“It won’t be like that! It doesn’t have to be like that. You’re thinking of this in the worst possible way.” His hand came back, gentle, soothing. He traced her arm from shoulder to elbow and back again. Then his touch slipped to her neck, and his hand wandered slowly down her rib cage. Thymara saw Jerd’s breasts move with her indrawn breath. “The dragons will come to understand. A few scales, a bit of blood, the tip of a claw. Nothing that harms them. Sometimes but not often, something more than that, a tooth perhaps or an eye, taken from a dragon who will die anyway…Never often, or what is rare becomes commonplace. That would do no one any good.”

“I don’t like it.” She spoke flatly and pulled away from his exploring hand. “And I don’t think any of the dragons will like it. How about Kalo? Have you shared your plan with your own dragon? How did he take it?”

He shrugged, and then admitted, “He didn’t like it. Said he would kill me before he allowed that to happen. But he threatens to kill me several times a day. It’s just what he says when things don’t go his way. He knows he has the best keeper. So he threatens me, but he puts up with me. In time, I think even he would see the wisdom of the idea.”

“I don’t. I think he’d kill you.” Her voice was flat. She meant it. She stretched as she spoke and then glancing down at her own breasts, brushed at her left nipple as if dislodging something. Greft’s eyes followed her hand, and his voice went deeper.

“Maybe it won’t ever come to that,” he conceded. “Maybe we will find Kelsingra and maybe it will be rich with Elderling artifacts. If we do find our fortune there, then we must be sure that all recognize it is ours. Trehaug will try to claim it;be sure of that. Bingtown will want to be the sole marketplace for it. We’ll hear it all again from them. ‘This is the way it has always been.’ But you and I, we know it doesn’t always have to be that way. We must be very ready to defend our future from grasping hands.”

Jerd pushed blond hair back from her face. “Greft, you spin such wonderful webs of dreams. You speak as if we were hundreds of people in search of a haven, instead of just over a dozen. ‘Defend our future’ you say. What future? There are too few of us. The best we can think of would be finding a better life just for ourselves. I like how you think, most of the time, with your talk of new rules for a new life. But sometimes you sound like a little child playing with wooden toys and claiming them as your kingdom.”