She cocked her head and looked at him. ‘It is as you said. I have a different perspective. But if I tell you what I foresee, you may not like the answer.’

‘I’m ready to hear it,’ he assured her, wondering if he was.

She gazed over the gathered keepers and across the river. On the far side, he could just make out both dragons through the falling rain and mist. Ranculos had emerged far downstream of Sestican but was working his way along the riverbank. Sestican was a small blue figure making his slow way up one of the city’s main streets. To the dragon baths, Tats suspected. Soaking in hot water was almost all the earthbound dragons spoke of any more. He let his gaze wander to the dragons on the near shore. They stared with longing. Mercor’s neck was stretched toward Kelsingra as if sheer will could lift him there. Silver Spit and squat Relpda stood to one side, heads cocked like puzzled children. The other dragons were arrayed in a fan behind Mercor. Blue-black Kalo towered large over Jerd’s small queen Veras. Baliper and Arbuc stayed a safe distance from the short-tempered black drake as they gazed longingly at the far shore. Tinder, the sole lavender dragon now developing tracery of royal blue on his wings, stood beside the two oranges, Dortean and Skrim. The last two dragons reminded Tats very much of their owners, Kase and Boxter. They always seemed to be in proximity to one another. Alise’s measured words broke into his thoughts.

‘You are young, even by Rain Wild standards. By Elderling count, my studies tell me your life has barely begun. You have not decades, but lifetimes before you. And I suspect that as Kelsingra comes back to life and its population grows, you will have many young women to choose from. You will find someone, eventually. Or possibly several someones, over the course of your many years.’

He stared at her, shocked into silence by such a prospect.

‘Elderlings are not humans,’ she asserted quietly. ‘Of old, they were not bound by the conventions of humans.’ She looked away from him, across the river to Kelsingra, as if she could see the future in the misty city. ‘And I expect it will be so again. That you will live apart from us, and by your own rules.’ She inclined her head toward the rejoicing. ‘Now is not a time for you to stand here with me. You should go join them.’

Alise watched Tats hesitate. She thought him brave when he gave a tight nod and then started down the hill toward his own kind. He was the only one of them who had begun this journey as the tattooed son of a slave rather than a born Rain Wilder. Sometimes he still believed he was an outsider. But she could see the truth. He was as much an Elderling as any of them now, and would be to the end of his days. She pondered that as she hiked back to her cabin and sighed as she opened the door and entered her tidy domain. They were Elderlings, bonded to dragons, and she was not. She was the lone human on the landscape for days in all directions. The only one not bonded to a dragon. Her loneliness leapt up to strangle her again. She shook it off, turned her thoughts away from the rejoicing and longing on the riverbank and chose her tasks for the day. Green alder branches were needed for the fish-smoking racks. And there was always a need for dry kindling for the cook-fire. Both were becoming harder to find as the village exhausted the easy supply within an hour’s walk. Both remained important gathering tasks and well within her capability. Not grand or sophisticated work, but it was hers. The vines she had discovered had proved to be excellent for weaving lightweight baskets for carrying twigs or kindling. She picked up one and shouldered into it. She had her own life and purpose. She took up the stout stave that Carson had brought to her which doubled as a walking stick. If she intended to stay in this part of the world and live alongside the Elderlings and their dragons, then she had to adapt to her new station.

The only alternative was unthinkable. Return to Bingtown and her loveless sham of a marriage? Return to Hest’s brutal mockery and her shadow life as his wife? No. Better a bare hut on a riverbank, with or even without Leftrin, than a return to that life. She squared her shoulders and firmed her will. It was so hard not to retreat to her supposed usefulness as a scholar of Elderlings and dragons. But she was learning. The work she did now was humble but essential and satisfying in a very different way from what she was accustomed to.

Sylve had asked to be shown the way to the wintergreen berries. They would go together this afternoon to gather more berries and leaves and scout for other patches in the area. And they would go armed with staves, lest the pard returned. She smiled to herself as she thought of how astonished Carson had been at her tale of how she had frightened the big cat. He had made her promise to be at their shared meal that evening, to tell everyone what she had seen and where, and how she had evaded death. Made her promise also not to venture on such an extended exploration without a partner and without informing someone first.