“So,” Kiron asked his own charge. “What do you think?”

He had been right; this baby was going to be one of the dark ones, an indigo-blue shading to purple on the extremities and in the wing webs. Avatre stretched her neck out a little farther, without going one step more into the pen, and snorted again, then turned her head to look at him.

“Oh, no!” he told her, smothering a laugh at the sight of her widened eyes. “That’s Menet-ka’s baby, not mine!”

She snorted a third time; then, evidently content and having seen enough, she pulled her head back and nuzzled his hair, relaxing all over. He patted her shoulder, and was momentarily nonplussed to realize just how much higher it seemed than the last time he’d patted it. Great good gods, she’s putting on another growth spurt! At this rate, she’ll be big enough to fly combat within a few moons! He didn’t recall the Tian wild-caught dragonets growing that fast. Perhaps tala did slow their growth.

But he put that thought aside, and led her back to her pen. “No fear, my love,” he told her, making a caress of his voice. “No one could ever take your place.”

She gave him a look of renewed confidence with a touch of arrogance, as if to say, “Well, of course not!” and flung herself back into the hot sand of her pen. He laughed, and went to get a bucket of finely chopped meat and bone for the baby’s first meal.

They all had dragon boys, of course—not that Kiron ever called on his very much—and the first order of the day was to show Menet-ka’s boy exactly how small to chop up the baby’s meal. “And make sure to get plenty of bone into it,” he advised, “and some hide and hair. Do you know why?”

The dragon boy shook his head, but looked attentive; that was a good sign, evidently Lord Khumun had made a point of picking out boys who were actually interested in the dragons, and not just taking this as another job.

“The baby needs bone to make bone of his own,” Kiron explained, “And the hide and hair help keep his insides clean.”

“Oh—like a falcon!” the dragon boy said, brightening. “And like the hunting cats eat grass.”

“Exactly.” Kiron beamed at him, and the boy flushed with pride at getting the correct answer. “You should also add clean organ meat, too. I know it’s a nasty job, but it has to be done. Avatre likes hearts especially,” he added as an afterthought.

“Falcons need organ meat too,” the boy said, nodding as he chopped the meat into the right-sized bits. “I used to take care of falcons. That is, I did the cleaning and feeding, I never got to handle them—”