Carson didn’t try to stop him. “I do understand, Tats. I’ve been where you stand. Someday, you’ll be where I am right now, saying these same words to a youngster. And he probably won’t—”

“What is that? Look! Is it a fire? Is the city on fire?” Tats had halted in the doorway, staring out and across the hillside and river and into the distance.

In two steps, Carson was at his side, peering over his shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen light like that. It’s coming from windows, but it’s so white!”

A rumbling began, so deep that Sedric more felt than heard it. He rose, clutching the blanket around his nakedness, and joined them at the door. In the distance, in the night, he could see the city as he never had before. It was not a distant huddle of structures but an irregular pattern of rectangular lights scattered over the far shore and into the distance, right up to what he surmised were the foothills. As he watched, more lights kindled, spreading downriver, and his breath caught in his throat as he suddenly realized that he was looking at a city much larger than he had imagined. It easily rivaled Bingtown for size.

“Sweet Sa!” Carson breathed, and at that moment the rumbling Sedric had felt became a full-voiced trumpeting from a dozen dragon throats.

“What is it?” he demanded of everyone and no one, and he felt Relpda echo his query. His dragon had wakened to the lights and trumpeting. For a moment, he sensed only her disorientation, and then he felt her thought, both joyous and anguished. The city awakens and welcomes us. It is time we went home.

But we cannot get there.

Alise awakened to dragons trumpeting in the night. She put her feet over the side of the bed and winced as they hit the cold floor. She slept in the Elderling gown that Leftrin had given her, as much as to feel it as his touch as for the unfailing warmth it gave her. She hurried to the door of the hut that seemed so much larger and emptier without the captain, opening the door to rain and darkness.

No. Not complete darkness. Stars had blossomed across the river. She stared, rubbed her eyes, and then looked again. Not stars. Not fires. Windows lit with the sort of light that could come only from Elderling magic. Something had happened over there, something had been triggered. She stared in awe and frustration. “I should have been there when this happened. Who did this, and how?”