She hadn’t gone a dozen steps before Sylve fell in beside her. Mercor moved slowly along beside her. The girl spoke quietly. “Mercor found you in the water and pulled you out.”
Thymara stopped. Mercor had been the dragon overshadowing her when she was recovering. Reflexively, she touched her ribs where his teeth had torn her clothes and scraped her skin. “Thank you,” she said. She looked up into the golden dragon’s gently swirling eyes. “You saved my life.” Sylve’s dragon had saved her after her own had shoved her into the water and left her there. She could not bear the contrast. She turned and walked away from both of them.
ALISE COULD SCARCELY bear to watch Thymara go. Pain seemed to emanate from her in a cloud as she trudged away. She swung her gaze back to Sintara. But before she could find words to speak, the dragon suddenly threw up her head, wheeled around, and stalked off, lashing her tail as she went. She opened her wings and gave them a violent shake, heedless that she spattered the gathered humans and dragons with water and sand.
One of the younger keepers spoke into the silence. “If she isn’t going to eat that, can Heeby have it? She’s pretty hungry. Well, she’s always hungry.”
“Is it safe for any of the dragons to eat? Is it edible?” Alise asked anxiously. “These fish look strange to me. I think we should be cautious of them.”
“Those are fish from the Great Blue Lake. I know them of old. The one with the red belly is safe for dragons, but poisons humans. The flatfish, any may eat.”
Alise turned to Mercor’s voice. The golden dragon approached the gathered humans. He moved with ponderous grace and dignity. Perhaps he was not the largest of the dragons, but he was certainly the most imposing. She lifted her voice to address him. “The Great Blue Lake?”
“It is a lake fed by several rivers, and the mother of what you call the Rain Wild River. It was a very large lake that swelled even larger during the rainy seasons. The fishing in it was excellent. These fish you have killed today would have been regarded as small in the days that I recall.” His voice went distant as he reminisced. “The Elderlings fished in boats with brightly colored sails. Seen from above, it was a very pretty sight, the wide blue lake and the sails of the fishing vessels scattered across it. There were few permanent Elderling settlements near the lake’s shores, because the flooding was chronic, but wealthy Elderlings built homes on piers or brought houseboats down to the Great Blue Lake for the summers.”