Kiron was quite certain such a thing was entirely beyond his abilities. Aket-ten was going to do exactly as she always had, and no one was going to be able to stop her once she made up her mind about it.

He was also not so secure in his position as wingleader that he thought he dared to tip the balance among them by turning an unofficial and private relationship into a public one. Aket-ten was part of the wing, after all, and if they were husband and wife, the others might reasonably expect there was favoritism going on.

And there were other consequences, too; and lots of them. Those were nothing more than the tip of what might be a very, very large rock under the sand dune. Consequences like—as Aket-ten had said herself—babies. Whatever mysterious means there were that women in Alta and Tia used to regulate such a thing, they evidently weren’t available here in Sanctuary yet, if the rash of big bellies among Lord Ya-tiren’s household and the Tian priestesses was anything to go by.

Still—on the other hand—there was a wing full of handsome young men that Aket-ten flew with every day. True, Lord Ya-tiren had given his consent, but all of them were better matches for her than a former serf who had never been anything more than a simple farmer ’s son. Granted, the nobles weren’t lords of anything right now, but they had the blood and—

And he could make himself crazy with thoughts like that in a very short time.

So between one thing and another, he was coming to the end of his patience with Ari’s fretting.

“Nofret says she’s fine. Aket-ten says Coresan has accepted her as another dragon,” he snapped. “There is never a time when someone with a dragon isn’t in the air around here to make sure nothing can get at her or Coresan—not that I think anything could show up here that Coresan couldn’t or wouldn’t handle on her own. Enough, Ari, she knows what she’s doing, we know what we’re doing, so give us all a little credit for caution and good sense, will you?”

Ari looked taken aback by Kiron’s tone. “I just—worry,” he said.

“Well, it’s stupid to worry for no reason.” Kiron set his chin. “If you have to worry, worry about something we’ve got reasons to worry about. There’s plenty of those.”