was a Magus. Should anyone come looking for a Magus hereabouts, he would have the entire compound swearing he was so good a Healer he could not possibly have any time for anything else.
Practice had been difficult as usual. The desert dragons had protested every moment they had to spend in the rain, and Kiron couldn’t blame them one bit. They weren’t meant for this muck, and if it hadn’t been for Kaleth’s premonitions, he wouldn’t have forced them out into the weather at all. The rains had always been a time for rest and recovery for the Jousters of Tia, and it would have been nice if it could have been the same for the Jousters of Alta.
Each of the tame dragons had reacted differently to the rain. Apetma sulked and had temper tantrums. Se-atmen was lethargic, as if she could not muster any energy. Re-eth-ke was nervous, and made mistakes. Khaleph was clumsy; perhaps he was affected more by the cold. Bethlan slept and slept and slept when she wasn’t practicing or eating. Deoth whined the entire time he was in the air. Wastet growled at everyone except Orest, and Tathulan just gazed at everyone with the saddest eyes. As for poor Avatre, she hung her head with depression that didn’t ease until she was back in her sand wallow. He hated asking this of them—but he felt as if he had no choice. The Magi were watching them all, he knew it, he felt it, and Heklatis confirmed it. If they didn’t put on a good show of doing their best to get themselves into combat-ready shape, it wouldn’t be long before the veiled accusations started. And then, perhaps, the open ones. They had been Toreth’s friends, and Kaleth lived among them. It would be so easy to point the finger of accusation at them all.
Kaleth’s premonitions were coming more often now—actually, they looked more like fits when it came down to it; the boy would sit bolt upright in that peculiarly rigid pose, stare into something only he could see, his mouth would open, and that hollow voice would say things. Kiron just considered that they were lucky that Kaleth’s pronouncements were clear and unambiguous. According to Aket-ten, most of the current practitioners of the Seer’s Eye among the Winged Ones were so cryptic that they required interpreters.
The Magi were watching them all, according to Kaleth as well as Heklatis, and would take any pretext to accuse Toreth’s friends of treason. The warnings had been timely, coming right after the start of the rains. It wasn’t just the ten of them, of course; Marit later confirmed that any of Toreth’s friends inside or outside the compound were under intense scrutiny. For that matter, it wasn’t only Toreth’s friends and acquaintances. Outside of that circle, it seemed there were rumors of people being hauled off and imprisoned every other day on suspicion of disloyalty. Tempers were always a little raw during the rains, but this year nerves were being stretched to the breaking point. The word “treason” was being made to apply to anything that the Magi didn’t like—“traitors” were those who dared to differ with anything that they wanted.
Nevertheless, the boys were determined to give the Magi no excuse to voice their suspicions. So while the senior Jousters went out to fight, Kiron’s wing went out to practice, making a show of using even the most miserable weather to train, even if they wouldn’t be expected to go to fight for another two seasons at best. Kiron could only remind himself, as he saw the misery in Avatre’s eyes, that if she had been in the wild, she would have had to hunt for her food every day regardless of the conditions. The best he could do for her and the others was to make certain that though they did get wet, they never got chilled, and they were always fed the best that the compound had to offer. That, and a great deal of love and attention, was all he could do to try and make up for her daily struggle in the wet.
There wasn’t much he could do for the boys other than commandeer the empty pen of one of the swamp dragons (one whose rider had been lost in combat before the rains, and who had not returned) for daily hot soaks for everyone.
The cooks had taken the universal exhaustion of everyone with a dragon into consideration, and were providing meals that were