Truth to tell, he didn’t think he could bear to look at Re-eth-ke and see another boy in her saddle. Seeing Aket-ten there didn’t hurt; in a way, it was only right that after nursing the dragon back from its depression, she have the same freedom of the skies as the rest of them. He could see it in her face—when she was on the ground, there were anxiety lines there, the haunting flicker of fear that never left her, and the constant nag of worry that at any moment, the Magi might come for her. Up in the sky, all that left her. How could he take that from her? There might have been problems with a young woman in the midst of so many young men, but she never acted like a young “woman.” She might have flirted mildly with them before—she did nothing of the sort now. She acted like one of the wing, with the same earnest determination as any of them, and a complete lack of anything that could be considered flirtation.

So, by the time that Toreth’s funerary shrine was done, and his mummified body placed in it, and his spirit released to cross the Star-Bridge, Aket-ten had become a part of the wing, and never a murmur against her.

Not even from the senior Jousters. The Dry season aged toward winter, but everything seemed disjointed and wrong, somehow. The senior Jousters went out; some came back, some did not. Lord Khumun never ordered Kiron’s wing out at all. In a way, that was a relief; in a way, it felt as if the Lord of the Jousters had abandoned them.

At last the body was mummified, the shrine was complete, and with a shock, Kiron realized with a shock that it was time to say a final farewell. They all went to the funeral rites—and it was only at that moment that the anger he had felt before Toreth’s death finally awoke again. Because the rites were—perfunctory.

In fact, it felt like an extension of Toreth’s disgrace, as if his own parents believed that the cobra had really been a sign of the gods’ displeasure. When they all arrived at the dock to take the funeral barge to the City of the Dead, Kiron had to look twice to recognize that they did have the right barge, and not one for some insignificant shopkeeper. The barge was small, the decoration sparse, the flowers—well, the only flowers were those brought by the wing. The offerings for the gods were the only things that were there in profusion, in overabundance, in fact, as if Toreth’s parents were trying desperately to bribe the gods into a good humor.

There was no escort of professional mourners. Toreth’s own parents did not attend. There was only Kaleth, looking like five kinds of death himself, to represent the family, and the wing, to represent his friends.