She glared defiance at him, but he was not about to argue with her. Not in this mood. He just nodded, and backed his way out. At this point, he didn’t care what she did, as long as she got that terrible wailing to stop, and kept the dragonet from starving herself to death. Another rider could be found eventually, and then he would argue that it was not appropriate for a young lady to be housed among so many young men.

Later. Not now.

Besides, somehow he had to get the others going, to establish a semblance of normality. More than ever, they had to get on their feet, get going, get back to business, and prove themselves. The Magi would be watching them now, sure that Toreth had cultivated a hotbed of dissent here, and waiting for the chance to make them fail. Therefore, they had to succeed, and yet at the same time, they had to deceive the Magi into thinking that they were insignificant, harmless. Toreth would have wanted that.

Throughout the sixty days of mourning, as the prince’s body was prepared for burial with all the care due a Prince and Heir, that phrase kept coming up among the boys that were left. Spoken, or unspoken, it was always there. Toreth would have wanted this.

The wing got back into the air, back into practice, pushing themselves and their dragons as never before, because Toreth would have wanted that. Heklatis worked feverishly, making their own personal amulets into magic sinks, imbued with every sort of protection that his imagination and the powers of his own mind and body could muster, because Toreth would have wanted his wingmates protected against the evil that the Magi could summon. Aket-ten devoted herself to the welfare of the dragon that she renamed “Re-eth-ke”—“the shining sun-spirit”—because Toreth would not have wanted his dragon to pine herself to death. And within twenty days, Aket-ten was garbed in a kilt and a breast wrap, flying that dragon, first in simple exercise, then in support of the training games, then in the training games and combat practice again. She was not much good at the targeting, except with the sling, but no one could outfly her. And somehow, Lord Khumun never brought forth another boy for Re-eth-ke, and it never seemed terribly urgent to Kiron that he find a substitute—