Linsha stopped by his stocky foreleg, looked up, and let her gaze travel up his entire height. Even years after her first glimpse of him, she never ceased to marvel at his power and handsome proportions. His body was long and well-muscled, tapering to a broad tail. A ridge of spines joined by webbing, characteristic of all bronzes, topped his neck and tail and helped drive him through the water he loved. His horned head was wedge-shaped and covered with a tough hide of dark bronze-colored scales. These scales began as a deep burnished gold on his head and back and lightened down his sides and belly to a pale bronze that gleamed like newly wrought metal.

Crucible tipped his head. “What are you doing out here?” he rumbled. “I thought you were out on patrol.”

“We returned early. Sir Fellion broke his arm in a fall. I thought I’d come out and meet you.”

“So you rode out alone?” He sounded angry.

She gave a light shrug. “You were out here.”

Even she heard how frivolous she sounded. Frivolous, overconfident, and senseless. She should know better than to rush out alone from the Wadi and sit like a practice target on the edge of the cliffs. She was lucky the mercenaries had been looking for prisoners and not bodies to loot.

“What if I hadn’t been here?” the dragon demanded.

“I wouldn’t have come,” Linsha said. But to her surprise, she felt a tightening in her throat and the prickle of sudden tears, tears that had sprung out of nowhere. She bit her lip and used the pain to damp down her feelings. She knew this day had been coming for some time. “So when were you going to tell me?”

He stared down at her with luminous eyes, standing so still she could see her reflection in the amber depths. “Today. Tomorrow. My wing is finally strong enough to bear a long flight. Now that you know, I will leave tonight.”

“So soon?”

“I have been gone too long. Sanction was still under siege when I left. We have had no word of its fate since. I must go back. There is no telling what those fool Solamnics have done.”

Linsha nodded, ignoring the comment about the Knights of Solamnia. She knew he was needed in Sanction. She knew, too, her friend, Lord Bight, was in constant danger and that Crucible was his guardian. The bronze had to go back. Yet all the forewarning, logic, and common sense in the world did not make this parting any easier.

“Will you be able to get past Sable?” she asked.

The black dragon Onysablet, commonly known as Sable, had drowned the land between the Plains of Dust and the southern Khalkist Mountains and built her swampy realm on the rotting corpse of the earth. For years Crucible in Sanction to the north and the brass dragon Iyesta in the south had maintained a tenuous truce with the unpredictable black by playing on her fears and greed to keep her off-balance. But Iyesta’s death that summer changed the balance of power. Without an ally in the Plains of Dust, the safety of Sanction and its secretive guardian was thrown into serious question. If Sable caught Crucible alone, trying to fly over her realm, she would not hesitate to tear him to pieces.

Crucible knew full well his danger. “I will travel at night and stay to the east of Shrentak. I will be gone from her realm before she knows I am there.”

Crouching down, he thrust out a foreleg. Still cold and wet, Linsha gratefully climbed up his leg and shoulder and seated herself on the dragon’s warm back in a spot in front of his wing joints and just where his neck ridge ended. He didn’t like to carry riders usually-complained it interfered with his wings-and refused any who dared ask. But he had made an exception for her once years ago in Sanction and since then he had grown quite comfortable with her on his back. A favor Linsha thoroughly enjoyed.

She vividly remembered riding the brass Iyesta once into the desert to pay a call on another dragonlord, Thunder. Iyesta, however, had been over three hundred feet long and wider than a masted ship. When Linsha tried to sit astride the great brass, her legs stuck out in both directions. All she could do was hang on to Iyesta’s back like a cowbird perched on an oxen. One shrug of Iyesta’s shoulders had been enough to send her into a free fall over the Plains of Dust. It was not an experience Linsha cared to repeat.

Crucible was different. Not only was he shorter and more streamlined, his shoulders were narrower and offered a place at the base of his neck where his back-ridge ended that suited Linsha well. They had fought together, bled together, and worked together for almost three months now and formed a bond as affectionate as many dragonriders and their life-long mounts.

Yet Linsha shut her mind to all of that. As close as Crucible was to her, his first loyalty was to Sanction and Lord Bight. She had to respect that or she would not be worthy of his friendship-or of her status as a Rose Knight in the Solamnic Orders. She knew all too well the necessities of responsibility and loyalty to one’s chosen cause.

“Ready?” he called.

Linsha held on with hands and knees as Crucible sprang into the wind and with a powerful thrust of his wings, he rose above the bleak land and angled north toward the eroded banks and sandbars of Barddeath Creek. To the west, the sun touched the purple horizon and began its descent into darkness.

They flew without speaking in the gathering dusk until Crucible tilted his long wings to brake his descent and touched neatly down. Linsha swung a leg around, grabbed his wing, and lowered herself to the ground.

They had landed at the mouth of the deep, winding canyon called Scorpion Wadi where the remnants of Iyesta’s proud militia and survivors of the Missing City had taken refuge after the Tarmaks invaded the city. Linsha knew there were sentries hidden in the rocks and along the high walls, and eyes watched her carefully. But the militia knew her and Crucible and would leave her alone.

The bronze dragon lowered his head and curved his neck around to enclose Linsha in the circle of his neck and body. Unable to trust her voice, she gazed up at him and gently touched her fingers to his long nose.

“Do you still wear the scales?” he asked.

She tugged a gold chain out from under her soggy tunic and showed him the two disks that hung around her neck. One was brass-colored and gleamed in the fading light-a gift from the dragonlord Iyesta. The second was slightly larger, edged with gold, and darker in color. It had been given to her by Crucible and had saved her life at least once.

“Keep them near,” he told her. “Magic is dying around us, but there is a little of our power inherent in our scales. It may protect you.”

Linsha knew it was why he had given her his scale three years ago in Sanction. She always wore them.

She tucked the scales back under her clothes. They were a pact of friendship and reassurance to them both, and a way to say good-bye.

“Give my regards to Lord Bight,” she said.

He straightened and lifted his head to scent the wind.

Linsha moved away. Sadly she watched him crouch and spring upward. His great wings caught the air and lifted him above the bonds of the earth.

The downdraft of his first beat nearly knocked her off her feet. Ducking down, she shielded her eyes against the dust and the grit until the draft passed, then she lifted her eyes to the north. Rising high on a wind from the sea, the bronze dragon caught the last rays of the setting sun. His scales flared with golden light, and he glowed like a comet against the darkening sky. Moments later he passed out of sight, and the fire winked out. The sun vanished. Night settled over the plains.