Rapskal was fussing over her, trying to hold her down. Thymara pushed him aside and sat up, to belch and spit out more sandy water. “Please, give me some space,” she said. It was only when a shadow moved away that she became aware that a dragon had been standing over her also. She spat more grit out of her mouth. Her eyes were sore and tears could not come. She wiped at them lightly with her fingers, and silt came away.

“Tip your head back,” Tats ordered her gruffly, and when she did, he poured clean water over her face. “Doing your arm now,” he warned her, and the cool flow made her gasp as it eased the burning she’d been trying to ignore. She sneezed abruptly, and water and mucus flew everywhere. She wiped her face with the blanket, earning a cry of “Hey, that’s my blanket!” from Rapskal.

“You can use mine,” she said hoarsely. She suddenly realized she wasn’t dead or dying, only strangely humiliated by everyone’s attention. She struggled to get to her feet. When Tats helped her, she managed not to jerk her arm away from him, though she didn’t like to appear weak in front of everyone. An instant later, it was even worse when Alise enveloped her in a hug.

“Oh, Thymara, I’m so sorry! I nearly killed you and all for a fish!”

She managed to disentangle herself from Alise. “What sort of a fish was it?” she asked, trying to divert attention away from herself. Her abraded arm stung and her clothes were wet. She slung the blanket around her shoulders as Alise said, “Come and see. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Neither had Thymara. In shape, it was like an inverted dinner plate, but a plate twice the size of Thymara’s blanket. It had two bulbous eyes on top of its body, and a long, whiplike tail with a series of barbs on the end. The top of it was speckled light and dark, like the river bottom, but its underside was white. It bore the wounds of spears in a dozen places, and gashes where Sintara had dragged it ashore. “Is it a fish?” she asked incredulously.

“Looks a bit like a ray; yes, a fish,” Leftrin commented. “But I’ve never seen anything like this in the river, only in salt water. And I’ve never seen one this size.”

“And it’s mine to eat,” Sintara asserted. “But for me, it would have been lost.”