Aerie Read Free

on his own that, since all of his brothers were off and their father was immensely busy helping Great King Ari reconcile Altans and Tians, it was his duty to “keep an eye on” Aket-ten.
    Maybe he ought to give Orest more to do.
    Maybe I ought to give all of us more to do.
    Maybe. But there was already too much work. That was the problem, really. It was all work they weren’t particularly good at. There were just not enough hands to make Aerie livable, to free up the Jousters to do—
    To do what? Yet another problem. What was it that the Jousters should be doing? Not fighting each other. Not fighting each others’ nations. What could a man and a dragon do that half a dozen fighters couldn’t?
    Honest answer: not much.
    Still turning this question over and over in his mind, he finally fell asleep.

    Avatre greeted him as he came down the stone stairs with a croon of pleasure. He couldn’t help but smile. Since she wasn’t bothered by the cat, he never put the shutters over her window unless there was going to be a kamiseen storm, so the light of midmorning reflected off the sands of the canyon and into the room.
    It was a bit more rough-hewn than the one above it, leading him to wonder once again what the original purpose for it had been. There was no sign that dragons—domesticated ones, anyway—had ever lived here. And yet—There were the sunken, rough-cut lower rooms. What would you put in such a room if not a dragon?
    Could they have been stables? Pens for livestock? Not stables; no, probably not. The first time Tians or Altans had ever seen horses, they had been in the hands of the Nameless Ones.
    But pens for livestock. Goats. Maybe camels. Donkeys. That made sense. And it explained the huge doorways even a dragon could pass through. You had to have a doorway that wide or you’d have a devil of a time getting livestock to pass through it.
    Now that there were no patrols to be flown, the dragons could awaken at their own time and pace. Now that they were each flying out to hunt alone, it didn’t matter that the wing never flew together anymore except during rare practices. Avatre, given the choice, was a late riser.
    “Ready to hunt?” he asked her. He was never entirely sure how much she understood, but she certainly knew what that meant. She snorted eagerly, and positioned herself to best advantage for getting harnessed up.
    He paused for a moment to reach his arms up toward her. She bent her head down on her long, long neck and rested it over his back while he embraced her neck. In so many ways she was his first love, and for so long she had been the best thing in his life. Truth to tell, she and Aket-ten were tied for first position now. If he lost either of them—well, he just didn’t want to think about that.
    She was beautiful, and not just in his eyes. Her colors of scarlet shading to gold and topaz on the extremities only grew deeper and more intense as she grew older. When she was in the air, those colors shimmered against the hot turquoise bowl of the sky. She might not have been the most beautiful of the dragons, but everyone who saw her was struck by her combination of color and regal bearing.
    He scratched the soft skin under her jaw for a bit, then patted her neck. “Come, my Sunrise. Let’s get you fed.”
    He intended to go a great deal farther afield today, to give the regular hunting grounds the opportunity to replenish. And while he was at it, he was going to look for more dragon nesting sites. Though he was going to make it a condition of egg ownership that the potential Jouster have his own dwelling and pen with hot sands ready and waiting before any egg was bestowed.
    And what was he going to do about the girls?
    He strapped on Avatre’s saddle and flying harness, adding the flat bulk of the game bags to the rear over her haunches, just in case. He threw open the huge double doors to the outside, and she crouched, extended her neck, and eased herself out the doors. It never failed