“I’m going to die,” he said finally. His tone made it their fault. “Things are starting to go wrong inside me. I can feel things going wrong. My gut hurts when I’m hungry and hurts worse when I eat. The shape of my mouth has changed so much that I can’t chew or even close my mouth comfortably. My eyes are dry, but I can’t close my eyelids all the way. Nothing simple is simple anymore. I can’t get enough air through my nose when I try to breathe, and when I breathe through my mouth, my throat dries out until it cracks and I spit blood.” He looked around at them again and his eyes came to rest on Thymara. “That’s my life,” he said quietly. “Or my death. The death of someone who is changing, without a dragon to guide it. The death of someone who was born so Rain Wild touched that I can’t even live to be middle-aged, let alone old.”

Suddenly he was standing alone in their midst, with no one touching him. When he walked away from them, people parted wordlessly to let him pass. Alise stooped down and picked up the small glass bottle that had been dropped. She looked at it, then glanced at Sedric in consternation. “It looks like an ink bottle,” she said.

Sedric shrugged. His mouth was pinched and his face pale. He looked sick. Carson moved closer to him. Alise slowly turned her gaze on Leftrin. “It’s not true, is it? The hunter lied to that boy, didn’t he?”

Leftrin looked at her for a long, silent time. He glanced around at the watching keepers. “Someone thought they could force me to do something like that. Because they knew about Tarman, knew how much wizardwood was in him. But I never agreed to it, Alise. I never agreed to it, and I never planned to do it.”

A small wrinkle had formed between her eyes. “That’s what he was talking about that day, wasn’t it? Jess, that day in the galley? He thought that Sedric and I were here to help you?”

“He had a lot of peculiar ideas. But he’s gone now, Alise, and what I’m telling you is true. I never agreed to smuggle dragon blood or parts.” He looked at her and then added very quietly, “This I swear on Tarman. I swear it on my liveship.”

For a moment longer, Alise stood uncertain. Thymara watched her. She glanced from Leftrin to Sedric and back again. Then, Alise hooked her arm through Leftrin’s and looked only at him. “I believe you,” she said, as if she were making a choice. “I believe you, Leftrin.”

Day the 12th of the Gold Moon

Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

To Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown