Fate of Dragons

Chapter Three

Tesa emerged from the mage academy buildings into a bright sun and fierce cold. She leaned back and stretched, her back stiff after sitting so many hours in class after her meeting with Renna. Though she was tempted to call Orrie to carry her across the valley to the dragon dwell, she knew it would feel good to walk. Still, she called out to him, just to check in.

I'm headed to the great hall. Hungry. She pictured a giant bowl of her favorite soup from the dragon dwell's cooks.

Flying. Coming soon! Orrie sent back a picture of the weyrdragons fluttering around him, ducking in and out of the path of his wings and tumbling in the air.

Tesa smiled at the image. Orrie and the weyrdragons had become fast friends after surviving the attack by the Karume. The weyrdragons had witnessed the attack and even helped drive Linnie's dragon off from attacking Tesa and Renna. Tesa had caught glimpses from them of the inside of the dragon dwell during the kidnapping, but each weyrdragon's memory was so fragmented and disordered that she hadn't been able to piece together anything useful. Orrie hadn't been much help, either, though he seemed better able to understand them.

Tesa headed down the stairs from the mage academy and across the deep valley between the academy and the dragon dwell. Lines of cloaked figures made their way up the mountain. They were the seekers, women who hoped a dragon egg would hatch for them and make them riders. The winter hatchings had begun along with the mage classes, and as of yet, none of the eggs had hatched, eliciting a grim and worried response from the riders.

A gust of wind came up and drove into the gaps in Tesa's winter clothing. She squinted and tucked her chin. Again, she felt tempted to ask Orrie to carry her across, but it would be too conspicuous over the crowds of people at the dragon dwell. Especially since there were so few dragons left, and also because Tesa had begged off of her duties to give tours of the dragon dwell to hopeful riders and shepherd them into the hatching caves, claiming her mage studies kept her too busy.

Tesa jogged across the bridge that crossed the valley. Once across, she ducked past the line of hopeful women that pooled into a crowd near the entrance to the dragon dwell, and trekked farther up the path. Once around a bend, she ducked behind a boulder and trotted up the narrow set of stairs hidden there. The stairs seemed to dead end among some more rocks, but Tesa wound around those until she came to the downward staircase. It ended at a little wooden door, which opened at the back of the great hall's kitchens.

Tesa closed the door quietly and paused to breathe in the smell of bread baking and creamy soups simmering. Down one short hall came the sounds and warmth of the kitchen staff cooking. After savoring the smells and sounds for a moment, Tesa took the side hall that skirted around the edges of the kitchen so as not to disturb them.

A bell pealed just as she spilled into the great hall, and young servers laid trays of fresh food out on the serving tables. Tesa scanned the room until she found Fenn seated at a long table. He raised a hand and jumped to join her in line.

"Any news about the search?" Fenn asked.

"I've been in classes all morning," Tesa said. "How would I have gotten any news?" She glanced around the great hall, noting the presence of the mage guards at the door. She would tell Fenn about her meeting with Renna later, where she wouldn't be overheard.

"I just heard that there were some meetings with the king. I thought you might be in on them."

"No, I just get to wait around just like everybody else," Tesa said. "While the Karume get farther and farther away with our dragons." She wrinkled her nose and pouted.

She spoke lightly of it to avoid expressing her true level of frustration. It had been weeks since the Karume mages had invaded and stolen most of the dragons from Areth, and Tesa and Orrie had been ready to mount a search for them as soon as she'd nursed Orrie back to health from the burns he'd gotten during the attack. Instead, she'd been invited to a few meetings, where she was interviewed about her and Eriya's accidental trip to Yennar Lei through one of the magic doors the Karume had been using to sneak into Areth. Except for her meeting this morning, she had heard nothing.