Sintara turned her head to regard her keeper. Her copper eyes whirled, and suddenly they appeared molten to Thymara, pools of liquid copper whirling against the gleaming backdrop of her lapis lazuli scales. Dragon glamour, she tried to warn herself, but couldn’t care. She let herself be drawn into that gaze, let herself become important because of the dragon’s regard for her. A tiny cynical part of her snidely asked if a dragon’s regard truly made her important. She ignored it.

“You should go hunting,” Sintara suggested to her.

She was reluctant to leave the dragon. Moving away from her glorious copper gaze would be like leaving the warmth of a cheery fire on a cold and stormy night. She clung to the dragon’s gaze, refusing to believe her dragon might wish her to leave.

“I’m hungry,” Sintara said softly. “Won’t you go and find food for me?”

“Of course,” Thymara responded promptly, overcome by Sintara’s will.

Sintara’s voice grew very soft, as if it were no more than a breath blowing past Thymara’s ear. “Greft and Jerd went into the forest not so long ago. Perhaps they know where the hunting is good. Perhaps you should follow them.”

That stung. “I am a better hunter than Greft will ever be,” she told her dragon. “I’ve no need to follow him.”

“Nonetheless, I think you should,” Sintara insisted, and suddenly it did not seem like a bad idea. A thought teased at the edge of Thymara’s mind;if Greft had already made a kill, perhaps she could help herself to a share, just as he had with hers. She still had not paid him back for that trespass.

“Go on,” Sintara urged her, and she went.

EACH OF THE keepers had formed the habit of keeping their gear in their boats. Dealing with Rapskal’s untidiness was a daily trial for Thymara. When she thought about it, it seemed unfair that a random choice on the first day had doomed her to be his partner. The others regularly rotated partners, but Rapskal had no interest in such swaps. And she doubted she would find anyone willing to take him on, even if she could persuade him to try it. His strangeness was too great. Yet he was handsome, and adept on the river. And always optimistic. She tried to recall him speaking crossly, and could not. She smiled to herself. So he was strange. It was a strangeness that she could get used to. She pushed his gear bag to one side and rummaged in her own for her hunting items.