Sintara was shocked when Thymara lifted her hand. “Kalo! I will serve you, if it will mean no harm to this ship or the humans aboard him. Sintara has indicated her dissatisfaction with me more than once. Still, I have continued to hunt what meat I could and to groom her as she requests. This I will do for you, also, if it brings peace to us.”

“And what about me?” Spit demanded furiously before Kalo could even reply. Several dragons turned to hiss at him warningly.

But before Kalo could speak further, Sintara surged forward. She lifted her head to pin Thymara with a glare. “I have not released you from my service, human.” She turned to face Kalo, who had looked intrigued at the girl’s offer. “This girl is not free for your choosing. She is of my blood and my shaping. You cannot have her.”

“Of your blood!” Thymara sounded outraged. “You have not given blood to me, nor spoken to me of shaping.”

“Nonetheless, you have had my blood and I am aware of your shaping. I do not need to speak to you if I do not choose to do so! This one is mine, Kalo. I keep her. Choose another.”

“I have told you. There are no others!” Leftrin tried to put thunder in his voice and failed. Kalo’s head was hovering over the ship, considering the bunched keepers as if he were selecting a ewe from a flock of terrified sheep. How clearly that ancient memory came to Sintara. Those had been good times, of easy feeding on the pasturelands outside Kelsingra. The sheep and cattle had been fattened for them, grained on oats that grew in abundance in the cultivated fields there. And higher up the slopes, in the surrounding hills and mountains, there had been goats, gamy and delicious. For a moment, her thoughts and life were abducted to that other time, to being a dragon who was tended and fed, not by one small human but by a city of Elderlings and the humans who served them.

In the context of those memories, she saw Kalo lower his head. She saw the keepers cringe, just as sheep had once cowered before a dragon. But Kalo swept past them, to Leftrin’s crew and the hunters who stood on the roof of the deckhouse. With his muzzle, he nudged a boy, nearly sending him flying. “This one I will have.”

“No,” shouted Carson, but before the hunter could speak another word, the youngster shouted, “Yes!” Davvie turned to Carson and spoke quickly and clearly. “I want to do this, Uncle.” He glanced down at the gathered keepers, caught the eye of one of them, and grinned. He turned back to Carson. “I’ll be Kalo’s keeper.”

“Why is he choosing you, Davvie?” Carson demanded.

The dragon responded before the boy could. “I’ve seen him walking among us. He hunts well. He doesn’t show fear. I’m taking him.”

“It will be all right,” Davvie responded. “You’ll see, Uncle. I think it’s the place in the world that I’ve been looking for. I’ll be with friends.”

“You had rather stay with the dragons and your friends than go where I go?”

Davvie looked at him. “I know you, Uncle. You will stay with them, also.”

“Then he can be my keeper!” This announcement came from Spit. “If Kalo can claim a hunter as his own, then I can take one for myself as well. I take Carson the hunter as my keeper, to tend me and to be changed by me as I require. There, that’s done.”

“Nothing is done!” Leftrin roared again, and this time he did manage the thunder. “We are not your cattle!”

“Leftrin. It will be all right.”

Sintara was surprised to hear Carson accede to Spit’s demand. Was it because of the boy? She watched as the hunter glanced once at the boy, but twice at the man at his side, Sedric. Now why was a keeper standing with the hunter? Why was he not with the rest of the keepers? It was a curious thing but not one that she felt she had to decipher. Humans were, after all, only humans. Their intellect was limited by the short span of their years. Perhaps that was why Carson was willing to serve Spit. It was almost certain the dragon would shape him as an Elderling. The man had changed quite a bit already, and he was not as young as the other keepers. If Spit wished to have a servant for a reasonable number of years, he would have to change the man just to increase his life span.

Just as she would have to change Thymara. She swung her gaze to stare at her keeper. Yes. What was sensible for Spit was sensible for her as well. She would have to pay attention to the changes in the girl lest they become deadly. And if she was going to have her for longer than an ordinary human’s brief span, then she might as well make her attractive as well as useful. She examined her more closely than she had for days and was almost startled at what she noted. Well, that was unusual, especially for an unguided change. She searched her memories and found no precedents for such an unusual development. Well, the changes had begun; she could shape them but not undo them. The girl would live or not, as humans always did. Thymara was returning her gaze with the same diffidence that she felt for her. That almost warmed her toward her. The human didn’t wish to cling and hide in her shadow. Good. She had no desire to be encumbered that way.