“Best not to know,” she told him. “Besides, the Fall’s not over.”

T’mar’s eyes widened as he realized that she would already have felt the pain of the injured Telgar dragons—the same dragons who had yet to go back in time to Ista’s aid.

“You’ll take charge as soon as you get there,” Fiona said, distracting him. “M’tal’s dead.”

T’mar nodded slowly, his lips pursed tightly. Fiona raced to his side, wrapped him in a quick hug and whispered, “Fly safe.” He hugged her back and she looked up at him, her eyes firm as she told him, “Be certain you come back to me.”

“I will,” T’mar declared, then turned and vaulted up to his perch on Zirenth’s back. He urged Zirenth into the air, found his place with his Wing, and made the hand signal for the dragonriders of Telgar to go between, back in time, to fight a Threadfall they’d not anticipated, a Threadfall they’d been fighting for over an hour already.

A silence descended upon the Weyr and Fiona turned to Lorana. “He will come back, won’t he?”

Lorana looked at her a long time before turning away, saying sympathetically, “He hasn’t been injured yet; I can no more see the future than you.”

“We should set up the aid stations,” Fiona said after a moment, turning to Shaneese and the weyrfolk.

She gave good coordinates, Zirenth said in approving tones as they burst out into the hot morning air over Keroon. T’mar nodded silently as he gazed out over the flight of Istan dragons arrayed before them.

Ginirth says they fly well, Zirenth relayed. T’mar snorted, guessing that behind that observation lay H’nez’s question: What were they doing here? M’tal was in the lead, flying well and—

As suddenly as T’mar could think, a clump of Thread whirled around in a dangerous looping arc, at first unseen in the distance, and was entangled around M’tal. T’mar heard Gaminth’s bellow of pain, saw the bronze rider slump even as the Thread burnt through his wher-hide and into his flesh—and then dragon and rider were gone.

T’mar barely had time to realize that the same thing had happened to three other Istan riders at the same moment—two of them wingleaders—before he cried out, “’Ware, Thread!”

Zirenth lurched suddenly, arching his neck, his muscles straining mightily as his wings fought to gain even more height and his mouth opened in a long arc of flame burning a clump of Thread out of the sky that just a moment before had threatened to engulf them the same way M’tal had been surprised.