As Lessa entered the Cavern of the Weyr, she glanced away from the empty dragon couch and then halted midstep. The tragedy was only minutes past so the nine bronze riders were still in severe shock.

As well they might be, Lessa realized with deep sympathy. To be roused to performance intensity and then be, not only disappointed, but disastrously deprived of two queens at once! Whether a bronze won the queen or not, there was a subtle, deep attachment between a queen and the bronzes of her Weyr…

However, Lessa concluded briskly, someone in this benighted Weyr ought to have sense enough to be constructive. Lessa broke this train of thought off abruptly. Brekke had been the responsible member.

She turned, about to go in search of some stimulant for the dazed riders when she heard the uneven steps and stertorous breathing of someone in a hurry. Two green fire-lizards darted into the weyr, hovering, chirping excitedly as a young girl came in at a half-run. She could barely manage the heavy tray she carried and she was weeping, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

“Oh!” she cried, seeing Lessa. She stifled her sobs, tried to bob a curtsey and blot her nose on her shoulder at one and the same time.

“Well, you’re a child with wits about you,” Lessa said briskly, but not without sympathy. She took one end of the tray and helped the girl deposit it on the table. “You brought strong spirits?” she asked, gesturing to the anonymous earthenware bottles.

“All I could find.” And the consonant ended in a sob.

“Here,” and Lessa held out a half-filled cup, nodding toward the nearest rider. But the child was motionless, staring at the curtain, her face twisted with grief, the tears flowing unnoticed down her cheeks. She was washing her hands together with such violent motions that the skin stretched white across her knuckles.

“You’re Mirrim?”

The child nodded, her eyes not leaving the closed entrance. Above her the greens whirred, echoing her distress.

“Manora is with Brekke, Mirrim.”

“But—but she’ll die. She’ll die. They say the rider dies, too, when the dragon is killed. They say…”

“They say entirely too much,” Lessa began and then Manora stood in the doorway.

“She lives. Sleep is the kindest blessing now.” She flipped the curtain shut and glanced at the men. “These could do with sleep. Have their dragons returned? Who’s this?” Manora touched Mirrim’s cheek, gently. “Mirrim? I’d heard you had green lizards.”

“Mirrim had the sense to bring the tray,” Lessa said, catching Manora’s eye.

“Brekke—Brekke would expect—” and the girl could go no further.

“Brekke is a sensible person,” Manora said briskly and folded Mirrim’s fingers around a cup, giving her a shove toward a rider. “Help us now. These men need our help.”