Her brother, Alemi, had once said that she could run as well as any boy of the Hold and outdistance the half of them on a long race. If only she had been a boy ... then it wouldn’t have mattered if Petiron had died and left them Harperless. Nor would Yanus have beaten a boy for being brave enough to sing his own songs. The first of the tow marsh valleys was pink and yellow with blooming seabeachplum and marshberry, slightly blackened here and there: more from the low-flying queens catching the odd Thread that escaped the main wings. Yes, and there was the patch that the flame-thrower had charred: the one Thread infestation that had gotten through. One day, Menolly told herself, she’d just throw open a window’s steel shutters and see the dragons chairing Thread in the sky. What a sight that must be for certain!

Fearful, too, she reckoned, having seen her mother treat men for Threadburn. Why, the mark looked as if someone had drawn a point-deep groove with a red-hot poker on the man’s arm, leaving the edges black with singed skin. Torly would always beat that straight scar, puckered and red. Threadscore never healed neatly.

She had to stop running. She’d begun to sweat heavily and her back was stinging. She loosened her tunic belt; flapping the soft runner-beast hide to send cooling draughts up between her shoulder blades.

Past the first marsh valley, up over the rocky hump hill into the next valley. Cautious going here: this was one of the deep, boggy places. No sign of yellow-veined grasses. There had been a stand last summer two humpy hills over.

She heard them first, glancing up with a stab of terror at the unexpected sounds above. Dragons? She glanced wildly about for the tell tale gray glitter of sky-borne Thread in the east The greeny blue sky was clear of that dreaded fogging, but not of dragonwings. She heard dragons? It couldn’t be! They didn’t swarm like that Dragons always flew in ordered wings, a pattern against the sky. These were darting, dodging, then swooping and climbing. She shaded her eyes. Blue flashes, green, the odd brown and then ... Of course, sun glinted golden off the leading, dartlike body. A queen! A queen that tiny?

She expelled the breath she’d been holding in her amazement A fire lizard queen? It had to be. Only fire lizards could be that small and look like dragons. Whers certainly didn’t And whers didn’t mate midair. And that’s what Menolly was seeing: the mating flight of a fire lizard queen, with her bronzes in close pursuit