The dragon arched her neck to look Lessa squarely in the eyes. Ramoth repeated wistfully how exceedingly hungry she was, so long confined in that shell without nourishment.

Lessa wondered how she knew the golden dragon’s name, and Ramoth replied: Why shouldn’t she know her own name since it was hers and no one else’s? And then Lessa was lost in the wonder of those magnificently expressive eyes.

Oblivious to the descending bronze dragons, oblivious to the presence of their riders, Lessa stood caressing the head of the most wonderful creature of all Pern, fully prescient of troubles and glories, but most immediately aware that Lessa of Pern was Weyrwoman to Ramoth the Golden for now and forever.

PART II

Dragonflight

Seas boil and mountains move,

Sands heat, dragons prove

Red Star passes.

Stones pile and fires burn,

Green withers, arm Pern.

Guard all passes.

Star Stone watch, scan sky.

Ready the Weyrs, all riders fly;

Red Star passes.

“IF A QUEEN isn’t meant to fly, why does she have wings?” asked Lessa. She was genuinely trying to maintain a tone of sweet reason.

She had had to learn that, although it was her nature to seethe, she must seethe discreetly. Unlike the average Pernese, dragonriders were apt to perceive strong emotional auras.

R’gul’s heavy eyebrows drew together in a startled frown. He snapped his jaws together with exasperation. Lessa knew his answer before he uttered it.

“Queens don’t fly,” he said flatly.

“Except to mate,” S’lel amended. He had been dozing, a state he achieved effortlessly and frequently, although he was younger than the vigorous R’gul.

They are going to quarrel again, Lessa thought with an inward groan. She could stand about half an hour of that, and then her stomach would begin to churn. Their notion of instructing the new Weyrwoman in “Duties to Dragon, Weyr, and Pern” too often deteriorated into extended arguments over minor details in the lessons she had to memorize and recite word-perfect. Sometimes, as now, she entertained the fragile hope that she might wind them up so tightly in their own inconsistencies that they would inadvertently reveal a truth or two.

“A queen flies only to mate,” R’gul allowed the correction.

“Surely,” Lessa said with persistent patience, “if she can fly to mate, she can fly at other times.”

“Queens don’t fly,” R’gul’s expression was stubborn.

“Jora never did fly a dragon at all,” S’lel mumbled, blinking rapidly in his bemusement with the past. His expression was vaguely troubled. “Jora never left these apartments.”

“She took Nemorth to the feeding grounds,” R’gul snapped irritably.

Bile rose in Lessa’s throat. She swallowed. She would simply have to force them to leave. Would they realize that Ramoth woke all too conveniently at times? Maybe she’d better rouse R’gul’s Hath. Inwardly she permitted herself a smug smile as her secret ability to hear and talk to any dragon in the Weyr, green, blue, brown, or bronze, momentarily soothed her.

“When Jora could get Nemorth to stir at all,” S’lel muttered, picking at his underlip worriedly.