She had snuffed carefully all about her kill site to be sure she had not missed a single morsel. She hadn’t. Striding to the steepest edge of the stony ridge, she had looked down. It was a long drop. Doubt tried to uncurl inside her, but she crushed it. She had flown to get here, and she would fly to get back. Back? Why would she go back, she wondered suddenly? Back to the other dragons in their pitiful earthbound huddle? Back to an inadequate shelter and a keeper who could barely sustain her most basic needs? No. There was no reason for her to go back to any of that. She could fly now, and she could kill for herself. It was time to leave this cold place and fly to the heat-soaked sands she had dreamed of ever since she had emerged from her cocoon. Time to live as a dragon.

She had launched, springing out wildly from the ridge. With powerful beats of her wings, she had risen to where she could catch the currents of air that flowed with the river far below her. She caught the wind, her wings cupped wide, and she let it lift her higher and higher. The altitude and the freedom intoxicated her. Drawing a breath, she trumpeted a wild challenge to the gathering evening. Sintara! she roared, and she took pleasure in the fact that she heard no reply.

She circled wide over the river, tasting and smelling all the information that the wind carried to her. The first stars were starting to show in the darkening sky; the sight of them sobered her.

Dragons were creatures of light and day. They did not, by choice, fly at night. She needed to find a place to land, somewhere that offered her shelter against the night’s cold and the threat of rain. And, she realized, she should choose a place that offered an excellent launching spot. Taking flight from the ridge had been far easier than trying to lift herself from the riverside.

She had banked, intending to circle widely. But with the coming of evening, the day had cooled and the winds had risen. A current of air caught her and sent her out in a much wider spiral. Relentlessly, it had swept her out over the depth of the rushing river.