THE DRAGONS WERE EITHER SHOCKED AND OUTRAGED AT ANORA’S words or shocked and disbelieving. Their thoughts flew about the cavern, spattering the walls and each other with the colors of fire and blood, almost as if one of the explosive devices had landed in their midst. Anora did not try to call for order. No one would have seen her colors in the storm of emotion roaring about the cavern.

“But what can we do to stop the humans?” Lysira asked Draconas.

“Humans are not ours to stop,” he returned.

Lysira bristled at his tone. “I don’t know how you can be so flippant—”

“Careful,” Draconas warned. “She’s watching you.”

The tumult was dying down. Lysira saw Anora’s gaze fixed upon the young female. Small tendrils of thought coiled toward her. Lysira made her own mind a flutter of confusion; not difficult, with so many conflicting emotions flapping about like birds tangled in a net. Lysira had the impression that Anora was asking for her forgiveness and her understanding. Lysira could not grant that, not yet. She hunkered down and avoided the elder dragon’s thoughts.

Anora brought the meeting back to order.

“I made plans—” she began.

“Without consulting us!” Malfiesto thundered.

“I couldn’t,” Anora returned, blazing up. “Because of Draconas.”

“The Walker? It seems to me he would be central to any plans you made regarding humans.”

“The walkers were sent to live among humans in order to provide us with information about them, their habits, their way of life, and so forth. Walkers proved quite useful in this regard. I have noticed, however, that the longer they live among humans, the more human the walkers become. They begin to empathize with the humans. They lose their detachment, become emotionally involved. Usually we are able to catch walkers before they do harm to us. We remove the walker from his or her position and assign another. It is what I should have done with Draconas.”

Anora sighed deeply. “But he was the best walker we’ve ever created. He maintained his detachment, or so I thought. I wonder now if he was lying all this time—lying to me. Lying to himself.” She waved it away with a claw. “That is all past. What’s done is done, as the humans say.”

“So you foresee that humans are going to cannonade us into extinction,” Malfiesto said caustically. “Forgive me if I fail to understand how breeding humans with dragons and thereby giving them even more power is supposed to save us.”

“I will explain. It all began with Brayard.”

As she spoke, Anora deliberately kept her gaze away from Lysira, who steeled herself to listen and be silent.