“I’ve made such a mess of everything,” he said aloud.

“Are you and I a ‘mess’?” Carson asked him gently.

“No.”

“You can be honest with me, Sedric. I know what I am, and that’s a simple man. I know I’m not educated or sophisticated. I know I’m not—”

“It’s what you are that matters, not what you’re not.” Sedric turned to him. He glanced around, and even as Carson grinned at his caution, he turned back and brushed a kiss across the hunter’s mouth. It startled Carson as much as it delighted him. But when the hunter would have embraced him again, Sedric stepped free, shaking his head. “You are one of the few things in my life that is not a part of the mess I’ve made. I didn’t deserve you, and I don’t deserve you. Unfortunately for me, I do deserve to deal with most of the messes I’ve made.”

“Such as?” Carson gave up his pursuit of him and folded his arms on his chest against the morning chill.

“Alise is angry with me, I think. She believes I lied to her about Leftrin.”

“I think you might have,” Carson pointed out affably.

“I only repeated what Jess had told me, things I had every reason to believe were true.”

“Perhaps if you’d talked to me first, I could have cleared that up for you.”

“I was just getting to know you then.”

“Sedric, my dear, you are still getting to know me.”

“Look. The dragons are waking.”

“And you’re changing the subject.”

“Yes, I am.” He didn’t mind admitting it. There were too many messes he never wished to discuss with Carson. Let him go on thinking he was a good person. He knew he wasn’t, and he knew Carson deserved better, but he could not bear to give him up. Not yet. Soon enough he’d be found out but not yet. He diverted his attention. “Sweet Sa, look at their colors. That warm water did something to them.”

The dragons reminded him of geese or swans. Some were just waking. Others were stretching, opening their wings and shaking them. Droplets of water flew out from them, and the rising steam of the heated water made them look as if they were rising out of a dream. All of the dragons seemed larger this day, their wings stronger and longer. He felt a whisper of assent from Relpda. Warmth to make us grow, warmth to make us strong.

Suddenly she emerged from the throng of dragons, brighter than gleaming coins, shimmering with warmth.

You think pretty of me, she praised him. She opened her wings and held them wide so he could admire them. In the night, a tracery of black had developed on them. The patterns reminded him of ice spray on a cold windowpane. She suddenly beat them frantically. She did not lift off the water, but she “flew” over it to come to rest beside the barge looking up at him.

“I am so beautiful!”

“Oh, that you are, my lovely one.”

“You were afraid in your dreams. Don’t be. I shall make you as beautiful as I am.”

He leaned over Tarman’s railing, felt the presence of the ship against his belly as he did so. “Then you know how to shape an Elderling.”

She preened the feathered scales of her wings. “It cannot be hard,” she dismissed his concern. Then she looked over her shoulder. “Mercor comes, with Kalo. Kalo has a grievance. Changes will be made today. Do not fear. I will protect you.”

THIS WAS NOT the behavior of dragons, Sintara thought. Each dragon always acted on her own behalf. They did not descend in a swarm and impose their wills.

Except when they did. As once they had when they dealt with Elderlings. A memory unfolded in her mind. There had been agreements. Rules about the taking of cattle. Agreements about rolling in grain fields. Necessary rules that benefited all. Rules that even dragons had gathered together to create. The thought filled her with wonder. And nostalgia for better times.

She had secured a place at the edge of the warming platform and stubbornly refused to be budged from it all night. She had leaned against its comforting, healing warmth and felt the effects of it spread throughout her body. Heat and sunlight were important to dragons, as important as fresh meat and clean water. Since they had entered this tributary, her life had changed. Water was not some grainy, murky stew sucked out of a small hole in a riverbank. She could drink as much as she wished of the cool, sweet stuff. She could roll and bathe with no caution about her eyes and nostrils. She had felt her flesh fill out just with water.

And food. There was food in this river, small but plentiful, and it required some effort to catch it. It demanded a quick eye to pluck a fish from the water or a monkey from a low-hanging vine. But that was good, too, that satisfaction of winning the meat and gulping it down fresh and warm. This river of clean water was changing her.