He glanced at her, saw her face pale under her freckles and her set mouth. He tried to speak more gently. “It only makes sense, Alise. If Kelsingra had survived, wouldn’t the Elderlings have lived? And if the Elderlings had survived, wouldn’t they have kept dragons alive somehow? In all the tapestries, they’re always together.”

“But…if you don’t believe we can find Kelsingra, if you never believed we could find Kelsingra, why did you undertake this expedition?”

He looked at her then, full in her gray-green eyes. “You wanted to go. You wanted me to go. It was a way to be with you, even if only for a time.” Her heart was in her eyes as he spoke those words. He looked aside from her. “That was what decided me. Before, when I first heard of it, I thought to myself, ‘Well, there’s a mission for a madman. Small chance of success, and so I’ll bet they pay accordingly.’ A chunk of money up front, and a big promise of lots more ‘when all is done.’ And a good adventure along the way. There isn’t a man on the river who doesn’t wonder where it comes from. Here was a chance to find out. And I’ve always been a bit of a gambler. Everyone who works the river plays the odds one way or another. So I took the bet.”

He dared himself and took his own wager. Her hands were resting on the railing next to his. He lifted his hand and set it down gently upon hers. The effect on him was almost convulsive. A shiver ran over his body. Her hand was trapped under his and beneath her touch, there was Tarman. A thought floated through his mind. The whole of everything I want in this world is right here, under my hand.

The thought echoed through him, to his very bones and out to Tarman’s timbers and back again until he couldn’t define where it had originated.

Day the 12th of the Prayer Moon

Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown

To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

Enclosure in sealed tube, highly confidential, to be delivered to Trader Newf. An extra fee has been paid to assure that this message is delivered with the stamped seal intact.

Detozi,

My apprentice continues to do his tasks very well. My compliments to your family on a young man well raised. There will soon be a vote of the bird keepers, but it is likely he will be raised to the status of journeyman. I tell you this in confidence, of course, knowing that no word of it will reach him until the finding is official.

He has excelled at his tasks so well that I am considering taking some time to myself. I’ve long considered a trip to the Rain Wilds and its wonders. I would not, of course, presume upon your family’s hospitality, but I would greatly enjoy meeting you in person. Would you be amenable to this?

Erek

CHAPTER THREE

FIRST KILL

Every one of the keepers had instantly recognized the danger when the shuddering water had rippled against their small boats. Ahead of them, the dragons had suddenly halted, spreading their legs wide and digging their feet into the riverbed as the wave of motion passed. The silver dragon had trumpeted wildly, flinging his head about as he tried to look in every direction simultaneously. Dislodged birds burst upward from the trees and flew out over the river, croaking and squawking their distress.

When the second quake hit and branches and leaves showered down in the forest and on the shallows, Rapskal had exclaimed, “Good thing we didn’t run for the shore. Think any of the trees will fall on us?”

Thymara hadn’t worried about it until he mentioned it. She had been caught up in comparing how a quake felt on water to how it felt when one lived high in a treetop. She wondered if her parents had felt it; up high in the canopy of Trehaug, in the flimsy cheap houses known as the Cricket Cages, a quake would make everything dance. People would shout and grip a tree limb if they could. Sometimes houses fell during quakes, heavy ones as well as flimsy ones. The thought had filled her with both worry for her parents and homesickness. But Rapskal’s wondering snapped her out of that as she realized that being crushed under a falling tree might be just as dangerous as tumbling out of one. “Move away from the shore,” she directed him, digging her own paddle into the water more vigorously. They had nearly caught up with the waiting dragons. Around them, the scattered flotilla of keeper boats moved chaotically.

“No. It’s all over now. Look at the dragons. They know. They’re moving on again.”

He was right. Ahead of them, the dragons made small trumpeting sounds to one another as they resumed their slogging march through muck and water. They had bunched up around Mercor when they first halted. Now they spread out again. Mercor led the way and the others fell in behind him. Thymara had almost become accustomed to the daily sight of dragons wading upriver in front of her. At that moment, as they resumed their trek, she saw them afresh. There were fifteen of the creatures, varying in size from Kalo, who was almost the size of a proper dragon now, down to the copper, who was barely taller than Thymara at the shoulder. The sun glinted on the river’s face and on their scales. Gold and red, lavender and orange, gleaming blue black to azure, their hides threw the glory of the sun back up into the day. It made her realize that their colors had deepened and brightened. It was not just that the immense dragons were cleaner now; it was that they were healthier. Some of them were developing secondary colors. Sintara’s deep blue wings were laced with silver, and the “fringes” on her neck were turning a different shade of blue.