F’nor shrugged. “As I told you, they are Impressionable—if rather undiscriminating,” he pointed to Mirrim at the hearth and then grinned maliciously, “although they detested Kylara on sight. They’re slaves to their stomachs, though after Hatching that’s very definitely draconic. They respond to affection and flattery. The dragons themselves admit the relationship, seem totally free of jealousy of the creatures. I can detect basic emotions in the thoughts of mine and they generally inspire affection in those who handle them.”

“And they can go between?”

“Grall—my little queen—did. About chewing firestone I couldn’t hazard a guess. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“And we don’t have time,” F’lar said, clenching his fists, his eyes restless with the current of his thoughts.

“If we could find a hardened clutch, all set to Hatch, in time for that wedding—that, combined with Fandarel’s gadget—” F’nor let his sentence trail off.

F’lar got up in a single decisive movement. “I’d like to see your queen. You named her Grall?”

“You’re solid dragonman, F’lar,” F’nor chuckled, remembering what Brekke had said. “You had no trouble remembering the lizard’s name but the girl’s—? Never mind, F’lar. Grall’s with Canth.”

“Any chance you could call her—here?”

F’nor considered the intriguing possibility but shook his head.

“She’s asleep, full up to the jawline.”

She was and daintily curled in the hollow by Canth’s left ear. Her belly was distended from the morning’s meal and F’nor dabbed it with sweet oil. She condescended to lift two lids but her eye was so dull she did not take notice of the additional visitor, nor Mnementh peering down at her. He thought her a very interesting creature.

“Charming. Lessa’ll want one, I’m sure,” F’lar murmured, a delighted half-smile on his face as he jumped down from Canth’s forearm on which he’d stood to observe her. “Hope she grows a little. Canth could yawn and inadvertently inhale her.”

Never, and the brown’s comment did not need to be passed to the bronze rider.

“If we’d only an estimate of how long it would take to train them, if they are trainable. But time’s as inflexible as an Oldtimer.” F’lar looked his half-brother squarely in the eye, no longer hiding the deep worry that gnawed at him.

“Not entirely, F’lar,” the brown rider said, returning his gaze steadily. “As you said, the greater evil is the sickness in our own…”

A dragon’s brassy scream, the klaxon of Thread attack, stopped F’nor midsentence. The brown rider had swung toward his dragon, instinctively reacting to the alert, when F’lar caught him by the arm.

“You can’t fight thread with an unhealed wound, man. Where do they keep firestone here?”