“Yes, you will!” Nuella had agreed fervently, sitting back enough to rub Lorana’s shoulders in a soothing motion.

Moments later a brown cried out and disappeared, but winked back into the fight, having frozen off an assaulting strand of Thread between.

“I think it’s getting darker,” Kindan said now, straining to pick out the dragons in the night air.

“This is the most dangerous time,” Nuella said. “When it is still too light for the watch-whers, and too early for the Thread to have frozen.”

As if in answer, ahead of them, a pair of dragons bellowed in pain, their cries stifled as they went between. Only one returned.

“Karalth made it back to the Weyr,” Lorana reported, referring to the missing green. Her lips curved upward in relief as she added, “Fiona’s with him.”

“That’s good to know,” Kindan called back over his shoulder. “I’m going to close up or we’ll lose sight of J’lantir.”

In response, Zirenth swooped forward with easy wingbeats, closing up to the nearest dragons.

Lorana strained forward over his shoulder for a sight of J’lantir.

“There’s J’lantir!” Kindan shouted, raising an arm and pointing.

Lorana strained over his shoulder to follow his aim and had just spotted the flightleader when she shrieked, “J’lantir! Behind you!”

Too late, the bronze rider reacted to the clump of Thread that had twisted on the rising turbulence of the night air to fall directly onto the backs of rider and dragon alike. For one brief moment it flared, gorging upon the leathers of the bronze rider and the skin of the unprotected dragon, and then they were gone between—but not before Lorana could make out the pulsing red of blood as Thread ate through the last of J’lantir’s wher-hide jacket and feasted on his flesh, even as it grew in its feeding on Lolanth’s spine.

“He was too late,” Lorana cried, balling her fists and pounding them feebly against Kindan’s back. “Too late!”

J’lantir is no more! The voice rang out clearly, devoid of hope, bereft of all happiness, dry only with despair.

H’nez, lead the flight.

Ahead a dragon rumbled in acknowledgment and the dragons of Telgar Weyr hastened to re-form their confused assault against the falling Thread.

When Fiona finally staggered into her quarters after ensuring that the last of the four injured were comfortably settled into their weyrs and certain to recover, she was too tired to notice much of her surroundings. She shucked her clothes into the bathroom, threw on her nightgown as quickly as tired fingers, spurred by the evening chill, could manage, and slipped herself into the warm bed with a sigh of contentment.

She was surprised to realize that she was looking into Kindan’s eyes.

“Lorana’s keeping an eye on T’mar,” he said.