A hush swept around the arena as a distinct crack was heard. One of the eggs rocked slightly, the motion drawing excited whispers.

Emily crossed her fingers, hiding them in the folds of her trousers. She noticed, with a slight grin, that others were doing the same. So much hung on the events of that day, on the first hatching and on what Nabhi Nabol was irrevocably committed to doing.

Another egg cracked and a third wobbled. The chorus became beguilingly insistent, striking an excited chord in every one watching.

Then all of a sudden, one of the eggs cracked open and a creature emerged, damp from birth; it shook stubby wings and stumbled over its shell, squawking in alarm. The dragonets answered soothingly. The young people in the circle stood their ground, and Emily marveled at their courage, for that awkward creature was not the graceful being she had been expecting, a beast remembered from old legends and illustrations held in library treasuries. She caught herself holding her breath, and exhaled quickly.

The creature extended its wings; they were wider and thinner than she had expected. It was so spindly, so ungainly, and its very oddly constructed eyes were flashing with red and yellow. Emily felt a flush of alarm. The creature gave a desperate cry, and was answered reassuringly by the multivoiced choir above. It lurched forward, its voice pleading, and then the cry altered to one of joy, held on a high sweet note. It staggered another step and fell at the feet of David Catarel, who bent to help it.

He looked up with eyes wide with wonder. “He wants me!”

“Then accept him!” Pol bellowed, gesturing for one of the stewards to come forward with a bowl of food. “Feed him! No, don’t anyone else help you. The bond should be made now!”

Kneeling by his new charge, David offered the little dragon a hunk of meat. It bolted that and urgently cried for more, pushing at David’s leg with an imperious head.

“He says he’s very hungry,” David cried. “He’s talking to me. In my head! It’s incredible. How did she do it?”

“The mentasynth works, then!” Emily murmured to Paul, who nodded with the air of someone not at all surprised.

“Ye gods, but it’s ugly,” Paul said in a very low voice.

“You probably weren’t much to look at at birth either,” Emily surprised herself by saying. She grinned at his quick glance of astonishment.

David coaxed his new friend out of the circle of people and toward the edge of the Hatching Ground, calling for more food. “Polenth says he’s starving.”

Bay had ordered plenty of red meat to be available, butchered from animals that had adapted well to the improved Pernese grasses. The young dragonets would require plenty of boron for growth in their first months, and would best absorb it from the flesh of cattle.