Sleep came with difficulty, for the youngsters and the Candidates were all too anxious to do more than toss and turn, causing Fiona to reconsider her decision of allowing weyrfolk to sleep on the Hatching Grounds. What she got was fits and starts and even giggles and mutterings from the youngsters, until she finally lost her temper and shouted at them. She regretted it instantly, but she was too out of sorts to show any contrition.

Apparently her outrage worked. The gathering quieted down enough for her to get some moments of sleep before she woke up again, later, grumbling.

“What makes you think they’d sleep any more in their own rooms?” Terin asked, stifling a yawn even as her bright eyes flicked toward the queen egg, straining for any signs of motion.

Dawn had come and light was creeping into the Hatching Grounds, changing the eggs from indistinct grayish blobs into blurs of various colors, some greenish blue, some bluish green, some brownish bronze, others copper brown—none, save the queen egg, identifying with any certainty the color of the dragonet still slumbering inside.

From the distance of Talenth’s weyr, Fiona heard her queen rumble cheerfully, a noise returned with both greater volume and greater enthusiasm by Tolarth where she lay curled up, the queen egg protectively within her grasp.

“You have done marvelously!” Fiona called to the queen. Tolarth regarded her with complacent green-swirling eyes.

They will do, Tolarth said in an agreement tinged with some hidden certainty, as though these dragonets were destined to save all Pern.

As will ours, Talenth added with the same sort of smugness that made Fiona agitatedly wonder how the dragons could be so certain—they barely remembered yesterday, how could they predict tomorrow?

The bronzes started humming and Fiona felt, on a level below her own senses, an exchange between Tolarth and Talenth that resulted in her own queen suddenly bursting into the air above them, startling all the weyrfolk and the bronzes as she winged her way in deftly to take a place close to Tolarth—nearly exactly where she’d lain before with her own clutch.

Careful! Fiona called warningly.

I always know where I am, Talenth assured her, her smug tone still quite evident.

She gets it from you, Fiona heard Lorana say with a mixture of amusement and affection.

I suppose she does, Fiona said, turning to wave and smile at her queen. She looked at the gathered weyrfolk, saw the youngsters stream off to the viewing stands, spotted the Candidates quickly donning their white robes, tossing their nightclothes to those passing up to the stands—it all looked terribly well managed. Fiona turned toward Terin and gave her a calculating look.

“What?” Terin asked innocently, her own white robes neatly tied with a belt.

“Still the headwoman,” Fiona said, shaking her head and smirking. Terin returned the smirk with a grin.