“I’ll get better,” Xhinna declared.
“Yes,” Bekka agreed. “But there are other things you can do, other things than flying a Fall.”
“Like what?”
“Like your other duties to Pern,” Bekka said. “To provide heirs worthy of you, to care for them and be there for their triumphs.”
“I can do that and still ride Falls,” Xhinna said.
“You could have before,” Bekka told her, shaking her head sadly. “But whether you still can ride Falls, we won’t know for a while.”
“And if I take it easy, will that help?”
“All I can say is if you don’t take it easy, you certainly won’t be able to fly a Fall,” Bekka said, chewing her lower lip anxiously.
“I am going to fly Falls,” Xhinna declared. “Tazith is going to flame Thread from the skies, and he’ll be the best blue on Pern.”
“Well then, blue rider, if that’s what you’re going to do, the first thing you need to do is get some rest.”
“Okay,” Xhinna said, lying back down again. “And then?”
“Then, we’ll see,” Bekka said. “If you want to get back into full form, we’re going to have to take it easy at first, and then we’ll have to get your muscles back into shape.” She shook her head. “I don’t envy you.”
“Why, will it be hard?”
“It’ll hurt worse than anything, even having a baby,” Bekka warned her.
“Fiona says that having a baby doesn’t hurt,” Xhinna replied.
“Fiona doesn’t remember how she shouted when she gave birth,” Bekka corrected her. “She begged me to remind her, but I must have forgotten.” She smiled wryly, then shook her head as she added, “Or maybe not. She’s asked me for the best exercises to ease birthing.”
“That’s wise,” Xhinna said, yawning again and closing her eyes. “Fiona’s wise.”
“Go to sleep.”
Xhinna tried, but found it hard to relax. It was only when she felt the warm form of Jirana curl up in front of her that she heaved a deep sigh and slid into slumber.
She woke cold and shivering. A moment later she heard indistinct voices and felt someone slide up behind her. It was a woman. Taria?
No, this woman felt different. Xhinna tensed until she felt the woman’s hands on her shoulders, heard her voice murmuring soothing sounds. Javissa.
Jirana must have enrolled her. Xhinna remained tense, uneasy with this other presence, but Javissa murmured to her, soft words that made more sound than sense. She was here to help, she was a warm body to keep her warm, help her recover, get better. She was here because Jirana asked; she was here as her daughter’s mother. Javissa stroked her hair softly, whispering the words mothers always used to console their daughters, soft murmurings that soothed. Xhinna trembled, her muscles rebelling, but she made them relax. Javissa was warm, she was soft, she was like Jirana, only bigger. She cared. She loved her daughter, so she loved her daughter’s friends.
Xhinna’s mind picked at that for a moment before she allowed herself to relax fully. If Jirana was someone she loved like a sister, could she not accept Javissa’s extension of this sister-love? What, Xhinna wondered, would it be like to have a mother love her?
An image of Fiona swam into her mind. Fiona, who had taken her in when she’d been virtually shunned; Fiona, who had stood for her, who had loved her like a sister but treated her, at least sometimes, like a daughter. Fiona, who wasn’t quite a mother, nor quite a sister.
Warm, Xhinna drifted deeper as an image of Taria came to her mind, holding her, loving her.
She awoke hot, tingling in all her senses. She knew this feeling. She leaned forward and planted a delicate kiss on Jirana’s hair before rising from between daughter and mother. She was pleased to see Javissa reach forward and drag Jirana into her arms. The two might sleep through or wake drowsily from what was to follow, but they’d experienced it before and wouldn’t be frightened.
Hot, tense, she moved out from safety and into the air whipping around under the temptations of the morning sun. The sky was red, the sun just creeping over the horizon.
She heard Tazith’s heated plea and let him fly free, soaring, twirling, arcing toward the burnt plateau and the pen full of herdbeasts, hot and ready to feed.
She heard the rest of the camp stir, heard the excitement in their voices.
Even before Tazith blooded his first kill, Xhinna felt the exultation that was the union of two dragons, a hot, demanding throb that beat in her flesh, pounded on her heart, caused her breath to come quickly.
Coranth. Even as she knew it, she felt the green fade from her thoughts. Behind her, she heard a dragon roar and take flight. Kisorth, T’rennor’s green.
Kisorth! T’rennor! Xhinna thought. T’rennor: no!
For all that she wanted Tazith to triumph, to have the joy of mating, she loathed the thought of being with the green rider. It was not that he was a man—it was that he was the wrong man: too meek, too easily led, too willing to be the butt of jokes for the fleeting attention it provided. V’lex had immediately taken him under his wing—as V’lex and J’keran had spent much time together, none of which improved T’rennor’s self-esteem. In fact, the opposite was occurring: T’rennor seemed daily to become more pitiful. Xhinna knew that X’lerin was aware of it, too, but neither he nor Xhinna had yet found a way to help the younger man and, it was true, for all their flaws on the ground, J’keran and V’lex were superb riders who were happy to teach T’rennor all that they knew, provided he did not outfly them.
T’rennor’s Kisorth blooded two kills and then was in the sky. Tazith took off after her and had the lead, but brown Jorth burst into the sky, gaining and overtaking Tazith with his stronger wings. J’per’s Ginoth appeared and also gave chase. Sarinth clawed her way high into the sky, bellowing taunts at the two browns and the blue below her. She dived on them, and the browns lumbered aside, but Tazith lurched in and caught her—and then another dragon wrapped paws around him, pulled him free, and threw him away.
Tazith cried more in frustration than in pain—the claws had been sheathed. He struggled to regain his position even as Sarinth cried a taunt at him, and the browns resumed the chase. Tazith bellowed in anger.
Why had J’keran’s Perinth interfered? It was not his flight, he should not—and then Ginoth caught the green Kisorth and Xhinna’s thoughts left her as the emotions of the mating swept over her and all the weyrfolk.
Come on back, Tazith, Xhinna thought to her blue. You were great!
Tazith, disgruntled, wearily began his flight back to the Weyr.
“Someone has been raiding our stores,” Javissa said later when she came to report on the stocks to Xhinna.
“Taria’s pregnant,” Xhinna said. “They probably came to feed their dragons and took what else they needed.”
“So?”
“We’ll let it pass,” Xhinna said. “This means at least that they’re alive and surviving.” She had a haunting image of a gaunt, pale Taria dressed in rags, her belly distended with child and hunger. “I’d prefer they take what they need from us, rather than starve.”
“But without their hunting, we’ve as many mouths to feed but two fewer to provide,” Javissa said.
“We’ll make do,” Xhinna told her peremptorily. “Anyway, you forget Alimma and the others.”
“You’re right, we’ve twelve new mouths to feed—five hatchlings and seven humans, when you include Aressil and Jasser.”
“Seven new workers, then,” Xhinna said.
“You leave Danirry here with me,” Javissa said with sudden ferocity. “She’s too thin to work hard and needs to eat more.”
Xhinna grinned at the change in the woman’s demeanor. “I can’t keep her here by herself,” she said, “or she’ll feel singled out and the others will think she’s privileged.”
“Well … then give me Mirressa, too,” Javissa said. “She’s got more meat on her, but she also needs a mother’s touch.”
“I’ll let you have t
hem for a sevenday, then we’ll rotate,” Xhinna offered. “I’ll take Aressil.”
“And do what with her?”
“I thought that she might help R’ney with his wild schemes.”
“She’d be good at that,” Javissa agreed. “And we’ve got to find a place for those eggs—a good one—before Sarinth lays them.”
“Yes,” Xhinna said with a tone of forbearance. She smiled at Javissa. “Anything else, Mother?”
“You’re to stay here in the Weyr,” Javissa said. “And keep Jirana by you at all times, or Bekka will confine you back to quarters.”
Xhinna fumed at that restriction; she’d planned to go to the old sands and then to the burnt plateau to talk with R’ney.
“Don’t go fractious on me, child,” Javissa said, “I’ve had it all with J’riz and now Jirana.” She shook her head. “Don’t think, wingleader and all, that you can get anything by me, or that I won’t tan your bottom if you do.”
“Tazith might have something to say about that,” Xhinna replied softly, taking Javissa’s threat with a grain of salt.
“He’s a smart dragon,” Javissa said thoughtfully. “He’d probably catch you and hold you down until I was done.”
You should listen to her, Tazith said.
“Well,” Xhinna said, knowing when to make the best of a situation, “if I’m here, then maybe Danirry and Mirressa won’t feel singled out.”
“Then it’s settled.”
“But certain headwomen should think twice before taking on airs,” Xhinna warned.
A smile grew on Javissa’s face and her eyes twinkled devilishly. “And what makes you think I didn’t?”
The downside of the arrangement turned out to be proximity to Danirry. The blue rider followed Xhinna around like a lovesick child. Mirressa was only slightly less difficult. She was so biddable that Xhinna could not imagine her ever saying “no” to anyone. Friendliness and loyalty were one thing, downright subservience was entirely another, and Xhinna started planning on how to help Mirressa into a more healthy relationship with the others around her—before someone like J’keran plied her with drink and addled her wits.
The worst of it with Danirry was that Xhinna couldn’t quite settle her own feelings about the new rider. Her sense told her that at some point, Danirry would feel compelled to become her lover, that she might grow out of it in the future—the other woman was still too traumatized to consider relationships anything but fleeting. Xhinna suspected that part of Danirry’s recovery involved her first being attracted by Xhinna and her position of power, and then pulling away as she became her own person and owner of her heart, body, and spirit.
Thin and small as Danirry was from malnourishment, Xhinna thought she looked like a younger version of herself—or Taria. Hence the attraction and also the fear.
Xhinna had known when she’d first accepted this group of women that she was treading a difficult path. Being known as the first weyrlings of a green’s clutch and the first fighting riders to train under a female wingleader, they would be judged, their every failure seen as a sign that even if women might ride dragons, they could not lead dragons against Thread. And the judgments upon them would fall tenfold upon Xhinna.
“Good enough with those others have trained,” she could imagine the older riders saying of her, “but not really up for it where it counts.” They’d nod knowingly and one would say, “Aye, a gold or even a green is a woman’s mount. A blue’s unnatural.”
These women, under her leadership, would prove them wrong—and it was up to her to make it so, whatever the price.
So, what was the right price to pay for Danirry’s self-esteem?
And how much of this is about her and how much about me? Xhinna asked herself harshly. She began to see how easy it would be to abuse her power, to convince herself that she was only acting in the interests of the Weyr.
These were the sorts of questions she usually brought to Taria. Together they would talk them over for hours until by some strange fusion of words and gestures, they would arrive at an unspoken conclusion.
So what would Taria say? Xhinna wondered as she asked Rowerth to have R’ney come meet her. The answer came to her instantly: She would say I love you; you will do what’s right.
That was her old Taria. What would the new one say?
When R’ney arrived, Danirry had attached herself to Xhinna as her official supporter and stabilizer. Bekka, the mischievious fool, had actually had the gall to tell Danirry to make sure Xhinna was all right, a charge the young woman took on with near ecstatic dedication. She’d even helped Xhinna to the necessary, a ploy that the wingleader had adopted both out of need and hope that perhaps Danirry’s poorly hidden ardor would abate when she realized that her wingleader was human—and female—after all.
R’ney—drat the man!—took in her discomfort with one raised eyebrow and a hastily erased smirk. But, she suddenly realized, he might have a solution. Surely he had been in similar straits; he could at least tell her how he’d coped.
For that matter K’dan and Fiona probably had dealt with such affections hundreds of times and—
Oh! Xhinna thought, suddenly enlightened. Fiona had dealt with such affection before. Xhinna herself had been the source of it. “How are you, Wingleader?” R’ney asked, bringing her from her hidden set of problems to her more immediate set.
“Tetchy, tired, wobbly, and irritated,” Xhinna said.
“Don’t forget alive,” R’ney reminded her.
Xhinna glowered at him, and then firmly turned her attention to the Weyr’s problems. “We’ve got twelve weeks—three months before Sarinth will clutch,” she reminded him. “Where will we put them? How will they hatch?”
“And how will we keep them safe?” R’ney added.
“That, too,” she agreed with a twist of her lips.
“I’ve a long-term plan, which might do in another Turn or two,” R’ney began, stroking his chin and pulling his hand away to glance at it irritably. Apparently the brown rider was not satisfied with his razor; he had the barest trace of stubble but it annoyed him all the same.
“We’ve got twelve weeks,” Xhinna reminded him. “A Turn might help but not for the next two hatchings—”
“Two?” Danirry asked, her eyebrows going up.
“Queens—and greens, probably—rise twice a Turn in a Pass,” Xhinna said.
“But we’re not in the Pass now, are we?” Danirry asked, glancing anxiously up at the skies above and using her fear as an excuse to grasp Xhinna’s arm.
Xhinna moved forward, pulling away and turning to face the other blue rider. “No, we’re three Turns back,” she said. “We won’t see Thread for Turns yet.”
“You did that?” Danirry asked in surprise. “You brought us back in time?”
Xhinna nodded. “We needed to get away from a Threadfall; it seemed the wise thing to do.”
“Back in time …” Danirry murmured thoughtfully.
Xhinna turned back to R’ney. “Okay, you’re so excited: Tell me about this long-term plan of yours,” she said with a sigh.
“Rain,” R’ney said, grinning broadly.
“Rain?”
“Yes, we use the rain,” the brown rider told her, giving her an expectant look.
Xhinna frowned. “To catch more water?” she guessed. No, judging by his expression. “To fill a lake?”
“No, to get to the stone,” R’ney said. “It’s simplicity itself. We burn, dig, and break—and the rains do the rest.”
“I’m not a smither,” Xhinna reminded him, letting some impatience creep into her voice. Danirry laid a hand on Xhinna’s shoulder in an offer of support.
Tazith, ask Kiarith if he doesn’t feel itchy, Xhinna said to her blue in desperation.
“Oh, Kiarith is awake and he’s itchy!” Danirry said suddenly. Xhinna turned to her, trying to look surprised, only to find her breath suddenly taken away.
There, standing in front of her, was a completely different person
. The gaunt ghost Danirry was not there; the fawning, love-struck Danirry was also absent. Instead, there stood a vision of beauty, a young woman growing into adulthood, a look of joy and belonging etched deep in her eyes, a smile on her lips, a passion for life radiating from her.
“See to him,” Xhinna said, finding the strength to wave a hand in dismissal. “R’ney can look out for me.”
“I’ll come right back!” Danirry promised.
To her surprise and annoyance, Xhinna found herself saying, “Hurry.”
R’ney waited in tense silence until Danirry was out of earshot and then asked, drolly, “Wasn’t that supposed to be: Take your time, we don’t need you?”
Xhinna turned back to him: his eyes were dancing with merriment. “Oh, hush!”
A moment later, R’ney asked her in all seriousness, “Do you know what you’re doing, Wingleader?”
“Actually, I was hoping to ask you,” she admitted. “I thought perhaps you’ve been—”
“No,” R’ney said. “Once the other way around.”
“And?” Xhinna prompted, willing to take any advice she could find.
“We had a grand time together,” R’ney said, shaking his head sadly. “And he died.”
“Oh,” Xhinna said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be; we weren’t,” the brown rider told her. He raised his eyebrows in the direction the other blue rider had gone. “If all things are equal, I’d say grab for it with all you’ve got.”
“All things are probably not equal,” Xhinna said sadly. She quickly gave R’ney a rundown of what she’d learned from Nerra and her own subsequent observations. “If I choose wrong—”
“She’ll survive,” R’ney said firmly. “You can’t fix all the people on Pern, you know.”
“No, but she’s mine, so I’ll do my best for her,” Xhinna said.
“Naturally,” R’ney agreed. “And what is that?”
Xhinna shook her head and blew out a sigh. “I don’t know.”
“Well, not that I think you need to divert your attention or anything, but just in case, perhaps we can get back to our plans,” he suggested.
“Go on,” Xhinna said warily, waving for him to proceed.
Sky Dragons: Dragonriders of Pern Page 18