“Well, I—”
Nuella shook her head briskly. “No, I don’t mean like that. I mean like maybe her eyes see heat.”
“See heat?” Kindan repeated blankly.
“Well, her eyes are huge, aren’t they?”
“To see in the dark,” Kindan objected.
Nuella shook her head in disagreement. “Or maybe it’s not the light that she sees, but the heat. And everything is so much hotter during the daytime that it’d be like looking at the sun to her.”
“An interesting theory,” a man’s voice said behind her.
Renna was on watch duty that night. She had been so proud of herself when Kindan had had to give it up so that he could raise the watch-wher. “It’s not because you’re Zenor’s sister, you know,” he had said when he’d told her. “It’s because you’re the most responsible. I’m sure you’ll do an excellent job.”
Renna was sure that she had. It was hard being the one to set watch, and she had had to do a lot more to make sure that everyone else did their jobs. She would wake up in the middle of the night and check up on the younger watchers. Sometimes, she found one asleep. She usually had a lot of fun sneaking up on the laggard and shrieking in his—it was mostly the boys who fell asleep—ears.
Tonight she was spelling Jori, who was taking extra long over her dinner. Renna didn’t really mind, though; she liked the late evening up on the watch-heights. Her ears were good and she could hear almost every word spoken as it rose up from the valley below, echoing off the hard cliff walls. She also had a great view of the lake under the night stars.
When two dragons popped out over the lake, she jumped with delight. They were huge, larger than anything Renna had ever seen—certainly larger than Kisk, Kindan’s growing watch-wher, and tar prettier. She watched in awe as they glided over the houses and landed on the hillside that led up to the mine entrance.
A man’s voice drifted up to her. “J’lantir, are you sure?”
She watched the two dragonriders dismount. The dragons rose again, flew toward the lake, and then plunged with frightening abandon into the water. Renna was afraid they’d drowned, until they popped back up again, bobbing like large wooden rafts on the water. She shivered. It was a cold night—dragons must have tough hides to like that water. Or maybe they’d just come from a hot place.
“Lolanth felt a strong presence,” the other dragonrider, J’lantir, replied. “J’trel would know for sure, M’tal, but my guess is that there is a young girl here who could ride gold ... only—”
“What?”
“Well, Lolanth tells me that this girl is in constant darkness,” J’lantir replied in a puzzled tone.
“Trapped? Is she in danger?” M’tal pressed.
“I don’t know. Lolanth seemed to think that the girl had been that way for some time,” J’lantir replied.
“You don’t suppose she’s blind?” M’tal wondered softly.
“Maybe that’s it,” J’lantir agreed. “What a pity, to be so gifted and not able to Impress.”
Their voices grew fainter as they headed down toward the watch-wher’s shed.
“This Camp looks to Telgar—and D’gan won’t Search,” M’tal said after a moment. “I think we shouldn’t mention this to anyone.”
“I think you’re right,” J’lantir agreed.
“Ah! We’re expected,” M’tal said with a laugh. “Gaminth tells me that Kisk is curious about your Lolanth and wants to come out.”
“Well, at least we know she can talk to dragons,” J’lantir replied with a chuckle. “I’ve told Lolanth to say ‘later’ to her.”
The two dragonriders ducked into the shed and their faint voices were cut off from Renna’s hearing. She ignored the sounds of the dragons splashing in the lake below as she recalled the conversation. For one thrilling moment, she’d hoped that perhaps they had been talking about her, and that she might be the one who could ride gold. Did they mean a gold dragon—a queen dragon? Wouldn’t that be marvelous, Renna mused. But then she’d heard M’tal saying that maybe the girl was blind. Renna ran through the list of girls in the Camp. She knew of no blind girl. Perhaps they were thinking of a baby or something. But if they were, she mused, wouldn’t their dragons be able to tell them? Maybe the girl was hidden someplace—but who would keep a person hidden away? Anyway, where could anyone hide someone here? In the mine? She shook her head. That would be too dangerous. But she couldn’t think of anywhere else, and she’d been everywhere in the Camp! She creased her brow in thought. Everywhere ... except the second floor of Natalon’s hold.
Renna spent the rest of her watch in thoughtful silence. She didn’t even grumble when Jori arrived back half an hour late.
“Nuella, this is Lord M’tal, Weyrleader of Benden Weyr,” Kindan said as the two dragonriders entered the shed. He looked at the other one. “My Lord—”
“J’lantir, rider of Lolanth, Wingleader at Ista Weyr,” the second dragonrider supplied deftly.
“You must be Kindan,” he went on jovially, holding out his hand. Kindan shook it quickly. J’lantir turned and held out his hand to Nuella. Kindan started to sidle unobtrusively over to her, to give her a nudge but stopped when he saw J’lantir and M’tal exchange a thoughtful look.
Before the silence grew too large, Nuella raised her hand. J’lantir quickly moved to grab it.
“I’m Nuella,” she said. She quirked an eyebrow at him and then her face fell. “You moved, didn’t you?”
“I did,” J’lantir admitted. “How did you know?”
“I can feel it in the angle of your hand,” she replied. She moved closer to him, letting go of his hand and raising her own. “Would you mind if I touched your face?” she asked very nervously. “That’s the way I get to know people.”
“Not at all,” J’lantir replied gallantly.
Nuella raised her hand up, hesitantly. Her fingertips touched his chin, then traced his jaw, his lips, his nose, eyebrows, and forehead.
“You’re sunburned,” she said with surprise. “Is it still warm at Ista, my Lord?”
“Sometimes the sun can burn worse on cloudy days,” J’lantir admitted. “However, in my case it comes from flying above the clouds, where the sun is still shining. At Ista the clouds sometimes gather very low.”
“You fly above the clouds?” Nuella repeated, awed.
“I do,” J’lantir affirmed.
M’tal stepped beside him. “I am M’tal,” he said to Nuella, reaching out to her. She found his hand and shook it and, with his permission, traced his face.
“Do you have a good Harper at Benden Weyr, my Lord?” she asked when she had finished.
“A good Harper?” M’tal mused. “Why yes, we do. Why do you ask?”
“It seems to me that your face laughs a lot,” Nuella answered. “I thought maybe that was because your Harper was funny.”
“He is,” M’tal replied with a laugh. “I’ll be sure to tell him you said so; I think he’ll be very pleased.”
Nuella dipped her head in acknowledgment, only partly hiding her blush.
“Nuella,” J’lantir said after a moment, “you had an interesting theory about how watch-whers see.”
“I think they see heat, my Lord,” Nuella responded.
M’tal said to Kindan, “J’lantir has been asked by his Weyrleader, C’rion, to learn all he can about watch-whers. I suggested that it might be a good idea if you and he pooled your knowledge.”