“I have trained raw boys and girls,” Stammel said. “And I can see the dragonlets—surely I could help train them—”

“No,” the dragon said again, a tone final as the ring of hammer on iron. Then in a gentler tone, “What is it, Stammel? I would have thought you’d be glad to return to those you know.”

Stammel thought of the past quarter-year and wondered how to explain. It seemed at first no words would come for the longing to be useful, needed. But the dragon waited, that great shape of fire, and finally he could say it. “When you took me away,” he said, “it was from the only home, the only friends, I had had in my adult life. I thought I would be lonely; I thought I would yearn for them.”

“And you do not?” the dragon asked.

“What I yearned for then was no longer possible,” Stammel said. “I will never be what I was. Who I was. I had come to realize that, and yet I saw no other future. You showed me another future. New places, new people, new challenges. A reason to live, with something to do … something worthwhile.”

“You have changed,” the dragon said.

“I had changed before, not by my will,” Stammel said. “And now I have changed again, with your help. I can change again … but not back into what I was. If I return, I will be poor blind Stammel, someone with a past and no future.”

“You are still oathbound to your commander,” the dragon said. “And I think you are not an oathbreaker.”

“No … but death breaks all oaths,” Stammel said. “If you told them I was dead…”

“I do not lie,” the dragon said. “And nor should you. Your commander will release you if you ask and he trusts you have a place to go.”

“Then carry my request to him,” Stammel said. He hated the roughness in his voice, but grief trapped him once again. “Please … take me somewhere I have never been, somewhere I might be of use, and take my word to him.”

“That I can do,” the dragon said. “Though your commander would rather see you again, I know, and judge of himself whether your new home was safe.”

“It is just his care I do not want,” Stammel said. “They will visit if they know. Someplace far—”

“Aarenis?” the dragon asked.

Stammel shook his head. “I have marched all over Aarenis, one war and another. Someone might know me.”

“I know a place,” the dragon said after a moment. “An island in the sea, summerwards of Aarenis but not as far as Old Aare, where I am known a little and you will be welcome. Can you write your letter?”

“It would be better to use a scribe,” Stammel said. “My hand was always crabbed after I broke two fingers years ago. Are we near a town?”

“Yes. I will go with you.”