“‘Idiot,’” Fiona said, beating the other girl to the punch.

“How’d you know?”

Fiona snorted, glad to be right. “It’s what I would have said to her under the same circumstances.”

“And you’d be right, too.”

“We all make mistakes,” Lorana spoke up from the entrance to the bathroom.

“Some more than others,” Fiona amended glumly.

“Well, after T’mar’s head, your fever is nothing, really,” Terin told her. She stood up briskly, giving Fiona a quick smile before she turned toward the exit into Talenth’s weyr. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a dragon of my own to tend.”

“Oh, I doubt if you’re tending it all on your own,” Fiona teased and was delighted at the expression on Terin’s face. “I’m sure that even at this moment there’s either a gaggle of goggle-eyed weyrkids tending her every need or at least one very attentive bronze rider at her beck and call.”

“Both, actually,” Terin agreed with a grin. With a final wave, she strode off, out of sight.

“F’jian’s keeping an eye on the weyrlings,” Kindan explained as he escorted Fiona and Lorana back to the queen’s weyr that evening after dinner.

Fiona had insisted that as she was “fully recovered,” she was more than able to sit at the high table and mingle with her Weyr.

She was glad she had. The relief visible on the faces of some of the weyrwomen was more than ample vindication of her decision.

“You rest up, now, Weyrwoman!” one of the most sour of them had called as Fiona departed. She was joined by a chorus of agreeing voices, the most heartening of which was one who said: “We don’t want anything to happen to our Weyrwoman!”

Our Weyrwoman. The phrase resonated in Fiona’s mind and cheered her. It had not been all that long since the old Telgar weyrfolk had looked on her with stern faces. Now she was theirs—and they worried about her. It wasn’t just that this was her Weyr, now they were her weyrfolk, too. The realization brought a smile to her lips.

Still, she had to admit that the walk to the Dining Cavern and back was as much exercise as she was good for that evening.

She suspected that her visible fragility was the strongest reason that she and Lorana had for Kindan’s comforting presence. Idly she thought of suggesting that she spend time with T’mar, but she dismissed the thought almost as soon as she had it—she didn’t doubt that Shaneese was with T’mar on this evening before Threadfall. Fiona grinned as she mused that T’mar was probably so tense that Shaneese was there more for her skills as masseuse than as lover.

Lorana was in a mothering mood, demanding that Fiona get in the bed first, then herself, then Kindan.