She didn’t want Sedric to come back. She didn’t want him to be dead, but if by a wish she could have safely transported him back to Bingtown, she would have done so in a breath.

Day the 26th of the Prayer Moon

Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown

To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

A message from Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown, to Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug. In a sealed case, the travel arrangements for Apprentice Reyall to return home to his family to observe a period of mourning, at the expense of the bird keepers. A shipment of twenty-five swift pigeons and six kings has been entrusted to his care on the way. With our deepest sympathy and warmest regards.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE LOCKET

I ate a man! I ate the hunter!” Relpda was triumphant. She blasted the news to all of them, trumpeting it out before she even reached them. She waded out of the shallows and onto the mucky beach to greet them. “He threatened my keeper! We fought him and we ate him!” Her next words unsettled the disrupted dragons even more. “My keeper has proven himself worthy. He drank my blood to speak to me, and now he is mine. I shall make him an Elderling, the first of a new kind.”

“This has not been discussed!” Mercor objected.

“You gave him your blood?”

“How will you make him an Elderling?”

“What is she talking about?”

“SILENCE!” Ranculos blasted them with a roar. And when the other dragons fell into a stunned quiet, he rounded on the little copper female. “What have you done?” he demanded of her. “You, with less than half the proper wits of a dragon, you have given blood to a human? You have begun to change him? It is bad enough that so many have begun to change, simply from proximity to us. Do you not recall what was decided, ages ago? Have you forgotten the Abominations? Would you bring more of them into existence?”

“What are you talking about?” Sintara exploded. “Stop speaking in riddles! Is there a danger here for us? What has she done?”

“She’s eaten a hunter, for one thing. A hunter who was supposed to help provide food for us!” Ranculos sounded outraged.

Spit snorted. “Feed myself now. Don’t need hunter or keeper.”

“No human has brought us food of any kind for several days now,” Veras pointed out quietly.

“They haven’t needed to. There has been plenty of dead fish for us,” Sestican said.