Greft’s voice was suddenly calm and level. ‘I’ve known all my life that I wouldn’t get as much as anyone else did. Not respect. Not even time. People like me, like us, we die young. Unless a dragon takes us on and makes sure we don’t. I know that now. I heard Sylve and Harrikin talking about it in the night, talking about waiting now because they’d have maybe hundreds of years together, after their dragons changed them. But not Greft. Not for me. So I went tonight to take what should have been given to me. All the times I groomed him, fed him, you’d think he’d give me just one scale, just a few drops of blood. But no. No.’

He sighed out through his nose and looked all around at every one of them. He shook his head slowly as he did so, as if he could not believe his bad luck or the harshness of fate that had doomed him to be here.

`I’m going to die,’ he said finally. His tone made it their fault. ‘Things are starting to go wrong inside me. I can feel things going wrong. My gut hurts when I’m hungry and hurts worse when I eat. The shape of my mouth has changed so much that I can’t chew or even close my mouth comfortably. My eyes are dry but I can’t close my eyelids all the way. Nothing simple is simple any more. I can’t get enough air through my nose when I try to breathe, and when I breathe through my mouth, my throat dries out until it cracks and I spit blood.’ He looked around at them again and his eyes came to rest on Thymara. ‘That’s my life,’ he said quietly. ‘Or my death. The death of someone who is changing, without a dragon to guide it. The death of someone who was born so Rain-Wild-touched that I can’t even live to be middle-aged let alone old.’

Suddenly he was standing alone in their midst, with no one touching him. When he walked away from them, people parted wordlessly to let him pass. Alise stooped down and picked up the small glass bottle that had been dropped. She looked at it, then glanced at Sedric in consternation, it looks like an ink bottle,’ she said.

Sedric shrugged. His mouth was pinched and his face pale. He looked sick. Carson moved closer to him. Alise slowly turned her gaze on Leftrin. `It’s not true, is it? The hunter lied to that boy, didn’t he?’

Leftrin looked at her for a long, silent time. He glanced around at the watching keepers. ‘Someone thought they could force me to do something like that. Because they knew about Tarman, knew how much wizardwood was in him. But I never agreed to it, Alise. I never agreed to it and I never planned to do it.’

A small wrinkle had formed between her eyes. ‘That’s what he was talking about that day, wasn’t it? Jess, that day in the galley? He thought that Sedric and I were here to help you?’

‘He had a lot of peculiar ideas. But he’s gone now, Alise, and what I’m telling you is true. I never agreed to smuggle dragon blood or parts.’ He looked at her and then added very quietly, ‘This I swear on Tarman. I swear it on my liveship.’

For a moment longer, Alise stood uncertain. Thymara watched her. She glanced from Leftrin to Sedric and back again. Then, Alise hooked her arm through Leftrin’s and looked only at him. ‘I believe you,’ she said, as if she were making a choice. ‘I believe you, Leftrin.’

Sedric padded barefoot out onto the deck and stood looking around him. The dawn sky was still streaked with colours to the east. Overhead, it was wide and blue, with a faint rippling of very white clouds in the distance. The sky had never seemed so large to him. All was quiet and serene. The water around the anchored ship was as smooth as a pond. A little distance away, the dragons were still dozing; steam rose around them from the heated water. As he looked at them, he felt Relpda give a twitch of acknowledgement. Gently he withdrew his scrutiny. Let her sleep in the warm water while she could. Soon enough, all of them would have to move on.

He lifted his hand and touched the back of his head, his fingers following a line of scales down to the nape of his neck. ‘Copper,’ Carson had told him last night. ‘Copper as a gleaming kettle, Sedric. I think that answers your question. If she were not guiding it or at least attempting to guide it, I don’t think you’d have that sort of a colour on your scales. Mine are nearly colourless.’

‘I’ve noticed,’ Sedric said. ‘Carson—’ he began, but the hunter shook his head, his breath moving against the nape of Sedric’s neck as he did so. ‘Enough questions,’ the hunter whispered. He’d kissed the top knob of Sedric’s spine there. ‘I don’t want to think of you changing into an Elderling. I don’t want to think about you outgrowing me, outliving me. Not right now.’

The memory of that kiss put a shiver up Sedric’s spine. A moment later, arms enveloped him from behind and pulled him close. ‘Cold?’ Carson asked by his ear.

‘No. Not really,’ Sedric replied. But he put his hands on Carson’s arms and pulled them more tightly around him as if he were putting a coat on. For a moment, they held that embrace. Then, with a sigh, Sedric released his grip and shook gently free of Carson’s arms. ‘Everyone will be waking up soon,’ he apologized.

‘I don’t think anyone much cares,’ Carson said. His voice was so deep that Sedric had to listen carefully to catch the words. ‘Davvie and Lecter are not exactly subtle, you know. I’ve had to speak to Davvie twice about keeping private things private.’

‘I’ve noticed,’ Sedric said, but he did not lean back into Carson’s embrace. Instead he asked, ‘What’s to become of us?’

‘I don’t know. Well, I do, a bit. I suspect you will become an Elderling. I see some of the changes in you already. The speed with which you’re scaling is increasing, Sedric. Your hands and feet seem longer and slimmer than they were. Have you asked Relpda directly if she is guiding your changes?’

‘Not exactly,’ he admitted. He did not want to bring the subject up with her. Did she completely recall how he had taken her blood that night? Sometimes she seemed like a sweet, simple-minded child, forgiving a wrong she did not completely understand. Of late, however, there had been a time or two when she had clearly shown him that she was a dragon and not to be trifled with. Did her memories begin with him awakening her by consuming her blood? Had she been aware of him even then, had hers been the prompting that made him taste it? Or would the day come when she recalled how it had truly come about, and would she then turn on him?

‘I’ve made such a mess of everything,’ he said aloud.