I will find what we need. Does that comfort you?’
‘Somewhat.’ She decided that she did not have to tell him right then that she was not sure if she would take him into her bed even if she knew it was safe to do so. She was not sure she could explain her reluctance. How could she explain to him what she did not understand herself? Easier not to talk about it.
Easier not to discuss Rapskal with Tats as well. So she turned to him now with a half-smile and an apologetic, ‘I was just about to go hunting. Carson has given me the Willow Ridge today.’
‘And me, also,’ Tats answered easily. ‘Carson wants us to hunt in pairs for safety. It’s not just Alise’s pards. Less chance that we’ll be spooking each other’s game away, too.’
She nodded dumbly. It had been bound to happen sooner or later. Since the keepers had gathered to discuss how best to encourage the dragons to fly, Carson had come up with a number of new ideas. Dividing the hunting territory to prevent conflicts and hunting with a partner for added safety had been one of them. Today, some keepers would be hunting the Long Valley, others the High Shore, and some would be fishing. The Willow Ridge paralleled the river and was, as they had named it, forested mostly with willow. It was prime range for deer to browse, and Carson had reserved it for his best bow-hunters.
She had her gear and Tats had his. There was no excuse not to set out immediately. After the morning’s conflict, Thymara had wanted to flee. Even though Sintara had taken no notice of her, had possibly not even seen her watching from the riverside, Thymara felt shamed by her dragon. She had not wanted to be around the other keepers; she didn’t want to hear what they would be saying about her spoiled queen. Worse was that she kept trying to find a way to justify Sintara’s arrogance and spite. She wanted to be able to defend her dragon. Sintara cared little or nothing for her. She knew that. Yet every time she thought she had divorced her feelings from the blue queen, every time she was sure she had made herself stop caring about her dragon, Sintara seemed to find a new way to wring emotions from her. Today it was shame.
She tried to shake herself free of it as Tats fell into step beside her. It wasn’t her fault. She had done nothing, but it did not help to know that. As they crossed the face of the meadow and passed the other keepers and the dragons, she told herself she was imagining that they were staring after her.
Kase, Boxter, Nortel and Jerd had drawn grooming duty for the day. They were going over the earthbound dragons, checking for sucking parasites near their eyes and ear-holes while encouraging them to stretch out their wings. Arbuc was cooperating in his sweet but rather dim way while Tinder paced impatiently while awaiting attention. Ever since the lavender dragon’s colours had started to develop, he had shown a dandyish side that had several of the keepers chuckling about his vanity. Alise was smoothing deer tallow into the new scratches that Kalo had given Baliper.
Once the dragons had been groomed, the keepers would encourage each of the remaining dragons to make an effort at flight. Only after they had complied, at least nominally, would they be fed. Carson insisted.
Thymara did not envy them their tasks. Of the dragons, only Mercor was patient when hungry. Spit was as foul-tempered, obnoxious and rude a creature as she’d ever met. Even Carson could barely manage him. Nasty little Fente had been able to take flight, thank Sa, but gloriously green-and-gold Veras remained earthbound, and she was as vindictive as her keeper, Jerd. Kalo, the largest of the dragons, was almost suicidally determined to fly. Davvie was his keeper but today it was Boxter tending the dragon’s numerous cuts and scratches he had acquired in his spat with Baliper. The spat that Sintara had provoked. Thymara walked faster. A day spent hunting and killing a deer and dragging it back to camp was definitely preferable to a day spent dealing with the other keepers and their dragons.
At least she no longer had to deal with her own dragon. She cast her eyes skyward as she thought of Sintara and tried to deny the pang of abandonment she felt.
‘Do you miss her?’ Tats asked quietly.
She almost resented that he could read her so clearly. ‘I do. She doesn’t make it easy. She touches my thoughts sometimes, for no reason that makes sense to me. She will suddenly be in my mind, bragging about the size of the bear she has killed, and how he fought but could not lay a claw on her. That was just a couple of days ago. Or she will suddenly show me something that she sees, a mountain capped with snow, or the reflection of the city in that deep river inlet. Something so beautiful that it leaves me gasping. And then, just like that, she’s gone. And I can’t even feel that she’s there at all.’
She hadn’t meant to tell him so much. He nodded sympathetically and then admitted, ‘I feel Fente all the time. Like a thread that tugs at my mind. I know when she’s hunting, when she’s feeding … that’s what she’s doing now. Some sort of mountain goat; she doesn’t like how his wool tastes.’ He smiled fondly at his dragon’s quirkiness, and then, as he glanced back at Thymara, his smiled faded. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to rub salt in the wound. I don’t know why Sintara treats you so badly. She’s just so arrogant. So cruel. You’re a good keeper, Thymara. You always kept her well groomed and well fed. You did better than most keepers. I don’t know why she didn’t love you.’
Her feelings must have shown on her face for he abruptly said, ‘Sorry. I always say the wrong thing to you, even when I think I’m stating the obvious. I guess I didn’t need to say that. Sorry.’
‘I think she does love me,’ Thymara said stiffly. ‘As much as dragons can love their keepers. Well, perhaps “values” is a better word. I know she doesn’t like it when I groom one of the other dragons.’
‘That’s jealousy. Not love,’ Tats said.
Thymara said nothing. It was getting dangerously close to a prickly topic. Instead, she walked a bit faster, and chose the steepest trail up the ridge. ‘This is the shortest path,’ she said, although he hadn’t voiced an objection. ‘I like to get as high as I can, and then hunt looking down on the deer. They don’t seem as aware of me when I’m above them.’
‘It’s a plan,’ Tats agreed, and for a time the climb took all their breath.
She was glad not to talk. The morning air was fresh, and the day would have been cold if she had not been putting so much effort into the climb. The rain remained light, and the budding branches of the willows caught some of it before it touched them. They reached the crest of the ridge, and she led them upriver. When she struck a game trail she had not followed before, she took it. She had decided, without consulting Tats, that they needed to range farther than usual if they were to find any sizeable game. She intended to follow the ridge line, scouting new hunting territory as well as, she hoped, bringing home a large kill today.
Silence had enveloped them since the climb. Part of it was the quiet of the hunter, part of it was that she didn’t wish to talk about difficult things. Once, she recalled, her silences with Tats had been comfortable, the shared silences of friends who did not always need words to communicate. She missed that. Without thinking, she spoke aloud. ‘Sometimes I wish we could go back to how things were between us before.’
‘Before what?’ he asked her quietly.
She shrugged one shoulder and glanced back at him as they walked in single file along the game trail. ‘Before we left Trehaug. Before we became dragon keepers.’ Before he had mated with Jerd. Back when romance and sexuality had been forbidden to her by the customs of the Rain Wilds. Before Tats had made it clear that he wanted her and stirred her feelings for him. Before life had become so stupidly complicated.
Tats made no response and for a short time she lost herself in the beauty of the day. Light streamed down through breaks in the overcast. The wet
