Dragonquest

With a groan that was close to a sob, F’nor embraced her. At first as if he were afraid of hurting her. Then, when he felt her arms tightening around him – for it was good to feel his strong back under her seeking hands – he almost crushed her until she cried out gladly for him to be careful.

He buried his lips in her hair, against her throat, in a surfeit of loving relief.

“We thought we’d lost you, too, Brekke,” he said over and over while Canth crooned an exuberant descant.

“It was in my mind,” Brekke admitted in a tremulous voice, burrowing against his chest, as if she must get even closer to him. “I was trapped in my mind and didn’t own my body. I think that’s what was wrong with me. Oh, F’nor,” and all the grief that she’d not been able to express before came bursting out of her, “I even hated Canth!”

The tears poured down her cheeks and shuddering sobs shook a body already weakened by fasting. F’nor held her to him, patting her shoulders, stroking her until he began to fear that the convulsions would tear her apart. He beckoned urgently to Manora.

“She’s got to cry, F’nor. It’ll be an easing for her.”

Manora’s anxious expression, the way she folded and unfolded her hands, was strangely reassuring to F’nor. She, too, cared about Brekke, cared enough to let concern pierce that imperturbable serenity. He’d been so grateful to Manora for opposing a re-Impression, though he doubted his blood mother knew why he’d be against it. Or perhaps she did. Manora in her calm detachment missed few nuances or evasions.

Brekke’s frail body was trembling violently now, torn apart by the paroxysm of her grief. The fire lizards took to fluttering anxiously and Canth’s croon held on a distressed note. Brekke’s hands opened and closed pathetically on his shoulders but the tearing sobs did not permit her to speak.

“She can’t stop, Manora. She can’t.”

“Slap her.”

“Slap her?”

“Yes, slap her,” and Manora suited actions to words, fetching Brekke several sharp blows before F’nor could shield her face. “Now into the bathing pool with her. The water’s warm enough to relax those muscles.” “You didn’t have to slap her,” F’nor said, angrily.

“She did, she did,” said Brekke in a ragged gasp, shuddering as they bundled her into the warm pool water. Then she felt the heat penetrate and relax muscles knotted by racking sobs. As soon as she felt Brekke’s body easing, Manora dried her with warmed towels and gestured for F’nor to tuck her back under the furs.

“She needs feeding up now, F’nor. And so do you,” she said, looking sternly at him. “And you are to kindly remember that you’ve duties to others tonight. It’s Impression Day.”

F’nor snorted at Manora’s reminder and saw Brekke smiling wanly up at him.

“I don’t think you’ve left me at all since . . .”

“Canth and I needed to be with you, Brekke,” he cut in when she faltered. He smoothed her hair back from her forehead as if such an action were the most important occupation in the world. She caught his hand and he looked into her eyes.

“I felt you there, both of you, even when I wanted most to die.” Then she felt anger in her guts. “But how could you force me onto the Hatching Ground, to face another queen?”

Canth grumbled a protest. She could see the dragon through the uncurtained archway, his head turned toward her, his eyes flashing a little. She was startled by the unhealthy green tinge to his color.

“We didn’t want to. That was F’lar’s idea. And Lessa’s. They thought it might work and they were afraid we’d lose you.”

The empty ache she tried not to remember threatened to become a hole down which she must go if only to end that tearing, burning pain of loss.

No, cried Canth.

Two warm lizard bodies pressed urgently against her neck and face, affection and worry so palpable in their thoughts it was like a physical touch.

“Brekke!” The terror, the yearning, the desperation in F’nor’s cry were louder than the i

“Never leave me! Never leave me alone. I can’t stand being alone even for a second,” Brekke cried.

I am here, said Canth, as F’nor’s arms folded hard around her. The two lizards echoed the brown’s words, the sound of their thoughts strengthening as their resolve grew. Brekke clung to the surprise of their maturity as a weapon against that other terrible pain.

“Why, Grall and Berd care,” she said.

“Of course they care.” F’nor seemed almost angry that she’d doubt it.

“No, I mean, they say they care.”

F’nor looked into her eyes, his embrace less fiercely possessive. “Yes, they’re learning because they love.”

“Oh, F’nor, if I hadn’t Impressed Berd that day, what would have happened to me?”

F’nor didn’t answer. He held her against him in loving silence until Mirrim, her lizards flying in joyous circles around her, came briskly into the weyr, carrying a well-laden tray.

“Manora had to attend to the seasoning, Brekke,” the girl said in a didactic tone. “You know how fussy she is. But you are to eat every bit of this broth, and you’ve a potion to drink for sleeping. A good night’s rest and you’ll be feeling more yourself.”

Brekke stared at the young girl, watching in a sort of bemusement while Mirrim deftly pushed F’nor out of her way, settled pillows behind her patient, a napkin at her throat, and began to spoon the rich wherry broth to Brekke’s unprotesting lips.

“You can stop staring at me, F’nor of Benden,” Mirrim said, “and start eating the food I brought you before it gets cold. I carved you a portion of spiced wherry from the breast, so don’t waste prime servings.”

F’nor rose obediently, a smile on his face, recognizing the child’s ma

To her own surprise, Brekke found the broth delicious, warming her aching stomach and somehow satisfying a craving she hadn’t recognized until now. Obediently she drank the sleeping potion, though the fellis juice did not entirely mask the bitter after taste.

“Now, F’nor, are you going to let poor Canth waste away to a watch-wher?” Mirrim asked as she began to settle Brekke for the night. “He’s a sorry shade for a brown.”

“He did eat – ” F’nor began contritely.

“Ha!” Mirrim sounded like Lessa now.

I’ll have to take that child in hand, Brekke thought idly, but an enervating lassitude had spread throughout her body and movement was impossible.

“You get that lazy lump of brown bones out of his couch and down to the Feeding Ground, F’nor. Hurry it up. They’ll be out to feast soon and you know what a feeding dragon does to commoner appetites. C’mon now. You, Canth, get out of your weyr.”

The last thing Brekke saw as F’nor obediently followed Mirrim out of the sleeping room was Canth’s surprised look as she bore down on him, reached for his ear and began to tug.

They were leaving her, Brekke thought with sudden terror. Leaving her alone . . .

I am with you, was Canth’s instant reassurance.

The two lizards, one on each side of her head, pressed lovingly against her.

And I, said Ramoth. I, too, said Mnementh and, mingled with those strong voices, were others, soft but present.

“There,” said Mirrim with great satisfaction as she reentered the sleeping room. “They’ll eat and come right back.” She moved quietly around the room, turning the shields on the glow baskets so that the room was dark enough for sleeping. “F’nor says you don’t like to be left alone so I’ll wait until he comes back.”

But I’m not alone, Brekke wanted to tell her. Instead, her eyes closed and she fell into a deep sleep.

As Lessa looked around the Bowl, at the tables of celebrants lingering long past the end of the banquet, she experienced a wistful yearning to be as uninhibited as they. The laughter of the hold and craftbred parents of the new riders, the weyrlings themselves fondling their hatchlings, even the weyrfolk, was untinged by bitterness or sorrow. Yet she was aware of a nagging sadness, which she couldn’t shake, and had no reason to feel.