket and sleep near Sintara tonight. Not that she cared about the stupid dragon any more, but even as uncaring as Sintara was, she was better than her so-called friends. At least she made her lack of feelings about Thymara obvious.

In her absence, Tarman had been driven up onto the shore beside the beached boats. The barge watched her with sympathetic eyes as she angrily pulled her blanket from her pack and took out her stored supply of dried meat. She didn’t want to share a meal with anyone tonight. The temptation of hot food suddenly threatened her resolution. She glanced at Tarman and wondered if Leftrin would allow her aboard to warm herself at the galley stove and perhaps have a hot cup of tea? She ventured closer, looking up at the ship. The captain was strict in maintaining his authority on his deck. None of the keepers boarded without an express invitation. Perhaps she might obtain one from Alise? She hadn’t had much chance for conversation with her since their mishap.

As the thought crossed her mind, she saw the silhouette of a man lower himself over the bow railing and climb awkwardly down the ship’s ladder to the shore. He was thin and did not move like any of the crew members she knew. He stumbled as he stepped away from the ladder and swore softly. She knew him.

‘Sedric!’ she exclaimed in surprise. ‘I had heard you were very ill. I’m surprised to see you. Are you better now?’ Privately she thought that a silly question. The man looked terrible, gaunt and ravaged. His lovely clothes hung on him, and she could smell that he had not washed himself.

The man turned towards her with a shuffling step very different from the grace she recalled. He looked irritated to see her, but replied anyway. ‘Better? No, Thymara, not better. But soon perhaps I shall be.’ His voice sounded thick as if his throat were very dry. She wondered if he were slightly drunk, then rebuked herself for thinking such a thing. He had been very ill; that was all.

As he turned away from her without any farewell, she saw that he carried a heavy wooden case. That burden was what had made him awkward on the ladder. He walked leaning to one side as if it were almost too heavy for him. She nearly ran after him to offer to help him with it, but she stopped herself. Surely a man would be humiliated for her to see how weakened he was. Best leave him alone and let him manage.

She set off to find Sintara among the dragons. Her bedroll bounced on her back as she walked. After three steps, she unslung it and carried it clutched to her chest. The rasp on her arm was scabbed over and healing fast, but the long scratch down the top half of her spine didn’t seem to be healing at all. Elsewhere, her scales had mostly protected her from Mercor’s teeth, but there they had given way. Sylve had first noticed it, when she insisted that Thymara take off her shirt so that she could bandage her arm. ‘What is this?’ the girl had asked her.

‘What is what?’ Thymara had asked her, shivering still.

‘This,’ Sylve said, and touched a spot between her shoulder blades. The touch hurt, as if she had prodded an abscess. ‘It’s like you cut it and it closed. When did this happen?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m going to let it drain,’ Sylve said, and before Thymara could forbid it, the girl had flicked away the edge of a scab. She’d felt warm liquid trickle down her back and turned to see Sylve’s expression of distaste as she dabbed at it. But the scaled girl had spoken no word of disgust as she prodded it and then poured clean water over it and bandaged it. It should have begun to heal. But the cut festered and was swollen and sore and sometimes oozing in the morning. She had nothing to treat it with, and no desire to expose her lizard body to anyone’s scrutiny. It would heal, she told herself stubbornly. She always healed. It was just taking longer this time. And hurting more.

The hunters had not fared well today. She smelled no meat, only river fish cooking on the fire. Once, she had enjoyed fish and regarded it as a rare treat. Now, even as hungry as she felt, she decided her dry meat would be enough.

The dragons were disappointed, too. Several of the big males were roaming the mud spit in a disgruntled way. Ranculos waded in the shallows, as if he might be able to discover more food there. On plentiful nights, the dragons often gathered around the fire with their keepers. They all enjoyed the warmth. But tonight the beasts were hungry and more scattered.

It would have been hard to find Sintara in the dark if Thymara had used only her eyes. But all she had to do was grope along the unwelcome connection she felt to the queen dragon. Sintara was at the downriver spike of the sandbar, staring back the way they had come.

And she wasn’t alone. As Thymara approached, she could hear Alise’s voice raised in gentle reproach. ‘You sent her right into that, deliberately, with no preparation. Of course it was upsetting to her. I wouldn’t want to stumble onto such a scene without warning. She has a sensitive nature, Sintara. I think you should have more care for her feelings.’

‘She can ill afford to be “sensitive”,’ the dragon replied scathingly.

Thymara halted, straining to hear what else they might say about her. She was becoming quite an accomplished eavesdropper, she thought to herself sourly.

‘She is already tough and strong.’ Alise boldly contradicted the dragon. ‘Coarsening her spirit will not make her a better person. Only a harsher one. I think it would be a shame for that to happen to her.’

‘It would be more of a shame for her to continue as she is – meek, bound by rules that she did not make, always holding in her words. Among dragons and Elderlings, we know that every female is a queen, free to make her own choices and follow her own wishes. This is something Thymara must learn if she is to go on serving me.’

‘Serving you!’ Alise spluttered. ‘Is that how you see it? That she is your servant?’

She had come a long way, Thymara thought, from those days when her every word to Sintara was framed as a flowery compliment. Now it seemed to her that she spoke to the dragon almost woman to woman. She wondered if Alise had changed that much. Or perhaps it was Sintara, confident enough of them to no longer bother exerting her glamour. Thymara grinned to hear Alise defend her, but an instant later, the woman paid the price.