| Medelhan |
| I am Medelhan. The words sit at the front of my brain—on the tip of my tongue, someone else might say—but they are not said. I have never said them. Instead, Aescha carries out that part of the introduction, as she is doing now. “This is my brother, Medelhan, Rider,” she offers, rather apologetically. The odd young woman who told Lady Aschiane to line up all the Hold’s staff and drudges cocks her head, her intense gray-green eyes staring off somewhere behind me. Above us, her odd dragon—I don’t think that most dragons have horns like that—turns so that one enormous eye is facing us. I have the unnerving impression that he’s staring unabashedly down at the ranks of shabby people that have gathered in the courtyard. Questions cluster in my head, but I sit as quiet as any Hold dummy, eating him alive with my eyes. The great brown dragon is marked with a sprinkling of cream, like foam on wood, and those tiny flecks dance as he shifts his weight. His rider—I do not know her name—nods pleasantly at whatever she’s looking at, and her sharp features curve into a frown. “If you’ll all excuse me a moment, I need to speak once more with the Lady Holder. I’ve some news she may not like, but it shouldn’t take long. Just wait a little longer, and you can go back to your work.” No one here wants to go back to work, Rider, I think bitterly. Take your time. Like a piece of lodestone to iron, the dragon’s head turns swiftly toward me. <<Who said that?>> rings deafeningly in my head, cinnamon and cloves wafting in curls of spice about the words. I twitch harder than the brown. Curious, I peer along the line of my sullen fellows to see who was being so rebuked. Is that the dragon talking? <<Who else would it be?>> wonders the same eerie sifting of sound and scent. <<No matter, I shall have Korim tend to you.>> A moment later, the slender young brownrider appears. “Everyone except for this tall young man and his sister may go,” she directs. Aescha frowns at me, trying to puzzle it out. Aschiane, and her predecessor Lord Halaian, were none too fond of dragonriders, and they never bothered to teach us the rudiments of where, exactly, are found the Candidates. Certainly /we/ were not worthy. Drudges and children of drudges, Aescha and I were lower than scum to Lady Aschiane. The rider—is she blind? I don’t know, but her eyes are queer—approaches us like some celestial herald. “Califath informs me that Medelhan will make an excellent candidate for the Frenzy clutch of stunt dragons on the Sands right now.” She scowls for a moment, arguing inaudibly with her freckled brown lifemate. “And Aescha too, of course. Perhaps you’d like to Stand for Zaith’s clutch at the Healing Den, Aescha?” I clench my teeth at the slight condensation in the Rider’s tone, but Aescha is ready, as always, with her words. “I go with Medelhan, ma’am,” she says, steel-voiced. “Until he can speak for himself.” |