“Tintoval, get the aid kit,” she called, as she strode over to the injured bronze. “We’ll need sutures and the fine needle.”

She was about to say something reassuring to H’nez, words of peace and healing when she heard Talenth: He broke ranks.

“You broke ranks?” Fiona exclaimed, her eyes impaling H’nez with burning ire.

“When Ridorth and F’dan went between,” H’nez said, licking his lips, his eyes not quite meeting hers. Fiona felt his confusion, his anger—directed at himself, his sense of loss, and suddenly she saw the man in a different light.

“That’s for the Weyrleader,” she said, her tone dismissing the issue. She jerked her head, indicating that he should join her. She gave Ginirth’s wound a close examination, but she was certain that she already knew enough from what she’d seen during his landing and what she’d felt in her brief contact with the bronze. “This is ugly but it will heal. You’ll be flying next Fall.”

Tintoval approached, handed the aid kit to Fiona, and, as another casualty burst out of between, went off, more than willing to leave the difficult rider and his injured bronze in her care.

Dowsed with numbweed, Ginirth allowed her to stitch him up. Fiona couldn’t say how long it took to finish. She waved aside H’nez’s fervent thanks, too aware of the other cries in the Bowl around them, racing off to check on Tintoval and then help Xhinna sew up a badly burned arm before finally checking on Cisca.

The Weyrwoman looked up from her work long enough to give Fiona a grateful nod, then went back to the difficult job of suturing a punctured dragon’s neck. Afterward, when rider and dragon were turned over to the care of weyrfolk, Cisca gave Fiona a longer look, flicking a lock of brown hair away from her face irritably.

“We thought you were going with them, grief-stricken,” Cisca said, referring to F’dan and Ridorth. She cocked her head toward Melirth, who was anxiously watching the proceedings from her lair. Fiona shrugged, at the moment too exhausted both physically and emotionally to be concerned with the past worries of others. Cisca’s face hardened. “If you can’t work with me, I can’t have you in my Weyr.”

For one brief instant, Fiona thought longingly of her days at Igen Weyr, but the moment passed and she hung her head. “I’m doing the best I can, Weyrwoman.”

Cisca gave her a long thoughtful look before glancing up and over toward H’nez’s weyr. “You are too much alike with that bronze rider, more willing to listen to yourself than anyone else.”

Fiona lifted her head, eyes flashing angrily, but she said nothing.

“You were too long your own counsel,” Cisca declared in a tone that was shaded with pity. “You carried a grown woman’s burden and more.”