Alta

“Brothers?” Kiron replied, a little surprised. “There are more of you?”

“Five more boys; Aket-ten is the youngest and the only girl. And the only Winged One.” Orest made a face at her. “Well, if she had to be a girl, at least she’s going to be doing something useful with herself and her time. Not one of those stupid creatures that spends all her time giggling with a claque of others like her.”

Aket-ten sniffed disdainfully at him; this was apparently a joke of long standing between them. She tossed her head. “Whereas unless you stop skipping your lessons with your tutors, you aren’t going to be of any use whatsoever!”

“Ought to be glad I skipped today, little oracle!” he retorted gaily, and turned to Kiron with a face full of avid curiosity. “So, just how did you get a dragon? I mean, you weren’t exactly dressed like a noble or even a Tian Jouster, so how did you get a dragon like her? She’s wonderful!”

Avatre muttered sleepily, as if in agreement with that sentiment.

“I stole an egg, and hatched her myself,” he said, and found himself telling the whole story all over again. Not that he minded. There was nothing he would rather talk about than Avatre. This time, since the adults weren’t around, Aket-ten asked several of her own questions, and it was perfectly obvious from them that she hadn’t been in the least exaggerating her ability to communicate with animals. The things she asked proved to Kiron that, if she wasn’t actually speaking in words as such, she was surely getting the general tenor of Avatre’s thoughts.

And that could be very, very useful, he suddenly realized. In further training, he wouldn’t have to teach Avatre what he wanted in tiny little increments. Oh, no—he could have Aket-ten or someone like her actually tell Avatre what he wanted!

“Look,” he said, finally, after another of her questions. “I want to know something. If you can talk to the dragons, why aren’t you Winged Ones helping with the training for the Altan Jousters? It seems as if your dragons are a lot more dangerous than the Tian ones, and if you could—”

“Because we don’t have any tame dragons,” Orest answered for her. “Ours are really, really wild, maybe wilder even than the Tian dragons, because we trap ours fully grown. Truth to tell, they’re more than wild, they’re dangerous, and some of them have been killers when they aren’t drugged with tala. They’re kept muzzled when they aren’t eating.”

He blinked at that. No wonder there were fewer of them than Tian dragons! He digested the ramifications of such a system, slowly. Fewer dragons; harder to manage. Less cooperative than the wildest of the Tian dragons. Which meant the Jouster had to spend more time controlling his mount and less time in fighting.

“The only time they can be handled is when they’re full of tala,” Aket-ten added. “And then, not only is it still very hard for anyone but their Jousters and dragon boys to get near them, their minds are too dull to talk to. I’d have to touch one, anyway, and everyone says that’s too dangerous for me to try. I don’t know anyone with the Gift of Silent Speech that can talk to an animal without being really near to it.”

“Oh, she won’t say it, but young and silly as she is, she’s the one with the strongest Gift of Silent Speech they’ve seen in two generations,” Orest chuckled, poking at his sister with his elbow. “She’s afraid it’ll sound like boasting if she says it. They expect great things from her.”

She wrinkled her nose. “They can expect all they like, but if the Gods don’t put more Gifts in my hands, you’ll probably find me explaining to the horses in the Great Ones’ stables why they need to pull the chariots properly in battle.”

“But if you’re in training to be a priestess, why aren’t you living at a temple?” Kiron asked, as another question occurred to him. What was she doing here? All the girls connected with the temples in Tia were kept carefully behind the temple walls at all times. And nobody would have sent one into a swamp after fish!

“Because I’m a Nestling,” she replied patiently. “Oh, if I were from quite far away, or if my parents were poor, I’d live there. But Nestlings stay with their parents. That’s why we’re called Nestlings, you see? I won’t move into the Temple of the Twins until I become a Fledgling.”

“And I can’t wait. I’ll finally have the courtyard all to myself, and then I can have the servants build a ball court—” Orest began, a teasing look to his eyes that told Kiron that this was another joke of long standing between them.

And it relieved him to know that this was not “Aket-ten’s courtyard,” or at least, not hers solely.