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the deep wounds on its back. Sintara forgot Ranculos and the pitiful remains he guarded. She sprang toward the fallen doe.
    She had once more forgotten her uneven strength. She landed badly, but this time she caught herself in a crouch before she fell. With a lunge, she spread her forelegs over the kill. “Sintara!” she hissed. She hunched over the dead doe and roared a warning to any who would challenge her. It came out shrill and squawkish. Another humiliation. No matter. She had the meat, she and no other. She bent her head and savaged the doe, tearing angrily at its soft belly. Blood, meat, and intestines filled her jaws, comforting her. She clamped down on the carcass and worried it, as if to kill it again. When the flesh tore free, she threw her head back and gulped the mouthful down. Meat and blood. She lowered her head and tore another mouthful free. She fed. She would live.
Day the 1st of the Greening Moon
    Year the 7th of the Reign of the Most Noble and
Magnificent Satrap Cosgo
    Year the 1st of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug
    Detozi,
    Please release a flock of at least twenty-five of my birds even if you currently have no messages for them to carry. Message traffic to Trehaug was so heavy with Traders anxious to say they would attend the dragon hatch that my flocks are sorely depleted of carriers.
    Erek

C HAPTER T HREE
    A N A DVANTAGEOUS O FFER

    A lise. You have a guest.”
    Alise lifted her eyes slowly. Her sketching charcoal hovered over the heavy paper on her desk. “Now?” she asked reluctantly.
    Her mother sighed. “Yes. Now. As in the ‘now’ that I have been telling you to expect all day. You knew that Hest Finbok was coming. You have known it since his last visit, last week at this same hour. Alise, his courtship honors you and our family. You should always receive him graciously. Yet whenever he calls, I have to come and ferret you out of hiding. I wish you would remember that when a young man comes to call on you, it is only polite to treat him respectfully.”
    Alise set down her charcoal. Her mother winced as Alise wiped her smudged fingers clean on a dainty kerchief embroidered with Sevian lace. It was a tiny act of vindictiveness. The kerchief had been a gift from Hest. “Not to mention that we must all remember that he is my only suitor, and therefore my only chance of wedding.”Her comment was almost too soft for her mother to hear. With a sigh, she added, “I’m coming, Mother. And I will be gracious.”
    Her mother was silent for a moment. “That is wise of you,” she said finally, adding in a voice that was cool but still gentle. “I am relieved to see that you have finally stopped sulking.”
    Alise could not tell if her mother was stating something she believed was true or was demanding that she accede to a dictation of deportment. She closed her eyes for an instant. Today, to the north, in the depths of the Rain Wilds, the dragons were emerging from their cases. Well, she amended to herself, today was the day appointed by Tintaglia for the leaves and debris to be swept away from them, so that the sunlight might touch them and stir them to wakefulness. Perhaps even now, as she sat at her tidy little desk in her pale room, surrounded by her tattered scrolls and feeble efforts at notes and sketching, dragons were tearing and shouldering their way out of the cocoons.
    For a moment, she could imagine the whole scene: the verdant riverbank warmed by summer sunshine, the brilliantly hued dragons trumpeting joyously as they emerged into daylight. The Rain Wild Traders were probably heralding the hatching with all sorts of festivities. She imagined a dais decorated with garlands of exotic flowers. There would be speeches of welcome to the emerging dragons, song, and feasting. No doubt each dragon would parade before the dais, be joyously introduced,