As if the dragons had heard him, Mercor suddenly looped in his flight and turned on the hapless Dortean. The orange male fled but could not evade the golden. Mercor chased him as he fled, and as Dortean neared the ground, Mercor dived on him. Dortean no longer had the altitude for evasion. He crashed into the trees, sending a large flock of starlings into mad flight. Mercor narrowly avoided following his rival into arboreal disaster. Wings beating strongly, he pulled up just above the treetops and skimmed over them. The branches waved wildly in his wake.

Baliper had made good use of the distraction. The red dragon battered his way skyward, while Sintara continued to mock him. Mercor roared a challenge at him, but Baliper did not waste his breath in a response and continued to gain on Sintara. Her mockery changed to an angry cry. She flew at him, they clashed in midair, and Baliper fell away in a dazed spiral. In a dozen wing-beats they had both recovered, but he had lost more altitude than she had. He was focused completely on his pursuit of her when Mercor struck him from behind.

Baliper writhed back, flipping to face the golden, and the males gripped, talons to talons. Wings beating wildly, front talons clenched and roaring at one another, they were falling through the sky as they tore at each other with their clawed hind feet. Sintara, silent now, circled above them, watching her suitors fight. Far above her, the silhouettes of Tintaglia and Kalo had merged.

‘They’re falling, falling … break it up, fellows, or you’ll both die!’ Tats cried out in awe.

But Baliper and Mercor did not separate, not for another two breaths. Then with an infuriated scream, Mercor abruptly tore himself free of the scarlet dragon. Wings beating wildly, he careened off. Baliper managed to flip over, and then to veer away from the trees that had awaited him. He landed badly in a meadow, rolling and bending a wing before crashing to a halt. Thymara stared at him, sick with dread, until she saw him lift his head, stand, and then shake his wings back into position. As if aware of her gaze, he gave a final angry trumpet before stalking off into the shelter of the woods.

‘He’s nearly caught her!’ Tats exclaimed admiringly.

Thymara turned her eyes skyward. Sintara seemed to be making a very genuine attempt to escape Mercor. She looped back once, slashed at him with an angry scream, and then tried to resume her climb. It was useless. The tempo of Mercor’s golden wings increased and his speed with it. Suddenly, the golden dragon overshadowed the blue. His head snaked in to seize the back of her neck in his teeth.

‘He’s got her.’ Tats sounded very satisfied. He rolled his head to grin at Thymara and then continued to watch the mating dragons.

Thymara made a disgusted exclamation and gave him a strong push. He turned to her, grinning, and before she could draw her hand back, he seized her wrist. He tried to pull her to him, but she jerked free of him, turned and ran. Her heart was beating wildly. ‘Thymara!’ Tats shouted and ‘No!’ she called over her shoulder.

She ran, but the sudden thunder of his footfalls was close behind her. She felt him catch at the trailing edge of her wing. She snatched it from his grip, felt a sudden lift from her spread wings, and closed them on the down-beat. Behind her, Tats gave a wordless startled cry.

‘The ravine!’ he shouted, and she saw it wide before her. It gaped, a steep-sided crack in the hillside, possibly a scar of the same quake that had levelled parts of Kelsingra. She started to slow, to turn to elude him, but he was too close behind her. ‘Don’t be stupid!’ he shouted, but it wasn’t, she decided, it wasn’t stupid at all.

She snapped her wings open, managed two down-beats that nearly lifted her off her feet and then she leapt. For a dizzying moment, there was nothing under her feet save the sudden drop-off. In the ravine far below her, she glimpsed a narrow, rushing stream cutting its way toward the river. Three more beats of her wings lifted her and then, as she lost focus and altitude in amazement at what she had done, the meadow on the other side seemed to reach up for her. She landed running, caught herself, skidded to a halt on her knees and then turned. ‘Tats! I flew! I really flew, it wasn’t just a jump. I flew!’

Tats had halted on the other side of the cleft in the earth. He was staring at her, a very strange expression on his face. Abruptly, he turned away. He walked off and then, putting his head down and pumping his arms, he ran from her.

She watched him go. Her heart that had been beating so wildly with joy and excitement now seemed to pump coldness through her body. Too strange. She was too strange for him. She glanced down at the black claws on her hands that had set her apart since the day she was born. She had always been too strange, too Changed by the Rain Wilds. The wings and the flight had been too much even for loyal Tats. Tears stung her eyes as she watched him go.