Rain Wilds Chronicles

by Robin Hobb

  “She says it’s the warmth of the sun here, and the light. How about you? Has Sintara continued to change you?”

  “I continue to change,” she said simply. Despite their confrontation in the river that day, nothing had been resolved. Sometimes that seemed the most surprising thing of all. The other keepers never quarreled with their dragons. Their dragons seldom spoke harshly to them; they didn’t have to. The keepers knew they were harnessed with glamour and didn’t care. But she and Sintara were not like that. They spoke their minds to each other, and she found that didn’t displease her. After their last crisis, their relationship had resumed as it had been before. Thymara tended the dragon and brought her food when her hunting went well. She enjoyed Sintara’s beauty, just as she would have enjoyed living in a fine house, just as she had once enjoyed the art and music of her neighbors in the Cricket Cages. She didn’t confuse that beauty with Sintara herself.

  “You’re quiet,” Tats spoke carefully.

  “I’m thinking. That’s all.”

  “You think a lot lately.”

  “That’s true. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”

  “I didn’t mean that it was.”

  “I know.”

  He shifted unhappily and then sighed. “Thymara. Did I ruin everything between us?”

  She turned to look at him and gave him a genuine smile. “No. Of course you didn’t. You just, well, actually, we just pushed it to a point where we had to talk about what would happen next. It wasn’t bad that we reached that point.”

  “But nothing happened next,” Tats grumbled softly and looked away from her.

  It made her smile. “Oh, something happened. It just wasn’t what you expected. I said no and I meant it. I still mean it, Tats. But it’s not about you. It’s about me dealing with what I’m becoming, and dealing with it one change at a time.”

  He glanced over at her. His lashes were long and thick as they had always been. “Then it isn’t…forever. It’s just a decision for now.”

  “Tats,” she began, but she was interrupted when Rapskal flung himself down beside her. She jumped; she still wasn’t accustomed to him being back. A smile spread across her face of her own accord. It was incredibly good to have him back. Tats made a small sound in the back of his throat, but the smile he gave their friend was genuine.

  “So, let’s see them!” Rapskal greeted her.

  “See what?”

  “Your wings, of course! Everyone else has seen them but me. Take them out, I want to see them.”

  “Rapskal, they’re not, well, they’re not finished yet.” She couldn’t think of what else to say. She wasn’t sure how to express what she meant to say, and then it came to her. “I’m not ready for people to see them yet.”

  He turned his head to one side. Sunlight ran down the scaling along his jaw, and she had to suppress the impulse to trace the same line with her fingers. He gave a confused shrug. “But people already saw them, in the river that day. Even I saw them, if only for a minute as we flew over. So it’s only fair I get to see them now, because everyone else got a chance to see them then.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Please.”

  She tried to think if he’d ever said please to her before. If he had, it hadn’t sounded like that. She didn’t answer, but only reached over her shoulder to where the openings were cut in the back of her shirt. She began to grope for the tips of her wings.

  “Oh, I’ll help,” he offered, and before she could refuse, she felt his fingers on her wingtips as he gently guided first one and then the other out of her shirt. His gentle touch put a shiver up her back and when she shook, she felt her wings suddenly quiver in response.

  “Ohhh,” he said. “Open them. Let me see the pattern.”

  She glanced at him. The expression on his face was rapt. She looked shyly at Tats. He was staring at her wings as if trying to grasp the concept that they were part of her now. “I’m still learning how to move them,” she said quietly. Suddenly she wanted both of them to see her wings. She closed her eyes and focused on feeling the sunlight touching her wings. Sylve had been right, she suddenly decided. They were like fingers coming out of her back. Fingers, long fingers on hands…she opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. She closed her fingers together and then, very slowly, aware of every muscle, every movement, she opened them.

  She knew it had worked when she heard Rapskal catch his breath. “Oh, they’re lovely. Can I touch them?”

  “Rapskal, I don’t think…” she began, but he wasn’t listening.

  “They’re like Heeby’s wings were at first. The skin is as fine as parchment, and the light shines right through the colors. I’m going to hold them open all the way so I can see them.” He crawled around behind her, and she felt him take the outermost tip of each wing in each of his hands. Then, as carefully as if she were a butterfly, he opened her wings fully to the light. She could feel the difference, could feel the light and then the warmth of the sun touch them. Warmth spread through them as if it were water flowing.

  “The colors just got brighter,” Tats said quietly.

  “You should do this every day,” Rapskal said decisively. “And you should practice moving them, too, to make them stronger and help them grow. Otherwise, you’ll never be able to fly.”

  “Oh, she won’t be able to fly with them,” Tats told him quickly, as if fearing that Rapskal had hurt her feelings. “I heard Sintara tell her that. The dragon said she should just be grateful to have such beautiful wings. She won’t be able to fly with them.”

  Rapskal laughed merrily. “Oh, that’s what everyone said to me about Heeby, too. Don’t be silly. Of course she’ll be able to fly. She just has to try every day.” He leaned forward and spoke by her ear. “Don’t worry, Thymara. I’ll help you practice every day, just like I did with Heeby. You’ll fly.”

  SINTARA HAD MOVED far up the hillside. From her vantage, she could look out over the wide, sloping meadow before her. Kelsingra. They had returned. The tall spire of the map tower and the gleaming stone roofs of the city beckoned to her from the other side of the deep, swift river.

  Earlier today, she had watched Heeby hunting. She’d seen the red dragon open her wings and spring almost effortlessly into the air. Her wings had beat hard for a moment, and then she’d caught the motion of the air over the river and lifted. In a few moments she had dwindled to the size of a crow, and then to a hunting hawk. Heeby had circled high over the city, and Sintara had watched her and remembered in agony exactly how it felt, how you cupped your wings just so to capture a rising wall of warmer air, and how you spilled wind from your wings to go sliding down the sky.

  She remembered. She knew. She was a dragon, a ruler of the Three Realms, a queen of earth and sky and water. Kelsingra with its wells of sweet silver was just across the river. A real dragon would simply open her wings and fly there.

  She had opened her wings and felt the sun on them, felt them warming in the kiss of light. She moved them slightly and felt the wind they made. She recalled how Thymara had mocked and defied her, calling her lazy, even stupid. She recalled all of Heeby’s foolish early efforts at flights. How ungainly she had looked, how clumsy as over and over again she had tried to fly and failed. She’d had no pride, no dignity at all.

  She heard a distant cry, the shrill whistle of a hunting dragon. Her keen eyes picked out Heeby as she suddenly folded her wings and stooped on something. Something large, Sintara was suddenly certain. Something large and meaty, something hot with blood.

  She shook out her wings to the summer sunlight. The hillside was wide and green before her. And across the river was Kelsingra, city of Elderlings and dragons.

  She ran half a dozen steps before she had the courage to beat her wings. Her feet left the ground briefly, and then she crashed down again. But she didn’t fall. Her wings were open and wide and they caught her and cushioned her fall.

  “Sintara!” she heard someone shout in awe. “Look at Si
ntara!”

  Another dozen running steps and this time she beat her wings more slowly and powerfully.

  And when she leaped, she left the ground behind.

  Day the 17th of the Rain Moon

  Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

  From Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

  To Reyall, Acting Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown

  Enclosed, a formal announcement from the Dushank Trader Family of the Rain Wild Traders, Trehaug, to be publicly posted in the Bingtown Traders’ Concourse, being an announcement of the intention of the Trader family of Dushank of the Rain Wild Traders to accept a marriage offer from the Dunwarrow Trader family to join their offspring in marriage.

  Reyall!

  And so you are the first to know of the official announcement.

  Erek and Detozi

  Credits

  Cover design by Richard Aquan

  Cover illustration by Steve Stone

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DRAGON HAVEN. Copyright © 2010 by Robin Hobb. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for

  EPub Edition © April 2010 ISBN: 9780061993480

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Dedication

  To the Little Red Hen

  Contents

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Prologue

  Tintaglia and Icefyre

  Chapter One

  The Duke and the Captive

  Chapter Two

  Dragon Battle

  Chapter Three

  Pathways

  Chapter Four

  Kelsingra

  Chapter Five

  A Bingtown Trader

  Chapter Six

  Marked by the Rain Wilds

  Chapter Seven

  Dragon Dreams

  Chapter Eight

  Other Lives

  Chapter Nine

  Return to Cassarick

  Chapter Ten

  Kidnapped

  Chapter Eleven

  Flight

  Chapter Twelve

  Illumination

  Chapter Thirteen

  Second Thoughts

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shopping

  Chapter Fifteen

  Strange Bedfellows

  Epilogue

  Homeward Bound

  Credits

  Copyright

  Cast of Characters

  THE RAIN WILDS CHRONICLES

  KEEPERS AND DRAGONS

  ALUM: Pale skin, silvery gray eyes. Very small ears. Nose almost flat. His dragon is ARBUC, a silver-green male. Courting Skelly.

  BOXTER: Cousin to Kase. Coppery-eyed, short, stoutly built. His dragon is an orange male, SKRIM.

  HARRIKIN: Tall and slim, at twenty he is older than most of the other keepers. Lecter is his foster brother. Linked with Sylve. His dragon is RANCULOS, a red male with silver eyes.

  ICEFYRE: An ancient black dragon, once entrapped in ice until freed by human intervention (also appears in Fool’s Fate).

  JERD: A blond female keeper, heavily marked by the Rain Wilds. Her dragon is VERAS, a queen, dark green with gold stippling.

  KASE: Boxter’s cousin. He has copper eyes and is short, wide, and muscular. His dragon is the orange male DORTEAN.

  LECTER: Orphaned at seven, raised by Harrikin’s family. His dragon is SESTICAN, a large blue male, with orange scaling and small spikes on his neck. Partnered with Davvie.

  NORTEL: A competent and ambitious keeper. His dragon is the lavender male TINDER.

  RAPSKAL: A heavily marked keeper. His dragon is the small red queen HEEBY.

  SYLVE: The youngest of the keepers but mature and thoughtful for her age. Linked with Harrikin. Her dragon is the golden male MERCOR.

  THYMARA: Sixteen years old; has black claws instead of nails and is at home in the trees. Good hunting skills. Her dragon is a blue queen, SINTARA.

  TATS: The only keeper to have been born a slave. He is tattooed on the face with a small horse and a spiderweb. His dragon is the smallest queen, green FENTE.

  TINTAGLIA: An adult queen dragon, she assisted serpents to journey up the river to cocoon. It has been years since she has been seen in the Rain Wilds. Currently paired with ICEFYRE, an ancient black dragon.

  WARKEN: A tall, long-limbed keeper who lost his life on the journey upriver. His dragon, BALIPER, a scarlet male, has not chosen a new keeper.

  THE BINGTOWNERS

  ALISE KINCARRON FINBOK: Comes from a poor but respectable Bingtown Trader family. The dragon expert. Married to Hest Finbok. Gray eyes, red hair, many freckles. Now involved with Leftrin.

  HEST FINBOK: A handsome, well-established, and wealthy Bingtown Trader.

  SEDRIC MELDAR: Secretary and former lover to Hest Finbok, and friends with Alise since childhood. Bonded with the copper queen dragon RELPDA. Partnered with Carson Lupskip.

  REDDING: Hest’s current paramour and Sedric’s replacement. Greedy Bingtown Trader stock.

  TRADER FINBOK: Hest’s father, a very successful Bington Trader. Married to Sealia Finbok.

  THE CREW OF THE TARMAN

  BELLIN: Deckhand. Married to Swarge.

  BIG EIDER: Deckhand. A large, powerful man of simple thoughts.

  CARSON LUPSKIP: Hunter for the expedition. Leftrin’s old friend. Keeper of SPIT, a small, temperamental, and dangerous silver dragon. Partnered with Sedric.

  DAVVIE: Apprentice hunter to Carson Lupskip. About fifteen years old. Bonded to KALO, the largest blue-black dragon, after the death of Greft, Kalo’s previous keeper. Partnered with Lecter.

  GRIGSBY: Ship’s cat. Orange and obnoxious.

  HENNESEY: First mate on the Tarman and something of a ladies’ man.

  JESS: Hired hunter for the expedition and traitor. Lost his life on the journey upriver.

  LEFTRIN: Captain. Robust build, gray eyes, brown hair.

  SKELLY: Deckhand. Leftrin’s niece and presumed heir. Infatuated with Alum but has a fiancé in Trehaug.

  SWARGE: Tillerman. He has been with the Tarman for more than fifteen years. Married to Bellin.

  TARMAN: A river barge, long and low. Oldest existing liveship. Home port Trehaug.

  MISCELLANEOUS CHARACTERS

  ALTHEA VESTRIT: First mate, Paragon out of Bingtown. Aunt to Malta Khuprus (also appears in the Liveship Traders trilogy).

  BEGASTI CORED: Chalcedean merchant; bald, rich trading partner of Hest Finbok.

  BRASHEN TRELL: Captain of the Paragon out of Bingtown (also appears in the Liveship Traders trilogy).

  CHASSIM: Daughter of the Duke of Chalced. Widowed several times and still part of the Duke’s household.

  DETOZI: Keeper of the messenger birds at Trehaug. Engaged to Erek.

  DUKE OF CHALCED: Chalced’s dictator, elderly and ailing.

  ELLIK: Chancellor to the Duke of Chalced, and his “sword arm.”

  EREK: Keeper of the messenger birds at Bingtown.

  JANI KHUPRUS: Rain Wild Trader and mother of Reyn Khuprus and Tillamon.

  KIM: Keeper of the Birds, Cassarick. A Tattooed, a former slave who came to the Rain Wilds seeking a better life.

  MALTA KHUPRUS: The Elderling “queen,” resides in T
rehaug. Married to Reyn Khuprus. Changed to an Elderling by the dragon Tintaglia (also appears in the Liveship Traders trilogy).

  PARAGON: A liveship. Helped escort the sea serpents up the river to the cocooning grounds. Not completely stable (also appears in Mad Ship).

  REYN KHUPRUS: Younger son of a powerful Rain Wild Trader family. Changed to an Elderling by the dragon Tintaglia. Married to Malta (also appears in the Liveship Traders trilogy).

  SELDEN VESTRIT: A young Elderling; Malta’s brother and Althea’s nephew. Missing for some time after setting out on a mission to search for other surviving dragons (also appears in the Liveship Traders trilogy).

  SINAD ARICH: Chalcedean merchant who strikes a deal with Leftrin, via blackmail.

  THE CHALCEDEAN: Hest’s nemesis. A Chalcedean nobleman, willing to do anything to obtain dragon parts for the Duke.

  TILLAMON: Sister to Reyn, heavily marked by the Rain Wilds. Older than Reyn; unwed and likely to remain so.

  Prologue

  TINTAGLIA AND ICEFYRE

  She rode the air currents easily, her legs sleeked tight against her body, her wings spread wide. On the undulating desert sands below, her rippling shadow showed her as a serpentine creature with batlike wings and a long, finned tail. Tintaglia thrummed deep in her throat, a purr of pleasure in the day. They had hunted at dawn and hunted well. They had made their separate kills, as they always did, and spent the morning in feasting and then sleep. Now, smeared still with the blood and offal of the hunt, the two dragons had another goal in mind.