“A little bit of blood,” Sylve said in a near whisper, and Sedric went cold. A little bit? How much was a little bit? He tried to remember how much blood he’d taken in that night, and wondered how much it took.

“Mercor gave you some of his blood?” Thymara was incredulous. “What did you do with it?”

Sylve’s voice was very quiet, as if she spoke of something sacred. Or horrifying. “He told me to pull a small scale from his face. I did. A drop or two of blood welled out. He told me to catch it on the scale. And then to eat it.” Her breath caught, and the rhythm of her paddling broke. “It was…delicious. No. It wasn’t a taste. It was a feeling. It was magical. It changed me.”

With two strong strokes of her paddle, Thymara drove them out of the current and into the shallows. She reached up and caught a branch and held them all in place.

“Why?” The question exploded out of her. It sounded as if she asked it of the universe in general, as if it were almost a cry of despair at an unfair fate, but it was Sylve who answered her.

“You know what we are, Thymara. You know why some of us are discarded at birth. Why those of us who change too much too soon are denied mates and children. If they discover us when we are born, we are denied any future at all. It’s because we change in ways that make us monstrous. And make us die, sooner rather than later, after giving birth to monsters who cannot live. Mercor believes those changes happen to any humans who are around dragons for any length of time.”

“That makes no sense! Rain Wilders were changing from the very first generation who settled here. Long before dragons came back into this world, children were developing scales, and pregnant women were giving birth to monsters!”

“Long before dragons came back, we were living where they had lived, and digging into the places where the Elderlings had dwelt. We were plundering their treasures, wearing their jewelry, making timber out of dragon cases. There may not have been dragons walking among us, but we were walking among them.”

A silence held as Thymara digested those words. The water rushed past their canoe. Sedric felt cold and still inside. Blood. Blood from a dragon was changing Sylve. Two drops and one small scale was all it had taken. How much had he taken in? What changes had he triggered in himself? Monsters, they had said. Monsters who didn’t live long, monsters denied any future. Something in the middle of him had gone tight and was twisting, twisting so hard it hurt. He bent forward slightly over his belly. Neither of them appeared to notice.

“But the blood he gave you will change you more?”