Kindan slowed as he neared Lorana’s rooms, halting just before the door, catching his breath and listening. Through the curtain, he heard the soft sounds of sobbing.
“Lorana?” he called. “May I come in?”
“Yes.”
Kindan pushed the curtain aside. He noticed that the tapestries were covered with drawings pinned to them. They were drawings of dragons and riders. Some he recognized as dragons from the Weyr-all dragons lost to Thread or the sickness. He guessed the other dragons were those lost from other Weyrs, although he couldn’t imagine how Lorana knew enough to draw them. As he peered closer, he saw that she didn’t-the characteristic features of a dragon’s face, the shape of its eye ridges, the spacing of the snout, the shape and number of teeth were all left as nebulous, shadowy hints. But he could plainly see their riding harness, the faces of their grief-stricken riders-and Kindan was struck by the amount of pain that he saw in those faces, pain that he knew Lorana must have felt directly.
He noticed the light reflected off Arith’s whirling eyes as the dragon looked in worriedly from her lair toward her rider.
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw Lorana lying in her bed. He went over and sat on the edge. She was lying on her stomach, face in her pillow, her upper arms and back uncovered. For a moment he sat there, silent. He started to put a hand on her shoulder, paused, and pulled it back.
“Do you have any lotion?” he asked.
“What?” Lorana turned over to face him. In the dim light, Kindan could see her blotchy face and the streaks where tears had washed down her face. He had seen people like this before, worn out with pain, bodies tight with grief and sorrow.
“Lotion,” Kindan repeated. “Or scented oil?”
“There’s some oil by the bath,” she answered, sounding quizzical.
Kindan went to the bathing room, found the oil and returned. He placed it close to the bed.
He took some oil into his hands and rubbed it until it was warm. Then he leaned forward and gently began to massage the tight muscles of her neck.
“Turn over, I need to do your hands,” he ordered her softly. He could sense her puzzled look. “You can’t have done all those drawings without cramping your hands,” he explained. “Turn over.”
He gathered more lotion and, gently grasping her left hand in his right, he stroked over it with the oil, teasing out the kinks in her fingers and working the tight muscle at the base of her thumb. Slowly he worked up her arm, relieving tension in the forearm, biceps, and shoulder.
Lorana let out a deep sigh of contentment.
Kindan allowed himself a small smile, then returned to his work. He worked her other shoulder and arm.
He spent a great deal of time working the kinks out of the arch of her foot and her heel, knowing how much tension got wound into the balls of the feet. He repeated his efforts on the other leg.
At last Kindan let out a deep breath and looked down at Lorana, lying relaxed beneath him. Quietly he stood up and tiptoed out of the room.
In the morning, Lorana awoke suddenly with a burning passion, fierce and nearly frightening in its intensity.
Kindan ducked his head in, eyes snapping with emotion. “Tullea’s Minith has blooded her kills.”
“She will mate soon,” Lorana said, stretching her senses and feeling the young queen’s passion. She looked up at Kindan, her eyes warm but also challenging. “Stay with me?”
Kindan gave her a surprised, half-hoping look. Lorana sat up in her bed and patted it.
“I’ve never been near a dragon’s mating flight,” she explained.
Kindan moved to her and, at her beckoning, sat on the bed beside her.
“The emotions from dragons mating are very strong,” he said, his voice low.
At that moment, Lorana gasped as she felt Minith being caught in her mating flight and-
When she could speak again, she leaned up and captured Kindan’s mouth with hers, kissing him deeply.
Kindan responded by clutching her more tightly, returning her kiss as ardently as she had given it. Like dragons entwined, they drew together, burning with a passion born on dragonwings.
Afterward, they broke apart, still touching each other loosely. Lorana looked at him as he lay beside her and traced the line of his jaw lovingly. Kindan turned his head, caught her hand, kissed it, and released it again, all with a gentle smile.
“Who was it?” he asked, referring to the mating flight.
“B’nik’s Caranth flew her,” Lorana told him immediately. She had known the dragon’s touch instantly.
Kindan sighed and Lorana heard a world of unspoken thoughts in that sigh. Things would change at Benden Weyr. She reached for his hand, grabbed it, brought it to her lips, and kissed it.
Such a union of disparates, K’tan thought to himself as he watched Lorana and Kindan enter the Main Cavern later that evening, not too far from Tullea and B’nik. M’tal and Salina were already seated.
Tullea walked with the obvious soreness of a woman recovering from her dragon’s mating. B’nik looked equally uncomfortable.
Lorana, on the other hand, moved through her pain, a smile close to her lips, her hand entwined in Kindan’s, projecting the sense that the pain served a purpose that she accepted and welcomed.
She and the harper made a good pair, he reflected, and he was glad that some were happy with the day’s events.
The same could not be said from the looks of Tullea and B’nik. They had been lovers, and passionately so, for many Turns, so K’tan would have expected Minith’s mating to be a great pleasure to them. But from Tullea’s red-rimmed eyes and the way she winced as she strode, he got the impression that it had not been so.
The mating flight had taken place early in the morning, just after Minith awoke. K’tan could not remember how many bronze riders had gathered around Tullea as the enraged queen started blooding her kills. He remembered B’nik screaming at Tullea not to let her gorge, and Tullea looking back at him with a smirk in her eyes. Whether it was from Tullea’s contrariness or her inability to control her dragon, Minith managed to eat two whole herdbeasts before a bellow from Caranth and more loud shouts from B’nik got her under control. She blooded only two more kills before leaping into the air, chased by the lusty bronzes.
The mating flight had not been that long. Indeed, all the bronzes were still flying strongly when Minith dove into them and was snared by Caranth. K’tan sighed, shaking his head at the memory. A short mating flight, gorging on her food-those spoke of a small clutch and more problems for the Weyr with a Weyrwoman who would not control her dragon.
M’tal and Salina rose as they caught sight of Tullea and B’nik. The new Weyrwoman noticed their movement but deliberately turned toward a different table. Obviously not accepting the affront, M’tal gestured to Salina and they walked over to the table Tullea had chosen.
“Congratulations Weyrwoman, Weyrleader on your mating flight,” M’tal began the traditional greeting. “May your hatchlings be many.”
Tullea glowered at him. B’nik looked pained at that part of the traditional salutation but nodded politely to M’tal and Salina.
“I want you out of B’nik’s quarters by tomorrow,” Tullea told M’tal. “The Weyrleader needs to be close to the Records Room.” She glanced at Kindan and Lorana, who had stopped in their tracks. “Lorana, you and Kindan will conduct your research elsewhere.”
It was an obvious taunt. Lorana deflected it with a polite nod. “If you wish, we could continue our research in my quarters.”
Tullea sniffed. “I don’t care where, as long as it’s not in the Records Room.” A new thought entered her mind and she turned to M’tal, a sly smile on her face. “As Weyrwoman, it is my duty to arrange assignment of quarters,” she declared. “I think, Wingleader M’tal, that your wing would be best up on the highest level. You may move there immediately. B’nik’s wing will occupy the quarters yours vacates.”