No, Ramoth would not. Not while Lessa lived.

F’lar had told her long ago that she must learn to look beyond the narrow confines of Hold Ruatha and mere revenge. He was, as usual, right. As Weyrwoman under his tutelage, she had further learned that living was more than raising dragons and Spring Games. Living was struggling to do something impossible—to succeed, or die, knowing you had tried!

Lessa realized that she had, at last, fully accepted her role: as Weyrwoman and as mate, to help F’lar shape men and events for many Turns to come—to secure Pern against the Threads.

Lessa threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin high.

Old C’gan had had the right of it.

Dragonmen must fly

When Threads are in the sky!

Worlds are lost or worlds are saved

By those dangers dragon-braved.

AS F’LAR HAD predicted, the attack ended by high noon, and weary dragons and riders were welcomed by Ramoth’s high-pitched trumpeting from the Peak.

Once Lessa assured herself that F’lar had taken no additional injury, that F’nor’s were superficial and that Manora was keeping Kylara busy in the kitchens, she applied herself to organizing the care of the injured and the comfort of the worried.

As dusk fell, an uneasy peace settled on the Weyr—the quiet of minds and bodies too tired or too hurtful to talk. Lessa’s own words mocked her as she made out the list of wounded men and beasts. Twenty-eight men or dragons were out of the air for the next Thread battle. C’gan was the only fatality, but there had been four more seriously injured dragons at Keroon and seven badly scored men, out of action entirely for months to come.

Lessa crossed the Bowl to her Weyr, reluctant but resigned to giving F’lar this unsettling news.

She expected to find him in the sleeping room, but it was vacant. Ramoth was asleep already as Lessa passed her on the way to the Council Room—also empty. Puzzled and a little alarmed, Lessa half-ran down the steps to the Records Room, to find F’lar, haggard of face, poring over musty skins.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded angrily. “You ought to be asleep.”

“So should you,” he drawled, amused.

“I was helping Manora settle the wounded . . .”

“Each to his own craft.” But he did lean back from the table, rubbing his neck and rotating the uninjured shoulder to ease stiffened muscles.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, “so I thought I’d see what answers I might turn up in the Records.”

“More answers? To what?” Lessa cried, exasperated with him. As if the Records ever answered anything. Obviously the tremendous responsibilities of Pern’s defense against the Threads were beginning to tell on the Weyrleader. After all, there had been the stress of the first battle, not to mention the drain of the traveling between time itself to get to Nerat to forestall the Threads.

F’lar grinned and beckoned Lessa to sit beside him on the wall bench.