All he could guess at this point was that the person she was trying hardest to prove something to was—herself.

Still, she was clever, and if Coresan wasn’t exactly taming, she had come to accept Nofret’s presence and food without a sign of nerves or suspicion. Nofret still couldn’t touch her unless Aket-ten was around, and she still kept her body between Nofret and her eggs, but then, Coresan had watched while Kiron himself stole one of her last clutch, so he couldn’t blame the dragon for being cautious. No matter how many times Aket-ten “talked” to Coresan to reassure her, surely the first thing in her mind when she saw Nofret’s eyes going toward the eggs was that the human was going to take one. It did make him wonder, though, just how much Coresan was able to think—and if she was somehow able to recognize Avatre as her own offspring. And if so, was that making a difference in how she treated the humans who were with Avatre?

The days stretched on, much the same except that they slowly got a little longer every day as the time for the rains arrived and passed. Or what would have been rains, if much rain actually fell out here. There were brief cloudbursts, followed by an explosion of flowers and greenery, but nothing like what was happening in Tia, and to a lesser extent, in Alta.

More refugees arrived, still trickling in by ones and twos, or at most, a family group. The Tians reported that the demonically ferocious storms that had hammered Tia consistently for the last several years had not appeared this season—only the “normal” storms, the ones to be expected, followed by the general rise of Great Mother River for the annual inundation. The Great King’s new advisers were taking credit for this, claiming to have found a way for all Tian priests to work as one. And also claiming that this was why only the lesser priests were still in their temples.

Kiron had wondered how they would explain the absence of so many priests. He’d been hoping that they wouldn’t be able to.

The Altan refugees reported with shudders that fear was the byword. Boys barely into their teens were being conscripted for the army, and the Magi were reputed to be examining and taking select children as young as six. They claimed these children were going to serve in the Palace. But no one ever saw them there, and who would want a child that young serving them?

But no one complained because there were always terrible things happening: murders, poisoned wells, other acts of sabotage, all blamed on Tian agents within the city. You couldn’t even trust your own neighbors, said the refugees. You never knew if they were Tian agents—or if they would denounce you as a Tian agent.