Thymara’s unhappiness was like a buzzing mosquito in her ear. Ever since her blood had spattered on Thymara’s face and lips, she’d been aware of the girl in a very uncomfortable way. It wasn’t her fault; she hadn’t intended to share her blood with her, or to create the awareness of each other that would always exist now. And it certainly had not been her decision to accelerate the changes that Thymara was undergoing. She had no desire to create an Elderling, let alone devote the thought and time that molding one required. Let the others contemplate such an old-fashioned pastime. Humans were ridiculously short-lived. Even when a dragon modified one to extend its lifetime several times over, they still lived only a fraction of a dragon’s life. Why bother to create one and become attached to it when it was only going to die soon anyway?

Now Thymara had gone off on her own, to sulk. Or to grieve. Sometimes the distinction between the two seemed very insignificant to Sintara. There, now, the girl was crying, as if crying were a thing one did to fix something rather than a messy reaction that humans had to anything difficult. Sintara hated sharing Thymara’s sensation of painful tears and dribbling nose and sore throat. She wanted to snap at the girl, but she knew that would only make her wail more. So, with great restraint, she reached out to her gently.

Thymara. Please stop this nonsense. It only makes both of us uncomfortable.

Rejection. That was all she sensed from the girl. Not even a coherent thought, only a futile effort to push the dragon out of her thoughts. How dare she be so rude! As if Sintara had wanted to be aware of her at all!

The dragon found a sunny spot on the mudbank and stretched out. Stay out of my mind, she warned the girl and resolutely turned her thoughts away from her. But she could not quite quench a small sense of desolation and sorrow.

Day the 14th of the Prayer Moon

Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

To Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown

Shipped this day twenty-five of my birds on the liveship Goldendown. The captain of that vessel bears for you a payment from the Trehaug Rain Wild Traders’ Council sufficient for three hundredweight sacks of the yellow peas for pigeon feed.

Erek,

I have finally persuaded the Council of the value of a good diet for the birds. I also showed them several of the king pigeons, including two half-grown squabs, and told them that the birds could lay two eggs every sixteen days, and that a good pair frequently laid another set of eggs as soon as the first hatched, so that a steady stream of squabs suitable for the table could be produced by free-ranging birds. They seemed very amenable to the idea.