The question bothered him. He pushed it away, but kept finding himself considering it. He looked at Drilli. She was beautiful and smart. Surely he would do anything…

Hearing Speaker Sirri’s voice again, he dragged his attention away from Drilli. The Speaker looked up at him, then down at the Siyee holding the cages of breem, and nodded.

The signal. Tryss’s heart leapt and started to pound. He searched the ground, looking for movement. There!

He dived. Pushing thoughts of the watching crowd out of his mind, he thought only of the small creature that he had spotted. He had to concentrate. His harness was new and a bit stiff, he had only lamplight by which to see the animals and breem were fast.

Leaves whipped past his ears. He spread his arms and swooped out from between the branches of the tree. Drawing a dart into his blowpipe, he took aim and blew.

The breem squeaked as the dart hit its leg. It continued limping on but the poison would soon finish it. Tryss had spotted a second breem and turned to follow it. This time the dart sank into the center of the creature’s back. He felt a surge of triumph and flapped his wings to gain a little height, looking for more of them.

Two darted out of the crowd from the other side of the Flat. He missed the first one, but hit the second. Curving around, he blew a dart at the first again, but it swerved at the last moment and the dart bounced off the ground harmlessly. The creature disappeared between the legs of the watching Siyee.

Frustrated, Tryss gained altitude again. He saw the last two breem scamper into the Open and turned quickly. Diving toward them, he tightened his grip on the thumb straps of the new addition he’d included with this harness. He’d only had a few hours to practice with it and it was much harder to aim.

The two breem stopped in the middle of the Open, aware only of the Siyee that surrounded them. Tryss took aim, flexed his thumbs and felt the springs snap open, realizing too late that he’d unintentionally released both. Small arrows shot forward. One speared a breem, the other skittered over the ground and wedged itself into the wall of the outcrop…

Which he was about to fly into. He arched his back and felt rock brush his hip as he barely managed to avoid a collision. The maneuver had lost him height, however, and he was forced to land abruptly, in a way he hoped looked intentional.

The Siyee were utterly silent. Then someone in the crowd began to whistle enthusiastically, as the crowd did during the aerobatic contests of the trei-trei. Others joined in and Tryss found himself grinning as the Open echoed with the sound. He looked up at Speaker Sirri. She smiled and nodded with approval.